(Theological) Liberalism = The Enemy Part V: Christ or anti-Christ?

We have come then to this fearsome place where the word 'Jesus' has become the enemy of the Person Jesus, and the enemy of what Jesus taught. We must fear this contentless banner of the word 'Jesus' not because because we do not love Jesus, but because we do love Him. We must fight this contentless banner, with its deep motivations, rooted into the memories of the race, which is being used for the purpose of sociological form and control. We must teach our spiritual children to do the same.

This accelerating trend makes me wonder whether, when Jesus said that towards the end-time there will be other Jesuses, He meant something like this. We must never forget that the great enemy who is coming is the anti-Christ. He is not the anti-non-Christ. He is anti-Christ. Increasingly over the last few years the word 'Jesus', separated from the content of the the Scriptures, has become the enemy of the Jesus of history, the Jesus who died and rose and who is coming again and who is the eternal Son of God. So let us take care. If evangelical Christians begin to slip into a dichotomy, to separate an encounter with Jesus from the content of the Scriptures (including the discussable and verifiable), we shall, without intending to, be throwing ourselves and the next generation into the millstream of the modern system. This system surrounds us as an almost monolithic consensus.

-Francis Schaeffer, Escape From Reason

Jesus Christ, Superfluous?

"...all things were created by him and for him."

Occasionally I hear a theology presented that just doesn't sit right with me even though I can't discern exactly why that is at first. This happened recently where I heard a theology presented which basically claimed that we have had a wrong understanding of the character of God and that Jesus' mission was to give us a correct understanding of God's character. Jesus' mission was to show that God is good and he is not a wrathful tyrant. In this system, sin was presented as a result of the misunderstanding. Part of the reason why I had a hard time articulating exactly what it was about this theology that seemed so wrong to me was that I agree that Jesus gives us a fuller and more accurate revelation of God's character than anything else. He is after all, God incarnate. But I think it becomes very problematic when Jesus' entire mission is reduced to revealing the character of God and sin is reduced to a misunderstanding. This system turns the Fall of Man into one big misunderstanding and, in my opinion, does away with any doctrine of the atonement, save perhaps Abelard's Moral Influence Theory. It seems to empty the cross of its power by its "human wisdom." (1st Cor. 1:17) To me it basically says, if Adam and Eve would have just had more or better knowledge then the Fall never would have occurred. Of course, it was desire for the knowledge of good and evil which led to the Fall in the first place.

Worst of all though, I think this system does away with the need for Christ. After all, if sin is just a misunderstanding, then it is conceivable that an especially intelligent or enlightened person might come to the conclusion that God is good even without ever knowing anything about Christ. Maybe he would conclude this because of the beauty of nature or the pleasures of life. In this case, Christ would be unnecessary. In fact, the way in which this system was presented suggested to me that many Unitarians and liberal New-Agers are probably more sanctified than most Christians because the kind of god they believe in might seem more loving (in human terms) than a God who would send a world-wide flood, destroy cities with fire or command His people to wage war. I think what was presented was a kind of salvation by knowledge instead of salvation based on our relationship with Jesus Christ. So if certain facts about who God is are what saves us then it seems that relationship with Jesus Christ becomes unimportant. Jesus is useful but ultimately superfluous in this system.

A few years ago, at Asbury, I heard one of my more liberal-leaning classmates present a similar system (in that Jesus was superfluous). He argued that someone who loves and serves his neighbor, but who has never heard of Christ, is a better Christian than someone who has been converted to faith in Christ but who isn't as compassionate or giving. This kind of argument can be good if it inspires us to seek greater holiness and obedience to God but ultimately it has the same horrible ending as that "salvation based on knowledge" argument. While in the first argument salvation was based on knowledge of some general facts about God, now salvation becomes based on some general good works. In both systems Jesus is useful because he reveals correct facts and spurs us on to good works but Jesus in both systems is ultimately superfluous. He is unnecessary.

The only kind of theological system that will not lead to this is a system that sees Jesus as the beginning and end of all things and that does not underestimate man's fallenness and therefore his need for Christ. Either the Fall and its effects can be undone by some new knowledge or works [the general] or else they can only be undone by a relationship with a particular Person, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ [the specific]. In this day and age, systems that make Jesus superfluous are attractive to many because they are less offensive to our liberal and pluralistic sensibilities. But any system where Jesus is superfluous is not a Christian system. Christ and His glory must be at the center of everything we believe and do.

