Malcolm Hedding complains about how the discovery of the "lost tomb of Jesus" is offensive. He says that should there ever be conclusive proof etc. Christians would have to reconsider their position. Given that Western society and politics is heavily influenced by Christian tenets, I would put it to him that the onus lies on Christians to provide such proof. Any uncertainty about the resurrection should be taken very seriously indeed. After all, in the West it is difficult to find a school where our children are not subjected to morning prayers and on-site pastors/priests. To paraphrase Mr Hedding, I will cease being offended when Christians provide incontrovertible proof of the resurrection.

Why should the search for truth be offensive to anyone, especially Christians ? Why should a search for the truth undermine Jewish -Christian relations ? You would think that Christians and everyone else would be concerned and wish to get to the bottom of the issue in the face of these perceived assaults or compelling bits of evidence. If anything , the search for truth should bring Jews and Christians even closer together regarding the required scholarship involved , and the fact that the history or historiography occurs in Israel. The fact that individuals and institutionsthrough out time have been dedicated to the promotion of certain tenets should be irrelevent. That is the price of unsubstantiated belief. Truth should always be the number one priority. Granted, truth can often be uncomfortable especially when in opposition to long held cherished beliefs. Just because someone believes, or was taught to believe something does not make it true. When dealing in religion, one often encounters concepts that are quite a stretch to accept because they are so unusual that they contradict human observation, experience and reason, and / or backed by power. The usual mode for the acceptance for these tenets or concepts, is the suspension of reason, when reason is the major tool for making sense. True, logical reasoning can sometimes be ineffective in explaining some of the deepest mysteries of humanity , yet many times in religion we find an idea raised to the level of a mystery or controversy and promoted as fact thereafter. It's not that idea in controversy itself is devoid of benefits and value. It often has both of these. The problem is that societies constructed on a mix of falsehoods and truth are much more shakier in its foundations and benefits than, lets say, one constructed only on truths. Any later constructions built upon faulty ideas and premises are tainted, false, incomplete and counter-productive. In the end it is the duty of humanity to search for the truth, to right its wrongs, to account for, and correct the sins, to build upon the truth for "Tikkun Ha Olam" sake. It is imperative that all religions, not only Christianity and Judaism, but all, MUST dig for the truth behind some of their oldest controversys, for one important reason. None like to be made a fool.

It's just the latest hoax/unproved Bible sensation. The American media of all types broadcasts this kind of thing all the time too. It sells books, papers and magazines and gets television ratings. Nothing new under the sun.

OK, I have to address this issue. I have been reading articles, and watching broadcasts that I feel are very unprofessional. Where is the open miondedness needed to report to the public. Why is everyone condemning these people for setting out to set history straight, instead of asking if it is possible? Who are you( by "you I mean the condemners) to be so high and mighty as to say what is the absolute truth. We have found that we have had many things wrong that we were sure was truth. That is all this is, is history. We already have ancient texts that bring the accounts of christ into question. So please lets all use are open minds not the closed minds when reporting. ** I do not deny christ nor do I question the lord, but I do question people, and that is who wrote history, people. **

If from the beginning Yeshua's followers had been normal followers of him just like any other groups of followers of any Rabbi without "Resurrection" brought into the camp, Christianity would have been just another branch of Judaism. The direction in which it may have moved is up for speculation but Yeshua could still have been well revered as a saintly Rabbi just like the Lubavitchers look upon late Rebbe Schneirsen. Buddha was just another human yet, he has millions of followers today. Jesus could have been like that too. But not to be. The the idiots Peter and Paul had to bring in "resurrection" and cause a schism between Yeshua's followers and the Jewish faith. Yeshua preached love and understanding and following God's commands. Because of the ancient idiots (Peter and Paul), now the quest for truth is being stifled. The article is a subtle blackmail. He mentions his pro-Israel stand. What is he implying other than saying that if this goes too far, his pro-Israel stand would go away? What is wrong in finding the truth? Can't we all not still revere Jesus for his saintly self? By right we should all celebrate Yeshua for who he was. Christianity today is a force that is standing against Islam but it is not the Christianity of Europe but Christianity in South America, Africa and Asia. While I still want Christianity to be around, I strongly believe Christianity needs serious reform and in this new reform, the resurrection needs to be completely taken out. One can still be pro-Israel without being Christian. I am very pro_Israel. I am not Christian. I am not Jewish. I am of Indian/Hindu heritage but don't practise any religion. My pro_Israel stand has nothing to do with religion but because I believe the Jewish people deserve a homeland in the land of their forefathers since ancient times. Rex

Conservative and Reform movement is also destroying us mentally just like the Karaites, Tzdukim, Issiyim, Helenist and Erev Rav have done in the past.

