Paul says that if Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave then Christianity is a sham and we might as well party down for tomorrow we die (i.e., go out of existence). The Discovery Channel is preparing, with much hype, to air a show produced by “Titanic” director James Cameron about the possible discovery of Jesus Christ’s tomb. Before you run to your local Atheist club to sign up, here are some considerations.Here’s the basic story: Ten burial ossuaries (“bone boxes”) were discovered in 1980 in Jerusalem at the “Talpiot tomb.” Six of them had names inscribed on them: ‘Jesus, son of Joseph’; ‘Maria’; ‘Mariamene’; ‘Judas, son of Jesus’; ‘Matthew’; and ‘Jose’. According to Newsweek, the official report written by the archeologist Amos Kloner found nothing remarkable in the discovery. This “unremarkablness” may itself seem remarkable to those unfamiliar with Israeli archeology. How these particular names would not generate interest among professional Jewish archeologists may seem astounding but several reasons can be listed.First, the names on the boxes were extremely common in the first century. Joseph, Jesus, Judas, and Matthew are among the ten most popular male names among Palestinian Jews. Mary and Martha are in the top four for women, with about 25 percent of women in Jerusalem had names linguistically close to Miriam. Thus, it is simply not that impressive to find a bunch of them mixed together in one place. The statistics being trumpeted (600:1 or something like that) assume family relations that have not been proved and are not even implied by the tomb site itself. To this day, experts say the burial cave is not extraordinary. Newsweek reports Kloner as saying, “It’s a typical Jewish burial cave of a large size . . . . The names on the ossuaries are very common names or derivatives of names . . . . The echo of the names of the members of the Holy Family is just a coincidence.” Kloner told ABC that “of 900 burial caves found within 4 kilometres of Jerusalem’s Old City and from the same era, the name Jesus or Yeshu was found 71 times, and that ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ has also been found.”Second, the Talpiot cave was found disturbed and vandalized. This could point beyond vandalism to subterfuge. According to Newsweek the main person pushing for this “discovery,” Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, is a “maverick, a self-made Indiana Jones, who became obsessed with ossuaries in 2002, when he was working on another Discovery program about another bone box.” This was the now infamous “James Ossuary” which has been discredited as a forgery. Jacobovici still believes, in the authenticity of the James inscription ossuary, and is using similarities in the two discoveries to prove the other (the mineral crust found on these ossuaries allegedly matches that of the James box).
Third, the alleged DNA proof is so shallow as to be laughable. Jacobovici claims that part of his proof is that the Jesus DNA does NOT match Mary’s (this is supposed to prove they were married). First, non-matching DNA proves little – there are lots of people who do not match my DNA that I am not married to! Second, even if this conclusion did follow from the lack of a match (which it does not) this would DECREASE credibility of it being Jesus Christ – not support it since Jesus was not married. Third, non-matching DNA should prove that this is not a “family tomb” at all! It might be a random collection or a site shared by several families.
Fourth, there are several questions that cannot be answered by the idea that this is Jesus Christ’s family:
1. Why does the Jesus ossuary simply include a name in “graffiti-like script” instead of the honorary burial format and adornment that some of the others have? (This especially relevant in light of the known site disturbance.)
2. Why would a family from Galilee have a tomb in Jerusalem? 3. How could a poor carpenter family have afforded such a tomb?4. Who is Matthew and why is he in this “family tomb”? (And why is his name being used to increase the statistical probability of these names being connected?)
5. For that matter, who are “Judas son of Jesus” and “Jose”?
6. Why is “Mariamne” being connected to Mary Magdalene in the first place? To get Mariamne to match Mary Magdalene one has to go to an apocryphal fourth century manuscript instead of the primary sources.
7. If this is Jesus Christ’s family tomb where are Joseph, Mary, or His other brothers and sisters?
8. Why have decades passed with experts knowing about this locale yet showing no interest?
9. Why are none of the most well known archeologists being cited as embracing these claims?
10. How did a faith based on the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15) and promoted by martyrs with nothing to gain get off the ground if his body was in a tomb somewhere?
In conclusion all we have is a vandalized first century tomb that had ten bone boxes in it, one has “Jesus” (in graffiti) and one “Mary” on them that are not biologically related. Whoopee. The rest is interpretation based on assumptions that prove to be highly improbable every step of the way and raise more questions than they answer. The fact that this theory is being promoted by two filmakers instead of credible experts in the field points to TV hype and not scholarly debate.
