Tomorrow in New York, James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici will hold a press conference to unveil what they believe is the most significant archeological find in history.
Cameron and Jacobovici will display the actual casket of Jesus Christ complete with remains. The two filmmakers will also claim that Jesus had a son and and a brother as well. But it gets a little more interesting that this.
30 years ago, a cave was discovered in Jerusalem containing ten coffins. The inscriptions on the coffins bare the names of Jesus, Mary, Mary, Matthew, Jofa, and Judah. But it took nearly twenty years to decipher the inscriptions. Critics quickly argued that those names were very common during that period and do not prove that they belonged to Jesus and his family. The story never gathered any steam and essentially evaporated.
This is when Cameron and Jacobovici stepped in. The two conducted an exhaustive investigation over three years and proved that the coffins and remains do indeed belong to Jesus and his family. In addition, they claim to have proved that Jofa was Jesus’ brother and Judah was Jesus’ son.
Being the filmmakers that they are, a documentary has been produced and will air on the Discovery Channel next Sunday as far as I can tell.
So what does this mean for Christianity? If those truly are the remains of Jesus then he never rose from the dead. This would show what I believe to be true all along. Jesus was just a revered preacher and a humanitarian who was seen as a threat due to his popularity. No more, no less.
Now on the other side of things… is this just a publicity stunt for two filmmakers to cash in and get noticed? Can they really prove that those remains are Jesus’?
Thanks go out to Itanshi and Thomas for throwing this story my way!
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- Jesus Found In Mexico
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- Virgin Mary Found In Dallas
No doubt the Discovery Institute will do their own investigation and come to a different conclusion.
Indeed, but I definitely look forward to the “evidence” that they’ll present. To me it seems like a very difficult case to prove, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see :)
gasmonso
I’m skeptical (as usual). They’re claiming DNA evidence. Unless they’re compar
ing the bodies to French royalty or gained a DNA sample from God, I don’t see wh
o they will compare their DNA to.
Cameron doesn’t need press. He could do anything he wanted in Hollywood. I wou
ld guess he believes in this wholeheartedly.
No matter what happens, even if these bodies were proven beyond a doubt to be what is claimed, the Church will still deny it, of course, since they pretty much have to in order to justify their existence. It will certainly be interesting to see how they counter this. I hope they go further than simply lifting a Bible and saying, “I’m not listening to you! LALALALALA!”
I myself am not sure how exactly they can claim that “there is a one in 10 million chance this is a family other than the Holy Family.” How do they know this? They say it’s proven genetically, but are there known descendents of the supposed Holy Family? Perhaps I’ve missed something.
I found Jesus- He’s in the trunk with the rest of the dead bodies that didn’t rise.
I’m putting my money on it actually being Hoffa.
I’m skeptical as well, and not just because I am a christian. I’m just not sure how they could know for certain one way or the other.
And believe you me, if there isn’t absolutely irrefutable proof that this is the body of Jesus, then it won’t faze christians one bit (see evolution). Hell, even if they did have absolutely irrefutable proof that this is the body of Jesus, all christians would have to do to feel good about themselves again would be to slightly retune their interpretation of the story of His resurrection told in the Bible.
What I believe is more likely to happen is that the whole thing will end up being just a publicity stunt. Saying that you’ve found the body of the person that a large portion of the population holds to be God is a real good way to get publicity for your book/movie/documentary/whatever. On the other hand, telling half your reader/viewership both that you’ve found their God and that He is dead probably isn’t a great move either, so I expect that any fantastic claims made at the beginning of the documentary to be tempered with statements like “the evidence is inconclusive,” and “we’ll never know for sure”, with spooky music in the background, by the end.
Books will be sold and money will be made by both sides, but I doubt there will be any fundamental change for anyone involved.
Woo hoo they found him, finally I’ll be able to put to rest my “fifth nail in the crotch” theory.
Go bored film makers!
/ You know, to support his massive “Ego”
// From being a fairly important prophet of the times
/// hehe
It reminds me of a part of Richard Dawkins’ book the God Delusion. In it he says Gould’s NOMA is a waste because if Christians could use science to prove Jesus existence, then they certainly would. But otherwise they’d just say that science has no business investigating faith….
If you have faith (I most certainly don’t) then you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to uphold that faith. Especially if uncritical faith is seen as a virtue….
////don’t even want to *think* about that implied 4th nail…
////////likes slashies..
No, the Church would not deny the truth if it was irrefutable that Jesus did not rise from the dead. If my religion is bunk, I’d like to know that I am wasting my time. I suspect all the men in Rome who have given up wealth, women, and all sorts of other earthy thinks would also go with the truth. I am confident however that in the end this will be disproved as a hoax … if not, Shalom!
James Love: “If my religion is bunk, I’d like to know that I am wasting my time.”
Your religion is bunk, there is no evidence to support it. I don’t mean that in a insulting way. It’s just a statement of fact.
Religion is based on the belief in a a being whose existence we can never disprove. I can’t disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, but it’s bunk too.
