The Lost Tomb Of Jesus; What Are We Asked To Believe?

James Cameron’s latest project “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” has generated a great deal of criticism already and it hasn’t even aired yet. The criticism has come primarily from religious scholars who are being described in the media as “skeptics”. That is what I have found most amusing as I have watched reports on television and read them online. The people who question the validity of the theory that this Discovery Channel documentary proposes are being called skeptics. So I have to ask, just what are we being asked to believe about Jesus and is “skeptic” a misnomer in this case?

This documentary proposes that the tomb uncovered near Jerusalem could be the resting place of the biblical Jesus and his family. The tomb contained ossuaries, stone boxes, which held the bones of several people. Inscriptions on the ossuaries included names such as “Jesus, son of Joseph”, “Mary”, “Mariamene”, the name of Mary Magdalene in early Christian texts, “Matthew”, “Yose”, a name referred to in the Gospel of Mark as the brother of Jesus and even “Judah, son of Jesus”. While these names were common in Jerusalem at that time, the fact that they were all found in the same family tomb is remarkable. A University of Toronto mathematician, Andrey Feuerverger, was given the data and, given the commonality of the names, calculated that the odds of this tomb belonging to a family other than the biblical Jesus, but with identical names, are one in 600. DNA tests showed that the woman named Mariamene was not a blood relative and therefore likely included in the family by marriage.

So what are we being asked to consider here? That maybe Jesus was the son of a couple named Mary and Joseph; that, like other men, he married a woman; that, like other men, he had a son; that, like other men, he died and that, like other men, he remained buried these last two thousand years. There is nothing fantastic in this theory. There are no miracles here. We are not asked to believe that anything supernatural or even unusual happened. There is this physical evidence presented and, though not conclusive, it is certainly compelling. But people who question this theory are being called skeptics?

What would these alleged “skeptics” have us believe? They assert that this could not be the tomb of Jesus and his family because Jesus was the son of God, born of a virgin; that he never married or had children; that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and will come back to earth to rule again. Now this is not based on any physical evidence, but rather on the assembled writings of early Christians, decades and even hundreds of years, after the death of Jesus. There are no original manuscripts of these writings. They contradict each other. They are not supported by secular sources.

It has been said that incredible claims require incredible evidence. I haven’t seen Cameron’s documentary yet, but I have read a great deal about it on the Discovery Channel website. I am not saying I am convinced that he has found the tomb of the biblical Jesus. But his claim is only that this tomb could be the resting place of Jesus and his family. He proposes nothing extraordinary; just that a family with names exactly like the biblical Jesus’ family was buried together in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, and given the odds, it could be the same family. He offers physical evidence commensurate with this claim. On the other hand, Christians claim that there is no body of Jesus to be found because he is God and he rose from the dead. THAT is an extraordinary claim. Where is the evidence commensurate with that claim? Is it appropriate to call someone who prefers that notion a skeptic? Let’s call them critics. They obviously don’t have a skeptical bone in their bodies.