While Dan Brown's books may make for good readin' (or not) they shouldn't be used to ascertain historical facts. I've already made some posts about The Da Vinci Code. This article from the UK's Telegraph newspaper gives a list of 50 of the more grievous ones: The Lost Symbol and The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown: 50 factual errors

I'm not posting this to poke fun at Dan Brown, or take pleasure in pointing out his mistakes. Nor am I confused about the status of Brown's books as being fiction. So responses of "IT'S ONLY A FICTION BOOK GET OVER IT" are not welcome or helpful. Although well aware that Brown's books are fictional, many people DO believe at least parts of them are accurate. An example is my former co-worker who, upon learning I am a Christian, said something to the effect of "Oh I guess you haven't read The Da Vinci Code, it destroys Christianity!"

Of course after he saw The Real Da Vinci Code program on TV and got the facts he changed his mind. But it illustrates the need for proper information.

[HT: TheJude3Project]

1. What author do you own the most books by? Lee Strobel.

2. What book do you own the most copies of? "The Artful Dodger" by Alan Scholes (old used copy & new copy self-published by the author)

3. What book have you read the most times in your life? "Finding Faith" by Brian McLaren.

4. Favorite book as a ten year old? I liked "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" (I bought a copy of it recently :))

5. What is the best book you’ve read in the past year? "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.

6. If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be? Besides my own 😉 "Reasonable Faith" by William Lane Craig.

7. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read? The two that come to mind are "Fear and Trembling" by Søren Kierkegaard and "God, Freedom, and Evil" by Alvin Plantinga (for very different reasons!)

8. What is your favorite book? I have a tough time choosing favorites. I'll say "Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, because it was the first Christian book I read, before I was a Christian.

9. What is your favorite play? I don't really watch plays …

10. Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Dan Brown? 😀

11. What is your desert island book? The Bible … the only book deep enough to read for a lifetime

12. And … what are you reading right now? "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan and "The Gospel for Muslims" by Thabiti Anyabwile … next on my list/shelf is "The Normal Christian Life" by Watchman Nee and "The Trellis and the Vine" by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne.

The Amazing Claim

An archaeological team finds a tomb in Jerusalem. There's nothing out of the ordinary about that. Hundreds of tombs have been found in Jerusalem.

But this particular tomb has some people making wild claims about it. Produced by James Cameron (world-famous director of the Titanic movie) and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, it proposes that the tomb contains ossuaries (bone boxes) of Jesus Christ, along with Mary Magdalene and other members of Jesus' family. The tomb contained ten such boxes, six of which bear inscriptions of people's names. If true, this could be the most significant archaeological find of the 21st century.

However, it wasn't found in the 21st century. It was found in 1980. And the archaeological team that found it over 25 years ago didn't think there was anything special about it. A documentary already was made about the find in 1996 by the BBC, but it failed to cause any scholarly interest at all. Why is that, and what are we to make of this new documentary and book?

The Reality

Remember back when The Da Vinci Code was big, and people got swept up in the "reality" of it all? Some parts sounded plausible … until you checked up on Dan Brown's sloppy scholarship. Turns out that Brown based a lot of his book off an old, discredited book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Not only that, but Brown made literally dozens of major errors. See the many errors in the Da Vinci Code here. I can only groan in exasperation if someone mentions the amazing new "facts" in the Da Vinci Code.

Now, The Da Vinci Code was ultimately intended as fiction, even if its author and the press sometimes promoted it as being fact. However, watch out, because …

 
This time, it's "The Jesus Family Tomb", aka "The Lost Tomb of Jesus": Bad history is being passed off as fact. Only this time, there's no "fiction" label to hide behind! They're really claiming this is true!

