I doubt you'd have much of a substantially easier time supporting a claim that you'd found a living descendant of Mary than you would the tomb itself.

Ah... according to the Catholic Church Mary had no other children, she remained a virgin before and after the birth of Jesus. The siblings of Jesus, including the disciple James the Just, are considered to be Joseph's children from a prior marriage.

Suggesting that you are a descendant of Mary is almost as scandalous as claiming you are a descendant of Jesus. Although as get rich quick schemes go...

Oh and Tedronai my use of suppose was pretty much exactly as given in #1. If you want to play with the dictionary then replace the phrase, 'then you could make the supposition that the body belongs to a historical Jesus' with the phrase 'then for the sake of argument you could say that the body belongs to a historical Jesus'.

It ain't my use of language, it's your interpretation. And, as Silveroak and Bender have pointed out, such a DNA result would make for a pretty strong argument.

Which is not supported anywhere in the Bible. And in fact such a supposion makes no sense. If Joseph dragged his pregnant fiance to Bethlehem for a census, wouldn't he have brought his kids?

A living descendand, even of Jesus, assuming teh best case scenario of 40 year generations, would be 50 generations removed, which means they would have 1/2^50 of his DNA, or roughly 10^-15. Given the mechanisms involved (23 pairs of chromosomes, with occassional drift of genetic base pairs or segments copying from one chromosome to it's companion, what you would really be dealing with is teh chances of any living descendant of Jesus still having any of his DNA remaining. Relic based DNA is a far better chance of a match, given the inherant assumption that there in fact was such a person (which is pretty much inherant to the entire conversation)

Alleged relics associated with Jesus:

Shroud of Turin (all but debunked at this point)

Sudarium of Oviedo - This is the cloth that was supposed wrapped around Jesus's head when he died. Interestingly enough, it is of the same material of the Shroud, and the blood on both is the same blood type, AB. And both have pollen on them from the Palestine area.

You'd think they could DNA test the blood on each to at least connect them... wonder why they haven't.

Image of Edessa - not testable, just a picture Jesus was said to have sent to King Abgar V to cure his leprosy. There are 2 relics which claim to be the image.

Crown of Thorns - It has yet to be verified, but it's existance is historically accurate to the 4th century. before that, no way to prove anything.

Veil of Veronica - the cloth that wipes Jesus' brow as he carried the cross. There are 5 which claim to be this, but one is a lot more plausible than the other 4.

No Spear of Destiny, though...

Still have to wonder why no DNA testing has been done on blood samples...

Probably because it's not in the interests of the people holding those relics to do so.

Best they can show is that they are all linked to some chap who was around at the time, which isn't likely to do much to sway the skeptics. Whereas any doubt they cast is at the very least going to devalue the relics.

It seems unlikely they would find any proof for the supernatural elements of the story and speaking as a dirty atheist, I already have no trouble believing there was a fellow called Jesus who did some good things. Historical figures existing isnt going to rock my world.

That's one of the things I contest with my wife. I believe Jesus existed. It's the miracles part I have issues with.

So in order to test if a body is in fact Jesus'
1) perform all reasonable background tests for elimination of teh canidate (ensure they are a 1st century jew who died in Palestine from crucifiction)
2) launch a commando raid on the Vatican to get relics with potential DNA matches
3) test the DNA both on said relics and from the body
4) return relics and appologize to the Vatican.
5) publish fidings, and watch the 100 year debate if you find anything beyond absolute proof that the body found was not in fact the historical Jesus.

Actually, most of the relics are not in the Vatican... only one of the Veils of Veronica is. The Crown is in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, the Sudarium is in Spain.

Okay, so we are going to need multiple comando teams. good news is security is a bit more lax...