| Jesus During the past four decades, spectacular discoveries have produced data corroborating the historical backdrop of the Gospels. In 1968, for example, the skeletal remains of a crucified man were found in a burial cave in norhtern Jerusalem. It was a momentous discovery: while the Romans were known to have crucified thousands of alleged traitiors, rebels, and robbers, the remains of a crucifixion victim had never been recovered. The bones preserved in an ossuary, a stone box for the burial of bones, appeared to be those of a man in his mid- to late 20's. There was evidence that his wrists may have been pierced with nails. The knees had been doubled up and turned sideways and an iron nail (still lodged in the heel bone of one foot) driven through both heels. The shinbones appeared to have been broken, perhaps corroborating th Gospel of John (19:32-33): "So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been cruicfied with Him." It had long been said that Roman executioners usually tossed the corpses of the crucified into a common grave or left them on the cross for scavenging animals. With the remains of a crucified contemporary of Jesus' found in a family grave, however, it is clear that the Romans sometimes permitteed an interment consistent with the Biblical account of Jesus' burial. While building a park two miles south of the Temple Mount in 1990, workers discovered a hidden burial chamber dating to the first centrury, which contained 12 limestons ossuaries. On one, bearing the bones of a man in his 60's, was the inscription "Yehosef bar Qayafa", "Joseph, son of Caiaphas." Experts believe these are the remains of Caiaphas, the high priest of Jerusalem, who, according to the Gosples, was involved in the arrest of Jesus, interrogated him and handed him over to Pontius Pilate for execution. A few decades earleir, during excavations at the ruins of Caesarea Maritima, the ancient seat of Roman government in Judea, a stone slab bearing a badly damaged inscripton was uncorvered. According to experts, the complete inscription may have read "Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea, has dedicated to the people of Caesarea a temple in honor of Tiberius." The discovery is truly significant, it is the only inscription ever found bearing Pilate's name, and establishes that the man depicted in the Gospels as Judea's Roman governer had the authority ascribed to him by the Gospel writers. The archeological record is silent on much of the Bible's history. But archeologists are convinced that a lot more evidence still lies buried in the sands of the Middle East waiting to be found. |
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