Jesus' uncle=Panthera?

Here's an admittedly speculative original theory I've developed in detail at a Talpiot Tomb FaceBook group.
Jesus had a paternal uncle named Chalfi חלפי in Aramaic, who appears several times in the New Testament as Alphaeus/Clophas.
The name Chalfi is derived from a word for sword in Aramaic. I believe that with "live by the sword, die by the sword" Jesus was addressing his uncle Chalfi specifically, making a pun on his name. This in turn could indicate that Chalfi had a military background.
On the other hand, Epiphanius referring to Origen's response to Celsius explains the nickname Panthera in the context of Joseph's family.
Therefore Chalfi could have been a soldier nicknamed Panthera, fitting the tradition of a Panthera relating to Jesus.
I'd submit this almost fictional theory could explain why Joseph married Mary when he knew she was pregnant. He would be protecting his brother as well as her (deut.22:24.)

Here's a concise video of my theory about the Talpiot tomb

video

Jesus like Jonah?

The carving of a fish exhaling a person found in the adjacent tomb by James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici could indeed be early Christian iconography relating Jesus to Jonah. In that context it would corroborate a suggestion that a drawing of a fish resembling a whale, enclosing an inscription "Yeshua" (Jesus)in Hebrew/Aramaic on a piece of stone or pottery shard, detailed as number 140 in Rahmani's ossuary catalogue, originates from the Jesus family Talpiot tomb. (Check the template rather than the author's drawing.) This find is mentioned in The London Sunday Times original story as one of the artifacts shown to BBC correspondents when they came to inquire about the Talpiot tomb in 1996. I've commented on this find in "The Bone Box" and also posted a "Jesus like Jonah" suggestion about it in a Talpiot Tomb forum on Facebook, about two years ago.

Symbology in Talpiot

In my opinion the most important symbol found in the Talpiot tomb is the large letter Tav in ancient Hebrew script, directly preceding the name "Yeshua bar Yehosef" on ossuary 704. There's no other ossuary listed in Rachmani's catalogue of Jewish ossuaries where that symbol appears immediately before the name inscribed on the ossuary. There's substantial evidence that this symbol signified messianic expectations in Judaism, at least from about 100 years before Jesus' time; and even more evidence that from that it evolved after Jesus' time into the Christian cross sign.

The most interesting example of a Tav, in the context of the "Chevron and Circle" symbol appearing on the facade of the Talpiot tomb, may be an ossuary of "Nicanor Alexa" , found in 1904 on the North side of the Mount of Olives, presently in the British Museum. There's an inscription in Greek on it that specifically identifies the Nicanor as "who made the gate." That's the same Temple gate which, in turn, bore the chevron and circle symbol, as seen on Herod Phillip coins from the first century AD. This ossuary has a large sideway Tav/Cross near the name "Nicanor Alexa" in Hebrew, and another one cut into the top of the lid.

The incidence of the Tav mark on Nicanor's ossuary may indicate some relation between that and the Chevron and Circle symbol. Maybe the same connection can be implied re Jesus' Tav and the Talpiot Chevron and Circle symbol. What that correlation may be escapes me. Do both symbols stand for Messianic expectations? E.g. can the circle represent a star, and the chevron the sky dome, in the context of Numbers 24:17? Note that in Bar Kochba ("Son of a Star") coins from the second century, the circle above the Nicanor gate is depicted as a star. Here the allusion to Numbers 24:17 is clear.

Where art thou, Nicodemus?

I've recently visited the site of the tomb ( I went there also in 2006 but didn't know the exact spot.) I was really struck by the beauty of the place, with the panorama of Jerusalem due North of the ridge promenade (Armon Ha'natziv), and the tomb about 250 meters due South from that promenade. If I were a wealthy follower financing Jesus' tomb, I would have wanted to be buried in the adjacent tomb, so as to be among the very first to rise again with Him. I fancy that tomb inspected, and an ossuary inscribed
"Nakdimon ben Gorion" found in it...

Who's afraid of the truth?

The Wikipedia page about the Talpiot Tomb is full of errors. omissions and misrepresentations. Thus it omits reference to the three books discussing this find published prior to the airing of the Discovery channel documentary in April 2007. It also omits reference to the most important symbol involved in this find, though it features a "Symbols" section. It claims that the tomb has been dated to between 538 BC and 70 AD , while the fact is that the longest dating was between the end of the first century BC and 70 AD. It insists that the archeologist who led the team that excavated the tomb in 1980 was Amos Kloner, whereas it was Joseph Gath, etc. etc.

When I tried to edit that page correctly, somebody sitting there who probably believed he was protecting religious dogma kept frantically deleting my entries, until I gave up this childish game. At least on this subject, Wikipedia is completely worthless.

Talmudic curiosity?

A passage in the Talmud (Berachot 30a) equates "Talpiot"
mystically to a place of the highest worship, explaining that it
denotes :"the elevation [tel] towards which all mouths (piyyoth) turn." (The area where the subject tombs were found was only named "Talpiot" in the beginning of the 20th century.)