Jesus' Tomb?

With the supposed discovery of Jesus' family tomb in Jerusalem, it gives us opportunity to pause to consider the question, "What if Jesus did not rise from the dead?" There are already Christians who don't believe in even the possibility of Jesus rising from the dead, so this question is not exactly new. In fact, it has plagued the church for centuries.

First, let me say that I believe in at least the possibility of Jesus rising from the dead, not because I believe in "miracles" in an Enlightenment understanding, but because it fits very nicely into the sweep of the Biblical narrative. In other words, Biblically speaking, it is a viable stand to take. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean that it actually happened in an empirical sense. But given what we know about Biblical history it is quite possible.
With that said, what if it was proved beyond any doubt that Jesus didn't rise from the dead as recorded in the Gospel accounts? Would that mean that Christianity is discredited for good? I suppose that would depend on who you talked to. Frankly, I think that traditionally we Christians have been quite sloppy in our thinking about Jesus' entire life and ministry, and we are reaping the fruits of our sloppiness. We've taken the events of Jesus' life as recorded in the Gospels, placed them on the chopping block, and turned them into the isolated incidences in the life of a very interesting man from which we can derive benign and pious platitudes. With this approach, Jesus can only be a mascot for pet agendas.

Before we start haggling over whether Jesus rose from the dead or not, we need to rethink our approach to Biblical studies altogether. To date, the Bible has been used as a collection of sound bites and "proof passages" to bolster various systematic theologies. This will not do anymore. What the church needs are very creative people who can open up the world of the Bible and make the narrative jump off of the pages and give them life. Very few people are qualified to do this, but maybe this is something that all of us Christians can strive for. And I don't consider myself to be among the qualified.

But until this happens, I'm not interested in the upcoming squabble at all. The questions that will arise from this debate will be absolutely meaningless, and will just end up being one more exercise in missing the point. It's just going to be yet another manifestation of the liberal-conservative impasse, and it will go nowhere.

Wake me up when it's over. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz