The Grave and Bones of Jesus and family?

Could James Cameron and crew really have found the lost tomb of Jesus?

Firstly, this idea is not a new idea. People have been trying to find the tomb of Jesus for a long time. The movie called "The Body" explored this concept before (with Antonio Banderas). But let's consider what has been claimed:

1. A tomb with names of Jesus, Mary, Joesph, (and a son of Jesus) has been found. This is true. I don't doubt this.
2. They have claimed to do statistical and DNA analysis to back up their claims.

That's basically all that has been claimed. In the BBC news article @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6397373.stm?ls it mentions that both archeologists (non-Christians) and theologians discredit their view. The Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, who was one of the first to find the tomb (and isn't a Christian) is quoted as saying that he doesn't buy the idea that it was used by Jesus and family.

So the experts don't buy into this. But James Cameron and crew claim they have a case and "the debate" is to begin. Well, let's examine this debate (trust me, it will be short):

1. They claim DNA evidence, but any reasonable person can realize that there is no DNA evidence that can provide any information either for or against this claim. We have no DNA records of Jesus of Nazareth or anyone else from that time. DNA may show them to be a family, but that is what you'd expect from this tomb and the names on it. It may even be able to prove that the DNA is truly Jewish. It doesn't matter. This claim of DNA evidence to prove this is Jesus is nonsense because there is nothing to compare it against. Get a DNA sample of the original Jesus of Nazareth (which you cannot) and then make claims about DNA. Without that, it is all "bluster".
2. As the archeologist mentioned above, the names on that tomb are all very common. The movie makers claim that statistically having them all together is virtually impossible. The names on there are very generic, not specific, first of all. And, yes, they were very common at that time. Yes, they coincide with the names of Jesus and people around Him as provided in the Bible, but that means nothing. You couldn't convict someone of petty theft on such thin evidence. The claim it is like finding "Ringo" next to John, Paul and George. This is nonsense. They only have the name Mariamene, and they claim it is Mary of Magdelene. Are they so desparate? Mariamene says nothing of Magdelene, and that name was a common Jewish name. It is the form of Moses' sister's name, it was the name of Mary (Mariamene) and Marth, the sisters of Lazarus, etc. There is no reason to connect Magdelene except to build trumped-up evidence and to try to make a claim where no claim exists for the sake of making a movie. When it comes to such common names, coincidences are easy to find. My real first and last name are common. I've worked in two places where there was another person with my first and last name (and we often got each other's email). I once had a class with 3 of us with the same first name sitting in the same corner of the class. And that is just in my little world. There is no evidence here in this collection of names.

The movie "The Body" actually showed well how this can happen. In this case, the movie had a tomb with Jesus' name and the bones of one clearly crucified. Much conflict happens in the film, but in the filmmakers reveal that it was some other Jesus crucified at a later time. In their fictional version, there was far more real evidence, and yet it still ended up not being true. In this situation, there is no evidence besides a combination of names. That isn't enough evidence to convict someone of petty theft.

But let James Cameron have his day, just like The Da Vinci Code before and everyone else who has tried to attack the Christian faith. If the body of Jesus was to have been found, it would have been found and brought to light in the 1st century when the Christian faith was flourishing and all the powers at the time (Roman and Jewish) wanted nothing but to destroy it. The burial place was known to Roman and Jewish and producing the body of Jesus would have been a simple thing, and there would have been on Christian faith to speak of today. But that never happened because there was no body to find. Those who lived then knew it, and it is because of this fact, that Jesus truly rose, that His church sprung to life and continues to live today!

Praise God!

Who is your creator?

Here is a great site discussing the issues of Evolution.

http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/

Check it out. I think you'll be challenged.

Addressing Bible Difficulties and "Contradictions"

The Bible is frequently attacked as being a book full of contradictions and problems and inconsistencies. This, however, is not true. Those that make such assertions do so without understanding.

Here is a great site that documents and answers the many so-called "contradictions" of the Bible, showing that the Bible is, in fact, not self-contradicting. Rather, it is accurate, internally consistent...and ultimately trustworthy.

http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm

It is really ridiculous to believe?

Perhaps the title of this posting sounds odd considering it is from one who does believe, but there is "method behind the madness" :-). In having some recent discussions with several who do not believe, I've begun to ask myself why they find the idea of believing so ridiculous (not their words, but mine, but that is essentially what they communicate).

