The ossuary of no one in particular

The whole St. Paul’s bones issue has left me wondering. What would it take to convince the Pope Benedict and the Vatican that a number of first century bones were those of Jesus, and that he was not in fact physically resurrected?

If you recall, a few years back, the famous case of the James the brother of Jesus ossuary was debunked as a forgery, and for very good reason.

Now imagine that archaeologists actually find an ossuary and authenticate an inscription that says it contains the bones of Jesus himself. Imagine this inscription is conclusively shown to have been made by first century Gnostics, who believed that Jesus was not resurrected. Surely an authenticated inscription is a level above the two millennia of oral tradition that have been used to argue the case for the St. Paul bones, and just because the Gnostics did not benefit from a friendly Roman Emperor to help them spread and grow like the Catholics did, it does not automatically make their beliefs any less valid. Imagine also that the bones in the ossuary are dated and found to exactly match the time of Jesus’ death with any margin of error being well within the limits (unlike the St. Paul case).

Would this be enough evidence to convince Pope Benedict XVI and Christians in general that Jesus was not bodily resurrected into Heaven like they believe? Will the Pope hang up his pointy hat and announce that the central belief of Christianity – salvation through the resurrection of Jesus – has been disproven?

I guess not! So what kind of scientific evidence and how much of it would it take to convince them that Jesus died and stayed dead?

Comments please!