Amen

He shouts with joy because you give him victory

The Lord has brought me through my second week of medical school exams. I am overwhelmed by his providence. He has blessed me and given me my heart's desires. I will proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ, His Cross, His Resurrection and His Salvation, until I leave this world which is not my home.

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

How the king rejoices in your strength, O Lord!
He shouts with joy because you give him victory.
For you have given him his heart’s desire;
you have withheld nothing he requested.

You welcomed him back with success and prosperity.
You placed a crown of finest gold on his head.
He asked you to preserve his life,
and you granted his request.
The days of his life stretch on forever.
Your victory brings him great honor,
and you have clothed him with splendor and majesty.
You have endowed him with eternal blessings
and given him the joy of your presence.
For the king trusts in the Lord.
The unfailing love of the Most High will keep him from stumbling.

If that's true, then Christianity is False, or A Popular Lie in the Lukewarm Church

As I've read debates on certain blogs and as I've talked with many professing Christians, I've come to see that one of the chief lies promoted by many in the church today is that because no one is perfect, there can be no expectation of freedom from sin in this life and that there should be no standard of holy living when it comes to selection of church leadership.

I actually debated once with a liberal pastor whom I worked under and she used this argument to justify acceptance of practicing homosexuals in church leadership. She said that since she was divorced and remarried, she was technically living in adultery according to Christ's words, so how could she judge a homosexual? I was, of course, unimpressed by her argument but I didn't have the courage right there to say, "well maybe you shouldn't be a pastor." Ultimately her argument was that because certain things described as sin have become acceptable to many in the church, that we had no right to choose other sins which would bar one from positions of leadership in the church.

If freedom from sin does not come with conversion to Christ than I say that Christianity is proved to be a false religion. Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.(Matt. 5:48)" Is Jesus calling us to something that is not possible? And what does Jesus mean by perfection? In the context of this call to perfection we see the Sermon on the Mount, we see teaching on anger and reconciliation with brothers, sexual morality, marriage, oaths, retribution and love for enemies. We also see in Matthew where a fundamental part of Jesus' message is repentance. We read, "From that time on Jesus began to preach, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.(Matt. 4:17)'" So it is obvious that Jesus was calling his followers to leave sin behind and follow him. If all of this talk of repentance and leaving sin behind and holiness is not reflected at all in actual followers of Christ then I say the whole thing is a sham. And yet it seems that many believe and teach that there is no real change in the life of a Christian other than maybe a new hope or some warm feelings. In fact, maybe the only life change encouraged by the liberal is abstinence from ever making a judgment call that something is actually sinful or contrary to God's will. Even in evangelical circles you can see the theology of praying the "sinner's prayer" and then everything is a-okay. This theology doesn't match the New Testament, or the Old Testament for that matter, though. If you take a verse in isolation here or there you can argue for that theology. If you only read John 3:16 then maybe you could believe that no repentance is required but if you read it in the context of the entire gospel of John you see calls to repentance in both 5:14 and 8:11. The Gospel of John also contains some of the most sublime writing on the promise of the Holy Spirit. In connection with this promise we read Jesus' words, "When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment...(John 16:8)" It is claimed in the New Testament and in the testimonies of multitudes of believers that the Holy Spirit really has come into the lives of many. So if this testimony is true and if Christ's words are true, then what is the point of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin if there is no change in the life of a Christian?

So is Christianity a big lie? Well, I don't think so. It follows that I believe that there is a real life-change in Christians that is supernaturally enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is real sanctification and freedom from sin in this life. God in His grace has freed me of things that many don't even think a person can be freed of. Am I entirely sanctified? No. But God is working on me and I have a blessed hope for entire sanctification and Christian perfection in this life. And for any who scoff at terms like "entire sanctification" and "Christian perfection," I say, how dare you limit God! How dare you answer Jesus "no thanks, I don't think it's possible," when He says to you in His Word "Be ye Perfect." This freedom from sin will come differently to different people but it always requires patience, perseverance and a willingness to lose one's life for the sake of following Christ.

And for those who perpetuate the lie of the "carnal Christian," Jesus warns, "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.(Matt. 18:6)" The lie that there is no supernatural life-change when a person in converted to Christ keeps many today in sin. If revival is ever to take place we must break free of this lie.

Amen

For All Men From All Sin

As I said in my post yesterday, doing construction gives me a lot of time to think. Today I was thinking about what is central to the faith. I don't claim to have gotten some revelation, but I feel like God was messing with me. I was thinking about what I would be willing to break fellowship with a person over. I became convinced that a lack of commitment to holiness would be one of the first things I would break fellowship over. I would break fellowship over the issue of holiness before a lot of other theological issues that I also feel strongly about.

