Feb 23, 2007: ... 'Jesus tomb found?'
Dear Fivedoves,
in reference to my letter Feb 23, 2007: Berlin - Merkel, Abbas, Airbus / Rome / Iran /
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/feb2007/friedrichw224.htm
(see also 2/23 ! ...Ted Porter's and Bea's letter ...118 ...234 ...747
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/feb2007/friedrichw222.htm )
I like to add this “puzzle” P.S. ...
On Saturday Feb 24, there was in the Germany’s big tabloid “Bild-Zeitung” an article about “Jesus tomb found?”...
First I did not pay much attention. As I today read the news and also the letters at fivedoves I did search in the web...
... it now seems “Feb 23, 2007” was really something like a ‘milestone’ date...
In fact this news item already came out just on February 23, 2007...!!!
I found this earliest date at German sites and at the ‘earthimes.org’ article (see below).
The origin source is a “dpa” (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) report from Feb 23. (Therefore the German Bild-Zeitung could write Feb 24.)
Here is the ‘earthtimes’-report which was posted in the web Feb 23: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/33587.html
quoting both: source and the date (Friday = Feb 23)
Here the full text :
“Documentary makers claim tomb of Jesus found in Jerusalem
Posted on : Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:13:01 GMT | Author : DPA
News Category : Religion (General)
Jerusalem - The makers of a new documentary, to be aired for the first time at a news conference in New York Monday, claim that a tomb found in a Jerusalem cave 36 years ago belongs to none other than Jesus Christ.
The claim presented in the documentary is based on years of research by world-renowned archaeologists, statisticians, experts in ancient scripts and in DNA, the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily Friday quoted the makers as saying in an exclusive interview.
The documentary, titled "The Burial Cave of Jesus," is a joint production by Israeli-born Canadian documentary maker Simcha Jacobovici and three-time-Oscar-winning Canadian film director James Cameron (Titanic, The Terminator).
The 2000-year-old cave had already been discovered in 1980 in Jerusalem's Talpiyot neighbourhood. In it were 10 coffins, six of which bore inscriptions, which - translated into English – included the names "Jesus son of Joseph," twice "Maria," and "Judah son of Jesus."
The second Maria is hypothesized to be Maria Magdalene, while the tomb bearing the name Judah could indicate Jesus had a son.
If true, the find could be one of the most significant in the history of archeology and shake the Christian world.
But the senior Israeli archaeologist who thoroughly researched the tombs after their discovery, and at the time deciphered the inscriptions, cast serious doubt on it.
"It's a beautiful story but without any proof whatsoever," Professor Amos Kloner, who had published the findings of his research in the Israeli periodical Atiqot in 1996, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Friday.
"The names that are found on the tombs are names that are similar to the names of the family of Jesus," he conceded.
"But those were the most common names found among Jews in the first centuries BCE and CE," he added.
Kloner dismissed the combination of names found in the cave as a "coincidence."
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which is keeping the caskets in its archive in the town of Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, declined to comment on the documentary, saying it had not researched the caskets and that its duty was only to safeguard them.
The IAA nevertheless sent two of the caskets to the news conference in New York.
The documentary, which took three years to make, is to be broadcast on the World Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision and Israel's Channel 8, which participated in its production.”
(end of the ‘earthtimes’-report)
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Just one more detail :
As mentioned in my fivedoves-letter from Feb 22, (in response to Ted Porter’s and Bea’s letters)
please look at this “puzzle” in ref. to “Febr. 23”
“....Feb 23, in Roman Empire - Terminalia held in honor of Terminus. (Roman god of boundaries!) (to terminate !!!)...”
... look at the article above “...and three-time-Oscar-winning Canadian film director James Cameron (Titanic, The Terminator)...””
Amazing! Isn’t?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator
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Well, just coincidently/ accidentally ...I also found this article below when I searched “Jesus tomb” ....
Amazing! ...same date!!! Feb 23, 2007 !!!
http://www.moberlymonitor.com/articles/2007/02/23/news/news7.txt
Praise the Lord !!!
Please read this article... it is really amazing: Just like a same hour answer by the “Holy Spirit” ...
I guess surely the author did not know anything about the ‘Jesus tomb’ news.... and anyway the message was given already on Ash Wednesday, at a ‘Zion Lutheran Church’... however published on Friday Feb 23, ...
