Date: October 2007 Series: "Raiders of the Lost Tomb of Jesus" Title: Part 3

     To be taken seriously, those who don’t want to believe the traditional story of Jesus' resurrection must provide a credible explanation as to what did happen to the body of Jesus.  Throwing out creative “Just So” stories won’t overcome eyewitness testimony.  When I hear things like “maybe the disciples stole it” or “maybe the Guards stole it” or “maybe all eleven disciples and the women forgot where the tomb was” or “maybe all eleven disciples had “identical, concurrent mass hallucinations,” I suspect that the main reason for such stories is that some folks simply do not want to believe the Gospel story!  If people think the Biblical Gospel story is far-fetched, try on a few of the “Looney-Tunes” alternatives!

     Christianity and the Resurrection - If Jesus was buried from 30-1980 A.D. in a Jerusalem burial cave, then how did Christianity ever get off the ground?  The resurrection of Jesus is the foundational pillar of Christianity - Jesus predicted it (Matthew 16:21; 17:22-23; Luke 9:22; 18:31-33), seeing and learning from the resurrected Christ was the essential element of the Apostles’ resurgent faith and ministry (Acts 1:1-11); the resurrection of Jesus was the central point of Peter’s message in Jerusalem (Acts 2:22-37; 3:15) and to Cornelius’ household (Acts 10:39-41); and the resurrection of Jesus was to Paul the essential proof that Jesus was God’s son (Romans 1:4) and the essential central core truth of the Christian message without which Christianity was totally discredited (1Corinthians 1:3-20).

     Apostolic Credibility - Without a doubt, Christianity rests on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus - that there was NOT a continually dead body/bones of Jesus sitting in a Jerusalem tomb for 1950 years!  Paul’s logic in 1Corinthians 15:12-20 is hard to ignore - if Jesus was not really restored to life as the Gospel message claims, then there are hard-hitting implications and Paul lays them out - why would some in the Corinthians Church say He wasn’t raised (their own philosophical agenda?), the Apostle’s preaching and the beliefs of Christians are empty and pointless, the Apostles are “false witnesses,” all people are still in their sins, the Christian dead are gone forever, and Christians should be pitied as deceived fools!

     The Apostles claimed to have seen and touched[1] the resurrected Jesus and, to this day, the best evidence in a court of law is multiple eye-witnesses.  The Apostles’ testimony was/is either true or false, but they were in the best position to know if Jesus really returned to life and their dramatic change from unbelief and fear to the boldness they demonstrated from Pentecost onward suggests that they experienced something on the order of what they claimed to have seen and heard.  Then, consider how they all gave the rest of their lives to promote this message without personal gain, but rather enduring hardship, rejection, and finally (except, according to tradition, for the Apostle John) agonizing deaths, without a single tradition of any ever renouncing what they preached to save their lives.  I find the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus, the Gospel records of His life and teachings, and what happened through the Apostles very hard testimonies to dismiss.  Some men will die for a cause that turns out to be untrue, but they at least believe it is valid - sensible men do NOT willingly die to promote what they know to be false!

     Jewish Credibility - I rarely hear anyone discussing what hostile Biblical criticism and these alternative scenarios suggest about the Jewish people 1450 B.C. - 100 A.D.  Hostile Bible critics, coming from an Enlightenment rationalism approach, portrayed the Jewish writers of Biblical books as outright deceivers and Jewish people in general as uneducated fools who were easily duped by all of these “allegedly spurious” Bible documents suddenly appearing long after they were, supposedly, a foundational part of Jewish national life.  The German Enlightenment’s Higher Critical negative portrayal of the Jewish Bible-writers and those who believed these things sounds a lot like how the later Nazi movement portrayed them - as ignorant, evil, and filthy people.

     Just a passing familiarity with Old Testament history is enough to make it very doubtful that Joshua through 2Kings was falsified “feel-good” pseudo-history written to make later Jewish kings and people feel good about their heritage, as Silberman[2] and others have asserted.  The same assumptions are at work when New Testament/early Jewish Christianity are assailed with a similar lack of respect for their integrity and intelligence.  Jewish people may have a Biblically-attested history of unfaithfulness to the Mosaic Covenant (Judges - 2 Kings) and rejection of Jesus and the New Covenant, but they were/are not a group of people that I would consider easily duped, uneducated, or gullible.  If I wanted to identify people like that, I would point a finger at those who promote and embrace nonsense like The DaVinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, and the Lost Tomb of Jesus!

     I approached The DaVinci Code movie[3] with an attempt to be open-minded and willing to see what all the fuss was about.  At least, I was hoping for a thrilling historical-fiction experience something like National Treasure (Disney 2004; where a supposedly vast treasure has been hidden away with information as to its location stored on the back of the Declaration of Independence).  Clive Cussler writes good stories along this line - a little piece of historical reality as the springboard for some well-done fiction.  However, I was really disappointed in The DaVinci Code movie because the story tried to weave in so many improbable and strained historical connections that, for me, it became ludicrous.  I am a Christian, but I came to my faith on the basis of evidence and logic and I want to remain reality/evidence/reason-based enough that my faith could be shaken if truly sound contradictory evidence came to light.  However, I have yet to see that kind of “faith-shaking” evidence show up on the table and stand the tests of time and “cross-examination.  Thus, the traditional New Testament story of Jesus still gets my vote as the truth about what happened.  As is, the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” ranks right up there with the stuff on the cover of the National Inquirer.

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Sources:

     James Cameron & Simcha Jacobivici, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” (aired on the Discovery Channel, 3/4/2007).

     “Claims about Jesus’ tomb stir up a tempest” by Marshall Thompson (AP; MSNBC online 3:43 PM 2/26/2007 - http://www.msnbc.msn/id/17345429/?GT1=9033

     “Crypt Held the Bodies of Jesus and Family, Film Says” by Laurie Goodstein (NYTimes online, 2/27/2007)

     “The Jesus Tomb on TV” by Sandra Scham, Archaeology Online Reviews (3/3/2007);

www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/jesustomb2.html

     “The So-called Jesus Family Tomb ‘Rediscovered’ in Jerusalem” by Gordon Franz, from the Associates for Biblical Research Electronic Newsletter (Vol. 7, Issue 3 - March 2007); http://BibleArchaeology.org/articles/article70.html

     Ben Witherington’s web blog on “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” - http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/jesus-tomb-titanic-talpiot-tomb-theory.html