Tomb of Jesus Discovered?

[Cerin]

Thank you, Prim. I wasn't meaning to imply that you didn't see the resurrection as essential. I just wanted to provide the New Testament perspective for those who might not be aware of it.

I agree that there is a tremendously wide range of belief sets currently contained under the designation 'Christian' -- so much so that the appellation is practically meaningless in and of itself, absent clarification.

[Pearly Di]

Very interesting article. Could I please ask a couple of earnest but very naive questions?

They're not naive.

First - I understand the Gospel describes Jesus rising from his tomb on the third day, in his physical body. So according to Christian doctrine (is that the right word?) his body would not be in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Did Jesus then ascend to Heaven, still in his physical body?

Yup, that's what Christian doctrine says, in a nutshell.

Second - that bit in the article about Jesus's being a non-Judean family. Does this mean they were not Jewish? Perhaps converted to Judaism a couple generation back? I thought Jesus was believed to be the descendant of King David?

I confess to only having skimmed the article but couldn't see anything about Jesus's family being non-Jewish. Yes, King David is believed to be the ancestor of Jesus ... through the bloodline of Joseph, in the geneaology in Matthew 1. The genealogy also mentions some pretty interesting women including Bathsheba, whom King David had an affair with and had his son Solomon by, and Ruth, the only non-Jewish ancestor of Jesus.

I can't remember what the differences between the genealogy in Matthew and the one in Luke are supposed to signify. Sorry.

[Frelga]

First - I understand the Gospel describes Jesus rising from his tomb on the third day, in his physical body. So according to Christian doctrine (is that the right word?) his body would not be in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Did Jesus then ascend to Heaven, still in his physical body?

Yup, that's what Christian doctrine says, in a nutshell.

Thanks, Pearly. Would you mind if I ask, where did Jesus's body ascend to, physically? I'm sorry to sound like a three-year-old, I just really got to wondering.

Cerin, I follow what you said about the importance of resurrection to Christians, and I certainly appreciate the perspective you provided. Again, I'm curious - if the Jesus did arise from the dead on the third day, is what happened to his body after that still as crucial?

I hope I'm not upsetting my Christian friends here, it is certainly not my intention.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Frelga, when we teach our drum classes, we always tell the students that they should always ask questions, not only because the only stupid question is one that is not asked, but also because chances are someone else in the class has the same question but is afraid to ask it.

That is my roundabout way of saying that I'm interested in the answers to your questions, too.

[Primula Baggins]

Frelga, your questions are very welcome.

The traditional understanding is that there was no body, because Jesus ascended into Heaven. Here's the part of the Nicene Creed, the older and more important of the two used in my own church (and by many other denominations as well), that refers to Jesus:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

So, according to this, there was no body left on Earth.

[Frelga]

Frelga, when we teach our drum classes, we always tell the students that they should always ask questions, not only because the only stupid question is one that is not asked, but also because chances are someone else in the class has the same question but is afraid to ask it.

Yes, V, and in one of my programming classes, a teacher said that there are no stupid questions. Only stupid people who ask them.

Thanks, Prim.

[Cerin]

Cerin, I follow what you said about the importance of resurrection to Christians, and I certainly appreciate the perspective you provided. Again, I'm curious - if the Jesus did arise from the dead on the third day, is what happened to his body after that still as crucial?

I'm not sure I quite connected to the practical meaning of your question, Frelga. It is a bodily resurrection that we speak of, though with a transformation as well -- from corruptible (subject to decay) to incorruptible, from natural to spiritual, or eternal. In other words, the arising from the dead is a permanent condition, is in effect what happens to the body. So there would be no body left for something else to happen to, if you see what I mean.

[Pearly Di]

Thanks, Pearly. Would you mind if I ask, where did Jesus's body ascend to, physically? I'm sorry to sound like a three-year-old, I just really got to wondering.

Frelga, I can assure you, you absolutely don’t sound like a three-year-old. If we were never asked about what we believe and why, none of us would ever grow in our faith and understanding.

Two out of the four gospels mention the Ascension: Mark and Luke.

Here's Mark's account: “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.” (The most reliable early manuscripts do not have this chapter, by the way).

Here's Luke's: “When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.”

Matthew ends with Jesus with his disciples outside Jerusalem commissioning them to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’ and with his words ‘surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’.

