For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Paul the Apostle
Has Christianity been disproven? Falsified? Debunked?
The foundational event in Christianity is the resurrection of Christ from the dead. If it didn't happen, then even Paul the Apostle himself says Christians should be pitied because we have based our entire hope on a lie ... and millions (perhaps billions) through out all of history have been duped. No resurrection, no forgiveness of sins.
So ... if someone claims to have dug up the bones of Jesus, we ought to take that claim seriously since it is directed at the historical truth claim upon which everything rests.
I am following the bloggers who are following this story and will tune into the Discovery channel to hear the evidence and evaluate the case.
My blogging channel is dialed into Stand To Reason, Cadre and The Point for developments.
After 2,000 years of trying, someone apparently thinks they have done it. Will this turn out to be another howler like the Da Vinci Code? We'll wait and see ... I will post updates and analysis later in the week.
As a "forensic guy" who spends time teaching crime scene recovery and analysis, I am quite skeptical about the "DNA evidence." Even if DNA is recovered from bone (hard), the bone is old (a lot harder) and how can we use the profile to answer any significant questions?
OK, so if the people in the grave share some DNA we can say that they were part of a family, even that they were the kids of the "parents" in the grave. None of this says "Hey, Jesus left behind some of his DNA." Oh wait, didn't one website just report that there were no bones in the "Jesus" burial box.
Maybe it's the skeptical cop in me, but all of this seems a little too neat and tidy. I especially am getting a kick out of the press conference's location being "kept secret."
In crime scene reconstruction we often say (CSI, CSI:Miami, and CSI:New York notwithstanding) that the simplest explanation in the best explanation. The Passover Plot and such ilk have always seemed so contrived. Frank Morris' Who Moved The Stone pretty much did it for me!
Later.
Posted by: BWB | February 26, 2007 at 12:09
Mr. D,
James White also has some good stuff on it at www.aomin.org - just FYI.
Posted by: Aaron Snell | February 26, 2007 at 14:20
Darrell Bock offers a good critique of the film on his blog.
Another good review of the film can be found on Ben Witherington's blog
Posted by: dopderbeck | February 26, 2007 at 15:44
If there were reason to believe this Jesus was the same Jesus of the Bible, it would be something to take seriously. However, this Jesus had fathered a son (one of the caskets is marked as son of Jesus). So we know it's not the Jesus of the Bible. He didn't marry and didn't father children. So this is not only hype, it's somewhat dishonest type. The sad thing is that, despite that we already know conclusively it wasn't Jesus of Nazareth from the presence of a son, it will still rattle people of a certain type.
Posted by: Anne | March 01, 2007 at 08:14