Did James Cameron really find Jesus' bones?

John 7 study notes
This week James Cameron announced that he's found the bones of Jesus. Ok, not the actual bones, but the crypt that once held the bones. And he didn't find them, he just shot a movie about them; the crypt was found in 1980 and the original story circulated back then.

Anyway, it made quite the headline. Could it be true? Could Jesus have really married Mary Magdalene and had a child? And then instead of dying on a cross, die . . . some other way? And if we have his bones, then could it be that his resurrection wasn't true?

Historically it's not something that we'll ever prove. Jesus wasn't an uncommon name 2000 years ago (it's actually the Greek form of Joshua). So a tomb marked "Jesus" isn't that conclusive. (Google "Joshua" and see how many responses you get.) If his bones were buried 2000 years ago, we're not likely to find them now; and if they ascended into heaven with the rest of the body, we're not going to prove that today either.

The controversy is amazingly not new, and it's not even the most enflamed. Jesus was actually surrounded by the same controversy. And it wasn't good people vs bad people, or religious vs non-religious; it was much more personal than that.

Jesus' own family didn't believe in him. Imagine that! He walked and taught, and his brothers thought he was a fraud. They went to a festival in Jerusalem and taunted him: "Go to Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! You can't become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!" It wasn't merely powerful filmmakers who said he wasn't true, it was the brothers he grew up playing soccer with and fishing with and working with who wouldn't believe in him.

There was a three-way debate on his credentials: Some called him a good man, some nothing but a fraud. And there were whispers in the crowd: "Could this one be the Messiah?" This one who's name means "The Lord is salvation?"

Jesus didn't set out to prove his credentials either. If he was Hollywood, he would have said, "Watch this! It will prove that I'm the messiah!" and then raised some dead people and fed a crowd from a boys lunch and heal the sick. But he didn't. He was more intriguing than that.

He said, "Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own." No flashy miracles, no demonstrations of power, no scientific proof. Only pointing to the spirit of God as confirmation.

If you sincerely want to know God and follow his will, God will confirm it in your heart. It's something beyond science, beyond archeology, beyond even history. It's something eternal that descends on all that you are. Somehow God communicates with us directly to settle the question. To those who sincerely want to know.

And to those who chase wonders and hypothesis and find it easier or more convenient to sit on a fence and speculate about both sides, James Cameron isn't the first to raise the question. Some believed at first sight, some believed after much consideration and thought and seeking, and some never did. And to be honest, Jesus wasn't threatened by any of them.

(Curiously, Jesus' family did eventually become believers in who he was. But it took a resurrection to prove it.)