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The Lost Tomb? I missed most of the hoopla centered on the television program, "The Lost Tomb Of Jesus." Once again Hollywood has decided to attack Christianity and make money at the same time. The same director that brought us "Titanic", James Cameron, now tells us that Jesus did not die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene, they had a son and lived the rest of their natural lives in Jerusalem. This is simply a remake of an earlier idea expressed in "The DaVinci Code." In that scenario, Jesus and Mary Magdalene left Palestine, took up residence in France and had a family. The backbone of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" is a tomb excavated in the 1980’s (one web site reported the site was actually discovered in the 1970’s.) This tomb contained 10 ossuaries, stone caskets. Some of the caskets had names on them. The names, Maria, Jesus the Son of Joseph, Mariamne, and Judah, are on individual caskets. The writers of "The Lost Tomb" then make some giant leaps of faith. They contend Maria is Jesus’ mother, Maria being the Greek form of Mary. Next they say Mariamne is Mary Magdaline. Obviously they insist, Jesus the son of Joseph, had to refer to the Jesus in the Bible. It is one thing to present a theory or hypothesis, it is another to prove it. Sadly many simply listen to the claims without looking at the facts. What proof does the director and producers of this show present? Supposedly DNA testing and statistics. That is right, I said statistics. They calculate the odds of those names referring to another family to be anywhere from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1000. This reminds me of an old saying, "Numbers do not lie, but liars use numbers." The names Mary, Jesus, Joseph, and Judah were very common names in Jerusalem in the first century. While I will grant you that not every family had a Mary, a Jesus, and a Judah, I am not sure there was only one family with those names. The key name and the one that makes the odds so against this being just an ordinary Jewish family is that of Mariamne, which they claim to be Mary Magdalene. How do they know Mariamne was Mary Magdalene? Based on Jewish tradition that did not develop until the second century. This tradition claims that Mary Magdalene preached the gospel in Jerusalem. Hold on for a moment. How could she preach the death, burial, and resurrection if Jesus was not dead! Even more amazing is why would anyone listen to Peter on the Day of Pentecost, if Jesus was still alive? The second argument is supposedly the DNA samples taken from the caskets. We have been conditioned to believe what science says is true. Some will quickly say if the DNA says this was Jesus’ tomb then it must have been his tomb. What DNA samples are they talking about and what are they comparing it to? The bones originally in those caskets are gone. They were buried when the tomb was discovered. The only thing left in the caskets are a few fragments. How do we know each casket only contained one body. Once a body decomposed could they not have removed the bones and placed someone else’s body in the stone casket? More importantly how could they compare the DNA in the casket with that of Jesus. Obviously they could not. Jesus did not leave behind a DNA sample. The only thing they know from the DNA of the casket marked Jesus and Mariamna is they were not siblings. They may have been husband and wife and Judah may have been their son, but it does not prove Jesus’ body was in the casket. The only eye witness account we have concerning the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is in the Bible. A crowd of people saw Jesus die on the cross, Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23, and John 19. The Roman soldiers came out to break the legs of Jesus so as to hasten His death, but they found Him to be already dead. Blood and water came out of His side when He was pierced with a spear, John 19.34. Jesus was not laid in a casket, but was wrapped in cloth, John 19.40. Jesus’ body did not deteriorate, but was raised. One supposed scholar claimed the resurrection of Jesus may have been spiritual in nature and His body remained. That is not what the Bible says. The tomb was found empty, John 20. They saw the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and the pierce in His side, John 20.27. If Jesus’s body remained in the tomb then Matthew 28 makes no sense at all. Why bribe the soldiers to lie and say they fell asleep? Ethan Longhenry, in his article, "The Lost Tomb" makes the point of why would the family be buried in Jerusalem when they were from Nazareth? Also, how could they afford such a tomb when they were poor? An even bigger question is, "Why would the apostles be willing to die for a lie?" why preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus if He was still alive and why would anyone obey their message? In order to preach of the resurrection, they had to preach about His death. The resurrection of Jesus is the very cornerstone of Christianity. "And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!" (1 Corinthians 15.16). To believe "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" is really about Jesus requires you to accept more on faith than the Bible. It simply makes no sense. Dennis Tucker |