As for the idea of the Christian religion being invented back in 312, how do you explain things like Most of the books of the New Testament? Which takes place in the FIRST Century Church. Historically, the Romans only took something, corrupted it, and mixed it with their own. EX. Jesus message of the gospel is the good news of the Kingdom of God, and about himself as God's SON. Not God the Son. That is something that stems from the Roman corruption. They took the idea, and mixed it with beliefs they had. Primarily those Hellenistic types. That is also where the idea of the immortal soul came from. The Greeks I believe. Not from the first Century Church. Search the Bible, does "immortal soul" come up anywhere? If you find it, please inform me, I haven't been able to. So the tomb. It was found over twenty years ago, and yet the finders didn't say anything. WHY? Because there isn't anything worth saying! It isn't just Christians saying that this is bull, many archaeologists share this line of thinking as well. So whose word should we take? The Scientist? Or the film maker whose trying to make a few bucks?

What is with the Gender reference. "He" I think you need to visit a shul or or Synagogue if you prefer the "Greek" and ask a Rav or "Rabbi" if you prefer this gender reference is a construct of the gerim. Even though so many Christian religious and political authorities in the US tout their extensive knowledge, Academic Degrees and Dominion over knowledge, faith and truth in general but, the sad truth is they would learn so much more if they would "lower" themselves to speak with a chazzan or rabbi every now and again. FYI

Your statement that Millions of Christians are offended at the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" shows me that historical stories are more important to yourself and many "Christians" than facts. The idea that what has been written thousands of years ago could be inaccurate at best and a completely made up story at worst is what scares "Christians". It is very easy for these same people to completely dismiss the Mormons and the Scientologists since they don't follow the writings in the Bible. In fact, they made up their own books which are competition to the Bible. I am of the belief that proof of contradictory evidence for passed on stories is invaluable. Maybe this documentary is garbage, maybe not. I watched it and came to the conclusion the film maker wanted people to discuss and investigate his evidence. I don't hear that with yourself or others, I only hear rejections since it may upset the cart. This is truly sad. We are more inclined to follow anything that has been repeated for 2000 years than try to discover truths. I guess 2000 years from now Scientology couldl be the Bible that all people believe. Just keep repeating it until then, and it will become the new Bible.

Remember there is not a single scientific or historical proof for even one word or story in the Torah.None. Beluef is based on faith,not verifiable fact. The slurs against Christianity by some here are reprehensible.

Shema Yisrael Adoni Eloheinu Adoni Echad!!!!!

I am Jewish, but I am saddened by the mean attacks on Mr. Hedding by some of the people writing talkbacks here. Why do you have to be so nasty against the Christians and against mr Hedding? He is not responsible for historic Christian attacks against Jews. On the contrary, he is a friend of the jewish people and Israel. Mr hedding, please disregard some of the offensive and unrepresentative slurs by some of the contributors here. They are not indicative of the majority opinion of Jews regarding their Christian friends.

words cannot hurt you. If your faith is strong, then the missionaries pose no threat. Just tell them to have a nice day and mind their own business, and then you can go about your merry way.

As one Christian to another... I agree that it is offensive and very hurtful to see some of the extremely anti Christian sentiments expressed by Jews. However, we have to look at the fact that centuries of christian antisemtism have caused bad feelings among the Jews of today. People know us by our fruits, and our fruits haven't always been good. I think this is a time when we have to 'turn the other cheek." We don't have to like the anti-Christian feeding frenzy, be we need to understand where it comes from.

What's most fascinating about it is that the tomb was found around 1980, after Jews had returned to Jerusalem and not before, which resulted in the careful cataloguing and storing of the ossuaries found inside. Those finds were treated with respect and preserved by the Israeli government. Furthermore, in the 21st century Western science can test the bone remnants well enough to conclude whether those people were related by blood or by marriage. They were also able to test the patina found on a lost ossuary that went missing for a while, which when found, complements the names of Jesus' family. I'm not a Christian but I was moved by the series of coincidences that have led to this find, two millenia after this Jewish family existed. So far, the claims made by this documentary seem correct.

On a positive side my real estate holdings in East Talpiot will double in price...:-)))

It is the job of archeologists to retrace history and confirm writing with proof. That is their job. People of any faith will struggle from time to time with questions on their faith but, at the end of the day, people will believe what they want to believe. That is why we have different faiths. All religions have been questioned from time to time. Let us not have reactions like those to the Mohammed cartoons. The writer aggravates the situation by wanting to silence freedom of speech which in this is not designed to offend but to question.