14 responses so far ↓
Justin // February 28, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Hi Doug,
The Oscars have already taken place. Maybe it’s another awards show that this program is competing with?
Anonymous // February 28, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Why would a band of fishermen and tax collectors with no reputation in society fabricate bodily resurrection and then bury Jesus in his family tomb? duh!
Oh wait! Hollywood folks live in a world disconnected from such realities.
Anonymous // February 28, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Further, why wouldn’t the Jewish authorities have simply used the body to refute the claims of resurrection, instead of haveing to explain away the empty tomb?!
Matthew Graham // March 1, 2007 at 12:55 am
I don’t know why you guys are all upset about this. Cameron and Jacobovici are simply trying to get to the truth of the matter here. It’s not like they are trying to falsify the worlds largest religion without any kind of scientific integrity at all. Cut them some slack here, at least they actually “looked” at these boxes and used some kind of reasoning process to arrive at their conclusion.
Sure they didn’t think very hard compared to real “archeologists”, but you know, they are trying and that should count for something. Sure, some people would think that before making such claims (with such massive implications) that they would maybe think a little harder, but not everyone can be an archeologist. And that’s ok.
Ok. End of sacasm. What’s really horrible is that Jacobovici has some video’s online where he is claiming to have thoroughly researched this. He said that he would never have done such a provocative film if he hadn’t done his homework.
These guys are beyond ignorant! Sadly, this video will probably contribute to the athiestic movements which are gaining favor. How incredibly pathetic!
Douglas Beaumont // March 1, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Justin,
In the original post regarding the Oscars I was responding to the initial hype - not the actual show. Ooops. I have reformatted it to cohere with reality.
Anonymous // March 2, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Douglas,
I comletely agree with you on this whole entire article. Even if they find out that the tomb really did belong to Jesus, it would not shake my faith, because my faith is in something greater than any thing science can prove. I feel that they are wrong and I also feel that they’re whole entire agenda in this documentary is to try to prove something wrong, but Christianity cant be proven wrong because it is not science. My faith is a *relationship not a biology experiement. That is why I always get so upset with people who try to disprove that Jesus created my in 6 days.
I for one am not worried about this documenatary at all.
-John
Matthew Graham // March 2, 2007 at 10:34 pm
John,
Bless your heart, every time you write something, you dig the hole deeper and deeper. How is it that you don’t realize that Christianity IS based on historical facts?? If Jesus Christ never lived or walked the earth, then your faith is pointless. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, CHRISTIANITY IS FALSE!!! If these guys are right, (which they aren’t) then all your confidence in christianity is false confidence.
Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 15: 1Co 15:13-17 “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty. Also, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ from the dead, when in reality he did not raise him, if indeed the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins.
John, please go to seminary! All your good intentions are fruitless if you are not preaching the truth. If you are preaching false things to your congregation, you may have all the good intentions in the world yet be judged for you mishandling of the Word of God. Teaching people the things of God is serious business! Please take our advise concerning furthering your education.
God Bless!
Anonymous // March 4, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Matt is right about this, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then Christianity is the meanest sham that has ever been put on.
Anonymous // March 4, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Look….. it would be nice if i could comment on Douglas’es blog without always having to have debates tried to be started on me. I didn’t say that I really didn’t believe that Christ wasn’t raisenned from the dead. I think the documentary is going to not show that like Douglas said.
Besides, Jesus didn’t go to seminary. Neither did Paul. Nor did Noah and Moses and Abraham and Samson and David and Solomon and everyone else in the Bible times.
Bless your heart too Matthew. I think if we ever hang out I think we will realize that we are both really nice guys and mean well. I just don’t get the need to always try to debate me. I’m sorry but maybe I am missing something.
-Wonderfully loved more then I know,
John
Blake Anderson // March 5, 2007 at 3:35 am
No. Jesus just taught seminary. Three years to 12 men (and other large crowds). Oh, and he was actually learning (and teaching) in the temple by age 12. Thus all twelve disciples went to “seminary”. One of the reasons some liberal scholars try to cast doubt on the authorship of II Peter (I think that’s the one) is that its style is so much more learned/articulate than his earlier writing. They posit that no Galilean fisherman from unlearned background could have written that well. Or maybe they just forget that God commnaded us to love Him with all of our minds and maybe Peter took it seriously enough to actually learn and develop in the years following Christ’s return to heaven.