Don't get suckered! Here are facts to learn about the reality of "The Jesus Family Tomb" (numbers in parenthesis correspond to the sources listed below):

The Ossuaries Themselves:

1. There is no ossuary that has Mary Magdalene's name on it! This is perhaps the biggest lie in the film. The inscription reads "Mariamene e Mara". The filmmakers connect this to Mary Magdalene by quoting the "Acts of Philip" which was written sometime in the 4th century, that is, 300 years or more after Jesus' death! The "Acts of Philip" is not historically reliable in the slightest. Even then, the name in the "Acts of Philip" and on the ossuary don't match! Did Mary's own family forget how to spell her name? There is no reason to equate "Mary Magdalene" with "Mariamene". (2,7)
2. It also appears that the inscription on the "Judah, son of Jesus" ossuary is by no means clear. "Judah, son of" seems clear enough, but whether the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus ("Yeshua") appears there is not at all clear. The original translator admits he is unsure of the correct translation. (See the first point under "Problems with names" below.) Click here to see an image of the Hebrew text alongside the actual etching on the ossuary. (8,1)
3. There is no "Matthew" related to Jesus mentioned anywhere in the Bible or any other ancient text. Trying to connect a Matthew to Mary's family by suggesting that she had other Matthews in her family tree is weak at best. (2,4)
4. The ossurary may read "Judah, son of Jesus" (that certainly fits The Da Vinci Code) but there is absolutely no historical evidence whatsoever that Jesus was married or had a child. None. In the past, this sort of find (if the translation is correct) would have demonstrated that this couldn't be Jesus Christ's tomb, since there is no historical mention in the best sources of Him ever being married or having a child; now, conspiracy theories are all the rage, and new, weak evidence displaces old, well established evidence. (4)
5. The documentary and website claim that the 10th ossuary "went missing" and potentially is the "James ossuary" that was discovered many years ago. (The inscription on that ossuary read "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). However, the James ossuary has now likely proven to be a fraud. Additionally, the "missing" ossuary has now been proven to have been blank. (7)

Problems with the names:

1. Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight. He also doubts that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun". (1)
2. There is no record of anyone in the early Christian community calling Jesus the "son of Joseph"; some outsiders mistakenly called him that, but no one in his own family did. What are the chances, then, of such an error being made on Jesus' own ossuary and Jesus' own family happily including it in their family tomb? Not likely. (4)
3. While the movie's site claims that "the names themselves range from the most common to the fairly rare", in reality the names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews in the first century. Therefore it's not surprising that they match the names of some people in the Bible. "This is the ancient equivalent of finding adjacent tombs with the names Smith and Jones", except names like Joseph and Mary were even more common in the 1st century than Smith or Jones are today. (1,2,4)
4. In fact, several other "Jesus son of Joseph" inscriptions had been found on other ossuaries over the years. (3)

Other Evidence:

1. Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch. The BBC made a documentary about this tomb eleven years ago, but the case was so poor that it has not to this day received any scholarly support. (1)
2. Jesus' family was from Galilee, not Jerusalem, so they would not have had a family burial plot in Jerusalem. Joseph died when Jesus was young and the family was still living in Nazareth, meaning he would not have been buried in Jerusalem (where he was not born and never lived). This means that the tomb cannot be theirs. (2,3,4)
3. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television. "They just want to get money for it," he said. (1,3)
4. The "DNA data" presented is useless; the best it can tell us is that certain people in the tomb weren't related. That does not prove that they are from Jesus' bloodline (we have no DNA sample to compare them to after all), and contrary to what is proposed in the documentary, there is no reason to assume that the Jesus and the Mary in the tomb were married; they may have been related through one of the other people in the tomb, for example. Only two of the ossuaries had any DNA material at all available that could be tested. (2,4)
5. James Tabor, the documentary's "renowned biblical scholar", has indeed conducted several archaeological digs in Israel, but he apparently accepts naturalism (the dogmatic assumption that nothing supernatural is possible) as the guiding principle for his research. This means that the historical Jesus of the Bible is rejected out of hand. (5)

One final objection that comes to mind: If this really were Jesus' tomb, how could it have been kept a secret for over 2,000 years? If Jesus were buried here, clearly his family and disciples (at least) would have known about it. But there is no mention of any such tomb in the Bible, extra-biblical writings, or any ancient writings whatsoever.

Why all the hype?

If the conclusions raised by "The Jesus Family Tomb" are wrong, why is this documentary being released and all of this hype generated? Two main reasons come to mind. The first is that people in the late 20th and 21st centuries love conspiracy stories and are eager to accept whatever new, hip theories come out. The second is money. By wrapping this quarter-century old story in new clothes the producers are trying to sell it and make huge profits.

The moral of the story is: Fool me once, shame on you (The Da Vinci Code) … fool me twice, shame on me! Don't get sucked in by the hype; all that's there is empty posturing, bad histories and flawed conclusions!