If I were to ask them directly (and I have in some cases) the answer would likely be (and has been) that there is no proof for God or the Bible, that it isn't logical or scientific. A common response I've received is "I am a scientist..." after which some statement is made that suggests that one who adheres to the science method cannot believe in God. This, of course, is silly, as there are many really scientists who firmly believe in God. But that isn't what I want to focus on.

What I want to focus on is why the idea of believing in God--and specifically in Christianity--is so ridiculous to the unbeliever.

Is it because there is no proof? Those who do not believe would say there is no proof. This, however, is simply not the case. There is so much evidence it isn't funny. Many would disagree, but that doesn't make it any less so.

Is it because science is the antithesis of faith and spiritual beliefs? This is also not the case. As I stated above there are scientists who believe. And though I am not a formal scientist by trade, I also am a scientist. My work in technology involves the application of Computer Science. I am a student and lover of the world and method of science. I apply its methods daily and read of its works frequently.

And yet I believe in God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. With all my heart, mind and soul.

So where is the problem, really? The problem lies somewhere else.

Now, you may ask, how can I say this? Isn't this an almost arrogant statement? Yes, I could be, accept I know this first hand. I know this because of my own life.

I can still recall that time in my life when I was a firm disbeliever. I used to look at the Bible and think it the most ridiculous book there could be, created by people, having nothing to tell us about God--if He was even there. No, I was never an all-out atheist, but was agnostic for certain. And there was a time I was close to being atheistic. The phrase "born-again Christian" brought nothing but a distasteful sensation to my mouth. I thought such people were nutcases.

But then I was confronted with the truth in a way I never had heard. It was during a period in my life when I was not being judgemental. I wasn't "seeking", but I wasn't closed to anything either. I was willing to listen to what others had to say for what it was without dismissing it out of hand. I was willing to contemplate it and consider it. For a long while I did disagree with what I heard. But that eventually changed.

I became a Christian. I believed in what God said about Himself and about His Son, about my state as a sinner, and my need to find salvation alone in His Son Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice on the cross. I believed (and still do) that Jesus rose again three days later and is alive even today.

How did I make this transition? How did I go from stanch skeptic to all-out believer?

The evidence didn't change, though I did learn more about it. The nature of the information I had access to didn't fundamentally change. The Bible didn't change. The world didn't change. What changed?

I did. My attitude did. Before I became a believer, nothing anyone said to me would have ever changed my mind. No amount of proof or evidence or exposure to Christian things would have changed my heart. I've seen this very thing in other people I know. It wasn't a lack of evidence that was standing in the way. The evidence was always there.

The barrier was in me and in my heart. I didn't want to believe.

That's right. I didn't want to believe. I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe. I thought I full understood the nature of the world and was completely convinced of it. But this wasn't even the problem. The problem was that I didn't want anyone to be my master besides myself.

The biggest obstacle I now see I had was the idea of being subservient, even a slave, to another. In this case God. As well as the idea of being dependant on Jesus Christ utterly for the future and eternal condition. This idea was anathema to me.

I was all I needed. My mind. My effort. My strength. My intelligence and reasoning. My power. There was no God. There was no need for God. I was all I had and all I needed to empower and direct my future. That was true freedom. Anything else was slavery to an unseen God and that was unacceptable. W. E. Henley wrote the poem Invictus which speaks of being the "captain of one's soul". It is a "hymn" to the ability to choose and to decide one's own life for oneself, as I read one person say.

The fallacy, however, is even when we think we are free when we are doing are own thing apart from God, we in fact are not. I definitely wasn't free then. Before God I was a slave. Worse was I didn't even realize it. I thought I could do what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted. But in fact, I couldn't. I was a slave to my passions, my desires, my ambitions, my emotions.

W.L. Barnes in his book Free as a bird illustrates this with story of a bird who had decided to make their bird feeder his territory and guarded it fiercely. The bird was like the man of Invictus with his head unbowed, doing what he wanted to matter what. He chased away any other intruders. He guarded his territory and protected it. In the end, however, he was not free. Because of His own choices, he was not actually free. He couldn't leave the feeder because he had to always guard it. And when he was chasing away one intruder he was risking allowing in another. He couldn't go anywhere else. He had to always be with the feeder. He had made himself a slave to his own choice--a selfish one, in fact--and though he felt strong in his assertion of his own choices, he was a slave to that assertion. He life was governed by his choices. He was now no longer free to make any other choice, unless he could let go of the desire to dominate the feeder, which we wouldn't. He wanted to be free to go elsewhere, but also wanted to dominate the feeder. He couldn't have both. And, consequently, he made himself a slave to his own passions. Had he but let go of that selfish ambition, he could have been free to go elsewhere and still enjoy the food while sharing it with the other birds. He could have had the food and been free to soar elsewhere as well.

