CNN'S FINDING JESUS: The Bone Ossuary...

The most interesting episode of CNN’s FINDING JESUS series is the one on the OSSUARY OF JAMES.

CNN is still looking for any physical evidence of the existence of Jesus and here is a bone box (ossuary) that has writing on it saying JAMES, SON OF JOSEPH, BROTHER OF JESUS.

There were no bones in the box but the box was carbon dated to the time of Jesus. Also statistically to have those three names in a single family at that time in Jerusalem made it more probable that this box did belong to the family of Jesus called the Christ.

The authenticity of the box has been a hot topic of debate in the scholarly community for many years now with no absolute consensus reached but the box has raised some very interesting questions about Jesus and Christianity.

Many Christians do not know anything about JAMES; he was called the “secret” brother of Jesus. The reason is that since the Catholic Church views Jesus’ mother Mary as a perpetual virgin, they tried to hide the fact that Mary and Joseph had a number of children which meant that Jesus had brothers and sisters. The Catholic Church has maintained that those siblings are Joseph’s children from a previous marriage…really?

The Bible does mention that Jesus had brothers and sisters and JAMES is not only mentioned in the Bible but is a “historic” figure which means that unlike Jesus, he was mentioned outside the Gospels because he played a role in Jewish history.

Another reason Christianity “hid” James is the fact that not only was James the leader of the community Jesus left behind when he died but he also remained a very, very devout Jew till his death. That means he was not preaching a new religion or trying to establish a new religion (Christianity) but believed firmly that Jesus and the community he left behind were and would continue to be observant Jews.

Another reason for Christianity to dilute and hide James in their religion was the fact that James opposed PAUL and his teachings. In earlier blogs, I have mentioned that Paul is the actual inventor of the Christian religion; it was not Jesus or his followers. 

Many Bible scholars now realize that since Paul never met Jesus and did not know the teachings of Jesus, it was James that represented Jesus and his teachings after Jesus was crucified and not Paul.

CNN’s purpose for this series FINDING JESUS was to find and authenticate any “physical” evidence that proved Jesus existed.

I think the box, even though not formally authenticated, is proof that Jesus existed. Even without the box, knowing that James is a documented historic figure from non-Biblical sources and that he had a brother named Jesus is proof by association.

What CNN did not get into is the calculated obfuscation that Christianity engaged in for thousands of years when it came to James and the Jesus community. The reasons are plain to see and should be quite troubling to Christians; Jesus was not a Christian and he did not found the Christian religion; he died a devout Jew predicting the coming of a new kingdom.