the empty tomb of jesus

Today's Reflections 
 

 

the empty tomb of jesus 

http://graceandspace.org

Jn 20:1-9

¹On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” ³So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. ⁴They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; ⁵he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. ⁶When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, ⁷and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. ⁸Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. ⁹For they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

OUT OF THE TOMB. On March 4, 2007, the Discovery Channel broadcasted the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, directed by Simcha Jacobovici, with James Cameron, the famous director of the movie Titanic, as executive director. The film was released in conjunction with the book The Jesus Family Tomb, co-authored by Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. In the film, Jacobovici puts together a case in which he argues that the bones of Jesus, his mother Mary, his alleged wife Mary Magdalene, and their purported son Judah, along with some relatives, were once entombed in the cave.

The documentary’s and the book’s claims are widely disputed by archaeologists and theologians, as well as by language and biblical scholars. Amos Kloner, who oversaw the original dig of the tomb in 1980, said, “It makes a great story for a TV film, but it’s completely impossible. It’s nonsense.”

William Dever, excavator of sites in Israel, wrote, “I’ve known about these ossuaries for many years and so have many other archaeologists, and none of us thought it was much of a story, because these are rather common Jewish names from that period. It’s a publicity stunt, and it will make these guys very rich, and it will upset millions of innocent people because they don’t know enough to separate fact from fiction.”

Bible scholar Ben Witherington III points out that implicitly you must accuse Peter and John of fraud and cover-up. Are we to believe that they knew Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead but perpetuated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die? Did they hide the body of Jesus in another tomb?

That millions would be upset by the claims of the documentary and the book about the tomb of Jesus is understandable. The claims contradict Catholic teachings on the resurrection of Jesus, the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to heaven, and that Jesus never married and never had a child.

Today’s solemnity of Easter is a good time to profess with conviction the article of the Creed: “On the third day, he (Jesus) rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”