The Annual Lenten Fraud

{I have removed some of the links in this article because they no longer work}

It is lenten season, so it must be time for another attack on Christianity. In recent years we had controversial books and movies attacking Christianity. They all seem to be released during Lent, to enhance sales. This year it is a Discovery Channel documentary on a a tomb discovered in the Talpiot area of Jerusalem in 1980. However, the documentary is suggesting that the tomb is the burial site of Jesus, his mother, his wife and son. Yes, you read that correctly. The Hollywood director, James Cameron, who brought us the “Titanic” and the “Terminator” now brings what he seems to think is the destruction of the Christian faith. He believes that Jesus died and was not resurrected and that he was buried in this tomb. Rather, he died and was buried in a expensive tomb along with his wife Mary Magdalene and a son name Judah. Ossuaries, or bone boxes, have these names inscribed on them. Sort of a second generation Da Vinci Code.

My first thought was this. If Jesus had died and his body was in a tomb, you have to know that the first century authorities who hated the Christian movement would have known about it. There is no way to keep this kind of thing a secret. Furthermore, the followers of Jesus would have been insane to do what they did if they knew that Jesus had been buried and not raised from the dead. The New Testament says that over 500 people saw him alive after the death, burial, and resurrection. Those people went on to evangelize the world and they died for their effort. I find it hard to believe that this non resurrection could have been hidden from them or that if they knew they would have died to cover it up.

Quite a bit has been written this week about the “discovery.” Several scholars have spoken out against the interpretation that Cameron is putting on the tomb. Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film’s hypothesis holds little weight. He said that he does not think that the name “Jesus” is on the box. Instead, he thinks it reads “Hanun.”

Prof. Amos Kloner is the scholar who originally discovered the tomb in 1980. His original report can be found at

http://www.discovery.com/tomb.

It is in the PDF format. The file contains photos and drawings of the tomb and the ossuaries found in the tomb. There are close up photos of the inscriptions. One can clearly see that the inscriptions were poorly done, which is ironic since the boxes are rather ornate. In an interview, the professor seems to give very little credence to the theory that this is the tomb of Jesus of the Bible. He said that “Jesus son of Joseph” inscriptions had been found on several other ossuaries over the years. Further, he says it is unlikely that the family of Jesus had a family tomb, especially one in Jerusalem. Jesus’s family came from Galilee and were poor. The tomb was that of a middle class Jerusalem family.

A number of scholars have written their own blogs about the tomb. I recomend that the reader take a look at http://www.christilling.de/blog/2007/03/guest-post-by-richard-bauckham.html

which has a posting by Richard Bauckham. I also recommend that you ready Ben Witherington’s blog:

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/problems-multiple-for-jesus-tomb-theory.html

Darrel Bock is also keeping a running blog on the issues. http://dev.bible.org/bock/

There are many more blogs and web sites. Some of them scholarly as I cited above and some of just crack pot sites. There are may other issues to be dealt with as well. For instance, what does DNA evidence had to do with this? Yet, the producers claim that they use DNA to establish the relationship of the people buried in the tomb, even though there are no bones in the boxes. The more questions raised about the claims, the sillier the claims seem to be.

Condemnation has run from conservative to liberal scholarship. We all need to remember it is the Lenten fraud season and consider the purpose of the documentary. It is to make money, not to reveal truth. It will probably happen in the next Lenten season as well. We probably should spend more time thinking about Lent and why Jesus died on the cross.