Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: March 2007

Dem bones

In normal circumstances the headline 'Jesus found on housing estate' would cause Christians to jump up and down with glee. After all, they make it their business to make him known wherever they are, and for this kind of thing they pray. However, when the housing estate is an apartment complex in Jerusalem, and when the Jesus of the headline is a bit of bone residue in a limestone box, the whole thing looks rather different (see the BBC website news story).

Add to this that the man revealing Jesus to the world on this particular occasion is film producer and impresario James Cameron and questions have to be asked. After all, he was the man who broke box office records with a film about the Titanic, in which he accused the unscrupulous of making money from the wreck! Given all of this, Views would like to pose some questions:

Why now?

It is now 27 years since the limestone ossuaries were first unearthed by workmen in East Talpiot. They were then duly catalogued and stored in warehouses owned by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. What has led to their startling revelation at such a time? Is this to revive the conspiracy theories stirred up by Dan Brown with the release of the Da Vinci Code film last year, or to boost the fortunes of those making the Lost Tomb of Jesus documentary?

Whose are they?

It is true that three of the ossuaries are inscribed with the names of Jesus son of Joseph, Maria and Judah son of Jesus. However, it is also true that these were all extremely common names at the time of the burials. Many parents named their son Jesus, or "God to the rescue" (which is what the name means), in the hope that God would hear the implicit prayer. That the son of God took such a name, and that he was born to a Mary and a Joseph, is proof that the incarnation brought him all the way down to earth with a bump as he entered the most ordinary of households. Mr Cameron has said that the chances of finding these names in adjacent graves is like finding graves marked Ringo, George, Paul and John next to each other. In fact, the chances are far higher.

So what?

These dusty limestone boxes with their scratched inscriptions and their bone residue will no more affect the historic Christian faith than the Turin shroud has. Our faith is not based on such artefacts, but on faith in the (undisputed) life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Writing in troubled times, when holding faith in Jesus was somewhere between unpopular and dangerous, a New Testament writer said that 'faith is the evidence of things hoped for, and the substance of things not seen' (Hebrews 11:1). And so it will remain, until God is seen face to face.