James Cameron finds Jesus

[Metal Vendetta]

We haven't had a religious topic for a while, and that's probably a welcome thing, but I couldn't help raising this one after seeing it in the Metro this morning...it would appear that the director of such classics as Aliens, Terminator 2 and, um, that boat thing, has unearthed the coffin of Jesus, alongside those of his parents, wife and son. The inscriptions on the ossuaries read "Maria", "Yose", "Jesus, son of Yose", "Mariamene" and "Judah, son of Jesus". Sceptics have pointed out that these were common names back in biblical times, but my favourite piece of reporting on this comes from the Rev. Rob Schenk, pressident of the National Clergy Council in America:

Media outlets should exercise restraint in reporting Cameron's Hollywood fiction masquerading as scientific fact. All of Jesus' contemporaries recorded Christ rose after being dead for three days and ascended into Heaven. For 2,000 years people of faith along and countless scholars have pored over the Scriptures, confirming their veracity.

So they must be true

The documentary will be shown on the Discovery Channel on the 4th March - there was also a BBC documentary on the subject in 1996.

[Obfleur]

Water, boats and now ******* Jesus.

[snarl]

Isn't Yose managing Chelsea right now?

Maybe that's what he meant by 'special one'

[Impactor returns 2.0]

I love the bit about 'science' only to say that Jesus rose from the dead...

ill think your find thats where they part...

[Metal Vendetta]

I love the bit about 'science' only to say that Jesus rose from the dead...

ill think your find thats where they part...

Not to mention that two of the gospels don't even mention the ascension and if you read the three accounts that are actually in the Bible (Luke, Mark and Acts) they all contradict each other. Whoops.

[Blacksword]

Meh, you can always tell Easter's coming up, when the latest "Startling Jesus Discovery(tm)" comes out in a bookstore or movie theatre near you. I wish people would stop to think about these sorts of things and see them for the cheap marketing stunts they are. This was a BBC documentary 10 years ago, just like Da Vinci was a rehash of Holy Blood from 20 years ago. The first "Jesus tomb" turned up in 1926. This is nothing new. It would have a whole lot more credibility if it came from professional scholars rather than a dubious tv documentarian and a few Hollywood types.

It screams publicity, in large part because their findings are highly incomplete. They've only tested the DNA from the Yeshua and Mariamene ossuaries, and then it's only turned up that they don't have the same mother. No tests have been done to determine the genetic relationships between any of the other individuals. The proper thing to have done would have been to do all of the research first then announce it.

Their website's fairly interesting, more detailed than I anticipated, and has a reasonable ammount of fairly accurate information. However a lot of it also happens to be composed of fairly run of the mill Jesus/Early Christianity speculation that's been around for quite some time. If you're interested you can check it out here: http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/

Off the top of my head I've been able to immediately pick out a couple flaws in their reasoning (for instance the significance they place on the form of Mary - Maria). At the end of the day Jesus speculation is nothing new, there was quite a bit in a ancient times. As an example the Evangelion of James includes quite a detailed account of Mary mother of Jesus, birth and childhood and includes such claims that she was also a product of immaculate conception. Given the extremely narrow focus in the Gospels it's no surprise that people wanted to know more.

oh and one more thing, to me mate MV: four witnesses who see the same event will report details differently. What I've always found more remarkable is the degree of similarity between the four Gospels, given that all were written for extremely divergent communities (conservative Jews - Matthew, lower class gentiles - Mark, upper-class Greeks - Luke, Jewish sectarians who had recently been thrown out of the synagogue - John). Each Gospel includes a certain amount of creative work on the author(s) part but overall the composite picture is surprisingly consistent. One of the reasons why I find the message of the Gospels as compelling as I do is the fact that the Church decided to keep four divergent accounts rather than to amalgamate them into a single narrative (though there were several attempts).

[sprunkner]

As far as I know, the type of burial mentioned in the Bible didn't involve coffins. It's likely it was a communal tomb and the remains were cleaned out after a week or so to make room for a new person. (Not sure about this).

My experience with the Gospels has been that whatever you're looking for when you read them, be it similarities or differences, you will find them.

[Metal Vendetta]

oh and one more thing, to me mate MV: four witnesses who see the same event will report details differently. What I've always found more remarkable is the degree of similarity between the four Gospels, given that all were written for extremely divergent communities (conservative Jews - Matthew, lower class gentiles - Mark, upper-class Greeks - Luke, Jewish sectarians who had recently been thrown out of the synagogue - John). Each Gospel includes a certain amount of creative work on the author(s) part but overall the composite picture is surprisingly consistent. One of the reasons why I find the message of the Gospels as compelling as I do is the fact that the Church decided to keep four divergent accounts rather than to amalgamate them into a single narrative (though there were several attempts).

