Thursday, March 08, 2007

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus" Claims Are Nonsense

The president of Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, says there's no new information in a documentary that chronicles claims by archaeologists that they have found a coffin containing the bones of Christ. Ham says the recent documentary is the latest example in a string of increasing attacks on the Bible.

The documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, premiered this weekend on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron, the documentary claims forensic tests support the view that six of the ten ossuaries, or coffins, found in the tomb in 1980 bear inscriptions linking them to Jesus.

But Ham says the claims are nonsense. "Anyone can take a documentary and take certain evidence they find and then, because of their own anti-Christian bias or whatever it is, put their own particular interpretation on that and make it sound so good in a movie," he says.

Ham says people have tried unsuccessfully to debunk the Bible for thousands of years, and notes there has been an increase in attacks of the Bible from the secular world. But he points out that eyewitness accounts from God's Word support the fact that Christ rose from the dead.

"When it comes to interpreting the past -- of course you weren't there in the past; you weren't there to see the things happen -- that's why it's so important to trust God's Word, who's always been there, who knows everything, who tells us what happened in the past to help us correctly interpret the present," says Ham. "And of course we know from Scripture that you don't find the bones of Jesus because he was raised from the dead -- and it's an empty tomb."

Ham points out that Christians must be ready to give answers to such claims. "Christians need to be equipped; they need to be ready for these things."

For more information, you can read this article, “Jesus’ tomb found” claim as empty as Jesus’ [real] tomb