A new documentary by journalist Simcha Jacobovici, “The Nails of the Cross,” claims to have found the actual nails used to pin the hands of Jesus to the cross. Regardless of one’s religious belief, the scientific consensus is that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed a historical figure, who was crucified by the Roman Army in or around Jerusalem. So how did Mr. Jacobocici find 2,000 year old nails? And what leads him to believe there is a connection to early Christianity?
The story begins, interestingly enough, just over 20 years ago, when a cave was discovered in 1990 in the HaShalom forest, near the Abu Tur neighborhood of Jerusalem. What they found in this cave was a series of funerary objects traditionally found at the end of the Second Temple period. Inscribed on two ossuaries (boxes of bones) were the names “Caiaphas” and “Joseph son of Caiaphas.”
Caiaphas is an unusual name during that period, in fact, no archeological site has ever seen that name before. Those who recall the story in the Christian Bible will remember that Caiaphas was one of the key figures responsible for the death of Jesus. The Jerusalem high priest, he is believed to have presided over Jesus’ trial and, along with Judas, is traditionally blamed for turning Jesus over to the Romans.
Somehow, one of the most tantalizing pieces in the cave, a pair of nails, went missing for two decades. Simcha Jacobovici tracked them down to a laboratory in Tel Aviv, and he hypothesizes that these must be the very nails used to kill Jesus.
“If you look at the whole story, historical, textual, archaeological, they all seem to point at these two nails being involved in a crucifixion,” Jacobovici said. “And since Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus’s crucifixion, you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails.”
While Israel’s Antiquities Authority, who has seen the documentary, says that the tomb may or may not be the burial place of the Biblical Caiaphas, “there is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its center.”
What do you think? Is there room for faith in archaeology?
Source: Israelli
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