Don't you mean that the Church *chose* four gospels (out of the many that were available at the time) that agreed with each other (see also the interrelationships between the synoptic gospels) and conveniently ignored the other sources that didn't fit in with their ideas? What about the gospels of Thomas, Truth, Philip, Mary, Judas, Peter, Matthias and Paul, not to mention the "Infancy" gospels? Some of those are considered heretical, despite evidence that they were actually written *before* the canonical gospels, and therefore closer to the historical Jesus's life, rather than based on the stories and hearsay that circulated in the 70 or so years after his death. The point being that the accepted gospels rely entirely on third-hand information and are next to useless as reliable historical sources.

As a case in point, let's just say that if I was writing someone's life story, and after they died they were resurrected and then bodily ascended into heaven, I'd think that was unusual enough to include it in the narrative - in fact, it would be the single most astounding thing I could ever write about. Yet Matthew and John don't even mention the ascension - that, to me, is pretty damning. Why would they leave out one of the most incredible events of Jesus's (after)life? They forgot? Didn't think it was important?

[Blacksword]

In First Century Judea there were two stages to burial. First the body would be prepared, wrapped in cloth and placed in a tomb for a year (I believe). By that time the flesh would have rotted away, allowing the bones to be gathered up. They would be placed in an ossuary or 'bone-box' as it is sometimes called and placed in a permanent tomb. This tomb, found around 1980, contained ten such ossuaries, six of which had inscriptions.

If you adhere to orthodox Christian belief, that Jesus was resurrected bodily and ascended bodily, one assumes there would be no bones to bury. But at the end of the day, this is not the tomb mentioned in the Gospels, which most likely will either a) never be found or b) never be properly identified if it is, because it was only intended as a temporary resting place in any event, and would have no inscriptions on it (especially since it was supposed to be someone else' tomb). Early Christians living in the area no doubt knew where it was, so it is conceivable that the traditional site is correct - though that depends entirely upon whether any of those people survived the Jewish war of 66-70 AD, and the total destruction of Jerusalem that ended it, to come back and point it out to others. Both the traditional site and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (held to have been built over the site of the crucifixion) are outside the walls of Jerusalem, as they were around 30 AD - lending some credibility to the claims. But in terms of scholarly standards we will likely never know for sure.

[Blacksword]

Don't you mean that the Church *chose* four gospels (out of the many that were available at the time) that agreed with each other (see also the interrelationships between the synoptic gospels) and conveniently ignored the other sources that didn't fit in with their ideas? What about the gospels of Thomas, Truth, Philip, Mary, Judas, Peter, Matthias and Paul, not to mention the "Infancy" gospels? Some of those are considered heretical, despite evidence that they were actually written *before* the canonical gospels, and therefore closer to the historical Jesus's life, rather than based on the stories and hearsay that circulated in the 70 or so years after his death. The point being that the accepted gospels rely entirely on third-hand information and are next to useless as reliable historical sources.

As a case in point, let's just say that if I was writing someone's life story, and after they died they were resurrected and then bodily ascended into heaven, I'd think that was unusual enough to include it in the narrative - in fact, it would be the single most astounding thing I could ever write about. Yet Matthew and John don't even mention the ascension - that, to me, is pretty damning. Why would they leave out one of the most incredible events of Jesus's (after)life? They forgot? Didn't think it was important?

Actually all four of the canonical Gospels (which were chosen of course) are significantly earlier than any of the other texts. The sayings Gospel of Thomas (there's also an infancy Gospel of the same name) is the earliest of these, but most biblical scholars put it in the 2nd Century (and Thomas shares 50% of its sayings with the Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke - though whether this means there is dependence to the Synoptics, they shared some of the same sources, or drew from a common body of oral traditions is unclear) All of the subsequent Gnostic gospels (Thomas contains gnostic elements but does not contain fully developed Gnostic ideas) most of which turned up at Hag Namadi in Egypt, are later than Thomas, the majority being 3rd Century and later. Others, like the Gospel of the Ebionites are clearly revisions of one the the Synoptics.

Scholarly opinion is nearly universal that Mark is the earliest Gospel probably dating to just before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD with its final form possibly coming somewhere in the 70s (due to its limited mention of Jesus' prophecies about Jerusalem). Matthew and Luke used Mark, another hypothetical source 'Q' as well as material unique to each writer sometime around the 70s - 80s AD. John comes from a completely different tradition than the Synoptics, the writer may or may not have been familiar with Mark, but the Gospel contains an abundance of unique material and unlike the Synoptics has its primary focus in Judea rather than Galilee. However the description of the Passion is very similar to the accounts in the Synoptics, and thus likely represents traditions going back to a follower of Jesus from the area around Jerusalem (this is suggested due to the fact that the writer has proven to be very accurate about several specific places in Jerusalem that have turned up in archaeological digs) rather than a Galilean as in the case of the Synoptic Gospels. The final form of John dates to around 100 AD, but seems to have went through several major editions, including a final one after the death the "beloved disciple" which the text in chapter 21 claims as its source. Earlier editions probably date back into the 90s and possibly the 80s.

Short answer, the canonical Gospels are the earliest according to the majority of biblical scholars.

