the truth? If it were, then the entire Christian faith would be in
question. This is because it would mean that the events described in
the gospels were incorrect surrounding the circumstances of the risen
Christ:
Acts 1:9
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud
hid him from their sight.
It is possible that he was taken up to heaven and then later (unwritten
in the accounts of scripture) came back to earth to have his bones
interred in a grave in Jerusalem. However this is not likely and
doesn't match the overall character of God as described in the Bible.
So if these are the bones of Jesus, then this is a very serious problem.
However, as with anything else we must examine to see if this the claims
outlined in this report are true and if this is enough "evidence" to
refute the literal mountain of evidence that exists to prove the gospel
accounts. This is where it is important for all Christians to have a
solid understanding of the reasons for their belief. Not the
experiences they have had, but the reasons why they think the gospel
accounts are true.
The reality is that many today don't have any idea why the claims are
true. If we believe in Jesus because of a feeling, then what makes Him
different than Mohammed? Or Buddha? The great thing about the Christian
faith is that it is the only religion in existence that can be explained
through objective evidence. It is not a personalized feeling, but an
objective reality.
The crucifixion, burial, bodily resurrection, and ascension of Christ
prove that He is God Himself. If He is not God Himself then his
sacrifice is not sufficient to forgive the sins of all believers and we
must "prove" our goodness to God in the hopes that He takes mercy on us.
We lose our assurance of salvation.
So now that we know why it is am important issue, let delve into a
little because you are likely to be asked about this if you are
witnessing to someone. They will ask you 'Didn't they find Jesus' bones
and prove that he wasn't God?" The worst responses you could have are:
That was a Hollywood conspiracy; they were out looking to make a bunch
of money and made up the entire story
This may be true but is a pretty big assumption on your part. You
presuming to judge the motives of someone you have never met before.
While it is reasonable to assume that the production of this documentary
is driven by a desire to make money it may well be that the true motives
of the producers is to determine objective truth.
There is some truth to the story; it does contain a lot of real
evidence. We will examine it further in later sections.
Satan planted this to try to convince people Jesus isn't real
Again this may be true; it would match the character of the deceiver.
However a non-Christian will not believe in Jesus much less the devil.
This statement only accomplishes to further the base assumption of
non-Christians; that Christ followers are deluded. That we dismissed
objective evidence and are members of a cult.
So how should you answer?
Well there are some resources available to you to find the answers to
the objection. The biggest issue is that the inscriptions are real, the
caskets are real, and the location is real. Don't deny the existence or
reliability of the evidence, focus instead on the conclusions drawn by
those examining the evidence. First you should read the claims for
those on the Discovery network
<http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/02/25/tomb_arc.html?category=archaeo
logy&guid=20070225073000> . I have taken some of the quotes and will
outline some of the potential errors/issues.
This quote describes the inscriptions on the ossuaries:
"In addition to the "Judah son of Jesus" inscription, which is written
in Aramaic on one of the ossuaries, another limestone burial box is
labeled in Aramaic with "Jesus Son of Joseph." Another bears the Hebrew
inscription "Maria," a Latin version of "Miriam," or, in English,
"Mary." Yet another ossuary inscription, written in Hebrew, reads
"Matia," the original Hebrew word for "Matthew." Only one of the
inscriptions is written in Greek. It reads, "Mariamene e Mara," which
can be translated as, "Mary known as the master."
Notice that several languages are compiled and manipulated to match the
base theory? Why are so many languages used? Well, if they translate
them this way it matches their theory better. Does it make sense that
they would do this in reality? Wouldn't they use the same language
throughout? The name Jesus may be incorrectly interpreted and may be
Hunan. The same goes for the inscription Mariamene e Mara, it can be
translated a number of different ways.
The next quote tells us that the two found in these tombs are Jesus his
wife Mary (Da Vinci Code) and their son Judah.
Since tombs normally contain either blood relations or spouses,
Jacobovici and his team suggest it is possible Jesus and Mary Magdalene
were a couple. "Judah," whom they indicate may have been their son,
could have been the "lad" described in the Gospel of John as sleeping in
Jesus' lap at the Last Supper.
The plausible part of this is that if Jesus and Mary were married and
had a child it is very likely that they would have named the child
Judah. However the tomb contains many different bones; these are
conveniently missing now, removing the possibility of examination of the
evidence and forcing us to take the documentary writers at their word.
Also, the Gospel of John contains no reference to a "lad", read it for
yourself. The only reference like this is where John leans against
Jesus.
Next statistics are given to show that it is 99.83% likely that the
names here are actually the Jesus of the gospel
Feuerverger multiplied the instances that each name appeared during the
tomb's time period with the instances of every other name. He initially
found "Jesus Son of Joseph" appeared once out of 190 times, Mariamne
appeared once out of 160 times and so on.
To be conservative, he next divided the resulting numbers by 25 percent,
a statistical standard, and further divided the results by 1,000 to
attempt to account for all tombs - even those that have not been
uncovered - that could have existed in first century Jerusalem.
The study concludes that the odds are at least 600 to 1 in favor of the
Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb. In other words, the conclusion
works 599 times out of 600.
I formerly taught statistics, I don't recall multiplying by 25 being a
conservative standard. Even if this is discounted, the issue is also
the use of 1000, it is a rather arbitrary number to use. In addition
the actual source of data is the real question, where id they obtain the
initial results of 1/160 and 1/190? There is other data to suggest that
the use of Mary occurred 25% of the time. So the initial assumptions as
well as the methodology to conclusion are suspect. However if taken at
face value this seems to be quite the claim.
Christianity is either true or it is false. It isn't partially true,
mostly true, or almost true none of these would be sufficient because if
it isn't all true then how do you decide which parts are true? It is
down to opinion and then the loudest voice wins rather than truth being
discovered.
Stay in the Word, trust in God, but don't use feelings to convince
otherwise their feelings will just trump your feelings. Both Paul and
Peter took the time to defend the faith, providing evidence through the
scriptures and pointing to the empty tomb as clear evidence. Take the
time to study, learn all you can so you can be an ambassador for Christ.
(2 Cor 5:20)
If you would like to learn how to defend your faith, not with feelings
but with evidence there is a massive amount of information
Start with this website:
http://www.carm.org <http://www.carm.org/>
Once you master the basics of theology and apologetics then move onto
learning good tactics to defending your faith:
http://www.str.org <http://www.str.org/>
For specific follow up on this issue see the following:
http://www.carm.org/evidence/Jesus_tomb.htm
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/mayweb-only/120-32.0.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/02/25/tomb_arc.html?category=archaeol
ogy&guid=20070225073000
