Name:Jim D •
Title: Refuting the Jesus Tomb "Experts" •
Date posted: 03/05/07 21:12
Q: Scholars have known about these tombs for over 25 years. There’s a reason they haven’t taken these names seriously. Only three have any direct biblical significance: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And that cluster of names is statistically unremarkable. In fact, it would be odd if a family with those three names was not found in a tomb together, given their common use (there are at least four ossuaries discovered inscribed “Jesus, son of Joseph,” and one in four women were named Mary, so it’s even money that one of these tombs would have that combination). And connection of Jesus to any of the other names? Wild speculation. So what you have here is a creative guessing game.
The entire argument is based on the statistical significance of the names in a cluster. If Jesus was married, and if Jesus was married to a woman named Mariamne, and if Mariamne was also a nickname for Mary Magdalene, and if Jesus had a brother named Matthew, and if Jesus had a son named Judas, and if the now-famous James ossuary belonged to James the brother of Jesus, then you’d have all the members of Jesus’ family together in one tomb. But that’s a lot of “ifs.
Even though this is called the “Jesus Family Tomb,” there is no hard evidence that any of these so-called “family members” is even related. The only DNA testing that’s been done—between Jesus and Mariamne—came up negative. Let me repeat that: The DNA test came up negative. That is fact. The rest is speculation.
The documentary claims, “Jesus and Mary were married, as the DNA evidence suggests.” This is nonsense. Think about it. How can DNA evidence suggest someone is married? DNA can’t “suggest” anything about legal relationships, only biological ones. In this case, the DNA evidence showed Jesus and Mary were not related by a mother, not that they were husband and wife. The truth is, she could have been married to any one of the males in the tomb, or to none of them for that matter. The DNA “suggests” nothing.
The researchers claim they’re just trying to connect the dots? Fair enough. But why connect the dots the way they did? I’ll tell you why. Because it tells their story. There are many other legitimate ways to connect those same dots—some much more probable than the way the documentary connects them, but won’t give the story they’re promoting. But, of course, that wouldn’t create breaking news, would it?
Jesus’ family was a poor family from Nazareth, not a middle- to upper-class family from Jerusalem. So this tomb is the wrong kind of tomb located in the wrong city.
The documentary claims Jesus spoke in codes. This is false. Jesus spoke in parables, like many of the teachers of His day, not in codes that needed to be deciphered. They say Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ most trusted apostle. But you have to wait 400 years before this evidence pops up in any alleged historical record. They said that Jesus’ family members were executed because He was a pretender to throne of Israel. This is pure fiction. Notice what this accomplishes, though. All of these little exaggerations and inaccuracies make an unlikely tale sound more plausible when, on its own unembellished merits, it is not.
What we have here are two different characterizations of what happened to the body of Jesus of Nazareth 2,000 years ago. One is based on artifacts—the ossuaries—and one is based on documents—the historical records of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul. Now granted, these kinds of things are not entirely exact science, but all things being equal, which do you think gives us more precise information, bone boxes or written records? The written records, obviously.
The claim of Jesus’ resurrection, was part of the earliest, most primitive testimony regarding Jesus. And it was made by those very same people that the documentary suggests knew Jesus’ bones were actually secretly buried in Jerusalem. Why would so many of them die for this lie when they knew it was a lie? It doesn’t add up. But that’s what you must believe if you take seriously the conclusions of this documentary.
Name:abefroman •
Date: 03/05/07 21:42
A: Written records, obviously are more accurate. Many years ago when I was young, I saw David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear. Pretty amazing stuff. Of course it was magic and not real. Here is an account of how it was done from http://magic.about.com/od/biosonfamous-magicians/a/statueliberty.htm
"...A- long kept secret, Copperfield owns a special machine that can stop time. Near the beginning of his career, he purchased the top secret device from an archeologist who discovered it at a dig in Peru. Seems some long-gone civilization had obtained the device from space aliens."
That guy is amazing....
Name:Jim D •
Date: 03/05/07 21:48
A: and your point is....
Name:abefroman •
Date: 03/05/07 22:08
A: There is no point.
The conclusions of the documentary are no harder to believe than a virgin birth, or turning water into wine, or walking on water, or raising the dead, or rising from the dead or countless other "miracles" spoke of in the new testament. You talk about not adding up and then cite the new testament as proof? wow...
Name:James of Cdn •
Date: 03/05/07 22:18
A: Jim D, thanks for your thoughts. A couple of points to consider:
1. How ever much weight you want to give to the fact that Jesus was "a pretender to [the] throne of Israel - was in fact perceived as a threat to the power brokers of Israel's temple state. Herod attempted to take Jesus out in Jesus' infantacy - that's if you want to believe the accuracy of the Gospel accounts. And the threat never ceased - to the Romans who wanted peace in the land and Jewish power brokers in Jerusalem who wanted to preserve their "den of thieves" and finally he was crucified with a plackard over his head "King of the Jews".
2. Having a Jesus bone box does not exclude a Jesus resurrection.
Name:Jim D •
Date: 03/05/07 22:26
A: You are re-framing the issue at hand. We are discussing the veracity of the documentary. In my posted summation, I pointed out several facts that refute the claims made in the documentary. If you can refute the facts I have cited, I would be most interested in learning more.
Even if the miracles weren't true, that still doesn't absolve the inaccuracies of this documentary. You talk about miracles and somehow make the connection to the documentary. And you talk about things not adding up?! Wow!
Name:pat440 •
Date: 03/05/07 22:30
A: Jim D, Thank you for going back to the historical written account of the Lord Jesus Christ!
abefroman, is it hard for you to believe that the New Testament was inspired, infalliable, and inerrant? You don't believe in miracles, go look in the mirror, you are one. That fact that you are here and you exist is a miracle as for all of us. Think about this: No one has a hard time believing that Homer wrote the Illiad and the Odessy, right? There are only a few hundred manuscripts that Homer actually wrote those documents. Well consider this, every CRITICAL scholar in the area of biblical theology will affirm that there are more than 5,000 manuscripts of evidence of the inspiration of the New Testament. That's pretty sound evidence, don't you think. And as Jim D said, would DIE for something if you KNEW it to be a lie? No way! Yet the apostles did! Just read some history, if you believe that those who wrote those historical documents to be true (e.g, Josephus, Tacitus, etc.).
Name:Jim D •
Date: 03/05/07 22:50
A: Pat/James.... it amazes me how many people will believe in a hollywood movie, and totally disregard historical proof. It amazes me that people, when faced with the truth, when looking at the face of God, will come up with a myriad of excuses and stories to keep from the heart of the matter....repentance and an acknowledgement that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Like Pharoh when dealing with Moses, many will know the Truth, only when it is too late.
God bless you.
Name:abefroman •
Date: 03/05/07 22:52
A: Jimmy D, everything you said in your original post has been covered ad nauseum for over a week now. Most every point you bring up has been refuted or explained on news programs and talk shows dealing with this film since the day it was first announced. What you watched was a TV show made to entertain an audience.
You and I both know jesus really died, and is buried, in India
Name:Jim D •
Date: 03/05/07 22:53
A: Abe, yet again, you skirt the issue.
Have a nice after life....not.
Name:abefroman •
Date: 03/05/07 23:00
A: Thanks Pat, that was great. For a long time I didn't really think David Copperfield made the statue of liberty disappear (see above) - until I read about the time machine he has. It wasn't a miracle, but its probably pretty darn close...
Name:KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 23:11
A: Without questioning the miracles, etc., lets look at the evidence in favor of the gospels, i.e. what do we really know about them?
Gospels
Conservatives (myself included) date the synoptic gospels to between AD50-60, most leftist theologians only differ with conservative by a few decades, placing the synoptics at AD 80. In both cases, the synoptic gospels were written at a time when eye witnesses were still alive. Individually we can establish a few useful facts about Matthew and Luke:
Matthew was a Jewish Christian, who accepted the divinity of Christ. We know that he was Jewish, because he sometimes translated the Old Testament himself instead of relying on the LXX (a Greek translation of the Old Testament done in the second century BC). This indicates a knowledge of Hebrew, which was unknown by those who weren't Jewish, most Greek converts to Judaism at the time used a Greek Bible and attended a synagogue where Greek rather than Hebrew was used in the service.
Luke is a part of a two volume history of Christianity. The second volume (the book of Acts) has been proven to be extremely accurate under the work of Sir WIlliam Ramsey, who was a nineteenth century archeologist, his work has never been refuted, and several authors have added to it. Luke, in Acts, gets details right that most historians of the period often got wrong. These minute details are important, because those who are trying to write myths and fables or who are trying to cover something up aren't nearly as careful.
