Tomb of a Jesus found 30 years ago being "discovered"

[BobRyan]

March 4 will air a "documentary" on a tomb found 30 years ago and discredited by the Jersusalem Antiquities study group as a likely fraud and by the researcher who found it as "very unlikely to be the Biblical Jesus" will be "hailed" as the tomb of the real Jesus.

Larry King interviews guests on both sides of the issue - addressing those who want to spin this around as the "historic Jesus" as those who accept objective facts and introducing those who highlight the inconvenient details associated with the ossuaries when it comes to trying to build a case for the Biblical Jesus as "not wanting to hear any facts at all on the subject".

The question is - Given the Da Vinci Code and the 'fiction-as-fact' 2004 election-year "mocumentaries" how can hype and spin replace reason when it comes to discrediting Christianity?

Or -- did Al Gore really invent the internet while Christians were asleep?

 

[777]

Uh-oh, Larry King. That'll be one tough interview.

Ya, this latest Hollywood film, it's already being slapped around, as it should be:

JERUSALEM (AP)—Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by the Oscar-winning director James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets. "The Lost Tomb of Christ,'' which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries—small caskets used to store bones—discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus,'' hinting that Jesus may have had a son. And the very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City. The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.

http://www.livescience.com/history/070226_ap_jesus_film.html

Even the Discovery Channel has a problem with this film, on another board they are saying this is the work of Satan. Could be.

 

[Agnus_Dei]

…so a box was found a few years back inscribed ‘brother of Jesus’ and the critics were quick to brush it off as a fraud, which probably was and now we have yet another box, which sat around since 1980 (I believe), which no one can agree on what the inscription really says, and even if it’s a fraud, and we see the critics are quick to hail this as a great discovery.

In any even, both the critics and Christian writers will profit from book sales, TV documentaries, each one debunking the other’s proof…”show me the money” while both sides are laughing all the way to the bank…

 

[Dustin]

It's just the product of the spirit of this age. I'm really not suprised at this at all, it's been going on for 2000 or so years. Even on the day of the ressurection the Pharisees told the guards to tell the people that the diciples stole Christ's body. When it comes to things like this, I remember Habbakuk 2:4 ...but the just shall live by his faith. The simple fact is no one will ever find the bones of Jesus Christ, because he's not dead, but alive in heaven at the right hand of the Father.

What's the call of the Gospel? Believe. Believe that Christ is the Son of God, that He lived a perfect life, was scourged, beaten and crucified as a criminal on a cross , took OUR punishment for OUR sins, and buried and on the third day rose and acscended into heaven. Believe. It's going to shake faith of many, and I must honestly admit, it shook me a little at first. In fact it might destroy the faith of some, but the only reasonable thing to do is to trust in the Lord. This just makes me think of what an awesome gift faith is, if my faith were of myself, then it would surely fail. But it is in the hands of God Almighty, blessed be His name forever.

Psalm 118:8 It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

I serve a living Savior.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dustin

 

[Snitzelhoff]

I e-mailed the good people at tektonics.org about this "find". James Holding of that site responded as follows:

Color me unimpressed by the blather going on about it. There are more than a few problems with identifying this bunch of boxes with anything related to Jesus:

1. As McCane's study has shown us, Jesus would never have been permitted to have been buried honorably with his family. Strike 1.
2. The ossuaries in question were found in Jerusalem area. Beg pardon, but have they forgotten that Jesus' family was from Galilee? Strike 2.
3. 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". Strike 3.

Looking around a bit, I found that the discover of these ossuaries, Amos Kloner, made points 2 and 3 himself in saying that these had nothing to do with the Jesus of Christianity, and added that his family was too poor to afford such luxuriant burial accommodations. Strike 4.

It is good to have answers like that for those who will be duped into buying into all of this, although it shouldn't be unnecessary. I mean, if first century enemies of Christianity who were there when Jesus died couldn't produce a body, what on EARTH makes them think that the body they found is Jesus', other than the desire to believe it?

Michael

 

[DQuixote]

Some of you may remember, years ago, when ankle bones were dug up in Israel, found nailed to wood. Right away the media made statements like "Could this be Jesus?" If memory serves this was back in the days of B&W TV. The beat goes one.

 

[BobRyan]

From the LiveScience link -

Archaeologists also balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary—the center of a famous antiquities fraud in Israel—might have originated from the same cave. In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.

"I don't think the James Ossuary came from the same cave,'' said Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University. "If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus.''

Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch by 11 years.

Also the cost and location arguments from James Holding appear to be strong.

But the main argument they are making is that "identification" via firstname, mother's name, father's name and 3 brothers even if most of them are common names is close to something accurate.

The problem is they merely "insert" James into the list of names authentically found when everyone agrees it is not an authentic claim.

The other problem is that it is unclear that all these identifiers are found on the box containing the name of "Jesus".

One option is that whoever was collecting the boxes for the cave may have known something of the story of Jesus and may have been trying to collect names that would match - perhaps family memebers since all of them are so common.

But here is the real problem in my view - the JEWS went along with the story that Jesus' body could not be found. If Christ and all of his family were being buried in a well marked site over decades of time surely "some Jew" would have noticed. The disciples were telling a story that was instantly made void by such a find and the Jews had every reason to want to do it.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

The point is that a well marked ossuary used over a period of decades for all family and friends of Christ that starts off with the bones of Jesus in 31 AD - would have been the perfect "data" for Jews to discount Christian claims of the resurrection in the first century IF they had had it!

Clearly they did not.

In Christ,

bob