Jesus' Tomb

[Don Quixote]

Have they showed the Cameron do entary yet?

Here in Argentina they are showing it on the 22nd.

So, is this the nail in the religion's coffin? Jesus was a mortal man who never resurrected, married Mary Magdelene and had a son? Is the Bible pure BS?

Have I been duped . . . ?

No. All indications are that the "Jesus tomb" is a hoax. I attend a well-respected evangelical seminary in Louisiana, and the New Testament faculty here has known about this "find" for almost a decade.

Lots of good, scholarly, non-kook links at:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/....0.html#secret

Scroll down for a listing of stories. The point is, this tomb contains the bones of ordinary Jewish citizens, who had very common names for the time.

And I wouldn't consider pop-culture allegations of Jesus faking his death & resurrection, and getting married, to be a good argument against Christianity. There are far better ones.

[Yonivore]

his comment

I didn't read his comment. I was just amused by your no comment, comment.

[Extra Stout]

What? You mean James Cameron isn't the world's premier expert in Biblical archaeology and this is just a publicity stunt? This is shaking my faith in Canadians.

[Don Quixote]

Nothing more than simple marketing.

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 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 do entary 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.

Excellent points, all of them.

I don't know why people always have to find the next big secret, the grand coverup, the conspiracy behind the scenes that controls everything. I guess it's because everyone wants the intellectual satisfaction of having it all figured out.

I've heard the tomb "discovery" being somewhat akin to finding a grave site with the stone reading "John," next to "Robert" and "Joseph," and concluding that it's the Kennedys.

[Shelly]

Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is in one of those tombs

[bendmz]

Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is in one of those tombs

need to look in the Detroit River for that one....