Posted on 02/24/2007 9:14:06 AM PST by aculeus
In a scene worthy of a Dan Brown novel, archaeologists a quarter of a century ago unearthed a burial chamber near Jerusalem.
Inside they found ossuaries, or boxes of bones, marked with the names of Jesus, Joseph and Mary.
Then one of the ossuaries went missing. The human remains inside were destroyed before any DNA testing could be carried out.
While Middle East academics doubt that the relics belong to the Holy Family, the issue is about to be exposed to a blaze of publicity with the publication next week of a book.
Entitled The Jesus Tomb and co-written by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, the book promises the inside story of "what may very well be the greatest archaeological find of all time".
Some of the ossuaries will be at the book launch in New York, released by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The story began in March 1980 when Yosef Gat, an archaeologist employed by the IAA, surveyed a burial chamber on the south-eastern approaches of Jerusalem.
The area was being developed into the latest suburb of the city, East Talpiot, and bulldozers had uncovered an archaeological site.
Mr Gat found a standard-looking Jewish tomb dating from the era of King Herod, the Jewish king known for his ambitious building works and for his murder of infants at the time of the birth of Jesus.
After crawling into the necropolis Mr Gat found the main chamber had been silted up with soil and debris, with six "kokhim", coffin shaped spaces leading off the main chamber where human remains were housed.
According to Jewish rites, bodies would be left for a year or so to decompose in the "kokhim" before relatives came back to gather the bones and store them in ossuaries.
Mr Gat found 10 ossuaries bearing inscriptions. Some were in ancient Greek and some were in Hebrew.
One inscription said "Jesus, son of Joseph", another said "Mara", a common form of Mary, and another said "Yose", a common form of Joseph.
The authors were unavailable for comment yesterday but it is understood they base their claim that the burial chamber contained the remains of the Holy Family on their own study carried out inside the structure.
The chamber has been closed for years because a building was constructed on top of it but the authors got permission to break through an apartment block floor.
They claim to have found human material on which they performed DNA testing in a New York laboratory.
"Tests prove the names are genetically of the same family and statistically, there is a one in 10 million chance this is a family other than the Holy Family," the pre-publication publicity for the book said.
However, according to strict Christian teaching, Jesus ascended to heaven, so there would be no bones left behind.
Mr Gat died several years ago. His boss, Prof Amos Kloner said that while the names together had "a certain power" they are standard.
"At least three other ossuaries have been found inscribed with the name Jesus and countless others with Joseph and Mary," he said.
The 10 ossuaries were taken initially to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Nine were catalogued and stored but the tenth was left outside in a courtyard.
That ossuary has subsequently gone missing.
The story went cold until two accounts of the discovery were published by Israeli academics in the mid 1990s. Prof Kloner wrote the second one in the IAA's in-house magazine Atiquot in 1996.
It sparked publicity, most notably a BBC programme shown that Easter produced by Ray Bruce called The Body In Question. However, Prof Kloner said there was no way the tomb housed the Holy Family.
"It is just not possible that a family who came from Galilee, as the New Testament tells us of Joseph and Mary, would be buried over several generations in Jerusalem."
However, in this Dan Brown era, we can't help wondering.
Even if the Christ left behind remains it doesn't mean the resurrection story isn't true, but it sure would put a gaping hole in the side of the whole "where's the body?" story.
I just learned about first, second, third class relics last night. A First Class Relic of Jesus Christ himself. I'd pay a buck to see that.
??? "uniform writings of the church fathers"? What are those?
St. John Damascene is one of the more reputable sources discussing the Assumption, and he's clear that he's quoting an earlier account. St. Augustine excludes the Virgin from his discussion of original sin.
Didn't they make it into your "uniform writings"?
You're thinking Greek.. The Romans had a "J"...
Human beings are vulnerable to abusing everything they come into contact with. Because there are some groups on the fringe that have raised Mary to inappropriate levels of veneration, doesn't mean that veneration of Mary is wrong. The knee-jerk reaction of certain Protestant groups has been to throw the baby out with the bathwater regarding anything to do with Mary. I mean, if Elijah and Enoch could be assumed into heaven, certainly the Mother of Christ is no less holy than they. And I don't think anyone would deny that it's within Christ's power to preserve whomever He wants from original sin - most especially the woman from whom He would receive His flesh.
Such a momentous event was *mentioned in scripture*. Mary was just a jar like the rest of us, and yes God used here to store treasure prayers like the Hail Mary probably make her weep.
My answer to this is something I saw on Southpark or Simpsons or something one time where some character winds up in heaven and hears like a game show announcer announce: "Mormon. The Correct Answer was Mormon."
