Odd and Unfounded Assertions:
When we are presented with fanciful interpretations of evidence we inevitably run across strange comments on all sorts of issues.
Here are two examples:
“Carney Matheson, a scientist at the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada_ ‘Judah,’ whom they indicate may have been their son, could have been the ‘lad’ described in the Gospel of John as sleeping in Jesus’ lap at the Last Supper.”1
One could only wonder whence the word “lad” was being quoted or where it is stated that anyone fell asleep in Jesus’ lap.
What we know about the event is the following:
“But there was one of His disciples leaning upon Jesus’ bosom, the one whom Jesus loved. Peter therefore signaled to him to ask whom it might be of whom He spoke. And lying on Jesus’ breast, he said to him, Lord, who is it?” (John 13:23-25).
“Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following (the one who also leaned on His breast at supper, and said, Lord, who is he who betrays You?) Seeing him, Peter said to Jesus, Lord, and what of this one?” (John 21:20-21).
The “lad” was John, who constantly describes himself as being the one whom Jesus loved. Moreover, we are told that it was a “disciple” and not a son. Although, the documentary claims, without evidence, that the beloved disciple was John’s way of secretly referring to Jesus’ son.
Furthermore, John did not lay down in Jesus’ lap in the way we would describe laying down. The way that they ate communal meals at that time was not to sit around a table (as in the Last Supper painting). Rather, they lay on their sides, on the floor, with their heads towards the meal and their legs away from it. In order to “lay on” Jesus’ John would merely have to lean back slightly: “they reclined and ate” (Mark 14:18), “He and the twelve apostles with Him reclined” (Luke 22:14).
Simcha Jacobovici states (paraphrase of DSC):
“The writer of the Gospel of Matthew (28:12-15) addresses a rumor that was circulating in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion, a rumor that we suggest can be taken for the truth. The rumor was that the disciples came by night to remove Jesus’ body from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. They would have done this to safeguard his remains from desecrators. His followers then would have taken the body of Jesus to a permanent tomb.”2
The documentary’s narrator stated,
“But according to the Gospel of Matthew there was another story circulating after Jesus’ death. And though the Gospel called it a lie, it was rumored that Jesus’ disciples secretly too their mater’s body. Presumably to give Him a permanent burial.”
Simply stated, there is absolutely no historical/archeological evidence, not even in the documentary, that the disciples ever did any such thing. This is purely imaginative storytelling that will, sadly, be taken by some to be more reliable than, among other things, the 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. Moreover, the rumor was not that they wanted to give Him a permanent burial but that they sought to deceive people into thinking that Jesus had physically resurrected (this would have made them purposeful deceivers who later were martyred for the lie that they invented).
Incidentally, there are also some other simply odd details shown in the reenactments: the woman caught in adultery is actually shown being stoned and Jesus literally jumps into the middle of flying stones. The woman who washed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair actually cuts her hair and then uses the handful that she cut to dry them. Etc.