Here the full text...
...you may smile J about the opening... but please keep on reading to the end...
thank you ...greetings ...Maranatha yr bro friedrich
(Yes: “...If He is not raised from the dead, nothing else matters. At the same time: If Christ is raised from the dead, nothing else matters. And because Christ is raised from the dead, everything else matters....”
Amen! He IS risen! Truly He is risen! The tomb is empty! Amen! Help us Lord, Come quickly Lord Jesus)
http://www.moberlymonitor.com/articles/2007/02/23/news/news7.txt
“What Else Matters?
Published: Friday, February 23, 2007 11:53 AM CST
Dr. Ken Schurb/Zion Lutheran Church
The following is his message given on Ash Wednesday, 2007 during the Lenten Luncheon held at Nelly's.
A man worked the late shift in a factory, 3 to 11 p.m. He was always making his way home from work in the dead of night. Between him and his house there stood a huge cemetery. He had to walk close to a mile around one side of it and then almost an additional mile around the other side of it. Finally, he realized that he could take some distance and time off his walk home if he cut diagonally through the cemetery. He did this for a few weeks, stretching to almost a month. Everything was going fine. At first, he had found it a little spooky in the cemetery after 11 p.m., but he was beginning to get used to it.
One night, something happened for which he wasn't ready. Gravediggers had been preparing a grave for a burial to be held rather early the next day. They left work without covering the open pit they had dug. This pit lay right in the path of our friend the factory worker. He came along as he had before, making his way through the darkness a few minutes after 11 o'clock. But this time, plunk! Our friend fell right into the open grave.
He was uninjured. All the same, he really did not want to stay where he was. In fact, he was quite frantic to go elsewhere. The sides of the newly dug grave were sheer and steep, though, so he could not find a toehold or handhold to start raising himself out. He began to yell and scream, trying to get somebody's attention. But he was in a hole in the middle of a huge cemetery, and it was now well after 11 o'clock. No one heard his calls. With little choice in the matter, he decided to make the best of it. Rolling up his coat into a little pillow, he hunkered down on one side of the grave. He would try to get some sleep, as much as possible under those uncomfortable and unsettling conditions.
About 2 o'clock in the morning another man, also attempting to cut through the cemetery, happened along the same path. Plunk! He fell into this open grave too, on the other side. The first guy, who had already been in there for a while, stirred awake. Even though it was pitch dark, he knew exactly what had just happened. The same thing had happened to him earlier. The new guy first started trying to climb out, but to no avail. He began yelling and screaming, but that was not working either. Then the first guy decided to take pity on this second guy and try to calm him down.
Imagine the scene. It was dark. They were in a grave. The first man who fell in came up behind the new guy. Putting a cold hand on the new man's shoulder, he said: “You're not going to get out that way.” But the new guy did. Out he jumped!
If Christ is not raised, nothing else matters
Today is Ash Wednesday. Here at the beginning of Lent, I want to take a peek ahead with you and look to Easter. If Christ is not raised from the dead, nothing else matters.
The man who had been sitting in that grave had time to think about things like this. Another who took time to think was the celebrated 19th century Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace. By the time Tolstoy was approaching 50 years of age, he was famous and rich. Around that time, he began having occasional bouts of melancholy. At those times it was like life stopped for him. During these times he would keep asking himself, “Why?” and “What next?” At first he would shake himself and go on with other things. Soon he began to notice that the melancholy was coming over him more and more often. He would be still stuck with these same questions, “Why?” and “What next?” Yet they didn't bother him too much. He reasoned that he could always deal with these questions. But the more time went on, the harder it grew for him to get back into the swim of things in life. At length it dawned on Tolstoy that he had begun to regard life as meaningless. He asked himself, “Is there any meaning in my life that will not be destroyed by my inevitably approaching death?”
If Christ is not raised, nothing else matters. This is a much bigger thing than sitting in an empty grave for a few hours, waiting until morning comes. It is more than just figuring that one day you will take up permanent residence in a grave in some cemetery. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). People still in their sins will suffer the eternal punishment of being apart from God in hell. Is there any meaning in your life that can withstand the death that is coming?
Have you ever heard of a paradox? A paradox is a pair of statements that seem not to be able to fit together, because they seem to be saying very different if not absolutely opposite things. Yet the more closely you examine these statements, the more you realize they both are true. Further, these truths need to stand together. You can't say one without saying the other.
