OK,that's it! I call a Catholic jihad.Darn. I never expected The Catholic Jihad.
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.
OK,that's it! I call a Catholic jihad.I'd disagree with you on that one, but the point of it is that we both disagree with the story as it is preposterous and doesn't square with either of our sets of beliefs.
Other than that, I decline to involve myself in religious p*ssing matches.
Right, unless you believe the new testament isn't pushing their own agenda.
I once, as a joke, explained to someone who didn't know any better but asked me anyway, what the "Feast of the Assumption" was as follows: Mary disappeared from Earth. Everyone assumed she'd went to Heaven.
Hey, the proof is the 120+ year-old stained glass from somewhere in Western Europe in my childhood parish. (I think it was Dutch.)
TS
I'm not a believer, but I'm willing to bet there was a person named Jesus who had relatives and that all were buried somewhere.
As a lover of history and archeological digs that confirm written tales of the past, whether Greek, Latin, or Hebrew--or Sanskrit for that matter, I love to these types of finds.
I'd like to recommend a book I read recently called "The Jesus Dynasty" by a Biblical scholar and archeologist that pulls together a lot of the recorded history of Jesus in the various books of the Bible and has some pretty good theories on his birth, his brothers, several possible tombs and ossuaries and the operation of the Church after the crucifixion. For a non-believer to recommend it should tell you a lot.
Go to this url for some really interesting excerpts.
http://www.jesusdynasty.com/Exerpts-from-James-Tabors-Jesus-Dynasty.html
And maybe Moses ...
"The human remains inside were destroyed before any DNA testing could be carried out."
Sure.
You know what? I'm not trying to dump my beliefs on anyone. I was justing giving information.
My merely being Catholic offends you?
sheesh
Can you provide any scriptural reference?
THE PLOT THICKENS ...
The Middle East Blog, TIME
February 23, 2007 6:55
Jesus: Tales from the Crypt
Posted by Tim McGirk | Comments (54) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This
Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.
In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.
No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.
Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.
There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.
But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.
Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,"King Kong", whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision, and Israel's Channel 8, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned.
--Tim McGirk/Jerusalem
http://time-blog.com/middle_east/
Via Drudge
If something is on Drudge I go to Free Republic because the links work better and the commentary is great.
These things should be discussed and refuted.
Here we go. I do not care what title you carry on you, If the Blood of Jesus is not applied to your life and you are walking daily with him. NO NAME WILL GET YOU THERE
Why is how I choose to worship anyone's business but my own? I responded to a misstatement by a non-Catholic about a Catholic belief and now I'm being proseltyzed?
Gimme a break.
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