The Tomb of Jesus?

Part 2, The Biblical Witness

When James Cameron's documentary claims that finding The Burial Cave of Jesus “is the biggest archaeological story of the century,” is this bad news for the good news? Not at all. Soon after the news of the possible find of Jesus’ bones came out, I had a non-Christian friend gloat to me: “So, this disproves Christianity, right?” This documentary gave me my first good oppor-tunity to talk to him about Jesus.

As opposed to the unfounded assertions of the documentary, the testimony of numerous eye-witnesses is clear: Jesus was bodily resurrected from a rich man’s tomb. (Thus there are no bones to find.) Jesus repeatedly (Matthew 16:21; 17:22f; 20:18f) predicted this (“the Son of Man must suffer many things ... and after 3 days will rise again.”) It was proclaimed by the angels at the tomb (“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.” Lk.24:5,6). It was believed by the disciples (“It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.) During the 40 days the resurrected Christ met with his disciples, hundreds saw him alive. (I Cor.15:6). (Some have conjectured that the disciples so wanted Jesus to be alive again that they hallucinated his resurrection. But do 500 people have a mass, unified hallucination?!)

But what evidence do we have that the Biblical eye-witnesses are reliable? Much indeed. First, what event could have caused the dramatic change in the disciples? When Jesus was arrested, his followers fled. Peter wouldn’t even admit his allegiance to Jesus to an insignificant servant girl. But a few months later, he boldly preached a risen Christ in the streets of Jerusalem. Would the disciples have risked the murderous wrath of the Jewish officials for a rotting carcass lying in a coffin? I don’t think so. Chuck Colson has pointed out that when Richard Nixon’s presidency was sinking, his closest aides jumped ship and testified against him to save their own skins. Self-preservation is one of our strongest urges.

Furthermore, even if we grant the possibility that the disciples concocted this story about a Living Jesus, wouldn’t his enemies have exhumed the corpse and dragged it through the city streets to disprove this dangerous “heresy”? A dead body would have buried Christianity before it sprang to life.

Be prepared to “give an answer for the hope within us” when people talk about the purported burial cave of Jesus. The belief that best fits the facts is that HE IS RISEN!