John doesn’t end with his gospel with the Ascension but with a lovely scene of the post-resurrection Jesus eating breakfast on the beach with his disciples. The words that close the gospel never fail to touch me: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

Going back to those words ‘taken up into heaven’ … I can only interpret this as some sort of metaphysical reality. If Heaven is real, it must be in another dimension. Obviously nobody nowadays believes in a literal Heaven ‘up there’ in the bright blue sky. We know perfectly well that if we were to travel into outer space, we wouldn’t find such a thing. That the ancients might have believed in such a thing doesn’t make them stupid, of course. We’re in the metaphysical realm here, which is why I am able to believe in an afterlife and also why I can reconcile the historical Jesus with the Christ of faith, I believe they are the same person.

[Kushana]

Two recent articles from my professional organization's website:

Scroll down to see his argument about the names on the ossuaries:
http://www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=649

Tabot's rebuttal:
http://www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=651

Yours,
Kushana

[Kushana]

Philosophically, I've always embraced the Manichean idea that God encompasses the light and the dark sides.

Like its ancestor Zoroastrianism (and most forms of Gnosticism that were Manichaeism's kin and predicessors), Manichaeism makes a complete and utter separation between the evil principle and its minions and an utterly good God and his representatives. Because of an attack by Evil, the two were comingled in the created world and Good was always trying to sieve out and rescue its own -- the entire reason for Manichaeism as a religion was to aid that effort.

The two principles were at war, with specific battles (and specific tactics) in different eras, until the End when all Good would be drawn to itself and all Evil would be compressed together as a "lump" and consigned to eternal darkness.

To quote a Manichaean on the Old Testament:

These books, moreover, contain shocking calumnies against God himself. We are told that he existed from eternity in darkness, and admired the light when he saw it [In Manichaeism God always dwelt in Light, a symbol of Goodness] .... that envy made him afraid lest his creature man should taste of the tree of life, and live for ever; that afterwards he was greedy for blood, and fat from all kinds of sacrifices ... that he was enraged sometimes against his enemies, sometimes against his friends; that he destroyed thousands of men for a slight offense, or for nothing; that he threatened to come with a sword and spare nobody, righteous or wicked. [These are ] ... bold libels against God ....

Source: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/140622.htm
(I am sorry to rely on Augustine, but it was the easiest thing to put my hand to.)

What I'm quoting is a former Manichaean (Augustine) giving his account of what a Manichaean said to him when they were having a debate -- which Augustine said he won. (We don't have the Manichaean's (or any of the listeners') sides of it, and at least one specialist in the extinct religion isn't so sure Augustine did carry the day.) We now have sources from Manichaeans, themselves, but I don't have those books at my desk and they'd take a bit more going through -- but I think the The Kephalaia of the Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in Translation With Commentary by Iain Gardner covers Manichaean views on evil.

On a less technical note, I warmly recommend Samuel N. C. Lieu's books on Manichaeism and, if you can find it, Gnosis on the Silk Road by Hans-Joachim Klimkeit.

Yours,
Kushana

[Kushana]

I've always viewed the Maccabees as the Jewish Ku Klux Klan

I believe they conducted forcible conversions to Judaism (something the relgion has never done since, to the best of my knowledge.) Aye:

but there's no reason to assume that Jesus' ancestors were among those who were forcibly converted during the Hasmonean dynasty.

There's been a great shift in how scholars understand Galillee -- something I've done a worse-than-usual job of keeping up with. However, some suggestions for the curious:

Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-Examination of the Evidence by Jonathan L. Reed

Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis by Richard A. Horsley

Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Setting of Q by William E. Arnal

James H. Charlesworth's Jesus and Archaeology looks technical but good.

Yet more technical are the monographs of Mark Chancey and D. Edwards; also, Andrea Berlin's article in her anthology The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History and Ideology may shed light on Jesus' era.

There could have been descendents of David living there during the Roman occupation.

I can't think of a New Testament scholar who argues this as a strong possibility: most believe it pershed with the last king's captivity.

Second - that bit in the article about Jesus's being a non-Judean family. Does this mean they were not Jewish?

I am reluctant to follow the trend to translate New Testament references to judaioi as "Judeans" -- there were Jews throughout the Mediterranian basin by that era. Jesus and his family were certainly Jews, but they were Galilleans (a difference noted in the New Testament.)

Pearly Di also said:

I can't remember what the differences between the genealogy in Matthew and the one in Luke are supposed to signify.

The lack of a central records office. I think both trace Jesus' lineage through Joseph.

Yours,
Kushana

[Kushana]

Samaria was adjacent to Judea, iirc.

The Samaritans are still around, actually. They regard only the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) as sacred.

Yours,
Kushana

[Jnyusa]

Interesting article in the Society Journal, Kushana!

