Dr. Ben Witherington III offers an extensive critique of the book The Jesus Family Tomb (written to accompany the Discovery Channel documentary on Sunday) here.

This story may even die before the documentary airs.

As many already know, James Cameron (Director of "Titanic") and Simcha Jacobovici (who still claims to believe in the authenticity of the fraudulant "James Ossuary" that came out a couple years ago), now claim that they have found the body of Jesus, His wife, His son, His brother, and His mother.  While it's making a huge splash in the media, it seems that these claims are based on a very shaky foundation. 

Since the story broke, I've run into a few responses and resources that I've found very useful:

● Here's an article in the New York Times giving an overview of the "discovery".

● Darrell Bock Ph.D. ,Research Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor of Spiritual Development and Culture (CCL) at Dallas Theological Seminary responds here

● Dr. Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, gives a thorough response here

● Larry King interviewed James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, also bringing Al Mohler (President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) and William Donahue (President of the Catholic League) who ably debate them and their "discoveries".  You can read the transcript here (scroll down to the second half of the show)

● The internet monk (Micheal Spencer) has been posting almost daily updates on all aspects of the story here

● Justin Taylor, editor and former assistant to John Piper, posts resources as they become available here

What's Up? (this past week)...

As 21 people sat in (or around, on the stairs, etc.) our living room last Tuesday, Mary Yuill (See photo) showed how God radically loves Muslims.  Drawing on her 20+ years of experiences in Senegal, she forced us to look beyond the 135,000 who live in the St. Jerome region...

This coming week... 

Sunday night a group will battle in prayer for St. Jerome at our house.  Tuesday night's small (and growing) group.  Two new small groups will start in a couple of weeks (Sunday and Wednesday nights).

Community Contacts...

Please pray for Carole.  A young (early twenties) new follower of Christ (only a few months) who is not plugged into any local church.  She has a very difficult background and has experienced the transforming power of Christ.

Family Stuff...

Caleb is slowly learning to identify his ABC's and play tic-tac-toe.  Constance has found out that stairs are a lot of fun (going up that is.  Going down?  Well...).

Knees...

1.  That significant battles would be fought and won this Sunday night as a group prays at 6:30pm at our house.

2.  Again, wisdom to know what to do with short-term teams!  There are so many things we could do, but how do use them without being a distraction from building into the lives, passions, and vision of people here?

3.  Wisdom as we start two new small groups and a monthly Sunday evening service in the next few weeks (one of those small groups will have many non-Christians who just want to study the Bible).

RECENT STUFF (THIS PAST WEEK): 

Last night (Tuesday) we had a rousing discussion concerning alcohol and the Bible as we looked at John 2:1-11.

14 people attended.

COMMUNITY CONTACTS:

Please pray for a guy named Emmanuelle who works in downtown St Jérôme.  I've spoken with him a few times and pray that God would open his heart to the gospel.

PRAYER:

Last Sunday we recruited 100 French-speaking Prayer Warriors who are commited until December 31, 2007.  We'll be recruiting English-speaking Praye Warriors shortly.

We have enough contacts to begin two more small groups.  Please pray that God would give us wisdom as to when, where and how to begin them.

A very funny entry over at the Southern Ontario Cooperative for ESL Ministries BLOG.  Here is what was written (or you can perm-link to it here):

*The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.**

**As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.**

**In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling** **kan** be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.**

**Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.**

**By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".**

**During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o"** **kan** be dropd from vords**kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi** **bl riten styl.**

**Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.**

**Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.**

**If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.*

We had a bit fewer this week (13).  Of course, small groups are an ebb and flow affair.  We just pray that the ebbs and flows slowly rise as we announce Christ in this region and see lives transformed.

(L-R) Zac (guitar), Jacob (guitar), Ben (Conga-drum)

We talked through John 1:35-51, where both Jesus and Andrew give the invitations "come and see".  This invitation to "come and see" could have been up to a year prior to his invitation to "follow me".  Each of us shared the time it took to decide to follow Jesus, sometimes a few months, sometimes a few years.

Looking forward to talking about one of Jesus' most bizarre and controversial miracles next week (controversial to 21st century N. America, not to 1st century Jewish culture): turning water into wine.