Holiness is central and many Christians have forgotten it or just don't want to deal with it.

I think that the only kind of Christian there can be is a radical Christian. Anything less and I think a person is risking, "Lord, Lord, did we not prohesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.'" Do we not believe that the road is narrow leading to salvation? Have we forgotten "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Anyone who is not seeking utter obedience to God is condemned by Christ's words, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." What was Christ's teaching on sin? To the woman caught in adultery he said, "leave your life of sin." He says the same thing to all of us. Do we love him enough to do it?

Is this holiness easy? Do we just get saved and have no desire to sin? Perhaps some have experienced entire sanctification at conversion but most do not. So what does this mean? It means that the Christian life is a constant battle against the flesh. It means that there are things in us, things that seem to be central to who we are that must be renounced and rejected in obedience to and trust in God. Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Self-denial, cross bearing - not things that feel good but things we MUST do to follow Christ. There is no other way. These are the basic values that liberal "christians" utterly reject and that many other true Christians try to ignore.

We must also trust that it is out of God's love that he calls us to this holiness. If God becomes our portion, that is, if we truely experience the Presence of God in this life then I think that all the things we are called to leave behind will appear weak and ugly compared to what we gain in God.

Did Jesus' death and resurrection free us from needing to be holy or did they allow us to become holy? On a plaque outside of the chapel at Asbury College is written, "Salvation For All Men From All Sin." I believe it. Christ frees us from sin. That is what he calls us to. He didn't just die to give us a ticket to heaven. Heaven can begin now and there is no sin in heaven. 1st John 3:4-6 says, "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."

Amen

Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Part V

Having just finished a wonderful class on the problem of evil from Dr. Jerry Walls at Asbury Theological Seminary, I was very interested to read a reflection from Pope Benedict on evil. Benedict writes this reflection on the section of the book which he devotes to the Lord's Prayer and specifically to the lines, "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the following quote, I love the Pope's thoughts on how our extreme individualism has made it difficult for us to accept the fact that One died for us all.

"The idea that God allowed the forgiveness of guilt, the healing of man from within, to cost him the death of his Son has come to seem quite alien to us today. That the Lord "has borne our diseases and take upon himself sorrows," that "he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities," and that "with his wounds we are healed" (Is 53:4-6) no longer seems plausible to us today. Militating against this, on one side, is the trivialization of evil in which we take refuge, despite the fact that at the very same time we treat the horrors of human history, especially of the most recent human history, as an irrefutable pretext for denying the existence of a good God and slandering his creature man. But the understanding of the great mystery of expiation is also blocked by our individualistic image of man. We can no longer grasp substitution because we think that every man is ensconced in himself alone. The fact that all individual beings are deeply interwoven and that all are encompassed in turn by the being of the One, the Incarnate Son, is something we are no longer capable of seeing. When we come to speak of Christ's Cucifixion, we will have to take up these issues again.

In the meantime, an idea of Cardinal John Henry Newman may suffice. Newman once said that while God could create the whole world out of nothing with just one word, he could overcome men's guilt and suffering only by bringing himself into play, be becoming in his Son a sufferer who carried this burden and overcame it through self-surrender. The overcoming of guilt has a price: We must put our heart - or, better, our whole existence - on the line. And even this act is insufficient; it can become effective only through communion with the One who bore the burdens of us all."

Amen

Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Part IV

After discussing the Sermon on the Mount, Pope Benedict goes on to a meditation on the Lord's Prayer. One thing that worshipping in an Anglican church gave me an appreciation of was the liturgy and liturgical prayer. Worshipping at St. Patrick's and having prayed the daily office for much of my time at Asbury has transformed the way I pray. The majority of my prayer is still what would be called "spontaneous" but even this prayer has been transformed by those prayers written in the Book of Common Prayer. My priest, Peter Matthews said, "Liturgical prayer forces me to pray in line with the redemptive historical narrative of scripture. Liturgical prayer forces me to pray in line with God's will disclosed in scripture and the living tradition of the Church." Maybe Pope Benedict read Peter's blog when he was writing his book because he eloquently expresses the same idea:

"This is what prayer really is - being in silent inward communion with God. It requires nourishment, and that is why we need articulated prayer in words, images, or thoughts. The more God is present with us, the more we will really be able to be present to him when we utter the words of our prayers. But the converse is also true: Praying actualizes and deepens our communion of being with God. Our praying can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude for the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer. But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic prayers that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves as well. They are a 'school of prayer' that transforms and opens up our life.