I don't really know how to think about this issue ... though I have to say that if my family were placed in an ossuary, those are the same names that would be inscribed on it! (Except for Jesus, of course ... we haven't got any Joshuas in tow either.)

Of course it is worthwhile to continue researching the issue, particularly if inscribed ossuaries are so rare.

The books about 1st century Galiliea are making me drool. I'd love to have time to curl up with any one of them and just disappear into history.

Jn

[Kushana]

The books about 1st century Galiliea are making me drool. I'd love to have time to curl up with any one of them and just disappear into history.

I bought more books recently (by all the gods, *why*?) and want to read Crossan's latest one -- and I found book on the archaeology of the Dead Sea Scrolls on sale and still in print

History just delights me -- someone recently asked me why I went into this field: to be more religious, to undermine religion? No, it's old and neat -- what better reasons are there? (I spent part of the weekend almost nose to nose with a 3,500 year old spindle wondering whether it was used for wool or linen.)

-Kushana

[truehobbit]

Going back to those words ‘taken up into heaven’ … I can only interpret this as some sort of metaphysical reality. If Heaven is real, it must be in another dimension. Obviously nobody nowadays believes in a literal Heaven ‘up there’ in the bright blue sky. We know perfectly well that if we were to travel into outer space, we wouldn’t find such a thing.

Or it's something like Valinor - no matter how much normal people go west, they don't get there, but people who are meant to go there will find that their journey into the west somehow opens a different path albeit in the same direction.
So, just because travelling up into the sky does not take us to some heaven, does not mean it's not there.

(Basically, I agree with you about the metaphysical reality, but your description of how we don't get there by travelling into the sky reminded me of getting to Valinor. )

[Primula Baggins]

History just delights me -- someone recently asked me why I went into this field: to be more religious, to undermine religion? No, it's old and neat -- what better reasons are there? (I spent part of the weekend almost nose to nose with a 3,500 year old spindle wondering whether it was used for wool or linen.)

-Kushana

Kushana,

I still remember seeing a piece of ancient cloth in a museum (plaid, some colors still bright) and wondering what the person who wove it would think if she knew that piece of cloth would survive her by thousands of years. Treasures are fun to see in museums, but the daily objects are what really spark the imagination. How did this particular spindle survive? Who used it?

And what daily objects around us now will be studied as artifacts or displayed in museums thousands of years from now?

[Kushana]

One of my archaeology professors gleefully awaits the day when his bones (with double hip replacements) will be displaid in a case as an example of the Barbarity of 20th Century Medicine. I've thought of being buried with certain items because I think they'd be handsome (or puzzling...) grave goods for someone to come across when/if they dig me up. (Only an archaeologist would be cheerful about such a prospect.)

I still remember seeing a piece of ancient cloth in a museum (plaid, some colors still bright)....

Oo, that's so wonderful. Exposed dyes and paints usually go off or fade after a century or two (unless one's very careful with them or very lucky. )
(There's a pea green color in certain old American churches that was originally sky blue...)

and wondering what the person who wove it would think if she knew that piece of cloth would survive her by thousands of years.

I wonder that too: about pans and cooking pots, lamps, shoes, and especially rings that looked like they meant something to the wearer (i.e. they have an unusual design or a motto.) I think about the fact that almost everything plastic, no matter how mundane, will far outlast all of us if it's litter or in a landfill.

I did not ask my guide to pull the excavation notes on that particular spindle, but I spin, too (I've just learned something new that I'm increadibly clumsy at -- she'd laugh, whether she understood anything else about me) and it made me happy to look at it and wonder if we'd both worked with the same thing, or not. (Linen is tempramental; an article I once read by a woman who gave up and braided all her linen fiber into a rope swing for her kids has made me leery of the stuff.)

-Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I didn't think this justified a thread of its own, but I did think it was worth mentioning, so I thought I would put it here.

Israeli claims site is Herod's tomb

Kushana (or anyone else) any thoughts about this?

[Kushana]

From what I've read of the discovery, it seems likely. The archaeologist has been excavating there for some 30 years, he doesn't sound like a fly-by-night.

It's nice, it's not completely unexpected -- but I somewhat wish they'd found Herod (his bones could tell us a lot about him.)

-Kushana

[Kushana]

What interests me most about the James Ossuary are the inconsistent lab results:

http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbOOossuary_K ... report.pdf

(I just searched two academic databases and I can't find any articles on the paleography of the inscription -- but every informal opinion I recall reading is in favor of its authenticity. The spelling of the word "brother" is weird and rare and stumped a leading paleographer -- if this is a fake you'd think the word would lead us right to the forger's source material...)

-Kushana