Dr. Stephen Patterson, professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary, has a new article posted on the seminary's website outlining his observations about the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus."
As you may have heard, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" aired earlier this month on The Discovery Channel and reports the extraordinary claim that ossuaries (burial boxes) containing the remains of Jesus and his family members have been found.
Patterson, author of The God of Jesus and a noted expert on Thomas, opens his article with a critique of the methods used to make such a claim:
No one involved in this film is an archaeologist; none is an ancient historian; none is an epigrapher (someone able to read ancient inscriptions). It did employ one New Testament scholar, James Tabor, an able, but idiosyncratic scholar from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Tabor has no archaeological experience. This does not mean the film makers are wrong. But it does mean they haven't the expertise necessary to prove they are right. Their method was a film-making method. They begin with a theory--that this is the family of Jesus. They then assemble certain facts that seem to establish it as true. These facts are then woven into a narrative, with dramatizations, to establish its plausibility. This is how a good documentary film is made. Archaeologists, however, do not work this way. Archaeologists begin by assembling all the relevant facts and information. Then they formulate various alternatives of interpretation, and weigh each of them against all the evidence. This would not make a very interesting film, but it is the way good archaeology is done.
Others have made similar observations. What Patterson offers that is perhaps more unique is his insight into the theological questions raised by this film:
The significance of the film's claims for Christian faith really depends on the way one understands Christianity, and the foundations upon which it rests. For many Christians, the literal physical resurrection of Jesus is the miracle that proves Jesus was the Son of God, and that we should therefore believe in Jesus. If this miracle were shown to be untrue--by the discovery of Jesus' body, in this case--then Christian faith would itself be shown to be untrue. But for many other Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is not to be understood in this way. The earliest resurrection confession, reflected in Paul's letter, First Corinthians, did not present Jesus' resurrection as physical in this way. Paul argues that resurrection is only possible insofar as God gives to the dead a new body, which he calls a "spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:44). "Flesh and blood," he says, "cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (1 Cor 15:50). Of course, Paul's view is not the only one in the New Testament. The writers of Matthew and Luke, and possibly John, all believed Jesus' physical body was raised from the dead. This is why many insist on it today as fundamental to Christian faith. But to insist on it, as so many do, is to ignore the diversity of the New Testament itself, which ought to authorize similar diversity among Christians today.
In my view, the earliest followers of Jesus believed God had raised Jesus from the dead because they believed in Jesus. That is, they believed God had authorized his words and deeds, and that the change they had embraced in their lives was God's will. After his death they continued to experience the spirit of Jesus alive in their midst....
It is possible, historically, that in the aftermath of the crucifixion, no one really knew what happened to Jesus' body. Today historians cannot be sure what happened to Jesus' body. But if the fate of his body is unclear, the fate of the faith and trust in God that Jesus inspired in others, before his death, after his death, and still today, is not. And this faith need not be undermined in the least, even if the claims made by Cameron and Jacobivichi prove credible with further investigation. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" says Luke the evangelist (Luke 24:6). Christianity is a living faith in which the life of Jesus is continued in the lives of those who embrace his spirit as determinative for their own existence.
Did the resurrection of Jesus have to occur bodily for our faith to be valid? What do you think? I'm inclined to agree with Patterson but then again he was one of my seminary professors.
