The James Ossuary

We wake up to the television news every morning, except for Saturdays and Sundays, when the news is replaced by special interest programming and infomercials. This morning, I stayed in bed a little later than usual because of the promise of a news report that would forever change the face of Christianity.

I was intrigued. The promise was of a new archaeological discovery that would undo much of what we had thought of as core to the Christian faith. When I heard a bit more, I was skeptical. This new archaeological discovery supposedly proved that the Resurrection never happened, but that Jesus lived a normal life, with wife and child, and died, being buried according to the customs of his day.

The burial customs of Jesus' day were unique, as we all know. One is pronounced dead. The body is placed in a secluded spot until persons can determine that the body is really quite sincerely dead, instead of being just merely dead. They poke it with a stick. If it moves, it is alive. If it does not, then the body is determined to be dead. At that point, the body is treated with caustic spices. These hasten the decomposition process. The body is then wrapped in cloth, also to hasten decomposition. The tomb is closed. A year to the day after the person's death, the family members open the tomb, unwrap what is left of the body, collect up the bones and place them in a stone box, called an ossuary, where other family bones are stored.

The breaking news was not breaking news at all, but an old story. In 1980, and ossuary was discovered in a Jerusalem private collection that bore the inscription: Jesus, son of Joseph, brother of James. It was, of course, in Hebrew script. The only new information to come from the report on this discovery of "The James Ossuary" was the discovery of a site where it had been, purportedly, entombed. At that site, archaeologists uncovered ossuaries for Mary and a young boy. This had led the archaeologists to conclude that the James Ossuary proved Jesus' typical burial, and that the discovery of Mary's and the boy's prove that Jesus had a wife and son.

I am giggling as I type this on my laptop. Even is the James Ossuary belonged to the Jesus of Nazareth that we follow, that leads to doubt about the ascension of Jesus, not his resurrection. Let's say that Jesus was buried in the typical fashion. That only means that his ultimate end was not an ascension into heaven but a normal death. It says nothing of the Resurrection, unless one believes, as I do, that the Resurrection points to spiritual instead of physical reality.

Besides, archaeology has surfaced literally hundreds of ossuary. Many bear the names Jesus, Joseph and James, some even in combination.This is old news. It discounts nothing. It proves nothing. It does raise some doubt about the historicity of the ascension narrative, but I imagine that few of us take that as scientific fact.

My point is that I should have gotten out of bed instead of waiting for this "breaking" news. There was nothing new here, and nothing particularly exciting. I get to hold onto my belief in the spiritual resurrection of Christ Jesus for yet another day.

Happy Easter!