More on the Jesus Tomb

Like I said earlier, I didn't watch the James Cameron film about the Jesus Tomb on the Discovery Channel, but I've been interested in the responses. The scholarly world is mostly in agreement that the arguments have little scholarly merit, but the reasons behind this response vary, in large part according to one's theology.
Chuck Currie highlights the response of Stephen Patterson of Eden Theological Seminary, and Patterson is no conservative.
I pick this piece from a longer article by Patterson that speaks to the scholarly reaction:

Historians of early Christianity are universally skeptical of Jacobivichi’s interpretation of the ossuaries. Jesus came from a poor family without the means to buy or construct such a tomb. Ossuaries, too are very expensive, a luxury not available to common peasants. Jesus and his family came from Galilee. If he had a family tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, or perhaps Capernaum, not Jerusalem, where he was just a brief visitor. Finally, it was not the custom in
the Galilee of the first century CE to dispose of the dead in this manner, that is, using an ossuary—the practice known as "second burial." Cameron and Jacobivichi are not biblical scholars or ancient historians, so they do not know these things, and do not factor them into their interpretation. The experts they interviewed, however, do know these things. Frank Cross, Francois Bovon, Tal Ilan, who appear on the film, are all respected scholars. And they are shown
giving answers to specific questions which seem to support the film makers’ theory. But they are all crying "foul" this week, for not one of them agrees in the least with the film’s interpretation of the facts. They all know that there is too much contravening evidence.

As for the faith response, it does depend in part how you take the texts, but the presence or absence of a tomb needn't be a hindrance to faith in Jesus or the resurrection. Paul speaks of a spiritual resurrection but makes nothing of an empty tomb. The gospels, which come later, do highlight the empty tomb, but one might still take all this spiritually and metaphorically. Personally, I err on the side of cautious faith and accept an empty tomb, but discovery of a tomb wouldn't change the faith that has changed me. The absence of the body doesn't define resurrection.

It is possible, historically, that in the aftermath of the crucifixion, no one really knew what happened to Jesus’ body. Today historians cannot be sure what happened to Jesus’ body. But if the fate of his body is unclear, the fate of the faith and trust in God that Jesus inspired in others, before his death, after his death, and still today, is not. And this faith need not be undermined
in the least, even if the claims made by Cameron and Jacobivichi prove credible with further investigation. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" says Luke the evangelist (Luke 24:6). Christianity is a living faith in which the life of Jesus is continued in the lives of those who embrace his spirit as determinative for their own existence.

To this last phrase I say amen!

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