Lk 24:46-53
46[Jesus] said to [his disciples], “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day 47and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49And (behold) I am sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” 50Then he led them (out) as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. 51As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. 52They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53and they were continually in the temple praising God.
Jesus Rose from the Dead and Ascended into Heaven: In March 2007, a religious controversy broke out, challenging the core of the Christian faith: that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
The controversy had to do with the ossuaries or bone containers discovered in the Talpiot tomb in the neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1980. Three of the ossuaries with inscriptions bear the names of figures from the New Testament: Jesus son of Joseph, Mary, Jose (short for Joseph), Mary (also known as Mara), and Matthew. Those who excavated the site viewed the names as extremely common and did not connect them to Jesus of Nazareth and his family.
But on March 4, 2007, the Discovery Channel broadcasted the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, directed by Simcha Jacobovici, with James Cameron, the famous director of Titanic, as executive director. The film was released in conjunction with the book The Jesus Family Tomb co-authored by Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. In the film, Jacobovici puts together a case in which he argues that the bones of Jesus, his mother Mary, his alleged wife Mary Magdalene, and their purported son Judah, along with some relatives, were once entombed in the cave.
The documentary’s and the book’s claims were widely disputed by archaeologists and theologians, as well as language and biblical scholars. Amos Kloner, who oversaw the original dig of the tomb in 1980, said: “It makes a great story for a TV film, but it’s completely impossible. It’s nonsense.”
Bible scholar Ben Witherington III pointed out some circumstantial problems with linking this tomb to Christ:
The earliest followers of Jesus never called Jesus “son of Joseph.” Outsiders mistakenly called him that.
• The ancestral home of Joseph was Bethlehem, and his adult home was Nazareth. The family was still in Nazareth after Joseph was apparently dead and gone. Why in the world would he be buried (alone at this point) in Jerusalem?
• One of the ossuaries had the name of Jude son of Jesus. We have no historical evidence of such a son of Jesus; indeed we have no historical evidence he was ever married.
• Implicitly you must accuse James, Peter, and John of fraud and cover-up. Are we really to believe that they knew Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead but perpetuated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die? Did they really hide the body of Jesus in another tomb?
That millions would be upset by the claims of the documentary and the book about the tomb of Jesus is understandable. The claims contradict the Catholic views like the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to heaven, that Jesus never married and never had a child.
Today’s solemnity of the Ascension will be a good time to profess with conviction the article of the Creed: “On the third day, he (Jesus) rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”
As we also celebrate World Communications Day, let us be aware of the power of the communications media both to strengthen and to attack the tenets of our faith. Jodi Magness criticized the decision of the documentary makers to make their claims at a news conference: by going directly to the media, the filmmakers “set it up as if it’s a legitimate academic debate, when the majority of scholars who specialize in archeology of this period have flatly rejected this.”