What is the problem?

What are you talking about? In the Bible Jesus' body was missing from the tomb. That's the whole deal with the resurrection in the Bible. How then could the bones prove it to be true when the Bible says they were gone?

The problem is that the Gospels are generally accepted as saying that:
First Jesus died on the cross and his spirit ascended to heaven.
Then after his body was buried, the tomb was mysteriously opened, and the corpse disappeared.
Then some time later he was ressurrected and walked around with his Disciples for a few days, giving some final lectures.
Finally they walked unto a hill (whose name escapes me), a cloud descended and once it cleared away, the Prophet was gone - literally ascended to heaven.

Therefore if the accepted interpretation of the Gospels is to be believed, there was no body to bury after the Ascension. If one was to appear, it would shatter the interpretation on which the Catholic church has based their entire system of belief.

Pardo the somewhat irreverent tone - I'm not exactly a believer.
___
There is no Emoticon for what I am feeling..!

my goodness, you people really enjoy drifting awaaaaaay. what chrelle-1 said is perfectly valid, and no-one adressed that.

1 - jesus dies on the cross
2 - jesus (complete with body) gets carried into the tomb
3 - here lies the brain-breaker: let's discuss this:

the body was not found => the body had left the tomb => what happened to it? let's say jesus sprung back to life and waltzed out of there, IN HIS BODY. in that case, he had spent 40 more days on earth, IN HIS BODY, and then he ascended. NOW, here's split-point number 2:

either he ascended WITH his body, so finding a body would not be okay,
or, his SPIRIT rose to the heavens, and his body remained there. but this option, is not valid, because the scripture clearly states that after the cloud came down, no body remained.

so in proving that a body could exist 2000 years later, jesus couldn't have walked out of that tomb in his body and teach for 40 days and so on. so the body NEVER LEFT THE TOMB. now, that can also mean 2 things: either the body dissapeared the night that he died (i don't know, it just vanished or sth, teleported itself to god, whatever), so, again, no body should exist 200 years later,

or (this brings us to the final possibility)

the body, although there, was hidden. maybe the tomb was fashioned with a secret room, where the body was to lie (just like in the film), or it was moved, but, as long as we go on a lark here, and accept the possibility that somehow the body was hidden inside the tomb, and just the SPECTRE of jesus came out to walk the earth for another 40 days, the body of jesus christ appearing 2000 years later would be possible. there would be the point of the little scam involved, but that's a whole different conversation.

if you find any flaws in the theory, tell me. but as far as i can see it, it's far-fetched, but possible. so finding the body of jesus christ just like in the movie, wouldn't necesarilly bring all belief down, just..well.. place a little unimportant scam at it's foundation. or, we could question the clarity of the bible, and then anything would be reinterpretable.
i beg to consider, all this argument is based on the premise that the bible is entirely accurate.

Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.

I didn't take the time to read all of the posts below this one, but I understand your reasoning. If the bones had turned out to be those of Jesus, that would not exactly change any of my beliefs as a Christian. It was his spirit which ascended into heaven. It is really no different than any other graves. I believe that the dead go to heaven, yet when you open up the graves of the dead, their body remains.


One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Unfortunately, there are those that agree with what you say but that is not authentic Christianity. After all, who would argue about the location and fate of something that was never attached to anything physical? The watered down Gospel you speak of is harmless to a non-Christian but it is absolutely NOT what is professed over and over again in the scriptures.

I know that it seems "good enough" to have a spiritual after-life and it seems better than the "nothing" some argue, or the unknown. The truth is that the resurrection is a physical accomplishment to prove a number of things, the authenticity of who it was and what he had the ability to do. If he can be physically restored forever in a body similar to what we now have, that is quite a bit more than anything any other promise that has been made with regard to the after-life. It also proves that he has the ability to do it for whomever he chooses. The rest of Christian doctrine is about who is selected for salvation and why (faith in the physical resurrection, who it was and why, and then sincere repentance) is required. I can’t say for sure whether mere faith in a “spiritual only” after-life is enough of the right kind of faith to have salvation, but I do know that the belief is not correct. There can be no question what the Bible teaches on this. Paul and Peter both say very clearly with no ambiguity that the Gospels are dependant on the physical resurrection.

I want to say one more thing that is somewhat related, that there is a sect known as “Seventh Day Adventists” who teach among other things that when people die, they are completely “asleep” until their “physical” resurrection on Judgment Day. Most Christians that teach conventional doctrine (I can’t say that most believe a given thing because most people don’t pay enough attention to doctrine) believe that while the physical resurrection as demonstrated by Jesus Christ will only occur on the day of Judgment, that there is a spiritual resurrection for spirits in between the time of their own death and the time of the ultimate Judgment, and ultimately the restoration of the pre-fallen earth, Garden of Eden and the restored city of Jerusalem as the capital of the Kingdom of God

Having said all of that, I thought in the film it was not handled as good as it could have been. They made it appear as if the Church (the RC Church) is the only entity involved ignoring the protestant churches that tend to welcome the truth more than the RC church because they have very little political power dependant on the story, regardless of fact. What I thought would be really interesting is if they developed the conflict between the RC Church and believers in the reformation movement, who would naturally be the group that is most interested to know the truth rather than to maintain what is currently believed. To put is really clearly, the RC Church is really the only powerful institution that would collapse if it could be demonstrated that they were totally unable to show the truth for 2000 years. The institutions are totally connected to their legacy. The reformation at its core are people that found truths in conflict with what the traditional RC Church taught, The discovery of the body of Christ would cause wholesale changes in all believers but the losers would be the RC Church. It would be absolute proof that they were not able to discern the truth and could never be trusted. It is totally believable that another sect believers would argue that the body “should be” somewhere (they’d be wrong) and would try to use that info to show up the RC Church once and for all.

I do believe that there are many people in the RC Church at all levels who are not only there primarily for the money and power, but many of those people are atheists. I have read numerous accounts of frustrated believers in the RC Church that ended up leaving with no hope that any good could come from them. I do believe many of them are sincere believers and in spite of all the errors spanning the past 1800 or 1900 years they do reveal the truth by maintaining accurate scriptures that individuals can use to have a Godly relationship with the savior.

There are some potentially very interesting subjects that would have been explored if the writers had bothered to pursue it. I think that if a story is too complicated to understand completely but it is told well, then it is still enjoyable and in addition becomes something that people will want to watch many times. The truth would not have been any more complicated or difficult to understand that the “Star Wars” films and even knowing it to be pure fantasy, (with a lot of influence from Judeo-Christianity) people still loved it and loved pursuing the answers for years after the initial viewing. I keep thinking that a courageous and brilliant writer will do the same thing for an exploration of the numerous issues related to our life on earth, the afterlife and what the Judeo-Christian scriptures really teach along with some of the real doctrinal arguments that go on every day. If people had a fraction of the interest in the truth that they do in “Star Wars” then there would be some really interesting films and a lot more people would be prepared for the after-life.

Its really quite amazing how people who cal themselves Christian (following his teachings of love and acceptance) and others who cite freedom of expression and a voice for everyone (even if it contradicts someone else's beleif) can all be so intolerant of the opinions of other people. Get a grip. If you beleive it then good, everyone is entitled to their veiwpoint and its not diminished in any way if it differs from your own.

We can't stop here... This is Bat Country!