Here is a paradox for us at the beginning of Lent. As previously stated, if Christ is not raised nothing else matters. Now it is important to add a second statement: If Christ IS raised, nothing else matters.
If Christ is raised, nothing else matters
The resurrection of Christ stands out as the great fact of history. By comparison with it, what else could matter? “Christ died for our sins in a accordance with the scriptures,” wrote St. Paul, and “He was buried.” These were very matter-of-fact statements. Then, when Paul went on and wrote, “He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,” he was saying that this fact goes on echoing down through the corridors of time. It has ongoing significance.
Paul had been writing to the Corinthians about the heart of the gospel itself, and he maintained, “Christ has in fact been raised.” This was exactly what the Old Testament scriptures had foretold. When Christ actually did rise, lots of folks saw Him alive after He had died. Paul mentioned a number of them. To this day, the resurrection of Christ remains the best-attested fact of the entire ancient world. If people seriously want to deny it, they will have to throw out everything else that is known about the ancient world.
Still, the fact of Christ's coming out of the grave is not as important as the meaning of His coming out. It is one thing to know this event happened, but it is another thing to know that it happened for you. Christ is risen as first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
He can be the first fruits because He is the second Adam. The first Adam rebelled against God, disobeyed Him, distrusted Him, and fell into sin. The second Adam, Jesus Christ, is the Son of God in a far more intimate sense than Adam was God's son. Jesus is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, God from all eternity. Yet it was important for Him as the second Adam not only to be the Son of God but also to behave like the Son of God. He was going to do it right, for everyone else had done it wrong.
For His troubles, He was crucified. Although Jesus had done nothing wrong, even though He had been a righteous Man at every turn, He was lynched and hung on a cross. Then God raised Him from the dead, thereby vindicating Him and pointing to Him as the One in Whom life is to be found, the Bringer of the new creation. In a way, Jesus is like the guy who sprang up out of the grave in the opening story, except He takes people along with Him when He goes. Jesus wasn't doing His work for Himself, but rather for you and me. Salvation is a story that centers in Him. By His Gospel story -- by these words I am speaking and others like them -- He reaches out to include us together with Him.
Think about the reaction of Jesus' disciples on Good Friday. When their Master died, they were devastated. They could have consoled themselves by trying to remember the things He had taught. But there was no way around it: When Jesus died, it was like they had lost everything. As long as He had was not yet raised from the dead, nothing else mattered. When He did come out of the grave, though, and appeared to them, they had Him back. That was the most important thing of all! Moreover, when they got Him back it was like they were getting everything else back too. So there remains one final paradox, one more statement that has to stand: Because Christ is raised, everything else matters.
Because Christ is raised, everything else matters
His resurrection gives us the perspective to see everything else in light of His victory and the victory God gives to people in Him. When St. Paul concluded his longest treatment of the resurrection, he wrote: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). The things that these people had done were going to be important. For they had done these things as believing Christians, in love for their neighbors and in obedience to God. The things they had done were not so great in and of themselves. These things were great because God's people had done them.
The book of Revelation chimes in, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,” and adds, “They rest from their labors, and their deeds follow them” (Revelation 14:13). The deeds don't go ahead of anyone to get them into heaven. But the deeds do follow. God values the things that His people have done. He values what they have done in the body because He is going to raise their bodies in glory.
Remember: Christ is not the end of the resurrection, but rather its beginning. He is the first fruits of those who has fallen asleep. Because He is raised from the dead, then, everything matters. When you have faith in Christ, God's whole creation counts. For yours is a Lord of creation and new creation.
Therefore today we begin Lent with the end in view. We will never get out of the grave by climbing out ourselves. No, we need to be connected to the One Who did come out of the grave. The first fruits, Christ Himself. Scripture says that Christians are connected with Him by baptism, united with Him in His dying and in His rising (Romans 6:1-11). So the future for God's people is not defined and bounded and hemmed in by the sin and guilt of Adam. Instead, the future is opened up as surely as Christ's empty tomb and as wide as His lordship over all.
If He is not raised from the dead, nothing else matters. At the same time: If Christ is raised from the dead, nothing else matters. And because Christ is raised from the dead, everything else matters.”
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