Edwin is right, James. Even what you accept as "Scripture" was defined by the post-135 C.E. Christian Church. There were NO Christians before 135 C.E., only some proto-Christian Hellenist (heretical) Jews who split off from the original followers of Ribi Yehoshua -- whom Dr. Tabor mentioned in the documentary. (The original followers were Torah-keeping Pharisees called Netzarim, Hellenized to "Nazarene," BTW.) Church historian Eusebius documented that the Netzarim rejected the NT as a Hellenist Roman work, accepting only Tanakh as Scripture. Working exclusively from Tanakh, you'll quickly find that, polar opposite to Ribi Yehoshua, the Hellenist "J*esus" is a Roman myth based on Z*eus and I*sis; NOT based on the Torah-teaching Pharisee Ribi Yehoshua. Instead of haranguing us with your same ignorance over and over, get a history education. Read the seminal authoritative work by the late Oxford historian, James Parkes: The Conflict of the Church and the Syagogue. Then we can talk intelligently -- and you could even understand my books. If you can't find it elsewhere, we offer it in our website. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

Don't be ridiculous. Conservative and Reform Jews are still Jews. They may not follow many of the practices that have nothing to do with haTorah and are inventions of rabis over the centuries, but they all fundamentally believe what #71 so beautifully wrote. How the hell is allowing a woman to read from sefer Torah even remotely similar to Xian idol worship??

Any discussion of whose remains are in the tomb should be confined to scientifically provable arguments, not mythology. People are free to believe anything they want in a religious context but this should not cloud scientific investigation.

This is fairly typical of the temor of xtian "dialogue" with Jews: esentially, that we must ignore whatever offensive things they say or teach about us while walking on egg shells to avoid saying ANYTHING that MIGHT in anyway be possibly construed as offensive to them. I am reminded of Bill Donahue, the President of the Catholic League, essentially telling Jews to "shut up" about their concerns regarding Mel Gibson's "The Passion." Apparently, Jewish children being portrayed as demons isn't offensive -- or thier preaching about the "hypocrisy" of the pharisees or that Judaism is a "dead" religion, etc, et al, ad infinitum, ad nauseum -- but the suggestion that an archeological find might possibly bring a fundamental principle of their faith into question is beyond the pale. Wake up my fellow Yiodden: friends don't treat friends like that. By the way, ICEJ is a missionary organization. Get it?

The reason Xns are offended is because their working assumption is that it is, and has always been, the blind ignorant Jews who are lost (and, therefore, doomed to hell unless they accept J*esus). The notion that it could be Xns who are wrong --instead -- is what is offensive because it clearly means that J*esus is the "antichrist"!!! Not only is that an unspeakable anathema to Xns, the notion that Xns would have to repent of Xy and renounce J*esus is only the second most abhorrent idea. The most abominable idea to Xns is that they would have to renounce these AND turn to (ugh, spit, spit) JOODISM. Well, the evidence just keeps mounting that the Netzarim are right. Deal with it. It takes an imbecile to argue that 599/600 is "bad science" and wrong because he or she BELIEVES it to be wrong while desperately clinging to the 1/600. The only exceptions are secular Israeli archeologists willing to compromise their integrity for political appeasement of the Xn world and their allies, Christian archeologists willing to compromise their integrity to suppress the pursuit of truth to protect their false belief system -- as demonstrated by their suppression for a generation of the Qumran scrolls with the cooperation of the secular Israeli archeologists. Xns have always operated under the premise: if your religion is contrary to the truth, suppress truth. Secular Israeli archeologists have always been willing to cooperate with them "for the political good of Israel" -- because they utterly detest Judaism and will do anything for a secular Israel. Such are politicians, not scientists. It's no accident that the Netzarim are right again, or that logic and science continually corroborate us -- logic and science will continue to corroborate us BECAUSE we build our relationship to the Creator of this universe around logic and science. As science learns and truth is uncovered our beliefs incorporate these truths. UNLIKE Xns (or superstitious Ultra-Orthodox and Kabbalists OR secular Israeli archeologists), we are eager and zealous for the pursuit of scientific and logical truth. Those who find logic, science and truth threatening -- Xn or Jew -- recognize down deep that their "faith" is a vain illusion having nothing to do with Torah or the Singularity Creator. Xns, pursue truth -- read the Parkes' book -- or put your head back in the sand. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