In his rule, Saint Benedict coined the formula Mens nostra concordet voci nostrae - our mind must be in accord with our voice (Rule, 19, 7). Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way around: the word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it. For on our own we human beings do not 'know how to pray as we ought' (Rom 8:26) - we are too far removed from God, he is too mysterious and too great for us. And so God has come to our aid: He himself provides the words of our prayer and teaches us to pray. Through the prayers that come from him, he enables us to set out toward him; by praying together with the brothers and sisters he has given us, we gradually come to know him and draw closer to him."

Amen

Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Part III

Another part of Pope Benedict's writing on the beatitudes that I found to be quite good was his comparison of the morality offered there compared to the morality of Friedrich Nietzsche. I loved this section because I think that in our decadent culture, Nietzsche's way of thinking has been widely embraced - even in the Church.

"But now the fundamental question arises: Is the direction the Lord shows us in the Beatitudes and in the corresponding warnings actually the right one? Is it really such a bad thing to be rich, to eat one's fill, to laugh, to be praised? Friedrich Nietzsche trained his angry critique precisely on this aspect of Christianity. It is not Christian doctrine that needs to be critiqued, he says, it is Christian morality that needs to be exposed as a 'capital crime against life.' And by 'Christian morality,' Nietzsche means precisely the direction indicated by the Sermon on the Mount.

"What has been the greatest sin on earth so far? Surely the words of the man who said 'Woe to those who laugh now'?" And, against Christ's promises, he says that we don't want the kingdom of heaven. 'We've become grown men, and so we want the kingdom of earth.'

Nietzsche sees the vision of the Sermon on the Mount as a religion of resentment, as the envy of the cowardly and incompetent, who are unequal to life's demands and try to avenge themselves by blessing their failure and cursing the strong, successful, and the happy. Jesus' wide perspective is countered with a narrow this-worldliness - with the will to get the most out of the world and what life has to offer now, to seek heaven here, and to be uninhibited by any scruples while doing so.

Much of this has found its way into the modern mindset and to a large extent shapes how our contemporaries feel about life. Thus, the Sermon on the Mount poses the question of the fundamental Christian option, and, as children of our time, we feel an inner resistance to it - even though we are still touched by Jesus' praise of the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure. . . Yes indeed, the Beatitudes stand opposed to our spontaneous sense of existence, our hunger and thirst for life. They demand 'conversion' - that we inwardly turn around to go in the opposite direction from the one we would spontaneously like to go in. But this U-turn brings what is pure and noble to the fore and gives a proper ordering to our lives."

Amen

Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Part II

As I read further into "Jesus of Nazareth" over the road trip, I realized that it is one of the best books I've ever read. Pope Benedict's writing on many subjects in the gospels is profound and beautiful. One quote I love which forms the whole back-drop for all of Benedict's writing in this book is, "The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of the Synoptics is one and the same: the true 'historical' Jesus." The liberals are so good at trying to cast doubt on the truthfulness of the gospels with their damnable distinction between a "Christ of faith" and a "historical Jesus." Benedict teaches correctly that the Christ of faith and the "historical Jesus" are one and the same.

I have always struggled with the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes. Pope Benedict's writing on this subject has been one of my favorite parts of the book. Here is a section that I found particularly compelling:

"Let us go back to the second Beatitude: 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted' (Mt 5:4). Is it good to mourn and to declare mourning blessed? There are two kinds of mourning. The first is the kind that has lost hope, that has become mistrustful of love and truth, and that therefore eats away and destroys man from within. But there is also the mourning occasioned by the shattering encounter with truth, which leads man to undergo conversion and to resist evil. This mourning heals, because it teaches man to hope and to love again. Judas is an example of the first kind of mourning: Struck with horror at his own fall, he no longer dares to hope and hangs himself in despair. Peter is an example of the second kind: Struck by the Lord's gaze, he bursts into healing tears that plow up the soil of his soul. He begins anew and is himself renewed.

Ezekiel 9:4 offers us a striking testimony to how this positive kind of mourning can counteract the dominion of evil. Six men are charged with executing divine punishment on Jerusalem - on the land that is filled with bloodshed, on the city that is full of wickedness (cf. Ezek 9:9). Before they do, however, a man clothed in linen must trace the Hebrew letter tau (like the sign of the Cross) on the foreheads of all those 'who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in the city' (Ezek 9:4). Those who bear this mark are exempted from the punishment. They are people who do not run with the pack, who refuse to collude with the injustice that has become endemic, but who suffer under it instead. Even though it is not in their power to change the overall situation, they still counter the dominion of evil through the passive resistance of their suffering - through the mourning that sets bounds to the power of evil."

