Note: We had a full easter musical, so this is a short sumary on the topic. For full details, google the names mentioned.
If you have taken a tour of the Holy Land one of the site you probably visited is the garden tomb of Jesus. Who has been there? It is pretty fantastic isn’t it?
It really is a moving experience. Though it is a moving experience, it is not the tomb of Jesus, it is an example of the type of tomb that Jesus was placed in, but it is not the tomb of Jesus. Wouldn’t it be great if archeologists found the actual tomb of Jesus?
I tell you what, I sure would want to go and see it, wouldn’t you? How awesome would that be to be in the very place, the very place, that Jesus was resurrected. It gives me the chills just thinking about it….
How you heard about the “The Lost Tomb Of Jesus”? Interesting stuff.
Funny how Jesus keeps getting into the news. The Lost Tomb Of Jesus is a documentary film (with a related book) by director Simcha Jacobovici and producer James Cameron (who brought us “the Titanic”). They claim to have identified actual the tomb of Jesus and his family in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot.
They even have head of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, James Tabor behind them. He worked closely with the producer in the making of the film.
Now the thing is, they claim to have found more than the lost tomb of Jesus, they claim to have found the bones of Jesus Christ.
Now that is quit a claim, a claim that is going to produce a nice buzz on the talk show circuit.
So you and I, we hear this news as we are flipping through channels, or reading the paper with our morning coffee…the bones of Jesus have been found – wow - what are we to make of this?
The film makers have received a lot of flack about making their documentary. They seemed surprised – why should something controversial be criticized?
Their general response to the criticism has been that Christian religious zealots are afraid of people questioning their faith; They ask why can’t we question the Christian faith?
You know, to one degree they are right, why can’t we question the Christian faith?
I suppose there are people who hear news like this, and, well, freak out.
But, you know, I think the Lord Jesus Christ invites us to question every aspect of our faith, without any fear – especially His resurrection. I think Jesus wants us to question, because he is the answer, and I believe the firm and solid answer for each one of us here today.
The real reason the film makers are getting a lot of flack isn’t because those offering criticism are religious zealots who fear questions of faith, (the fact is that many of the critics and not Christians, or perhaps even religious), the film makers are getting flack because their whole theory is just plain nonsense, or as one archeologist said about James Tabor, the scholar attached to the film, “he’s fighting a losing battle” because the evidence is mounting daily against him.
Now I do not have time to address all the details about the lost tomb of Jesus this morning (believe me there are tons of details) and so I will just look at some highlights. We are just going to look at a summary today, but you can look into this further to get the details. I have in the bulletin three places you can go on the internet to get in depth details. These people are solid people who are experts on the matter:
Professor Jodi Magness of the Society of Biblical Literature and
Steven Feldman of the Bible Archaeological Society – they give great in depth analysis; also
Dr. James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary – he gives a solid concise summary of the subject. Just Google them and you’ll find them, no problem.
(Note to reader: Start with ptsem.edu and go to the lost tomb of Jesus links. There you will see links to both Jodi and James...and endless links from there)
Well, let’s quickly look at the claims and then, let’s look at the facts:
The basic claim is this:
The tomb found was the family tomb of Jesus and that the boxes containing bones found in the tomb are the bones of Jesus and his family – The film makers contend that this is proven by the names found written on the boxes in the tomb.
Here are the facts:
The tomb was found in 1980, 27 years ago, and was seen by the state of Israel as of no archeological significance. Professor Amos Kloner, who oversaw the original dig dismisses the documentary calling it, “completely impossible. It’s nonsense.” The bones found inside were reburied soon thereafter as is the practice in Israel so the film makers did not have access to the bones.
In Jesus day the regular folks, like you and me, were buried in the ground, just like we bury people to this day. But the wealthy could afford to have a tomb carved out of rock – Jesus was buried in such a tomb, a gift of Joseph of Arimathea.
For the wealthy, the body was placed in the tomb and about a year later the bones were placed in a box called an ossuary, a clay or stone box about the size of a microwave oven. Sometimes a name would be written on the box, sometimes not, sometimes an additional name would be added to the box. Also, rather oddly, an ossuary box may contain the bones of multiple people, or when full be emptied, pushed aside and refilled with new bones. Go figure.
Now ten ossuaries were found in this tomb. The bones of 17 people were found in the ossuary boxes and the bones of 18 people were, pushed aside. Some boxes had inscriptions, the most notable being translated by the film makers are: “Mariamene the Master” which they say means Mary Magdalene. Other names they found were Joseph, Judas son of Joseph, and Jesus son of Joseph. So they conclude that this tomb is of Jesus and his family. Ok.
But a closer reading of the box by experts in the field, we find the inscription that is supposed to refer to Mary Magdalene is not one name but actually is two different names of two different people, one Mariame and one Mara; The names are written on the box by two different scribes, at different times.
So it refers not to Mary Magdalene but two different people who were placed in the box at two different times, with names written by two different scribes - so it was not Mary Magdalene in the tomb.
This is significant because the whole theory stands on the fact that Mary Magdalene was found in the tomb, but because she was not in the Tomb, everything starts to fall apart.
We see that even the highly touted DNA tests that the filmmakers claim prove Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene turn out to mean nothing other than everyone in the tomb was not a blood relative.
Further, Mary, Joseph and Jesus were the most common names of the day. Mary is the most common for women, Joseph is the second most common for men and tons of people were named Jesus. We think of Jesus as rare, but it is common even today being the 75th most common name given to babies – right here in the good old U.S.A., know that is was more common is Jesus’ day.
And, even more all the mind swirling statistics thrown out during the documentary have been proven highly inaccurate by experts, and mean, nothing. Interesting.
Finally, Jesus and his family were from Galilee and inscriptions in the tomb would surely reference that fact, when they in fact reference that the tomb belonged to Judeans, which was the area around Jerusalem. What do you know about that?
So all these small facts, compiled by world experts in their specialize field, point us to two things: First, “The Lost Tomb Of Jesus” may be interesting T.V. …but nothing more; and second, it turns out the Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are highly reliable and accurate accounts of what occurred that Sunday so any years ago. I mean, this really happened, Jesus really did rise from the dead, it is not just a story.
So we get these highly charged films like The Da Vinci Code or The Lost Tomb of Jesus that tout sensational claims that Jesus was married or he was not resurrected and...here’s the proof, and then we go see it and in the end it turns out that these people are out to make some money off of us….and again, we fell for it.
By the way, everything that was claimed in the Da Vinci Code has been proven false many, many times over.
It turns out that these films and books that the media claims shake the foundations of Christianity, in the end show us that Jesus Christ is the real thing. Funny, isn’t that how life is? The very people who either intentionally or unintentionally try to discredit the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ironically, firm up how real, how factual and how true the account of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is.
So take heart my brothers, my sisters, we don’t believe in some myth or heart warming tale.When we turn on the news and hear some new claim that Jesus is not alive, just wait a few weeks, and again, it will all be proven false. For Jesus Christ, really, honestly did rise from the grave. He really is alive and well today and not only that he has dramatically changed my life, Pastor Ted’s life…why we could go down a long list of folks here in this service today.
Look, here’s the deal: I don’t know what things are going on in your life, how impossible some things might be for you today…but I do know this – Jesus Christ has taken the impossible in my life, and brought me wholeness, healing and peace – and I know he will do the same for you.
Please feel free to talk to either pastor Ted or myself after service, or anytime during the week about who Jesus is and the difference He can make in your life.
