Who knew it would take James Cameron to convince me that Jesus was a fraud! For those of you who haven't heard yet (and I guarantee you will) James Cameron, director of "Titanic", "Aliens", "Terminator 2", and "True Lies", has come out with a documentary about how he claims to have found the tomb of Jesus and his family. To be truthful, he doesn't claim to have found the tomb. It was actually discovered around 1980, but immediately dismissed as being a possible connection with Jesus and his family. But according to Cameron and his investigative partner, the name of Mary Magdalene was not completely understood by the original archeologists, and we now understand that the name on her ossuary is hers.
This is no doubt going to make it onto Time and Newsweek. There will be a 20/20 or Dateline on it. I'm not going to take the time to fully explain it, you can look at the links at the bottom if you want. I want to approach it from another angle. The said thing is that many people will have sincere doubts over this. But how do we fight this doubt? Doubt is fought with the assurance of our salvation. For the past few months we've been going through I John and we have discovered how over and over again John is offering points for assurance of our salvation. He reminds the believer that we can have confidence in our faith when our sin is dealt with and forgiven.
Is it any surprise that people who suffer from severe doubts also struggle with sin? Let this be a reminder that unless we are dealing with our sin, there will be an absence of confidence. And an absence of confidence leads to an inability to fight temtation and abhor sin. It is a cruel road that must be avoided.
"News Story"
"Michael Spencer"
"James White"
"Scholars Disagree"
UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!
Al Mohler will be on Larry King tonight at 9 eastern. He'll be on with James Cameron, executive producer, Simcha Jacobovici, director, and James Tabor, chair of religious studies at UNC Charlotte. They will follow an interview with First Lady Laura Bush.
ANOTHER UPDATE!!! ANOTHER UPDATE!!! ANOTHER UPDATE!!!
Apparently Mohler cleaned house last night. I haven't had time to "read the transcript" , but you can take a look at it.
Here's another reaction by "Ben Witherington."
Also, check out "Challies" for his comments.
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3 comments:
I haven't read the press releases, but I do know that LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of 1st Century ossuaries have been found in Jerusalem with the names "Jesus" and "Mary" on them - why would they decide these PARTICULAR ossuaries must relate to Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene, and not any of the others? "Jesus" was as common a name as "John" is now, as was "Mary"!
Also, are they aware that tombs belonged to entire extended families? Sit down and write out the names of all your immediate family, then all your aunts and uncles, then all your cousins, and your grandparents... statistically, that's a lot of names! It would probably be more amazing to see which tombs DIDN'T have any family members named "Jesus" or "Mary"!
And why the connection to Mary Magdalene? How was she different from any other woman that followed Jesus [and there were plenty of them!]?
Vain imaginations.
1. they think Mary Magdalene was there because of the name "Miriama" I believe. What they said was that the people around the original discovery didn't know that that was Mary's real name.
2. I think I heard that 1 in 4 women's name was Mary
3. Also, from what I understand, the economic/social level of Jesus' family would not have been at a poitn where they could have afforded this.
You're right! Those tombs belonged to wealthy families. This is just downright silly. The Jerusalem Post had a good article on it. (not that anyone who watches the Discovery Channel is likely to read it) The Israeli archaeologist who found the tomb, Amos Kloner, intensified his initial criticism of Cameron's assertion, lambasting the documentary as "absolute nonsense".
[Kloner had previously dismissed the documentary's claims as "impossible" and "nonsense".]
Israeli archaeologists are all pretty dismissive about it. Danny Bahat, an Israeli archaeologist, said that "like The Da Vinci Code, the new documentary was pure fiction that took two correct facts and mixed them with gibberish..."
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