You see, we humans like to think that--apart from God--we are getting to do our own thing. In reality, we are not. We are like that bird. How many times have you done something mainly because that is what your emotions or desires drove you to, and not because you felt it was the best thing for you, because you reasoned it out, etc. To take a simple example, how many times have gotten angry at a loved one or a friend, and afterwards regretted it, wishing you had better self-control. Who was in charge then? You or your passions? Well, your passions, of course.

Whether it is our ambitions for money, power, for things, a desire for friends and popularity, etc. our desires and passions can enslave us just like they did that bird. People who pursue riches become slaves to those ambitions. There are many tales of rich people so greedy for their money were never free to spend it because of their own greed. They lived like paupers, or at least cheapskates, in order to keep the money. They were enslaved by their own greed, rich but never able to enjoy the money they so desparately desired.

And yet people like to think they are free in their abilities to choose for themselves, and consequently opposed any idea of God being over them, being answerable to Him. It doesn't matter whether there is proof of His existence or not. People will not have God over them. I, at one time, didn't want God over me. And, consequently, I would refuse to believe no matter what evidence was presented.

And it isn't a matter of the validity of the evidence for God. It is very valid. Very logical. Very reasonable. Very scientific. I find the problem is more like the one expressed by an evolutionist who essentially said "There are many problems with evolution, but the alternative is unacceptable, so I must continue to believe in it nonetheless".

The alternative was creationism and the belief in God. To this person that was an unacceptable alternative. And so they continued to believe in what was admitted as a problematic theory. I appreciate this because this was my condition at one time. The idea of Christianity, its dependence on a God and a Saviour, was abhorant to me on so many levels. My mind was simply closed to it. It was "unacceptable".

But the evidence was always there. It required a change in my heart and my attitude. Once I started examining the evidence without rejecting it out-of-hand, I soon came to realize that my previous perspectives and understandings were all very wrong and that the truth was in God and His Word (the Bible). And the beauty was that through Him I became truly free, because though answerable to Him, I was freed by Him to no longer be a slave to those same passions that have enslaved us all, whether rich, poor, man...or bird... Unlike with my own sinfulness, as Jesus said, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. The yoke and burden of our own natures is far from light or easy.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. - John 14:6

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. - John 8:36

Websites for Apologetics (The Defending of the Faith)

Here are some good websites for exploring the reasons for believing in the Christian faith:

http://www.apologetics.org/

http://www.behindthebadge.net/apologetics/

http://www.josh.org/apologetics/

http://www.christiananswers.net/menu-at1.html (this is to their Apologetics section).

http://www.creationscience.com/

http://www.crosssearch.com/Science_and_Social_Science/Theology_and_Issues/Apologetics/

Enjoy!

God's Own Proof: Messianic Prophecies

There are many modern evidences for the divinity of Jesus and the truth of scripture. Many are scientific, many historical, many logical. However, none (however important and valuable) match God's own proof.

What is that proof? Prophecy. God spoke ahead of time about the thing He would do as proof that they were from Him. He said if a prophet said something would happen and it didn't, he was a false prophet. He also said He is the God who declares the end from the beginning. In otherwords, He tells us before hand what is going to happen.

Jesus did the same. He said to His disciples about the cross before it happened so that when it came to pass they would believe in Him.

There are so many prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament, written long before Jesus walked the earth. And they were all fulfilled to the detailed letter in Him.

You can read about them in http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/messianicprophecies.html.

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources

Check out this page that provides great evidence for the existence of Jesus in history, as a real person, a real historical figure.

http://www.probe.org/theology-and-philosophy/theology---christ/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources.html

Creation Science: An Online Book

There is a great book on Creation Science that you can read on line @ http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/. Take a look.

The evidence is amazing, scientific, and compelling.

A God who cannot get enough praise?

As to singing praises to God who cannot get enough praise? It is a natural response of humans to sing in praise and celebration. We sing about our countries, we sing on birthdays, we sing to celebrate special secular days of the year, we sing in Hollywood specials, we sing a sweet tune when we are happy. Why, then, is it so strange to sing to God?

Some look at the praise of God and say, "What kind of God is this that has such an ego that He needs us to praise and worship Him?"

