The one amazing fact the media isn't telling you about Christ's Tomb

The confirmation of the site's age has implications for the debate over whether Christ existed in the first place.

Christians are proud to have shrines dedicated to the life of Jesus Christ across the Holy Land. However, after nearly two thousand years of history, skeptics openly wonder if these sites are genuine at all. Some argue over whether Christ even existed. New scientific research is aimed at answering these questions. 

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - There is a widespread notion that the people who lived in ancient times were less intelligent than those who live today. Frankly, it's just as easy to imagine they would think the same about us. By reading the writings and examining the work of those who lived more than twenty centuries ago, we can conclude the people of the ancient world equaled us for intelligence. It's a matter of biology, their brains were the same size and power as ours today. And while information did not move so fast, and the body of knowledge was smaller, and often misinformed, the people of the ancient world were smart enough to tell between what was real and what was fraud. 

The early Christians were familiar with the locations of all the events that happened in the life of Christ. Everything, from his birth to his death and resurrection happened within an area that can be easily traversed by foot within a matter of days. 

 Almost immediately following the death of Christ, those with living memory occupied the historic locations and turned them into makeshift shrines. 

Shrines are still made this way today, going through an unofficial period, built and maintained by those with a devoted interest. Eventually, popular shrines are converted into permanent sites. This is exactly what happened with the holy sites associated with the life of Christ.

In the fourth century A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine ordered the construction of churches at the Christian occupied sites devoted to the life of Christ. This order included the shrine associated with his tomb. 

In more recent years, skeptics have made it popular to question the authenticity of Christ and His shrines. They have published books suggesting Jesus never existed, that it's all an elaborate hoax. They claim the sites and the relics are all fake.

In response, a bevy of scientific studies have been commissioned to test these shrines and relics, and determine who is right. Time and again, the research is proving the Christians correct. The ancient people weren't fools, and they knew and preserved the ancient Christian sites, the same as we remember important locations today and build memorials. 

Recently, the Church of the Holy Spechulre in Jerusalem renovated the Educule, which is a small structure situated over the alleged burial slab of Christ. During the renovation, samples of the original building materials were provided to scientists for study. Their conclusion is that those materials date to the fourth century, A.D., precisely when Christians claim the first permanent shrine was built. 

The implication of this discovery is clear: ancient Christians preserved the shrines of Christ. In order for that to happen, Christ must exist. It would be foolish for Christians to establish shrines to a mythological person who was invented by the Romans. The locations of the permanent shrines were not selected by Constantine, but by the first Christians. Constantine merely made those shrines permanent, or so we have found. 

The find, while understated in the media, is huge. It strongly suggests Christ was real, Christ lived and died where it was said He did. His followers turned His sites into shrines and those shrines were later made permanent and are preserved to this day. 

But there's one final implication. If Christ lived and died where it was said He did, then it also stands to reason that the people of the ancient world recognized Him as someone extraordinary. So much so, they deliberately occupied the sites associated with His life. This was no small act. People in the ancient world couldn't take summers off to occupy a park as disaffected college kids do today. On the contrary, occupying a site and turning it into a shrine was a committed act of devotion unlike what we see today. 

In the modern world, we might convert the residence of a megacelebrity into a museum, but there are virtually no people for whom we have converted the place of their birth, baptism, sermons, death, and resurrection into temples for worship. That means the ancient people, who were just as savvy and intelligent as we are today, recognized that Jesus Christ was not just man, He was also God. 

Now, who's smarter?