They would deny the truth, James, they would, simply because thousands of years of effort can’t be for nothing, can they? I mean, were all those wars and events and miracles and books and supression of thinkers and life lessons…were they…? Would you be willing to be the guy who says, “Oh. We screwed up. Alright guys, pack it up. Jesus isn’t the Christ, he didn’t know God, our entire existence is based off of something that is wrong. We may have fought any arguments against us for centuries, but dammit (we can curse now, right? Ten Commandments out?)! That DNA never fails, even before God (who we apparently don’t know)!” In the presence of God even “irrefutable” facts are insufficient. All they have to do is call it a test of faith and Blammo! Christianity continues. As I’ve said in the past, religion is about faith first.
That being said, I still don’t see how DNA is going to help, or how they’re really going to prove anything at all. If it was proven though, I imaging Mohamed would get a huge laugh…
Well we’d still have the 10 commandments. We’d just have to through out
Christianity and go with either Islam or Judaism. Neither of those
religions require Jesus to have come back from the dead, but share a
common root.
Of course I think it’s all bunk either way. But, it would certainly not
change religious people. Just the religion they follow.
It doesn’t matter. I can think of no evidence that would convince the faithful.
Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there.
Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there and shouting “I found it!â€
godlessgeeks.com
Recovered Catholic: “Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there and shouting “I found it!—
I love it, so true.
My favourite is: “My holy book says god created everything. My holy book is god’s word, therefore god exists”. Begging the question or what?
Yep totally circular thinking.
It starts when someone tells you your book is gods exact word, and you believe them.
Then once you believe that your book is true, and your book says your book is true, then therefore, you can tell your book is true, because your book says it is true.
The fact some dopey guy told you that in the first place and you fell for it has, ipso facto, become irrelevant, and your circular beliefs are now unassailable by reason. It takes some hard-core self-examining to break out of a cycle like that, and that is about as much fun as quitting smoking.
The bit I really like is the endless My Book’s Real! Your Book’s Dumb! because….. uh… My Book Says My Book Is Real!!
If that shouldn’t clue people in to what this is all about, then I don’t know what should.
I’m interested that they claim to have genetic evidence proving this.
I’m wondering if they’re going to somehow claim to have DNA evidence connecting the bodies they found to the line of the Judean kings. Joseph was supposedly of the House of David after all.
That would still only prove that the remains were from people related to the line of the Judean kings, not that they were in fact the family of Jesus and his relatives.
I would imagine they are going to use genetic evidence to see how they are related. If ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ turns out to be the son of Mary but not (genetically) Joseph, that’d be pretty noteworthy.
I think the document will prove, not that Jesus existed, but that the “science” of archeology continues in the service of religious mythology rather than as a tool for discovering unrecorded history. It seems like most archeolgists are more concerned with trying to fit their findings into the context of the bible presumably as a historical document, rather than objectively examining the evidence to create a secular map of history.
“I am confident however that in the end this will be disproved as a hoax … if not, Shalom!”
That’s hilarious! If only it were that easy.
I doubt that this body is really that of Jesus. Even if it actually is, I am almost certain that it cannot be proven convincingly. All and all, it’s a non-story.
Maybe they should make wafers out of the body and sell them to catholics…
sidfaiwu said:
“Maybe they should make wafers out of the body and sell them to catholics…”
:-)
I’m trying to envision a box of those on the shelf at my local supermarket.
Sound sound arguments against this being remotely provable/possible.
“Maybe they should make wafers out of the body and sell them to catholics…â€
*gags*
Scott:
Wtf man. Sound arguements? Against it? Really? How can you tell?
I swear if I could train my gas to code websites, the site your link took me to, would reflect their efforts. Some wierd chicks’ messy BLOG posting, does not a “Sound sound arguments against this being remotely provable/possible”, make.
If you really “beleive”, why do facts or reasons matter anyways?
hmm perhaps they have compared DNA from the bloodstains on the shroud of Turin?
Shaze, since you don’t even know that it’s a guy’s blog and are so bothered by formatting I’ll assume you didn’t read it.
As to why facts matter, if it could be proven (and I don’t see how they could prove that this was Christ) that Christ didn’t rise from the dead bodily then Christianity would be meaningless.
As it is Michael (the person who’s blog that is) gives a number of lengthy reasons why this is utterly unlikely and he also provides links to a number of outside sources that pick this whole thing apart. Take time. Read them all. Then tell me how the ossuaries that they found could beyond a reasonable doubt be the biblical people that Cameron is claiming.
I love how some of the Christians are pointing out “See, we ARE right”
despite the fact that jesus being buried there obviously proves the bible wrong.
I do agree with shaze what the formatting and layout of text are some of the worst possible, His hperlink formatting is dreadull but the points on the site seem pretty valid.
Has anyone here read Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins? Another story of finding the actual body of Christ.
Alcari,
No doubt, but I try not to hold bad formatting against folks. Let he who has a perfect blog cast the first stone.
“Let he who has a perfect blog cast the first stone.”
gasmonso, it looks like you need to go find some rocks ;)
LOL, I’m actually working on a new design :)
gasmonso
No preview button on comments and thus not perfect.
As the scripture says, “Yeah verily I say unto the, thou who dost not allow thine commentors to see that they doth commit a basic mistake in creating a link doth risk recieving the wrath of the Internet.” 2 HTML 3:16
Amen
PUBLICITY SCAM! I think it would have been bigger news if it really was his body! Just another person looking for attention.
You made several nice points there. I did a search on the subject matter and found most people will go along with with your blog.
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