Amen

Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Part I

I have wanted to read a book on the life of Christ for a while so when I realized that I needed some reading material for the road trip I’m currently on I started looking for something. It just happened the Pope Benedict XVI’s new book “Jesus of Nazareth” came out on the fifteenth. I got it that day and I read the first three chapters today. I have enjoyed it so far. The biggest surprise about the work so far has been how much he has quoted from Origen. I especially liked Benedict’s use of Origen in his discussion on the nature of the Kingdom of God in chapter three. Benedict says, “Origen, basing himself on a reading of Jesus’ words, called Jesus the autobasileia, that is, the Kingdom in person, Jesus himself is the Kingdom; the Kingdom is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms. It is a person; it is he.” Benedict also talks about some other conceptions of the Kingdom such as what he calls a “mystical” interpretation and an “ecclesiastical” interpretation. I also liked a section where he confronted a view of the Kingdom called “regnocentrism.” As I read this section I thought that some of the more off-the-wall stuff from a class I took at Asbury called “Kingdom, Church and World,” bordered on this idea. Benedict framed the arrival at regnocentrism in terms of a utopian desire for unity. He says, “The Church was represented as the center of Christianity. Then there was a shift to Christocentrism, to the doctrine that Christ is the center of everything. But it is not only the Church that is divisive - so the argument continues - since Christ belongs exclusively to Christians. Hence the further step from Christocentrism to theocentrism. This has allegedly brought us closer to the community of religions, but our final goal continues to elude us, since even God can be a cause of division between religions and between people. Therefore, it is claimed, we must now move toward ‘regnocentrism,’ that is, toward the centrality of the Kingdom.” The “Kingdom” in this interpretation simply means a world governed by peace, justice and the conservation of creation. Pope Benedict admits that this all sounds good. After pointing out some practical problems with this utopian ideal, he points out the biggest problem: “God has disappeared; man is the only actor left on the stage.” Benedict points out that Jesus did not just proclaim any Kingdom but the “Kingdom of God.” He says, “When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, he is quite simply proclaiming God, and proclaiming him to be the living God, who is able to act concretely in the world and in history and is even now acting.”

Thankfully, two of the other guys who I’m driving back with like to drive so hopefully I will finish the book on this trip. Then I can get started on “The Beauty of the Infinite” by David Bentley Hart, the next one on my list

Scholars Backtrack

Here is a story from The Jerusalem Post on Jesus' supposed tomb at Talpiot. I wonder why the mainstream press here isn't covering it. Could it be that they are anti-Christian? nah....

Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 11, 2007

Several prominent scholars who were interviewed in a bitterly contested documentary that suggests that Jesus and his family members were buried in a nondescript ancient Jerusalem burial cave have now revised their conclusions, including the statistician who claimed that the odds were 600:1 in favor of the tomb being the family burial cave of Jesus of Nazareth, a new study on the fallout from the popular documentary shows.
The dramatic clarifications, compiled by epigrapher Stephen Pfann of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem in a paper titled "Cracks in the Foundation: How the Lost Tomb of Jesus story is losing its scholarly support," come two months after the screening of The Lost Tomb of Christ that attracted widespread public interest, despite the concomitant scholarly ridicule.
The film, made by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and Emmy-winning Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, prompted major criticism from both a leading Israeli archeologist involved in the original dig at the site as well as Christian leaders, who were angered over the documentary's contradictions of main tenets of Christianity.
But now, even some of the scholars who were interviewed for and appeared in the film are questioning some of its basic claims.
The most startling change of opinion featured in the 16-page paper is that of University of Toronto statistician Professor Andrey Feuerverger, who stated those 600 to one odds in the film. Feuerverger now says that these referred to the probability of a cluster of such names appearing together.
Pfann's paper reported that a statement on the Discovery Channel's Web site, which previously read "a statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters...concludes that the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family," in keeping with Feuerverger's statement, has been altered and now reads, "a statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters... concludes that the probability factor is in the order of 600 to 1 that an equally 'surprising' cluster of names would arise purely by chance under given assumptions."
Another sentence on the same Web site stating that Feuerverger had concluded it was highly probable that the tomb, located in the southeastern residential Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot, was the Jesus family tomb - the central point of the film - has also been changed. It now reads: "It is unlikely that an equally surprising cluster of names would have arisen by chance under purely random sampling."
Israeli archeologists have said that the similarity of the names found inscribed on the ossuaries in the cave to the members of Jesus's family was coincidental, since many of those names were commonplace in the first century CE.
The film argues that 10 ancient ossuaries - burial boxes used to store bones - that were discovered in Talpiot in 1980 contained the bones of Jesus and his family. The filmmakers attempt to explain some of the inscriptions on the ossuaries by suggesting that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that the couple had a son, Judah.
One of the ossuaries bears an inscription reading "Yeshua son of Yehosef" or "Jesus son of Joseph;" a second reads "Mary;" a third is a Greek inscription apparently read by one scholar as "Mary Magdalene;" while a fourth bears the inscription, "Judah, son of Jesus." The inscriptions are in Hebrew or Aramaic, except for the one in Greek.
But Shimon Gibson, who was part of the team that excavated the tomb two and half decades ago and who appeared in the film, is quoted in Pfann's report as saying he doubted the site was the tomb of Jesus and his family.
"Personally, I'm skeptical that this is the tomb of Jesus and I made this point very clear to the filmmakers," Gibson is quoted as saying.
"We need much more evidence before we can say that the Talpiot tomb might be the family tomb of Jesus," he added.
In the film, renowned epigrapher Prof. Frank Moore Cross, professor emeritus of Hebrew and oriental languages at Harvard University, is seen reading one of the ossuaries and stating that he has "no real doubt" that it reads "Jesus son of Joseph." But according to Pfann, Cross said in an e-mail that he was skeptical about the film's claims, not because of a misreading of the ossuary, but because of the ubiquity of Biblical names in that period in Jerusalem.
"It has been reckoned that 25 percent of feminine names in this period were Maria/Miriam, etc. - that is, variants of 'Mary.' So the cited statistics are unpersuasive. You know the saying: lies, damned lies, and statistics," Cross is quoted as saying.
The paper also notes that DNA scientist Dr. Carney Matheson, who supervised DNA testing carried out for the film from the supposed Jesus and Mary Magdalene ossuaries, and who said in the documentary that "these two individuals, if they were unrelated, would most likely be husband and wife," later said that "the only conclusions we made were that these two sets were not maternally related. To me, it sounds like absolutely nothing."
Furthermore, Pfann also says that a specialist in ancient apocryphal text, Professor Francois Bovon, who is quoted in the film as saying the enigmatic ossuary inscription "Mariamne" is the same woman known as Mary Magdalene - one of the filmmakers' critical arguments - issued a disclaimer stating that he did not believe that "Mariamne" stood for Mary of Magdalene at all.
Pfann has already argued that the controversial inscription does not read "Mariamne" at all.
The burial site, which has been contested from the start by scholars and church officials alike, is some distance from the Church of the Holy Sepulchrr in the Old City, where many Christians believe Jesus's body lay for three days after he was crucified.
According to the New Testament, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, and an ossuary containing Jesus's bones - the explanations of the movie director notwithstanding - would contradict the core Christian belief that he was resurrected and then ascended to heaven.

"Loving Jesus Above All Else"

Blessed is he who understands what it is to love Jesus and despise himself for Jesus' sake. Jesus wants to be your only love and to be loved above all else; therefore, you must abandon all other beloveds for your one Beloved. The love of a creature is fickle and deceitful, while the love of Jesus is faithful and enduring. He who clings to a creature will fall when that creature fades away, but he who embraces Jesus shall stand firm forever.

Love Jesus and keep Him as your friend. When all others forsake you He will not leave you nor will He allow you to perish on the last day. Whether you like it or not the day will come when you find yourself separated from everyone and from everything.

Hold fast to Jesus both in life and in death and commit yourself to His steadfast love, for He alone can help you when all others fail. Your Beloved is such that he admits no rival; He wants your heart all to Himself and desires to reign there as a king on his own throne.

If you could free yourself from all creatures Jesus would gladly dwell within you. If you have placed your trust in men rather than in Jesus you will find that it was almost all wasted. Do not trust nor lean on a reed that is shaken in the wind. All flesh is grass, and all its glory shall fade like the flower in the field.

If you look upon men's outward appearance you will soon be deceived, and if you seek consolation and profit from them most often you will end up being the loser. If you seek Jesus in everything you will certainly find Him, and if you seek yourself you will surely find yourself, but to your own disaster. You do yourself greater harm by not seeking Jesus than if the whole world and all your enemies were against you.

-Thomas a Kempis