I dvr’d the Nightline News program and watched it first thing this morning. (Reactions here, here, here, here, here and here.)
One of the things that stood out to me was Simcha and Tabor’s insistence that anything during the time period which has in anyway a connection to the belief of a/the Resurrection must be “Christian.”
Resurrection entered Jewish belief long before Christ and was, for several sects, a central part.
We see this in the Maccabees and even, somewhat, in Tobit. It’s in the Wisdom of Solomon and at Qumran.
While the fish is a vase, and other lies persist, the must striking thing to me is the glaring and self-serving theological lunacy which allows these authors to think that just because they read something on an ossuary (a frakin ossuary… a bone box which looked to a resurrection) regarding an upward direction that suddenly there is proof of Christianity… and what’s more, that they have a right to sell this trash to the public.
But whom I really have disgust in are those people who just believe it.
Related articles
- Well That’s Blunt: ‘Jonah Tomb’ ‘Deception’ (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
- ‘Jesus Tomb’ Controversy Rages (abcnews.go.com)
- Jerusalem archeological find is first reference to resurrection (jta.org)
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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I thought that one of supports for the resurrection was that the disciples weren’t expecting the resurrection, so why would they make it up. Was the resurrection expected by others the same as the resurrection described by the disciples?