Christians Should Rejoice if Jesus' Bones Found

In a 2001 movie, The Body, the bones of Jesus were supposedly discovered by an archeologist in a tomb in Jerusalem.  A Vatican priest was dispatched to investigate and concluded that the body was indeed that of Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph. He was so shattered by the finding that he lost all faith and committed suicide.

And now we have a real claim being made by Titanic filmmaker James Cameron that the tomb of Jesus has been found.  Cameron has called the evidence compelling.

Fifty years ago, when I was a reasonably good practicing Catholic, the story might have caused me some concern. It would seemingly have pulled the carpet from under the resurrection story.  Like the ancients, I didn't understand that we are more than a physical shell.  

Today, however, even if scientists happened to link up the DNA in the bones found in the tomb with blood residue found on the Shroud of Turin, it wouldn't affect my faith in Christ in the least.   That's because my brand of Christianity rejects any literal interpretation given to a physical body rising from the dead, either by Jesus, or by the masses on some far-off day of resurrection.

Paul told us that in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians when he said that the body that has to be "raised" is not the body that was buried.  He used the analogy of a grain of wheat, pointing out that the grain of wheat that is planted is not the grain of wheat that is raised.  Of course, like so many other things in the Bible, there can be so many self-serving interpretations.

My faith today is based on psychical research.   Such research in the area of the near-death experience (NDE) and apparitions strongly suggests that we all have an etheric body that separates from the physical body at the time of death and vibrates so far beyond the physical shell that it is not seen by ordinary eyes.  That etheric body has also been referred to as an astral body, spirit body, celestial body, soul, and higher self, although these terms are also sometimes given different interpretations.  Some schools hold that there are several bodies.

NDE and other out-of-body research also suggests a "silver cord" connecting the etheric to the physical body, sort of a counterpart of the umbilical cord. Once that cord is severed, physical death is complete.  While undergoing some aspects of dying and death, the near-death experiencer does not experience complete severance of the cord and thus is able to return and tell of his or her encounters with celestial beings.

In Ecclesiastes 12:6-7, we read:  "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Concomitant with the belief that the physical shell is resurrected is a belief in "soul sleep,."  that we "sleep" until that day of judgment when all bodies rise from their graves.  However, here again, we run into assumptions that the word "sleep," as used 54 times in the Old Testament and 18 times in the New Testament, should be interpreted to  mean total unconsciousness.  Indeed, modern psychical research suggests that we awaken on the "other side" in degrees of consciousness equal to the degrees of spirituality achieved in the earthly life.  The benevolent and enlightened soul will experience no real "sleep," while the depraved and unenlightened soul may be so unconscious as to not realize he or she is even "dead" and may require years in earth time to regain consciousness, perhaps experiencing a "fire of the mind," i.e., hell, while struggling to regain true consciousness after experiencing the illusion or reality in the physical realm.

So why should Christianity fear the discovery of the bones of Jesus?  Credible scientific research has revealed that it has absolutely no bearing on the message of soul immortality that he came to give.  How ironic that something that should reinforce Christian doctrine is perceived as threatening it.