I'm astonished at how many were sucked in by utter perversion of logic and intelligent reasoning. "How do you know that [Y--H] exIsts?" Homo sapiens can logically discern many things we cannot see, from dark matter to radio waves. Idolaters, by contrast, have to have a physical thing they can see to worship, something they can carry around or hang on their walls. There is no explanation in science (including evolution theory) for the origin of the universe ex nihilo. The Originator ex nihilo of the universe can logically only be a Singularity. The existence of the universe PROVES the existence of its Originator. We have defined that Singularity as "He/It always is." In Hebrew, that's a kind of contraction of the verb "to be": Y--H. It is not the blind faith of idolaters. The writings of the Tanakh exist. The rest is merely a matter of tracing its origins. This brings us back to what I'll call the 1:600 Syndrome. There is 1 chance in 600 that the documentary is wrong. Nevertheless, Xns almost unanimously gravitate to the 1:600 insisting that the 599:600 cannot POSSIBLY be correct. Now, that just imbecilic. There's 1:600 that it's wrong. The same applies to Tanakh: all hard evidence corroborates Tanakh. Yet, detractors flock to the 1:600 Syndrome -- there just HAS to be some way to disprove Tanakh because they DISBELIEVE it and that's enough for them. That's imbecilic. Heavenly Yerushalayim -- Scientists acknowledge dark matter and you can't even fathom something non-physical??? That's imbecilic. You've read these ideas. Where are the thoughts now? Are the thoughts physical? You cannot see them. Would you argue they don't exist??? These things have nothing to do with blind "faith" in whatever nutty thing idolaters want to believe. "If you believe in the virgin birth, (and I do), then this guy who claims he found Jesu's bones is a fraud." That is the most laughable perversion of logic, a non sequitur, I've read in a long time. You believe THEREFORE "this guy... is a fraud. The Tanakh and, le-havdil, NT are mutually intractably contradictory. Parkes' book, 3 of my books and a host of other books all prove this beyond credible dispute. That's why displacement theology emerged. A basic truth table proves that in the case both cannot be true that either one or the other is false or both can be false. But both CANNOT be true. That's a most rudimentary logical fact. Even you contradicted yourself acknowledging "You cannot have sweet and bitter water coming out of the same well." Your mistake was then to cite the bitter well to try to make your points; all of which go down the drain with the fallacy of citing the impossibly contra-Torah, le-havdil, NT. Another of your logical fallacies exposed. Since NT claims to derive from Tanakh, it remains for someone to demonstrate from Tanakh the, le-havdil, NT. Entertain us, try it. But DO justify NT from, le-havdil, Tanakh before attempting to deceive people by citing your NT as if it were fact. It's exactly the opposite. Look, if you want to believe logical fallacies and contra-scientific nonsense that's your right. But when you want to suppress truth because it exposes the silliness of your beliefs that is not your right. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

Not only is the producer of the film, James Cameron, a Christian, but this film is Canadian. Why not write angry articles directed at the Canadian media and government? This article is absurd.

where people fundamentalists Pauline Christians think you are Rabbinical Jewish. I got no synagogues up here, not that they would except me either. Its disgusting on both sides. Both try to tell another what they should THINK.

If prophet came today and tried to tell the Pauline Christians that they were the "offspring" of these? Who would really listen? When they came up with the Church to replace the New Man (Yeshua's vision) with a new assembly (by scripture tweaking) later called the kyriakos / Church, developed their own priesthood on blood / flesh idolatry (not that Rabbinics don't have problems with this), and coupled it with other pagan doctrine. Today this is predominant Christianity. This is what Rabbinical Jews bolster their anti-Yeshua arguments against. When we everyone GROW UP HERE?

Dovid in Yerushalayim is entirely correct on this one. All Xns believe the Shema, interpreting it according to their own whims instead of Halakhah -- JUST LIKE YOU! That's the Hellenist ideology of assimilation, which is most popularly expressed today through Xy. THAT'S how your non-Orthodox assimilation and compromising of Halakhah equates to Xy! It's the modern Bilam. Jews are defined by the Berit of Torah, interpreted according to Halakhah -- which you regularly trash. Any claim to be a Jew based solely on genetics is strictly racist

After 312. Please don't lump us all in that category together. There are some of us (always have been, G-d won't let Rabbinc Jews or Pauline Christians stomp us out), who believe Yeshua taught Salvation as a way of life, not a get to heaven system via magic blood, or a replacement for the Rabbinic version of law (standing in day of perfection). Its all about taking the Yoke. Which was lost by Pauline Christians in the pagan Jewish amalgamation.

IM A BIG FAN OF THE THE ICEJ WE LOVE YOUR WORK THE JESUS TOMB FIND AND THE EXCITEMENT AROUND IT - ARE AN EFFORT TO RECONNECT WITH JEWISH HISTORY THE GOAL ISNT TO SHAKE CHRISTIAN FAITH THE GOAL IS TO UNITE IT WITH ITS JEWISH ROOTS

There is Archeological and physical evidence of events described in the TORAH!!! Not as much as I would like but, the search continues. No peice of Acheological evidence can ever prove or dissprove metaphysical, supernatural or mystical events so please don't reject science and try to stay reasonable.