By Ray Gano
Well it was coming up on 8:00 PM. I had a glass of milk, note paper and pen at hand. I flipped through the channels till I got to The Discovery Channel.
My first thought �Hey, it must be bash the bible night on Discovery!� I said that to myself and to Tracye because the show just before The Jesus Family Tomb was a show on �The REAL Noah�s Ark.�
I have seen that show before and was yet another show mocking the biblical account of Noah and the Ark and in fact, it was an attack on God�s Word it self.
So I knew how this evening of �fine� television viewing was already going; it was going down the tubes.
Well the show started and we were brought back to the times of Jesus. The narrator was telling us the biblical account and then it happened, the narrator took a turn.
�But we learn in the Gospel of Matthew of a different account, one not mentioned in the other Gospels.�
The narrator went on telling that the disciples whisked Christ�s body away and hid it in a secret tomb. Fast forward to 1980 and the tomb is discovered.. and today we have the great discovery of �Jesus� Family Tomb� the movie, the book and probably soon to come DVD.
The real motivation behind this was already exposing itself.
Anyone with any biblical, archeological or even common sense would see right thought this. In fact the portion of scripture that the narrator was speaking of is the following�
��lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away��
I mean is this it? Is this what they are basing all these findings on? Is this how they piece all this stuff together? Their foundation was one line of scripture taken out of context?
Instantly I wanted to throw a brick through the TV set. I could not believe what a weak stance these guys were taking. Well this was just the beginning.
Here is the portion of scripture and how it is read in context found in Matthew 27 62 - 66
Mat 27:62 Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,
Mat 27:63 Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.
Mat 27:64 Command therefore that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.
Mat 27:65 Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.
Mat 27:66 So they went, and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.
I found that much of the so called �documentary� was basing itself on evidence which was thin as ice and preposterous assumptions.
The Statistics
This was another major point that the focus of much of the documentaries �evidence� was based upon. Again these were weak links added to a weak chain made up of weak �what if� links.
In the film we leaned that Jacobovici held a series of meetings with statisticians
�I would like to know what the probability is that the series of names indeed belonged to Jesus' family.� Jacobovici said.
So he met with Prof. Andrey Feuerverger of the Department of Statistics at the University of Toronto, an expert on probabilities.
"I sat with him, and he listened to me and did not laugh," said Jacobovici. "He said, we cannot examine each name alone, but we can look at the entire combination. Suppose, he said, we placed the entire population of Jerusalem at the time, some 100,000 people, in a football pitch and a man with a loudspeaker called: all those named Josua, please stand up.
"Some 10 percent of the men, who are 50 percent of the total, stand up. We have 5,000 men standing. The loudspeaker guy now says: Only those whose father was named Joseph please remain standing. Then he calls on those among them whose mother was named Mary, then those who had brothers named Josua and James, and so on.
"Eventually, you will have very few people standing. I gave him the data I had and he worked on this for nearly a year. It turned out that in that period, 4% of the men were named Josua, and 25% of the women were called Mary (Maria, or Miriam). His model eventually established that the probability that this was not the burial cave of Jesus and his family is 1:600."(1)
Let�s apply a bit of critical thought here.
What Jacobovici is basically saying is that it is 1 in 600 chance that Joseph, Mary, Josua and James and so on could be found in one tomb.
Well look at this differently. They started in a football stadium with 100,000 people. 600 goes into 100,000 approximately 166.666666667 times. So out of those 100,000 people there are 166 families with possibly all the same names having a family tomb together.
Now let�s look at this in common sense terms..
How many people out there know someone named �Bob�? Ok of those how many have a female in the family named �Sue�? How many Bobs do we know that have children named Bill, John, or Tom?
Now if you walked into any cemetery in the US today, do you think that you can find a tombstone with a man named BOB who had a female family member named Sue and possibly children named Bill, John or Tom on it?
The odds are pretty likely that you could do this. That is a common sense example of 1 in 600 odds. Now do the odds that Jacobovici present seem that amazing to you?
Do those odds make Bob, the son of God and Savior who died for our sins? No it does not even come close. Like Bob, it does not make the bones in the discovered tomb the remains of our Savior nor of His family either. It could be the bones of any 166 families per 100,000 people living in Israel during the second temple period.
Throughout the film this is the type of logic, statistics and speculation that Jacobovici used.
Do you see how Jacobovici and Cameron have played really loose here and made outrageous speculation seem to have some semblance of truth and credibility?
The DNA
Let�s jump to the DNA.
DNA has permeated our society. �If there is DNA it has to be true.� That is the common thought of today. It is also the mentality that Jacobovici and Cameron leveraged in their film.
Simcha Jacobovici, discovered just enough mitochondrial DNA for a lab in Ontario to state that the body of the male named �Jesus� and the female body of the individual named �Mary� found were not related.
So what does that prove?
According to Jacobovici it meant that these people were married.
Remember Bob who we spoke about earlier who had a female family member named Sue and possibly children named Bill, John or Tom?
Do we know if Bob and Sue are married if we took DNA samples from them?
If we found out that Bob and Sue were not related via DNA what does this tell us?
Does it tell us that Sue is the wife of Bob?
Maybe Sue is an aunt from his dad�s side who is married into the clan and not a blood relative but a relative by marriage only.
In the biblical times extended families were common where relatives were part of the extended family but by marriage only and often it was widowed females.
So again I ask, by taking DNA of Bob and Sue do we know without a doubt that they were married?
No we do not and yet this is the leap of faith that Jacobovici and Cameron present.
Like Bob and Sue, Josua and Mary were very common names during that time. In fact how many Josua�s and Mary�s do you know today?
Conclusion
Folks, there are no bones of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, God�s only begotten son sitting in any tombs.
Here is what God�s Word Says�
1Corinthians 15:1 � 8 (KJV) Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
Acts 1:9 � 11 (KJV) And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, The Way, The Truth and The Life is at the Right Hand of God in all His Glory. So soon yes very soon, He will return for his bride�
1 Thessalonians 4:16 � 17 (KJV) For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Who Do You Serve?
Jesus stated the following�
John 14:6 (KJV) Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
If you do not have Christ in your life, you will spend eternity in hell. This is a fact. It does not matter if you believe this or not, it is the truth spoken by Jesus himself. You will not go to hell for your sins or for what you have done. You will go to hell for what you have not done and that is accepting Christ as your personal savior.
We work hard at Prophezine to show that Bible Prophecy is coming to pass. Because of this fact, the Bible is true. Since the Bible is the true and inerrant word of God, there is a heaven and there is a hell.
Who you serve will determine where you will spend eternity.
1John 1:9 (KJV) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Biography � Ray Gano
Ray & Tracye Gano are the Executive Directors of Prophezine. Prophezine deals with Bible Prophecy and World Events from a Pre-trib, pre-millennial, dispensationalist stand point. They currently serve close to 70,000+ (and growing) people world wide with a weekly newsletters, daily news updates, community based website and Internet radio shows. Ray recently released his latest project �Escape The End Time Money Snare � The CD a multimedia CD co-authored with Wilfred Hahn focusing on how to escape the trappings of mammon and learning how to live simply in God�s abundance.
Please visit Prophezine by going to http://www.prophezine.com