Jesus in a Box

Stirring the pot -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

What do you make of the idea that Jesus might have been married to Mary Magdalene -- he may have even had a son named Judah? Whether you see this as historical conjecture or blasphemy of the highest order depends on your religion. Documentary producer Simcha Jacobovici has stirred the pot by claiming that Jesus' entire nuclear family was uncovered in the Talpiot Tomb outside of Jerusalem in 1980.

Movie director James Cameron (of Titanic fame) has joined with Jacobovici to produce a documentary on the Discovery channel, laying out all of the details and purported evidence. This pairing of Cameron and Jacobovici forces the Christian Community to face an evil nemesis triad once again: Hollywood, Science and Judaism. If you have something of a Mel Gibson thought process, there is serious overlap between the three branches of the triad. There is reason however, to reach a whole different conclusion, as discussed in TIME magazine. An editorial in this week's issue of TIME ("Hollywood vs. Jesus") argues pretty effectively that Hollywood actually benefits mightily from Christian faith -- look at the cornucopia of songs, books and movies with a Christmas theme. Irving Berlin, a Jew, is the man who composed White Christmas for heaven's sake. It would be crazy for Hollywood to make any deliberate, concentrated attempt at debunking Christianity.

In the same issue of TIME, another editorial ("Rewriting the Gospels") considers the speculative statistical analysis used by Jacobovici to be a terribly lax new standard for scientific conclusions. Jacobovici uses combinatorics to estimate the likelihood that a Jesus, Mary, Judah and Joseph would all be entombed as they were at that time in the same burial place. Detractors make a legitimate point that all four names were extremely common in that era. The conclusions are anything but final; my own doubt comes from the fact that engraved ossuaries were the burial vaults of the wealthy and the upper middle class. Jesus was an impoverished rabbi and part time carpenter. He was also a convicted felon according to Roman law; it seems doubtful that he and his would've had such an elaborate burial ceremony.

Much like The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Tomb has created a tempest of sorts. I'm not sold on any particular theory and am recording the Lost Tomb special as I write this. Am perfectly willing to be persuaded by a good argument, but doubt that I'll see it. The God of my own understanding detests organized religion in all of its arrogant supremacist manifestations. Imagine that Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna and Joseph Smith were ordinary men like you or me -- this is the greatest 'outrage' and yet to me, the greatest likelihood of them all. Even so, if you are comfortable in your faith and your faith is strong, you shouldn't be bothered by the flimsy artifacts given in Lost Tomb. It seems to add to, not subtract from the great body of mythologies that surround our collective past.

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