Jesus: Tales from the Crypt

[chri'stina 190]

I am a little confused by you, Steven. You seem like a religious person and I know you are Catholic, and yet you say things sometimes that are confusing to me about your beliefs. I know I am "born again" so we don't always agree, although Jesus said those words(born again) to be symbolic I have no idea how it became a weird word as if Catholic and born again are not both words for Christians. Anyone who has accepted Jesus as savior has been symbolically born again. I don't know why some Catholics act like it's a totally different thing. Anyway...Do you believe that Jesus didn't raise again? Or are you just questioning(which is normal too)? Is your faith more a philosophy that you incorporate into your own ideas? I am just wondering is all because what Nagishkaw is saying is Christian Biblical doctrine, so I thought you would agree with it. But I don't get the feeling you do. You asked what religion they grew up in, and asked Baptist, methodist...that is all Christian with some variations...not different religions....

Hi Stina,

Sorry for the confusion. I'm not in agreement with the story (that Jesus didn't rise from the dead) - I just posted it thinking it would spark a good discussion here in OT.

I was trying to point out to Nagishaw that there are more than one version of the Bible and more than one translation. Some Bibles contain books which others do not. The Bible that we've come to know today was not put together until about 300 AD (I'd have to check for sure). While it was being put together, there was great debate/discussion among the early Christian leaders as to which writings would be included and which ones would be left out. Based on what Nagishaw was saying, I wasn't sure if she was aware of those facts about the Bible.

My general approach to scripture is that while it is divinely inspired, it was written by humans (imperfect humans at that). Even if it were God himself who took a golden pen and wrote every word - human language and human logic is finite - while my understanding of God is that He is infinite. How can someone say that God (infinite) reveals Himself completely and totally within a book (finite) that is incapable of perfection? I look to scripture for Truth and inspiration, but I'm cautious about taking a passage out of context from any part of the Bible, and accept that it is God's dictate, word for word - no interpretation needed. Biblical scholars have carefully studied scripture for the last two thousand years and have written volumes on it. I personally do not think just anybody can pick it up and start reading it, and 'viola!' they'll understand what God is saying through scripture. I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't try to come to our own personal understanding through reading scripture, but we must be careful not to confuse our understanding as if it is The Understanding or The One Truth. Discernment of scripture should not be taken lightly, IMO.

Thanks for explaining how you feel. I appreciate it.

[Peikko 1,575]

If you have practiced what you preach, then you have probably had plenty of sex outside of marriage, Purple_Hibiscus, and have gone through life, so far, without God. I can't say that either "freedom" has seemed to satisfy you nor make you a happy person, content to allow others to choose their own path without ridiculing them. That is a profound shame. I will pray for you!

There's imaginative intepretation for you.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Only going by what you advocate.

[Scott & Lai 12]

So, did anyone watch "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" Sunday? I found it far from convincing. The following is an email my church's vicar received which addresses the points raised.

Rev. Dr. Paul L. Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University and second vice-president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, has received numerous questions about the alleged discovery by James Cameron, et al, of the burial remains of Jesus Christ. Dr. Maier offers these comments to help Christians know the real truth.

Dear Friends and Readers, Thanks for the profusion of e-mails I’ve received over the last two days regarding the Talpiot tombs discovery in Jerusalem, a.k.a., “the Jesus Family Tomb” story. Some of you also suggested that “life seemed to be following art” so far as my A Skeleton in God’s Closet was concerned. Believe me, this is not the way I wanted my novel to hit the visual media! Alas, this whole affair is just the latest in the long-running media attack on the historical Jesus, which I call “More Junk on Jesus.” We all thought it had culminated in that book of falsehoods, The Da Vinci Code. But no: The caricatures of Christ continue. Please, lose no sleep over the Talpiot “discoveries” for the following reasons, and here are the facts:

(1) Nothing is new here: Scholars have known about the ossuaries ever since March of 1980, so this is old news recycled. The general publiclearned about the ossuaries when the BBC filmed a documentary on them in 1996, and the “findings” tanked again. James Tabor’s book, The Jesus Dynasty, also made a big fuss over the Talpiot tombs more recently, and now James Cameron (“Titanic”) and Simcha Jacobovici have climbed aboard the sensationalist bandwagon as well. Another book comes out today,equally as worthless as the previous.

(2) All the names—Yeshua (Joshua, Jesus), Joseph, Maria, Mariamene, Matia, Judah, and Jose—are extremely common Jewish names for that timeand place, and thus nearly all scholars consider that these names are merely coincidental, as they did from the start. Some scholars dispute that “Yeshua” is even one of the names. One out of four Jewish women at that time, for example, was named Maria. There are 21Yeshuas cited by Josephus, thefirst-century Jewish historian, who were important enough to be recorded by him, with many thousands of others that never made history. The wondrous mathematical odds hyped by Jacobovici that these names must refer to Jesus and His family are simply playing by numbers and lying by statistics.

