YNet News has published an article giving more details on the "discovery" of the "Jesus ossuary", and the claims of Simcha Jacobovici, a documentarist, and James Cameron a film producer, that Jesus Christ was married, had children with Mary Magdalene, died and was buried in a tomb in Jerusalem. It makes me particularly sad to have to write about this, because I know there will be people who will accept what these men say in spite of all the evidence mentioned in the Scriptures. Unfortunately that's the kind of world we are living in, where people would rather believe a lie than accept the truth of God's Word. 

Over the last decades, Satan's attacks were mainly limited to the Creation, through the theories of evolution and the big bang. The devil knew that if he could attack the fundamentals of Christianity, he could knock the foundation out of the Gospels. That foundation is built upon the belief that God is Creator of the universe, and that death is a literal consequence of Adam's sin. His first attack was based upon a fraud - Piltdown man, nevertheless it succeeded in its goal of largely removing the teaching of Creation from our schools. Satan has more or less conquered that ground. Now even many Christians no longer believe God created the world in six literal days. People like Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis have constantly warned us that if you throw out the first six chapters in Genesis, there is no justifiable reason why you cannot throw out the Gospel account of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Well now Satan is changing his tactics. Instead of attacking evidence for the Creation, he is attacking the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. And he is doing it in exactly the same way as he attacked Creation, through a hoax. Over the last few years we have seen world academia clamour for such "fables". We've had "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", which claimed that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene. Then we had Dan Brown's plagerization of that same book, "The Da Vinci Code", which made similar claims. The Da Vinci Code itself is based on a hoax, the claim that a secret society called the Priory of Sion held the secret of the bloodline of Jesus Christ. Then we had the lost Gospel of Judas, which claimed that Judas was not possessed by Satan and betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ, rather it was all a plan to release Jesus from His body so He could travel to another planet. Are we getting the picture yet? 

Satan's plan was not to dispute the actual fact of Jesus' resurrection, he could not. He simply intended to cast doubt in the minds of those who would read these fictional accounts. The saying goes, repeat a lie often enough and people will start to believe it. All these books are based on lies, on manuscripts which have been rejected by the Church - not because the Church wants to cover up the truth, but because these texts are not the truth, plain and simple. So this brings us to our recent "discovery" by James Cameron. His discovery is once again based upon a hoax. A heretical text called the Acts of Phillip is used to link the name "Mariamene" to the Jewish name of "Miriam" (Mary), in order to build the case that Jesus Christ (Josua) was married to Mary Magdalene. The documentary will no doubt use this text to try and gain credibility in the world, while not mentioning the fact that it was written by a heretical sect and rejected by the Church over 1600 years ago. 

Quote: "While Feuerverger was busy with his calculations, Jacobovici went to Harvard to see Prof. Bovon, who established that Mariamene was Magdalene, based on a 700-years old text that was found in 1974 in an old monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece. That was the most perfect copy ever found of The Acts of Philip, one of the books that were eliminated from the New Testament, where Philip’s sister, a woman named "Mariamene" was mentioned. Bovon believes this woman to be Mary Magdalene.

Just like the "Gospel of Judas", which was used by the mainstream media to cast doubt on the veracity of the Scriptures despite its incredulous claims, the book of the Acts of Philip is also a forgery, describing a visit to hell, talking animals and a great dragon.

Quote: "Among the revelations turned up in this unexpurgated Acts of Philip, especially in the story of a visit to Hell, are glimpses of a heretical community whose members may have written or transmitted the text. Devoted to ascetic practices, the group flourished in Asia Minor during the fourth century A.D. Members were to eat no meat, drink no wine, shun wealth, and abstain from sexual intercourse. Both sexes wore men's clothing made only from plant fibres. Even the sacrament of the Eucharist was modified, with water replacing wine. Sect members believed that this level of purity not only guaranteed salvation after death, but allowed them to "talk with God" in this life... Such groups did not escape the notice of the official church. The council of Gangra (circa A.D. 343) declared such ascetic excesses to be anathema, and another fourth-century council, at Laodicea, "forbade the appointment of presbytides," says Bovon.

For this reason I think Peter's words of warning to believers who are living in the last days are particularly striking, "we have not followed cunningly devised fables". Peter, James and John were privileged to be eyewitnesses of Christ's majesty when He was transfigured before them on the Mount. Let us be wary of the wiles of the devil, and expose these claims for what they are.

PS. My friend Chris asked me to put up this link, to support the teaching of Creation in UK schools. If you live in the UK, please sign this petition.

Source YNet News, Wikipedia, Christian Cadre