The Tomb of Jesus.
February 28, 2007
Someone is bound to ask me about "The Tomb of Jesus." Rightly so. It is in the news - even though it is very old speculative news. It deserves and demands a response.
I am going to gather some other people's responses here since they have already does some good work. From Brian D. Russell's blog - RealMinistries.org, we have a worthy analysis: The Tomb of Jesus: A Missional Opportunity.
In there, he posits:
"Frankly, I am grateful for such media blitzes that sensationalize finds such as last year’s Gospel of Judas, Dan Brown’s conspiracy claims in The DaVinci Code, or the “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”. Whenever the “buzz” offers the opportunity for conversation about Jesus, we need to learn to take advantage of such times. Rather than being defensive or quick to debunk a friend or co-worker, we should listen carefully before speaking. When we do speak, let us do it with words seasoned with salt and with an invitation to study the Bible together."
Ben Witherington is blunt from the start in his title: THE JESUS TOMB? ‘TITANIC’ TALPIOT TOMB THEORY SUNK FROM THE START
FIRST-PERSON: Serious scholarship or personal profit?
- Andreas J. Kostenberger, Baptist Press:
WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)--As you’ve heard, James Cameron, director of the blockbuster movie “Titanic,” is out to sink an even bigger ship -- Christianity.
He claims that Jesus’ bones and those of His mother, brother, "wife," and a child named Jude were found in ossuaries (bone boxes) in a Jerusalem tomb. On CNN, Cameron and his collaborator Simcha Jacobovici claimed they produced the TV documentary simply in an effort to “report the news” so that people can draw their own conclusion. Yet according to New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, Jacobovici is a practicing, orthodox Jew. Are we really to believe that the “revelation” that Jesus’ bones have been found -- hence no bodily resurrection -- are of no religious concern to this man? To me, at least, this one has the almighty dollar sign written all over it.
Let me list just some of the most egregious problems with the way in which this find from the 1980s is being interpreted by Cameron and Simcha: READ THE ARTICLE HERE.
Scott McKnight, Jesus Creed, takes this track:
The news story coming out today that they have found the tomb of Jesus, that Jesus was married to a woman named Mary (presumed then to be Mary Magdalene), and that they had a son named Judah, will surely raise all kinds of questions and problems. I haven’t seen the evidence, but I will be studying what I can find. Here are my first two questions:
He brings some serious research to the table.
If you want to look at Discovery Channel's promo, it can be found here: The Lost Tomb of Jesus.
We need to take everything seriously, but this is not a serious threat. It is a nuisance and it will fool people who are inclined to pick up on the pseudo-intellectual fad of the week with regard to the "historical" Jesus. This is old stuff and rather discredited, but it is persistent.
Wouldn't it be amazing if the church rose up and made in unmistakeably evident by its lifestyle and power that Jesus Christ is alive and at work in the world? We have it within ourselves to make these attempts to sensationalize sloppy scholarship thoroughly irrelevant.