Tyler Williams over at Codex has begun keeping track of the best posts amongst the Biblioblogs in response to the latest media pseudo-scandal about a particular tomb near Jerusalem being that of Jesus’ family, friends, followers, dog-walker, and pool-cleaner, no doubt. See particularly this post which highlights a response from James Tabor, who is marginally (and/or should that be “scandalously”?) involved in the project. Keep watching there, as I’m sure he continue with the round-ups.
In addition, see this excellent post by Jim Davila at Palaeojudaica, which includes input from his colleague at St Andrews, Richard Bauckham, who provides some fascinating information on the distribution of various Greek forms of “Mary,” particularly the surprising (to me) information that the Greek form μαριαμνη, “Mariamne,” is unique in Biblically-related literature to the Acts of Philip. I think I was thrown off on that score by the old Whiston-translated edition of Josephus’ works, which I internalized long ago. Whiston regularly uses “Mariamne,” where modern editions have μαριαμμη throughout. I wonder if that’s a peculiarity of the admittedly peculiar Whiston, or a peculiarity of the edition(s) he utilized? In any case, Bauckham’s careful statistical information on name distribution in among first-century Jews in his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is a good read on the subject. His work is a lesson in how to do this kind of name research.