That is the question asked the wrong way around. It should be "What kind of creatures are we that we have the need to praise and worship?" We praise and worship athletes and movie stars and singers and company CEOs. And these people invite it. They don't beg for it, though. And we don't question this. Yet we question it when we do it for God?

No, my friends. This is the way we are. We praise and worship those we adore, those we admire, those we hold in high esteem. And songs are one of those methods of communicating our adoration.

We humans do it for other people and other things. Why shouldn't we do it for the God who created us?

How do we know that "Things ought not to be this way"?

It isn't a surprise to any of us that we look out at our world, look at its problems, its issues, its evils and say "Why are things like this? They shouldn't be like this!"

This is a valid question and a true statement. While I don't want to address the why in this post (check out http://the-true-way.blogspot.com/ for a posting with this regard), I do want to discuss the fact that we ask the question itself.

We are all used to it and we just assume it is natural, but consider that if we had evolved and we are the way by virtue of a series of cosmic accidents and natural forces, from where does such questions about "how things ought to be" come? If we are the way we are based on natural forces and such, then we have no basis or reason to say "thing ought not to be this way". In fact, all we can say is "things cannot be any other way" because this is the way nature and evolution made things. In an evolved universe, there is "ought"--there is only "because".

And yet, we ask such questions and feel things "ought not to be this way". This is definitely not a desirable trait that evolution should have selected out. It has let to much self-destructive behaviour (drug abuse, drinking, suicide), depression, etc. Definitely not a strong genetic trait. If we had evolved, the survival of the fittest should have selected such a weak gene out in favor of those who full accepted and were more than content with their existence as it was.

And yet, we ask such questions. Beyond the fact that evolution should have selected this out, there is also the question of "what is this 'ought' of which we speak"? When we talk about things needing to be better, what is our basis of comparison? How do we know that the way things are now are not the best they could possibly be? From where do we get this information? From our imaginations? If that is what we are trusting, as supposedly evolved creatures, we cannot trust it as anything but the fantasies random chance. They are no more valid that the ramblings of a madman.

And yet we ask such questions, and we are positive "things ought not to be this way", and we are certain we know what that "better way" would be, in general.

Evolution and natural, humanistic philosophy cannot address this. It cannot explain why we ask such questions, on what basis we make such statements, and from where we get our idea of "the better way". Nor, however, can it dismiss them as invalid. Even those who adhere to evolutionary and humanistic thinking believe "things ought not to be this way". What they may think of "the better way" may differ from mine, but nonetheless they think it.

There really is only one logical conclusion. That from somewhere outside of ourselves, from somewhere outside of the human realm as we perceive it, we have been told--right into our hearts--that there is something wrong with us and our world and what that "better way" should be.

I put forth that the only source of such understanding that logically makes sense is God Himself. I have already shown how natural forces and thinking cannot explain it. Some One transendent, beyond us and above us, has to provide this information to us. And it cannot be some impersonal force. Such thinking is highly personal, the ideas of a mind. It must come from our very personal God, our creator, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

Think about it. Ponder it, and see if in your heart you do not come to the same conclusion.

A Story: I hurt and am sick, therefore there is no God!

The problem of pain and suffering as it reflects on the existence of God has been discussed for a long time. The existence of pain and suffering cause many to conclude that there must be no God as a good and loving God wouldn't allow suffering.

It seems a valid argument on the surface, but there are two factors that most fail to consider: sin and our choice not to turn to God. I will discuss this more in the future, but for now read the story below and see what you think.

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving a God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt!

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber and I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me."

"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

That is the bottom line. Why is there pain and suffering? It isn't because God doesn't exist. It is because we are sinful and we turn our backs on God. How can we expect God to bless us when we turn our backs on Him and disobey Him. We want Him to continue to bless while, at the same time, we ignore and rebel against Him.

This would be like a criminal asking for the freedom and benefits of everyone else (i.e. to be free of the suffering, restriction and isolation of jail) despite the fact that the criminal broke the law (stole something, or hurt someone, ...). We would not bless that criminal. They must suffer the consequences. And the horrible conditions in jail is more a cause of the way criminals are and behave that it is of the conditions in which they were placed by the justice system.

It is the same with us and God. God has "put us in jail" with isolation from Himself for our sin. It is the just and right punishment for our law-breaking. The conditions on this world are caused by our own sinful behaviour more than they are caused by the punishments of God.