Into and Out of Tombs Round-Up

Blogging about the Talpiot tombs and the historical Jesus blends into other topics that come up in particular during the week before Easter. And so a range of those intersecting subjects appear in posts to which I link below.

Mark Goodacre highlights some successes in getting corrections made to information on the Jesus Discovery web site.

The Discovery Channel issued a press release. And here are a couple of videos from the press conference:

The Washington Post has a piece on where Jesus was buried.

James Tabor talks about the Thursday before Passover as a “double anniversary” for Jews and Christians.

Mark Goodacre spots the face of Jesus in the Talpiot tomb. Joe Zias talks about the fish as a religious symbol.

Christianity Today had a post on archaeological fantasies, with the subtitle “Peer review can take years—but academic society says some claims can be dismissed in a few blog posts.” Joel Watts highlights a sensationalist claim about the Turin Shroud.

Doug Chaplin tracked down a science fiction story about time travelers to first century Judaea. The story turned out to be Gary Kilworth’s “Lets Go to Golgatha” and it sounds fascinating – I can’t wait to read it! Doug also discusses the resurrection and historiography.

Mike Kok discusses whether Mark was the creator of the passion narrative.

Tripp Fuller lists reasons why some Christians reject the idea of resurrection. Austin Roberts blogs about Marjorie Suchocki’s eschatology and resurrection. Diglotting and Undeception also have resurrection-related posts, and the folks at Credo House seem to think that one can speak of the resurrection not merely as faith but as fact.

Matthew Malcolm asks where Jesus was between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Jim West linked to an NPR piece about a dispute over the alleged location of the Last Supper.

Irreducible Complexity asks whether we are all mythicists now. The answer may be “yes” in the sense that the term is being used there, but it remains “no” to those who care about history and therefore reject what mythicism in the strict sense is. Sabio Lantz asks how historical your Jesus is and diagrams a range of options. John Shuck reviewed Robert Price’s book on mythicism.

Debra Murphy suggests that Maundy Thursday is for April Fools. Mike Friesen suggests that Southpark can teach Christians something important about Easter.

Also timely: Phil Plait wonders whether a recently observed phenomenon might not long ago have sparked what eventually became the legend of the Exodus.