Post Edited (feelinahole) : 2/27/2007 6:23:16 PM (GMT-6)

My point is, whatever our answer is on (2), it shouldn't influence how honestly we're able to SCIENTIFICALLY answer (1).

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/28/2007 7:32:01 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/28/2007 11:01:53 AM (GMT-6)

Greg: 1) “Jesus” and “Joseph” are two of the most common names for males in first century Jewish culture, as are “Mary” and “Martha” for women.  The fact that we discovered a tomb with a Jesus, Joseph, Martha, and Mary associated together is about as surprising as finding a Jim Johnson, Mary Anderson, and Sue Olsen in a Minnesota graveyard.  It is statistically insignificant.  Hence the claim that these names refer to biblical characters is arbitrary.

Tom: If 2000 years from now we found a tomb in Liverpool with four caskets marked John, Paul, George, and Richard, would we blow off the claim that these were the remains of the Beattles because John, Paul, George, and Richard were common names? Really? What if we found “Ringo” instead of “Richard” (Richard Starkey is Ringo’s real name)? This, Jacobovici argues, is analogous to what we have with the ossuaries, where the Greek name for Mary Magdalene is equivalent to her proper name. Greg gets his facts a bit wrong. He mentions Martha. But there’s no Martha in the ossuaries.

Greg: 2) If Jesus’ family and friends buried him in this tomb, and knew he was the biological son of Joseph, they obviously would have known that the message they (and the other early followers of Jesus) were preaching was a lie.  But this requires we accept that the earliest Christians were preaching - and laying down their lives for – a known fabrication.  I can think of no historical hypothesis more implausible than this one.  Consider also that among these early disciples was James, the brother of Jesus.  What could possibly motivate a man to make up such stories about his own brother and then be willing to die for them (we know from Josephus, as well as the New Testament, that James was martyred in 62 AD).

Tom: Very good point. This is what I was talking about earlier. People HAVE to offer JUST AS ACADEMICALLY HONEST an explanation of these sorts of facts as they’re asking us to offer regarding the ossuaries. But of course they’ve offered no explanation and don’t think they even have to. They’re not being entirely honest.

Greg: 3) The theory that this tomb contains the remains of Jesus and his family requires not only that we accept that the earliest Christians were liars; we also have to believe they were profoundly stupid.  Why?  Because they left their fabricated story (for which they were willing to die) open to refutation by inscripting this “truth” on these ossuaries:  Jesus didn’t rise from the dead and he had an earthly father.  I see no evidence that the earliest disciples were close to being this unethical or idiotic.

Tom: More of point (2). Exactly.

Greg: 4) The documentary will apparently appeal to DNA evidence.  This really surprised me.  What could DNA possibly tell us as it concerns the identity of the people buried in this tomb?  It could at the most show that the people in the tomb are related to one another, but this would hardly be surprising since they’re all buried in the same family tomb.

Tom: The DNA tests were run on “Jesus” and “Mary” (Magdalene). The point was to establish the fact that these two were NOT maternally related. Given the fact that tombs were generally reserved for spouses and blood relatives, the DNA test suggests that these two were married.

Greg: 5) It was customary for first century Jewish males to be buried in their hometown or in the town of their forefathers.  Jesus’ ancestral line comes through Bethlehem and he grew up in Nazareth.  So why on earth would he and his family be buried in Jerusalem?  Also, we learn from a fourth century historian (Eusebius) that many people would visit the shrine of James, Jesus brother – and it wasn’t at Talpiot, where this family tomb was unearthed.  Yet, if this was the burial site of Jesus’ family, this is precisely where one would expect to find James buried.

Tom: Well, Greg answers it--it was only "customary" to do so. But Talpiot is not far from Bethelem. Bethlehem (Joseph's ancestral town) is only 6 miles or so south of Jerusalem. Talpiot is even closer to Bethlehem than Jerusalem. You can stand in Beit-Jala (a suburb of Bethlehem) today and see Talpiot from hill tops. So for all intents and purposes, the tomb IS in Joseph's ancestral town(ship), Bethlehem.

Does Eusebius say where the shrine of James was? That would be interesting.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/28/2007 2:19:37 PM (GMT-6)

QUOTE:

Though the Nicene Creed was not placed in its final form until 381 (not including later Western changes that carry no weight in the East) it nevertheless represents one of the earliest statements of faith of the Church. Indeed, I would argue (and I’m not alone in this) that Creedal statements (what St. Irenaeus would call the hypothesis of Scripture) predate the Scriptures themselves. Had not such hypostheses existed, Scripture could not have been written in a manner that agreed with itself.

We can find early evidences of such stated hypotheses in places such as St. Paul’s 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (3-5).

Here St. Paul uses the very specific language of Tradition. “I delivered,” (literally “I traditioned”) “what I received” (what had been traditioned to him). What follows is clearly some echo of the Baptismal Creeds that were part of the Church’s life from its beginning. These statements of the faith represented the Apostolic hypothesis, the summary of the faith, the scaffolding on which all Christian thought would be erected.

In the Nicene Creed we have a very short summary of the ministry of Christ. . .

 

NOTE:   "...Creedal statements. . .predate the Scriptures themselves...."

Post Edited (Starkman) : 3/12/2007 8:35:26 AM (GMT-5)

Interesting blogs responding to Jacobovici:

Ben Witherington: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/

Gary Habermas: http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/The_Lost_Tomb_of_Jesus/losttombofjesus_response.htm

Chris Rosenbrough: http://www.extremetheology.com/2007/02/archeological_i.html

For all the hype, I think this isuse is history. I liked Jacobovici's work on the Exodus. That was interesting. But his work on the ossuraries isn't even interesting. I don't know that I'll take his work seriously again.

Tom

Caretaker Discovers James Cameron's Grave

A cemetery caretaker in Montpelier, Vermont, has uncovered "compelling evidence" that movie director James Cameron died in 1837. William Frostmore said he was clearing old leaves from among the tombstones at the First Presbyterian Cemetery when he came across a weathered marker that caught his eye.

"I'm a big movie buff," Frostmore said. "I love 'The Terminator' movies. So I noticed the name 'James Cameron' on that stone right away. I didn't think anything of it, until I went home to do a little research."

Frostmore said when he looked up Cameron's entry on Wikipedia, he was shocked to find that Cameron's parents were named Phillip and Shirley -- just like the man buried in the cemetery in 1837.

Frostmore called his buddy, middle school math teacher Mark Yancey, to run some calculations. "Mark told me he figures the chances of that gravestone having the same name as James Cameron's family are about 'a million to one.' That's just what he told me -- 'a million to one,' he said."

Frostmore said he's not going public with the revelation of Cameron's death to make money, or to destroy people's faith in the movie business. "Regardless of whether James Cameron really contributed to great movies like 'Rambo: First Blood Part II,' or 'The Abyss,' the fact is that people are free to draw meaning from those films in their own personal way.

Related links: Between Two Worlds, Get Religion, Cranach

Update: A Technorati search revealed that Christianity Today has been hornswoggled into believing that it interviewed James Cameron -- the same James Cameron who has been conclusively proven to have died in 1837.

http://hornswoggled.blogspot.com/2007/03/caretaker-discovers-james-camerons.html