Tomb of Jesus Found

Posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm

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It happens every easter. Some theory about how Jesus’ resurrection never happened and Christianity is a fraud. You can tell Easter is coming by the claims that come out. By now you have probably heard the news that a tomb has been found that has buried people by the name of Jesus, Mary, etc. At the beginning, let me just say that these names are very common. In Ft. Lauderdale right now there is an exhibit with ossuaries from the first century that have the names “Jesus son of Joseph” as well as several other names of Jesus. There are nearly twenty people named Jesus in Josephus alone! Simply put this is just another attack by those who would deny the evidence that has stood for two-thousand years. Don’t worry, we won’t be canceling Easter break. I’ll be adding more to this as details come up, but for now here are a few other blogs by other Jesus scholars that are helpful.

I taped a response to the Jesus tomb today (Wednesday July 28th) and narrowed my criticisms down to five:

1. There is not a hint of evidence that this is a family tomb, thus the entire argument fails at the start.

2. The DNA proves nothing. It is smoke and mirrors, leave this to David Blane.

3. If this is a family tomb, why is it is Jerusalem and not Galilee where the family of Jesus lived?

4. Why would a group of people who were spending their time spreading news about the resurrection save the body? If they are attempting a fraud, better to destroy it, if not, how did it get into the family plot?

5. The strongest argument of all is that the names are just too common. Jesus is the 6th most common name among males and Mary is the most common name among females. That really puts an end to all of this nonsense.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/mayweb-only/120-32.0.html Darrell Bock’s Response. Dr. Bock has seen the special and looked at the evidence

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/jesus-tomb-titanic-talpiot-tomb-theory.html Ben Witherington’s Response

http://www.carm.org/evidence/Jesus_tomb.htm#2 A very nice article that goes beyond just the tomb.

http://www.jesuscreed.org Scot McKnight’s response which is growing as more information becomes available.

Here is a link to a paper by my friend and scholar Dr. Michal Heiser dealing with this evidence. http://www.michaelsheiser.com/M%20Heiser%20Ossuary.pdf You will notice that the paper was written in 2003. This find is at least a dozen years old. Why hasn’t it been written about? There is simply nothing to tell.

A couple of blogs by Duke’s Mark Goodacre http://ntgateway.com/weblog/labels/Talpiot%20tomb.html

If you have anything good blogs or responses to add, please post it in a response.