Statistical Analysis **UPDATED**
Limitations exist in any sort of statistical analysis. I find it unbelieveable that these so-called experts would even use statistics in their analysis of the Jesus tomb, since statistics can generally be made to say whatever you want them to say. This isn’t news; anyone who has taken an introduction to statistics can tell you that.
The “conservative” estimate that the tomb is anyone else’s other than Jesus’ family is 1 in 600. How did Cameron and his film crew arrive at this number? Well, they started with a set of assumptions and followed a logical thread.
First, they assumed that Jesus Son of Joseph would occur in 1 of 190 folks, Mariamne in 1 of 160 cases, Matia (Matthew) in 1 of 40 cases, Yose in 1 of 20 cases, and Maria in 1 of 4 cases. I really can’t find out how they got these initial numbers.
After calculating the odds of all of those names being found together, they divided the number by 4 to remove the chance of intentional bias. Then, they divided the result by 1,000 to adjust for all possible first century tombs, which yields a result of 1 in 600 chances that this is someone else’s tomb.
One thing got me: J.P. Holding is very well versed in the culture of first century Palestine. So, for right now, let’s trust his statement regarding the names inscribed on the ossuraries:
The names in question were outrageously common: Mary was the name of a fourth to a third of all Jewish women. Joseph and Jesus were Top Ten names. Apparently the people happy about this have forgotten how this was used as an argument against the “James ossuary”. (Claims of statistical analysis based on ossuary inscriptions alone won’t do anything to increase the odds….since the vast majority of people would have been too poor to have ossuaries.) [source]
These are very different numbers than the ones the filmmakers used. If a person were to use these figures as starting point, working with just those four names, and then use the same formula described above, the odds become 1 in 4. This bears repeating: to have two Marys, a Joseph, and a Jesus buried together in first century Palestine would occur one in four times. One-fourth of all first century tombs would bear those four names! In fact, here’s a better and much more detailed example.
Skeptics may argue that I haven’t proved anything. And I want them to argue that, because it follows that if my statistical analysis didn’t prove anything, than the filmmakers’ analysis didn’t prove anything either.
