For years those wishing to disprove Christianity have sought to disprove the most important aspects of the faith. Whether that be the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ, perhaps the existence of Christ, and most normally the resurrection of Christ. Just in the past few days a new claim has surfaced stating that the remains of Jesus have been found and along side them are the remains of his son and the woman who bore said son.

The very thought of this calls many things we know as true from the Bible into question, but only if this claim holds up in the face scrutiny as other claims have not. The basis of the claim is that a tomb is found with the remains of several people, presumably a family, some of which have names inscribed on them. Of the inscriptions deciphered, Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) son of Joseph, Mary, Mariamne and Judah, son of Yeshua were found. Apparently using statistical analysis and DNA matching they have determined that this is the tomb where the Jesus of the Bible lay to rest.

Before I point out some of the problems with their discovery as told by scholars already criticizing the documentary which will come out early in March, I would like to point out an interesting difference between this theory and others that have surfaced. As best as I can tell they are not challenging the resurrection, only the ascension of Christ. This is still a problem theologically (not to mention Jesus having a blood-line use to be contained in such humor writings as the Di Vinci Code), but it is surprising that for once the people behind such things aren't challenging Jesus returning on the third day, just that he eventually did die and not return to Heaven shortly after his resurrection.

The first glaring problem is that the names Joseph, Jesus, Judah, and Mariamne were some of the most common Jewish names of the day. Statistically speaking it is likely that these names wouldn't appear in the same place all that often, although as I say that I can search for both my name and my wife's name and find quite a few people who are married as such. The point is just based on the names themselves and on the DNA evidence that indicates that Jesus and Mariamne were not related doesn't mean that this is the Jesus of the Bible nor that this is the Mariamne who was called Mary Magdalene.

On top of all that some scholars are calling into question whether or not the names have been translated correctly, for instance Joseph can supposedly be translated differently, and Jesus is given a title which differs from the normally used Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus of Galilee. All this coming together shows that this is likely just another attempt at throwing poorly argued questions into many people's beliefs. It is too bad that the Easter season has to each year be filled with documentaries about this sort of thing, and yet in the end we find that the Bible holds up yet again archaeologically and historically.