(3) There is no reason whatever to equate “Mary Magdalene” with “Mariamene,” as Jacobovici claims. And so what if her DNA is different from that of “Yeshua”? That particular “Mariamme” (as it is usually spelled today) could indeed have been the wife of that particular “Yeshua,” who certainly was not Jesus.

(4) Why in the world would the “Jesus Family” have a burial site in Jerusalem, of all places, the very city that crucified Jesus? Galilee was their home. In Galilee they could have had such a family plot, not Judea. Besides all of which, church tradition and the earliest Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, are unanimous in reporting that Mary, the mother of Jesus, died in Ephesus, where the apostle John, faithful to his commission from Jesus on the cross, had accompanied her.

(5) The “Jesus Family” simply could not have afforded the large crypt uncovered at Talpiot, which housed, or could have housed, 200 ossuaries.

(6) If this were Jesus’ family burial site, what is Matthew doing there—if indeed “Matia” is thus to be translated?

(7) How come there is no tradition whatever— Christian, Jewish, or secular—that any part of the Holy Family was buried at Jerusalem?

(8) Please note the extreme bias of the director and narrator, Simcha Jacobovici. The man is an Indiana Jones wannabe who oversensationalizes anything he touches. You may have caught him on his TV special regarding The Exodus, in which he “explained” just about everything that still needed proving or explaining in the Exodus account in the Old Testament! It finally became ludicrous, and now he’s doing it again, though in reverse—this timeattacking the Scriptural record. As for James Cameron, how do you follow the success of Titanic? Well, with an even more “titanic” story. He should have known better, and the television footage of the two making their drastic statements on Monday, February 26, was disgusting, and their subsequent claim that they respected Jesus nauseating.

(9) Even Israeli authorities, who—were they anti-Christian—might have used this “discovery” to discredit Christianity, did not do so. Quite the opposite. Joe Zias, for example, for years the director of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, holds Jacobovici’s claims up for scorn and his documentary as “nonsense.” Those involved in the project “have no credibility whatever,” he added. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the conclusions in question fail to hold up by archaeological standards “but make for profitable television.” William Dever, one of America’s most prominent archaeologists, said, “This would be amusing if it didn’t mislead so many people.”

(10) Finally, and most importantly, there is no external literary or historical evidence whatever that Jesus’ family was interred together in a common burial place anywhere, let alone Jerusalem. The evidence, in fact, totally controverts all this in the case of Jesus: All four Gospels, the letters of St. Paul, and the common testimony of the early church state that Jesus rose from the dead, and did not leave His bones behind in any ossuary, as the current sensationalists claim.

Bottom line: This is merely naked hype, baseless sensationalism, and nothing less than a media fraud—“more junk on Jesus.”

With warm regards, Paul L. Maier, Ph.D., Litt.D. Department of History Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan

[chri'stina 190]

So, did anyone watch "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" Sunday? I found it far from convincing.

Yes I watched it and the debate after the show.The man who made the program is just a journalist, not a historian or archaeologist. There were many holes in the logic used to try to bring across the bias already obvious at the start of the program. I liked the debate with the other archaeologists, and even one of the archaeologists said he himself was not a believer in Jesus or Christianity, yet he still saw no real evidence in the program to prove it was Jesus's tomb, or that "Mariamne" was truly Mary Magdaline, or that they were married and had a child, or any of it basically.

What always boggles my mind is when someone doesn't believe anything in the bible, and yet will trust another obscure book that pops up like The Gospel of Judas or The Gospel of Phillip...why do they believe less credible books when they don't believe the New Testament writings, why believe any of it at all in that case? I always find that very strange. Like, "I don't believe what the New Testament says about Jesus is true, but I believe a less credible book maybe written by someone during those days who was also around Jesus, whose views differ with all of the New Testament writers. Yes that one must be the right one..." etc. I really do not get it.

[Nagishkaw 510]

The four Gospels were written under the direction of the Holy Spirit but by different men who had different writing techniques. The Gospel of Mark and John do not start out with the birth of Yeshu'a 's birth like the Gospels of Matthew and Luke do , for instance.

I would be more apt to believe someone who actually was around Yeshu'a and spent a lot of time with Him, as opposed to someone who claims to know a lot about him some thousands of years later.

[almaty 19]

religion sheesh

[Fuzzness 2]

religion sheesh

You got that right