Thursday, March 01, 2007

Jesus and family’s tomb found in Jerusalem?

In potentially the biggest news ever in the history of ever, filmmaker James Cameron says the tombs of Jesus, his mom, his brother, his wife, and his son were found in Jerusalem in 1980.

Finding the tomb of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Jesus’ brother) would be enormous news (talk about an understatement – it would call into question the Resurrection, one of the principal beliefs of Christianity) on its own. But finding Mary Magdalene’s ossuary and, even more startlingly, an ossuary inscribed with “Judah, son of Jesus” is news of, well, Biblical proportions. I won’t even attempt to go thru the possible ramifications of this, if it’s true. Just imagine the Western World as you know it thrown into mass hysteria.

Cameron has made a documentary film about the find, entitled The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which will be televised on the Discovery Channel on March 4.

Israeli archeologists, by the way, dispute Cameron’s claim. They say the tombs are those of a Jewish family with similar names (the always-confusing “Solomon” vs “Salomon” dilemma?) and the find, while significant, is not earth-shaking.

This has all the makings of a religious battle royale, which is probably not what Jerusalem needs at the moment. As an aside; can you imagine living in Jerusalem? Between the Muslims going crazy over the rebuilding of the ramp next to the Dome of the Rock, the gays and lesbians marching recently, the usual uneasy coexistence of Holy Places and holy men from three major world religions, and the usual uneasy coexistence of Jews and Arabs, the high-blood-pressure and heart attack rate amongst Jerusalem residents MUST be the highest in the world. It’s a near-miracle the place is still standing at all.

An unnamed Jerusalem resident summed things up nicely when she said, “It will mean our house prices will go up because Christians will want to live here.”

Oh dear. Does this mean The Da Vinci Code was nonfiction?

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