"The Lost Tomb of Jesus"

Exactly the Kind of Deceptive Nonsense Christians Should Expect

Unless you live somewhere not able to receive TV, Radio, or internet communications, chances are good that you have heard about the upcoming Discovery Channel Documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." The film is the joint effort of James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici to prove that a 2000 year old family tomb found outside of Jerusalem in 1980 is in fact the burial tomb of Jesus, Mary, Matthew, and Mary Magdalene and "Jesus' son" Judah. As scholars have pointed out, the names on the empty Ossuaries (bone boxes) found in the tomb are the most common names of the time, and it is rather like finding a coffin labeled "Andrew Son of Victor" in Florida and assuming that it was Pastor Andy Webb's coffin. Actually, it is less likely in that Andrew and Victor are actually far less statistically common names today than Joshua (or Yeshua) and Joseph were in first century Israel. Additionally, Jacobovici is appealing to a 14^th century(!) Gnostic gospel called “The Gospel of Phillip” to make the claim that the box labeled Mariamne is actually the ossuary of Mary Magdalene. The problem is that even the blatantly fabricated Gospel of Phillip doesn’t say that but calls Mariamne the sister of Phillip and Martha and makes ridiculous claims of her such as this one that when she was persecuted by a proconsul - “But Mariamne on being stripped became like an ark of glass full of light and fire and every one ran away.” Meanwhile, the much heralded DNA proves absolutely nothing other than that the prior inhabitants of the tomb were probably Jews and probably related, which is not much of a stretch considering it is an ancient family tomb outside of the capital city of Jerusalem! As Israel’s top archaeologist described it: “It's a beautiful story but without any proof whatsoever." (My only disagreement would be as to whether the story is rightly described as beautiful.)

However, given the hype that this will receive especially in the media, and amongst the eager not to believe community (prior to becoming a Christian, this was the kind of stuff my unbelieving heart thrived on) I have decided to preach this Sunday morning on "Still Risen - A Response to 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus' " from Matthew 28:1-15. I will being going over why this kind of assertion is nothing new (rumors like this have been circulated literally since the first century), the reasons why they are entirely baseless, and ultimately the reason why they keep getting recycled over and over again. If you have friends who are wondering about this, or worse yet, who are inclined to believe it, you might want to invite them to come.