John is a different case, The author of John is later than the others, conservatives date it to around AD 80, Leftists to around AD 90. John claims to be an eyewitness - (John 21:24-25) and the little name he uses for himself is clearly to be identified with John the son of Zebedee, and knows things about Jerusalem that would probably only be known by someone who has lived in the city before its fall in AD 70.
Name:abefroman •
Date: 03/05/07 23:18
A: Jimmy I already told you the first 3/4ths of your original post (The names, statistics, DNA marriage linking, speaking in parables)was already addressed on Larry King, Fox News and Kopple, et al. Already been addressed. Nothing for anyone to add. Your post reads like an amalgam of transcripts from cable news shows. The only thing left is which do you believe, artifacts or written word.
It is written, therefore it must be so!!
p.s. the world is flat
Name:abefroman •
Date: 03/05/07 23:31
A: KRS - Very informative. Thank you. You did fail to mention Mark. I would be curious as to what you know of the gospel according to Mark?
Name:KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 23:36
A: The aforementioned material is useless, however, if it could be argued that the early Christians have materially changed the gospels. Usually, theories indicating that these sorts of changes have been made trace it to the third century. Now New Testament Textual Criticism is a difficult field, but I've done some first hand work in it, and I think the textual evidence tells us that the early Christians have not materially changed the gospel. There are variations in the manuscripts, but the variations are the type you would expect in a time period where every book had to be copied out by hand - a word dropped in one manuscript, two words inverted, a scribe trying to read a badly printed exemplar or trying to fix an obvious error.
The four most important Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament (from among the more than 5000 manucripts extant) are Siniaticus (commonly known as Aleph), Vaticanus (commonly known as B), Codex Bezea (commonly known as D in the gospels) and Codex Clarmontonus (commonly known as D in the epistles). All four of these manuscripts were copied in the fourth century, and the first two, Siniaticus and Vaticanus are considered the prime representatives of the Alexandrian text type (of which there are about one hundred in all), the text-type most biblical scholars to believe to be the most accurate. There are also several second century manuscripts, known as Papyri (since they are made of Papyrus rather than parchment), several of which have been compared to both Siniaticus and Vaticanus, and have shown that the readings in Siniaticus and Vaticanus are extremely close to those second century copies (as well as to some third century works). The variations are minor (typically word order, which is meaningless in Greek) and few. If the New Testament had been systematically altered in the third or fourth century, however, one would expect to find theologically significant differences.
One could argue that these kinds of changes are found in the other two types of Greek Text. This might be a fair assessment, but it still doesn't stand up. The Western Text (represented by the two Ds) is commonly noted for its tendency to change the text. However, examination of the kinds of changes being made don't show some kind of extreme editorial activity. The changes most common are the tendencies to add explanatory material to books of the Bible, typically elements that someone who wasn't living in the middle east might scratch their heads about. The only major changes is the inclusion of the account of the Woman taken in Adultry to the gospel of John, and the ending of Mark. There is, however, no evidence of the type of theological revisionism that the arguments on this site and in other places would require in any known manuscript. The Byzantine text seems to be an attempt to deal with the disparities between the Western and Alexandrian texts, arising in the fourth Century. Again, there are no theological changes of the type being discussed here or elsewhere; the biggest changes present in this text type.
In short, there is no evidence of a wholesale editing of the new testament of the type NT opponents have suggested.
Name:KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 23:47
A: We don't know as much about Mark, he was associated from the early second century with Peter, and Papias (a father on the cusp of the second century) indicates that he was asked to create a sort of collection of Peter's teachings of the life of Christ). A few general things can be said, like all the synoptics, the second and third century universally assign the gospel of Mark. Unlike the others, however, we don't have the same type of external evidence seperate from the general statements about its first century authorship, in part because his accounts tend to be the shortest. It is speculated that Mark 14:50-52 may be the authors personal reference to himself as an eyewitness, but this is primarily based on Eusebeas, and unfortunately, many of his sources are no longer extant.
Name:KRS •
Date: 03/05/07 23:51
A: Now to conclusions.
From all of this, I tend to conclude that the NT is accurate. It seems very difficult to argue that the NT tradition had developed along natural lines of traditional accumulation in such a short period of time. Now I realize some people will argue that since miracles can't happen that this can't be the case - but that is a restatement of ones' owns philosophical position, and can't be proven from fact. Science is the study of observable, repeatable phenomenon, so it really can't evaluate whether a miracle has or hasn't happened. In short, Christians aren't the only biased readers, or thinkers.
