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By Andrew Heard

Last week we were presented with the claim that the actual bones of Jesus have been found and are now in our possession.

If this is the case then this is an enormously significant archaeological discovery. It is perhaps the most significant find of all time. It would mean the whole Christian faith completely crumbles or at best becomes nothing more than the basis of a program of personal morality that may or may not be adopted as good to live by. But as the apostle Paul says – if Christ has not been raised then we are still in our sins and to be pitied more than all men because we have believed a lie (1 Cor 15).

Is this discovery truly what it claims to be? In answer consider the two sides of this case.

On the one side is a set of very slim circumstantial evidences. On the other is a very impressive set of eye witness accounts, an extensive set of ancient non-Christian testimonies which confirm the eye witness accounts, the existence of the early church, the experience of the early Christians and the perfect integration of all these pieces of evidence into a seamless whole.

Consider the slim circumstantial evidence first.

In 1980 an emergency evacuation of an ancient tomb discovered by engineers unearthed a number of burial boxes (ossuaries). A number of the boxes had these inscriptions “Jesus, son of Joseph”; “Maria”; “Mariamene”; “Matthew”; “Judas, son of Jesus”.

At the time the Jewish archaeologists made nothing of it and simply stored them away with the many, many other burial boxes. They concluded that it was a burial chamber probably used by three or four generations of Jews from the beginning of the Common Era.

The boxes would’ve lain untouched in the storage facility except that the man famous for presenting to the world the supposed bones of Jesus’ brother (it seems a forgery) found them while doing research for a documentary and drew what he says were the obvious lines between the dots.

However, consider the following evidence.

The tomb was tampered with in ancient times and vandalized. Every fourth woman in the ancient world had the name Mary (remember there were three Mary’s mentioned in the gospels alone) and Jesus was as common as John is today (perhaps more so). In fact, we have a letter dating from the first century written by someone named Jesus, addressed to someone else named Jesus and witnessed by a third party named Jesus.

The man who wrote the official report when the boxes were first found and stored states that, “The names on the ossuaries are very common names or derivatives of names.” The echo of the names of the members of Jesus’ family, he says, “is just a coincidence.” Hence the archeologists at the time stored the boxes convinced they held little significance.

Add to this the enormous historical problems that arise as this possibility is contemplated. If Jesus’ life didn’t end in the way the Gospels’ state but rather he married and had children why would he and his family be buried in Jerusalem when he actually lived in northern Galilee? How could he and or his family afford such a burial spot? If it is acknowledged that he was buried there because that was the site of his crucifixion, why was his child also buried there instead of back in Nazareth? And how did he have a child when there is not a scrap of historical evidence he was even married let alone had a child following along behind throughout his wanderings etc.?

Consider the evidence on the other side.

An impressive set of eye-witness accounts – bound together in our Bible are the earliest known records of the life of Jesus. They were included in our Bible precisely because they were early and known to be written by those that saw and heard Jesus and so were best placed to give testimony about him. Not only do these records bear the undeniable stamp of unpretentious historical remembrances, they all unambiguously assert that the Jesus of history was crucified under Pontius Pilate around the age of 30 (no mention of marriage or a child).

They also are all united in their claim that he then rose bodily from the grave three days later and was seen by many people. These comments are entirely unadorned with the marks of fabrication. They are simple and plain as befits a straight forward historical account.

Further eye-witness testimony is added by the Apostle Paul who asserts that this conviction was proclaimed loudly and boldly by those first witnesses in the city of Jerusalem itself – within metres of his empty tomb.

History confirms much of this. We have an extensive collection of writings by non-Christian authors that not only confirm the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion but also confirm that the early Christians claim he rose again bodily.

All of this is significant. For this modern discovery to be true it would leave us with only two possible conclusions about all this evidence. Either those early eye-witnesses lied, or they were deceived. The ‘lie’ conclusion flies in the face of the character of not only the writings of those men but the extra-ordinary lives they lived in sacrificing all to declare the resurrection of Jesus. The deceived conclusion flies in the face of the historical fact that the enemies of the Christian faith failed to bring forward the real body of Jesus. If Jesus was all along buried in a tomb in Jerusalem why didn’t anyone point it out to those who kept preaching he was risen – in the very city his body was apparently lying? And if they did bring out the body, how did the claim that he had risen take such a hold among the people of the very city his body was apparently lying in?

Further evidence of the fact of Jesus’ early death and resurrection is the establishment of the church. Something changed Jesus’ followers from cowards who were afraid of servant girls to a group of men who courageously took the news of Jesus victory over death to all the world and in very short order convinced thousands of people (in Jerusalem and surrounding areas) that Jesus was bodily raised from the grave. The change was enormous, so the thing that worked this change must itself have been enormous – a resurrection.
Added to this is the spiritual experience of these early followers. This kind of evidence may not be admissible in a court of law but it is compelling nonetheless.

But finally, it is powerful that all these pieces of evidence explain perfectly the circumstances surrounding Jesus, his life and times and all that followed. They dovetail so well together it only makes sense if it is the simple truth.

By contrast the possibility his body might have lain in a tomb in Jerusalem until 1980 creates a minefield of historical oddities and difficulties – as mentioned above.

In the end it is a matter of the trustworthiness of the eyewitness accounts – men who were there – versus very slim circumstantial evidence.

Andrew

4th March 2007

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