Paul also went and studied from the best Jewish teachers of his day as best we can tell. That was before coming to Christ, but enabled him to know the Old Testament in a profound way, that he later used to help bring Jews to Christ. After he came to Christ he went away to Arabia for what? 2 or 3 years before we hear more from him. He came back with the message of the gospel to the gentiles.
Moses was extremely learned we assume as he grew up in the household of Pharoah. He wrote Genesis through Deuteronomy for goodness sake.
David was no slouch - he wrote many of the Psalms and ran a kingdom. Solomon, who was granted wisdom from God, nevertheless, grew up in the house of David and obviously had the best teaching available. He implores us in the Proverbs to seek wisdom.
Samson was a Nazirite and was actually prepared starting from BEFORE birth to fulfill his mission (read Judges 13).
Noah - I have no idea what seminary he went to
But consider this: how long did it take him to build the ark. And he was 600!!! years old when the flood came. Just a couple years of experience under his belt.
If you look at the lives of the biblical characters you will see many from both learned and unlearned backgrounds. Basically, though, you will be hard pressed to make any sort of case that ignorance is a suggested path. Contrarily (is that a word), what you find are many who “grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men” as did Jesus (Luke 2:52).
Look, seminary is no magic place. There are hundreds of seminaries you can go to and learn to lose your faith. Some want you to be an atheist before even attending. As Solomon found out just learning is not the answer to life. You can learn what is false and you can learn what is right. But this is the deal. Having our eyes fixed on Christ, God Himself implores, pleads, and DEMANDS that we grow in wisdom and understanding. Not only that, but that we put ourselves in a position to be discipled by wise men of experience and understanding. Seminary (a good one) is a uniquely great place for these things to happen.
And - our faith IS tied unbreakably with the historical FACT that Christ’s bones will not be found. Our faith is not mystical and unrelated to the real world around us. In actual SCIENTIFIC fact Christ died, rose and assended. We must not separate ourselves into two worlds - one real, one of faith. They are inextricably tied. To unravel this braided cord is to unravel the message of Christ Himself.
Anonymous // March 6, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Look… I looked up some logical fallacies and all your examples are appeals to power.
I didn’t say that Jesus didn’t teach others, but you cann’ot say that it was a seminary he taught. Jesus was JEWISH, and there are no such things as JEWISH seminaries.
I don’t like your example of Peter, because it wasn’t really Peter who wrote Peter but the Holy Spirit who wrote Peter. Maybe I’m just stupid, but I don’t think the Holy Spirit went to seminar either.
For all you guys know, I did go to seminary. Just because I have different viewpoints hownever, doesn’t mean I am wrong. THat’s just your interpretation. Besides, isn’t God a ‘one and a many’. Why can’t tehre be a ‘one and a many’ with that.
But again, I am NOT trying to debate you all or Douglas. I just wanted to say taht I agree with him taht the Jesus tomb special was not going to shake my faith. Sheesh.
-John
Matthew Graham // March 6, 2007 at 10:02 pm
John,
I would love to talk with you more. Please send me an email at
matt@grahamapologetics.com
In Christ,
Matt
P.S. Doug, sorry for getting so far off your original topic again.
jeff // March 7, 2007 at 2:45 am
John, these guys aren’t against you. I haven’t heard a single ad hominem from either one of them. What they are trying to say is that you need to take in consideration to what the Bible actually says. Christianity isn’t all about good feelings, and what’s in your heart… Mormonism is, (They call it a burning in the bosom) Proverbs says that only a fool trusts in his heart, so in addition to your heart, you must use your mind.
Now for the resurrection. The Bible says that if Jesus is a dead man, than all of our teaching is in vain. If Jesus is a dead man, time’s a wasting! There’s commandments to break, and there’s stuff to do, because this is the only life you’re going to get! But that is not the case! Jesus isn’t a dead man, and happens to be alive and well in Heaven as we speak… God Bless you guys!
~Jeff
eprst // April 9, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Good site!!!
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