That's an interesting twist. Scripture now contains everything necessary for doctrine as well as salvation? How do you support that statement? What about the Trinity? The hypostatic union?
Many of those we call church fathers were under the influence of the great explosion of heresy in various regions, Egypt being notorious for it. So their failure to maintain a strict and uniform doctrine indicated their fallibilities, not that of scripture.
Where does Christ say in Scripture that he is equally God and man? If you're saying they "failed to maintain a strict and uniform doctrine", and if Scripture "contains all that is necessary for doctrine", where is that doctrine spelled out in Scripture, and how could it be considered doctrine before it was defined?
What is ludicrous is that the Apocrypha, upon which these notions of Mary's sinlessness and ascension, were rejected from the canon of scripture (Council of Hippo) and were only included in the thirteenth century (Council of Trent).
You're referring not to the "Apocrypha", but "Apocryphal" books. In either case, you're wrong. "Apocryphal" books may not have been canonical, but that doesn't mean they contained a totality of error. e.g., if I taught a history class and remarked that the movie "JFK" was fiction, does that mean Kennedy wasn't shot in Dallas? Since the apocryphal Gospels assert the Jesus rose from the dead, does that mean he didn't?
Where does it say this in Scripture?
and yes God used here to store treasure
To store treasure? Scripture doesn't say that.
the Hail Mary probably make her weep.
And how is this a Scriptural belief?
I dopn't see what's unconservative about that. It's a convention, we worship on Sunday for the reason you stated. We all do it, no need for an innovation. Yet some people have an innate need to innovate "just because."
I merely mentioned that fact so that I wouldn't be labeled as a "liberal" Christian. That's all. :)
Nope, ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUXY(igraeca)zeta.
The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which belongs however to the fourth or fifth century. It is also found in the book De Transitu Virginis, falsely ascribed to St. Melito of Sardis, and in a spurious letter attributed to St. Denis the Areopagite. If we consult genuine writings in the East, it is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete, St. John Damascene, St. Modestus of Jerusalem and others. In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first. The sermons of St. Jerome and St. Augustine for this feast, however, are spurious. St. John of Damascus (P. G., I, 96) thus formulates the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem:Despite many problems with this as a historical account, it would seem probably that Juvenal refused to surrender Mary's body or it had been stolen or removed at some point. He merely gave this excuse to the emperor. He was wise to do so. Notice that he gave no teaching of doctrine on the matter, merely saying that the "Apostles concluded" she had ascended. And this then becomes the basis for superstition to arise among those vying to elevate Mary ever higher to a status of demi-goddess. Notice how, in the West, some person or persons had to concoct spurious writings to attribute to Jerome and Augustine in order to support the imposition of this myth upon the churches.
St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.Today, the belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the West; according to Benedict XIV (De Festis B.V.M., I, viii, 18) it is a probable opinion, which to deny were impious and blasphemous.
Tolkien was quite consciously and militantly Catholic as were many of his close friends and acdemic colleagues except for C. S. Lewis.
Baldrick: Moving on to relics, we've got shrouds, from Turin; er, wine from the wedding at Cana; splinters from the cross [gets a sliver in his finger from one of the splinters]; er, and, of course, there's stuff made by Jesus in his days in the carpentry shoppe: got pipe racks, coffee tables, coatstands, bookends, crucifixes, a nice cheeseboard, fruit bowls, waterpoof sandals... (picks up a piece of wood that's partly carved) Oh, I haven't finished that one yet.Percy: But this is disgraceful, My Lord! All of these are obviously fake!
Edmund: Hah, yes!
Percy: But, but how will people be able to tell the difference between these and the real relics?
Edmund: Well, they won't! That's the point!
Percy: Well, you won't be able to fool everyone. Look (he takes a red cloth from his sleeve): I have here a true relic.
Edmund: What is it?
Percy: (unwraps the cloth) It is a bone from the finger of Our Lord. It cost me 31 pieces of silver.
Edmund: Good lord. Is it real?
Percy: It is, My Lord. Baldrick, you stand amazed.
Baldrick: I am -- I thought they only came in boxes of ten. [he opens a box of finger bones]
Percy: What?!
Baldrick: Yeah, yeah -- fingers are really big at the moment. Mind you, for a really quick sale, you can't beat a nose. For instance, the Sacred Appedage Compendium Party Pack: you get Jesus' nose, St. Peter's nose, St. Francis' nose, and [picks up a pair of false breasts] er, no -- they're Joan of Arc's.
Percy: [getting increasingly agitated as Baldrick shows all these "relics"] That little bastard verger! I'll show him! [exits into hallway] I'll show him!
and my theory is that C.S. Lewis is a Roman Catholic now. :-)
I know Catholics believe this, but I was curious as to where this is referenced to?
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