From The Pastors Desk:  The Tomb of Jesus 

Well, it’s that time of year again; Easter. One of the two most important holidays of the year for Christians. However, Easter is also one of the two most important holidays of the year for non Christians, but for altogether different reasons. One of which is that it seems to have become a target time to attack the truths of the faith that so many hold dear.

This year is no different. Which brings us to the so called tomb of Jesus. Let me say first of all that I am not a trained theologian, or a trained scholar. But neither are the men behind the book and documentary concerning the tomb of Jesus. Consider James Cameron; he makes movies. He is an expert at taking fiction and making it seem real. Simcha Jacobovici is an investigative reporter. He is also the same reporter who claimed to find the burial box of James the brother of Jesus, which was later shown to be a false claim. Charles Pelligrino is the author of Titanic, the book upon which Cameron’s movie was based. By the way, Amos Kloner, the archeologist who originally unearthed this particular tomb, rejects the theory that this was the tomb of the Jesus of the bible.

Following are some thoughts about this latest assault on the resurrection that I believe are worth considering…

What were these boxes that were uncovered in 1980? (That’s right, they were found that long ago, not recently by the makers of the current book and documentary). Burial boxes, or ossuaries, if you prefer the technical term, were often used to house the bones of loved ones after their bodies had decayed.

These burial boxes contained no bones. That’s right, they were empty! Even if this was a burial box for Jesus, (which it is not) it is as empty as the real tomb he was originally buried in. As a matter of fact, the only thing retrieved from the boxes were scrapings of residue that are known as mitochondria DNA, which can only demonstrate the maternal non relationship of two people. No nuclear DNA was found which could be used to prove the family relationship of these people.

The names found on the boxes (Jesus, Joseph, Judas, and Mary) are among the most common Jewish names in the first century. It has been estimated that 1 in 5 people living in Israel at that time had one of these names. It has also been estimated that the name Mary was so common that every fourth person was a “Mary” at that time. Further, the name Jesus was so common that it is found on 98 other tombs and 21 other ossuaries from this same period of time.

There is no DNA evidence that the box containing the name Judas is the son of anyone in the tomb.

So what conclusions should we draw? First of all, the actual physical evidence does not support the theory that this tomb was the family tomb of the Jesus of the bible. Second, we should rest assured that the bible is correct in it’s account of the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. Third, we should rejoice at Easter and every day, for that matter, that the resurrection of Christ gives a confident expectation for this life and for the life to come. Fourth, we should continue to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it really is “the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes” as the Apostle Paul stated in Romans 1:16, as well as the only real hope for our nation and the world.

In Christ, Pastor Shawn