Sources:

1. New film claims Jesus buried in Talpiot – Amos Kloner, the archaeologist who oversaw excavation of the tomb and who has published extensive findings about the tomb, says the story "makes a great story for a TV film… But it's impossible. It's nonsense."
2. Scholars, clergy slam Jesus documentary – An Associated Press story. Provides quotes from scholars, archaeologists and Jewish experts.
3. Who's writing fiction here? – Paul L. Maier wrote a fictional book with similar themes to this "news" story. Here he responds to "The Jesus Family Tomb" ideas, giving eight reasons why their conclusions are nonsense.
4. The Jesus Tomb? ‘Titanic’ Talpiot Tomb Theory Sunk from the Start – Respected biblical scholar Dr Ben Witherington III provides his commentary on the findings.
5. The Jesus Dynasty: How to Explain Away the New Testament – Criticism of James Tabor, the "renowned biblical scholar" featured in the documentary.
6. Scholars, clergy criticize film about possible Jesus tomb (pg.2) – An expanded version of the Associated Press article above.
7. The Smoking Gun – Tenth Talpiot Ossuary Proved to be Blank – Dr Ben Witherington III shows how we know the tenth ossuary was blank, as well as investigating further the "Mariamenou" ossuary.
8. The Jesus Tomb: Some last thoughts – A New Testament student provides images and commentary on the text from the "Judas, son of Jesus" ossuary.
9. Also recommended is Dr Gary Habermas' excellent article.

What about the 'real' Jesus?

Where does all of this leave the real, historical Jesus? Take a look at this site, which interviews many leading scholars: "Jesus: Fact or Fiction?" It includes streaming video clips and answers to many common questions.

www.jesusfactorfiction.com

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Permanent Link to 'The Jesus Tomb'

 

"At this gathering [the Council of Nicaea]," Teabing said, "many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon – the date of Easter, the role of the bishops – and, of course, the divinity of Jesus – until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet – a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal." (Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, Chapter 55)

The Da Vinci Code repeats a common claim: That Jesus never claimed to be God, and this belief was made up by much later followers. Let's take a look at just one way that Jesus claimed divinity: He accepted worship.

First, Jesus (quoting the Old Testament) claimed that God is the only legitimate object of worship: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." (Matthew 4:10; Deut 6:13).

Second, Jesus accepted worship many times, including just a short time later when the disciples all worship Him (Matthew 14:33). Additionally:

Jesus accepted worship from Thomas (John 20:28); all the angels are told to worship Jesus (Heb. 1:6); wise men worshiped Jesus (Matt. 2:11); a ruler bowed before Him in worship (Matt. 9:18); a blind man worshiped Him (John 9:38); Mary Magdalene worshiped Him (Matt. 28:9); and the disciples worshiped Him (Matt. 28:17). [source]

Note carefully what we never find Jesus saying. He never corrected anyone by saying something like "Woah guys, you've got it all wrong, I may be a good teacher but don't worship me!"

Third, in Acts we find the early Christians doing exactly what Jesus didn't do, objecting strongly when people try to worship them. In Acts 10, Peter goes to visit a man named Cornelius, where we read: "As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. "Stand up," he said, "I am only a man myself." (Acts 10:25-26) This is exactly what we don't find Jesus saying! A similar example occurs to Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14:11-15.

To state this briefly:

• Jesus claimed only God should be worshiped.
• Jesus accepted worship.
• Therefore, the earliest Christians considered Jesus divine and Jesus affirmed their belief.

All of this accords with what was preached in the early Christian church. In fact, the usual tenancy that often needed to be corrected was to emphasize Jesus' divinity at the expense of His humanity!

The only way to attempt escape from this conclusion is to argue that the New Testament is not an accurate historical record. Now, besides the fact that the earliest records we have of what Christians believe are the New Testament documents, there are also many other good reasons to believe the New Testament is an accurate historical record.

Further reading:

• Jesus: A Biblical Defense of His Deity – Online version of a book which defends Jesus' claim to deity.
• The Historical Accuracy of the Gospels – Dr Craig L Blomberg gives reasons to believe the historical accuracy of the gospels.
• Jesus? Who is He? – A quick Flash-based presentation for your kind consideration.