More on the "Jesus Family Tomb"

The brief press release I posted on the main Dakota Voice website Friday received a huge amount of hits that day and over the weekend. Rev. Schenk has a follow up statement today.

WorldNetDaily is also carrying the story now. The article mentions something I saw on the website for the film:

Jacobovici is trying not to alienate the faithful, by suggesting the ascension into heaven by Jesus could still have occurred spiritually if not physically.

This might sound all fine and dandy on the surface of it, but it still presents irreconcilable problems biblically. Here's what the film website has to say on this subject:

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew (28:12-15) addresses a rumor that was circulating in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion, a rumor that we suggest can be taken for the truth. The rumor was that the disciples came by night to remove Jesus’ body from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. They would have done this to safeguard his remains from desecrators.

His followers then would have taken the body of Jesus to a permanent tomb.

Even if Jesus were moved from one tomb to another, this does not negate the possibility that he was resurrected from the second tomb. Our documentary does not address this issue. Belief in the resurrection is based not on which tomb he was buried in, but on alleged sightings of Jesus that occurred after his burial and that are documented in the Gospels.

First, the Bible doesn't say the disciples moved Jesus' body from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and no second tomb is mentioned. What it clearly states is that Jesus' body disappeared from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. It clearly states his body was gone, so this talk of a "spiritual-only resurrection" can't be reconciled to the Bible.

And that's not even getting into the theological and biblical implications of Jesus having married Mary Magdalene and producing a son with her.

As it is with many attempts to undermine the Bible, either it is or it isn't. Either things happened the way the Bible said, or the Bible is a lie. There's no room for fence sitting.

While I'm open to whatever the truth may be (just as I'm open to the remote possibility that the earth could be flat), I have every confidence that this will prove to be some sort of hoax.

Interesting sidenote: this whole things sounds a lot like a book my wife and I read about 13 years ago called "A Skeleton in God's Closet," a novel about the supposed finding of Jesus' skeleton. It, too, was eventually found to be a hoax.