From Terminator to Archeologist

Yesterday the news told me that Jesus is a fake.

Well not in so many words. They gleefully reported a story about a team of archeologists and movie makers who have done what no one has been able to do for 2000 years. Lead by James Cameron (director of Titanic and of course Terminator films) they have what they call compelling proof that an ossuary found just outside of Jerusalem (in an apartment complex) contains the last remains of Jesus Christ.

Of course, they did not give a lot of details. However, they did show a nice reenactment of the disciples placing Jesus' skull into the box.

I had a hard time not laughing. What makes a box with Jesus’ name on it compelling evidence? The News reporter even admitted that Jesus was a very common name in the first century and that they have found dozens of these bone boxes with the name Jesus on them. The significance of this one is that they found it near other boxes with the names Joseph and Mary. The assumption was that the Mary was not his mother but Magdalene. Of course it was. We all know that Jesus and Mary were married, moved to Italy and had babies — sorry, wrong work of fiction that was the De Vinci Code.

I doubt any real scholar would ever take this find seriously. What Cameron and friends are saying is that after 2000 years they have found what the roman government, the Jewish ruling body and hundreds of skeptics could not produce during the first century (or sense) – the smoking gun. This would be like George Bush getting on TV and announcing that they found a huge cache of WMD's in the middle of Baghdad that for some reason had gone unnoticed. The media would have a field day with that one. They would cry foul play and accuse him of planting the weapons. Everyone would be skeptical and it has only been 4 years since we went looking for the WMD's. (This does not mean that WMD’s can’t still be found but as time goes forward the likelihood of such a discovery to be accepted by the general populace decreases.)

The most ridiculous assumption that this documentary makes is that the disciples were really stupid (not to mention deviously evil). They are saying that either the disciples 1) stole the body or 2) Jesus deceived everyone. Let’s look at these two possibilities.

First let’s say the disciples stole the body from the grave. Once the stole it they had to do something with it, so they moved it. Then for the next year or two they sat around hoping no body found it. Then when the body had decayed they took the bones and put them in a box. Then to make sure no one ever found out about their hoax they PUT JESUS' NAME ON THE BOX and then buried it IN THE FAMILY TOMB. Of course this does not work very well because there is the Mary question. There is no evidence that Jesus was married at the time of his death so how is it that he is buried with his wife and kid. I guess that doesn’t work.

That leaves option 2 Jesus deceived everyone. Jesus faked his death and then allowed everyone to believe he ascended to heaven as the Son of God. After that he married Mary Magdalene, raised a family and stayed in Jerusalem. That would mean that he would have been aware of what was happening to his Disciples and he would have let them die in his name even though he was a fake. What kind of horrific monster was this Jesus anyway. But this doesn’t fit either. If Jesus (who spoke with great love, authority and wisdom – who modeled love and wanted his followers to be known for their love) did such a callous thing as to go off and raise a family while his friends were put to death, then he must have been a madman. That is what does not add up. Jesus clearly was not a madman.

Frankly, the only account that makes sense is the one that was handed down to us. Interestingly the account was never challenged during the 100 years of its writing because people who had witnessed his ascension were still alive. Only after hundreds of years had passed did anyone ever question the validity of the account. If someone walked up to me and told me that Kennedy was never assassinated, that it was all faked and he was living in the Bahamas, I might be tempted to listen because I wasn’t there when it happened. But the minute someone went public with the claims. Eye witnesses would come forward and the story would fall apart. Fast forward 100 years and someone could purpose a similar thing (that Kennedy was not assassinated but lived out his life in Butte Montana) and since there were no living witnesses, it might gain ground.

I am pleased to see that Cameron publicly admits that he believes in historicity of Jesus. But when it comes to this film it falls short of proving anything. If her really wants to provide proof that the bones in this box are the bones of Jesus Christ then it is within his power to do so. All he has to do is fire up that time machine that he used in the Terminator movies then go back in time (naked of course.) Once there, he needs to mug someone for their clothes then find a phone book and look up all the Mary’s in Jerusalem. Once he has a complete list he needs to go door to door saying “Mary Magdalene?” (preferably with a thick Austrian accent) and when he finds Mary Magdalene he needs to draw some blood and bring it back so we can see if she is the one buried in the tomb. But that will only verify that it is Mary Magdalene. So while he is back in the first century he should hunt down Jesus and get an invitation to his wedding to Mary. Maybe he could bring back a marriage certificate or a photo album. Evidence like that might shake the faith of the world.

However, evidence like that is science fiction.

For more info check this out --> Cybercast News Service

It has been a while so I guess I should post.

Life is real busy right now. We are going through a lot of changes at the church and my mom is battleing colon cancer and I' m trying to juggle my schedule in such a way that I have time to look for a full time ministry position.

I have decided that I need to simplfy my blogging. I have been approaching it like everything I write here needs to be profound or important. Truth is, that's not what blogging is about. It's supposded to be casual and just a snap shot of my life.

My solution to keep things low key is to remind myself that noone is going to read this stuff anyway. It doesn't matter if I am deep or funny or profound. It doesn't matter if I have good grammer or that I spell everything correctly. In fact I don't even need ot finish thoughts. I could be in the middle of a sentence and simply