The Lost Tomb of Jesus
We didn’t even know it was missing, but thankfully someone has finally found the lost tomb of Jesus. People who had been worshiping at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are in need of a refund. Unfortunately there are many who won’t be able to ask for that refund as they have been dead since Eusebius’ time (135CE?). And the church that stands there today dates to the 4th century. (Visit “The Church of the Holy Sepulchure” for pictures and more information.)
But church tradition isn’t the main problem for the “Lost Tomb of Jesus,” there are much greater obstacles to overcome. One is the fact that even secular scholars and archaeologists deny the validity of its claim. It’s not just Christians chafing at the thought of Dan Brown’s dreams coming true, it’s secular thinking scholars. Scholars with no dog in the fight!
Just one of the specific problems is the difficulty of reading the names on the ossuaries which are overcome by excellent animated black and white letters morphing out of the illegible scrawling. Lately one of the Tomb’s own scholars has questioned some of the translation that he helped to decipher.
The other problem with this is that they link the name “Mariamne” with Mary Magdelene. But, Mariamne is never used for Mary before the 4th century. This means that there is a great anachronism with the 4th century name being placed on a 1st century tomb (which still isn’t legible).
Additionally when they calculate the statistics they include the James ossuary (which has already been shown to be a fraud) as a factor – but they didn’t even find this ossuary with the tomb! After testing they found that the limestone with the James ossuary was consistent with the others and not with a small sampling group. Even the show’s journalist Simcha Jacobovici admitted the sampling was too small. So, we have limestone from Jerusalem used in a Jerusalem tomb, convincing isn’t it?
Some have gone so far as to state that this is an archaeological non-event. And I’ve probably already wasted too much space on this topic. But, there are some (and some of you have talked to me) who have some serious questions about this. I think for now we can all rest assured that this tomb poses no great threat to Christianity, maybe we should now go find something useful to do. Like help someone in need!-
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