NO BONES ABOUT IT             by Carl McMurray

 

Every year it seems we are treated to a major new slam against our Lord, each more outrageous and blasphemous than the last one. If it’s not the Jesus Seminar telling us what Jesus really said or didn’t say in scripture, it’s a “new” film featuring Jesus as a homosexual, a scheming hypocrite, or a lover/husband to Mary Magdalene leaving an heir behind. Oooohh, the critics always rave.

 

This year the attack came under the guise of scholarship as the Discovery Channel claims to have found the bones of Jesus, with the bones of his family, and His probable wife Mary, and son. They have teamed up with a producer, best known for his work on the film, The Titanic, and an Israeli director who made a 2003  Discovery Channel film about the finding of the James Ossuary, for a new film and book deal. Israeli authorities have pronounced the James Ossuary a forgery, by the way, and are presently prosecuting the owner.

 

Why should Christians not be bothered with such moronic wastes of film & paper? 

 

Lk. 24:3, and Acts 1:9 indicate that Jesus took His bones with Him when He was resurrected and when He ascended. If the Discovery Channel is right then the Bible is a fraud, the resurrection is a lie, and the apostles were stupid or insane.

 

William G. Deaver, considered the dean of biblical archaeology in the U.S.  says, “I’m not a Christian. I’m not a believer. I don’t have a dog in this fight. I just think it’s a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated.”

 

Dever goes on to say that all of the names on all of the boxes are common names. “I’ve known about these ossuaries for many years and so have many other archaeologists, and none of us thought it was much of a story.” “It’s a publicity stunt...”

 

Israeli scholars have told the Jerusalem Post that the documentary is “nonsense,” and the Washington Post, it is “...intellectually and scientifically dishonest.”

 

In Jesus’  time wealthy families did indeed use these ossuaries to store bones taken from carved tombs. But someone like Jesus would have buried in an ordinary grave, in Nazareth, not Jerusalem. 

 

The Bible warns us to “buy the truth and sell it not.” Don’t be alarmed

by the foolish stories that men will invent with demonic wisdom to get

rich and challenge the authority of our Lord. Stand on the truth and do

not give way.