Finally, how the ascention is dealt with depends on the theology of the individual Gospel. John doesn't make a clear distinction between crucifixion, resurrection and ascention at all, it's all kinda treated as one. Matthew's focus is on the resurrection, and the missionary proclamation. It's also implied in the fact that Jesus states he will always be with them. The difficult thing is that these Gospels were originally written for a specific need in a given community, and often assume certain knowledge that is not in the text (this is the case especially with John). Each gospel has it's particular focus, and that focus can be fairly narrow, in excluding anything that isn't immediately relevant to the central message.

EDIT: sorry for the double post, I only caught MV's just after I had made my last post

[Metal Vendetta]

Not all biblical scholars put the sayings gospel of Thomas in the 2nd Century - some believe it predates the canonical gospels, and the gospel of Peter was written around the same time as the big four, but was left out because of its apparent support of docetism - a doctrine that is also supported by the Qu'ran, amongst other sources.

And even though the four gospels were written early, they were still not written early enough to be from first-hand sources - and a great deal of telling, retelling, chinese whispers, editing, translation and alteration happened to them before they reached the King James edition.

In the end I guess it boils down to what you find more convincing - four accounts of a person's life (that include fantastical and supernatural elements, and contradict each other, sometimes quite wildly) written 40+ years after that person had died, and then chosen (for largely political reasons) by a church in its ascendancy to represent their view of the truth - or a documentary maker (who just so happens to have also made three of my favourite films of all time) armed with a coffin and a fair amount of (albeit circumstantial) evidence showing that nothing supernatural happened after all. One requires a huge amount of mental gymnastics and doublethink - "I know that the gospels are unreliable and contradictory, yet I still believe them to be true" - while the other requires nothing more than basic common sense. There was a man called Jesus who probably did say some of the (again, wildy contradictory) things he was credited with saying, and he died.

Phew, I used a lot of brackets there. I may have to give them up for Lent.

[Blacksword]

You are quite correct in saying that there are reputable scholars who consider Thomas to be the earliest. I've read the arguments, and at the end of the day I don't find them convincing. The largest problem being that Thomas has Jesus expressing rather uncharacteristically, pure Hellenistic philosophical ideas such as maleness of soul. In these passages Jesus comes off as more Hellenic than even Philo, about the most Hellenized of all Jewish thinkers. Even the prologue to John's Gospel which makes prominent use of the Greek term Logos, and appropriates much of its philosophical significance does not place such ideas into the mouth of Jesus, and for the most part the prologue, though using the word Logos, relates Jesus to the Jewish Wisdom tradition much more strongly than it does to the Greek Logos concept. From my (admittedly fairly limited) experience it is the trademark of later texts to insert foreign ideas into Jesus words, be it Gnosticism (for instance having Jesus talk about the Aeon) or specific Hellenic concepts.

The Gospel of Peter, I am not overly familiar with, so I can't say anything in response to your assertion there.

Your assertion about it being impossible for these Gospels to have eye-witness testimony is one I have to disagree with though. John specifically makes the claim that its content comes from an eyewitness, who is commonly referred to as "the beloved disciple" or "the disciple Jesus loved." As I said above, this is very explicitly stated at the close of John 21. It also implies that the Gospel was completed in its final form after the beloved disciple died. Now, contrary to tradition, there is no internal evidence that the beloved disciple is John son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve: actually it's very unlikely. There are a lot of theories around how it came to be called John's Gospel, the most logical one to me seems to be that John of Patmos, the writer of Revelation, was the Gospel's final editor and that the two Johns got confused - and that having John the Apostle as the source gave the Gospel more authority especially as John was becoming increasingly popular among Gnostics, and there was definite need by its defenders to confirm its legitimacy. Be that as it may, John contains a good amount of internal evidence that it was composed by an eyewitness, ie the highly accurate details about Jerusalem and distinctive Judean focus.

Luke-Acts was most likely written by a contemporary of Paul's, as the later portions of Acts contain many first person pronouns during Paul's later journeys. While this person may not necessarily have been an eyewitness to Jesus, he/she certainly would have had access to people who were (the journeys described can be estimated to have occurred no later than 60, a time in which nearly all of the eyewitnesses would have still been living). It's much harder to determine where the traditions for Mark and Matthew originate. For those two we may never know. But compared to many of the great historical works of the ancient world the Gospels are quite close to their subject matter. First century Christian communities were small, tight and most likely were centred around someone, or perhaps several people who were eyewitnesses, if we take the community behind John's Gospel, the Johannine community as an example. The Near East, and even the Greco-Roman world were still very much an oral culture (consider how much of Roman Law remained unwritten, down to the time of Justinian), education was by memorization, there was little permanent note taking (and this was the case up to the time of our Grandparents, my Nana learned by copying material onto her slate, memorizing it quickly then erasing it). Simply because material was not written down until 40-50 years later, does not mean it wasn't preserved accurately.

Further, the film maker's evidence is very flimsy, based on tenuous reasoning and was largely rejected by scholars 10 years ago, when it was first published. Only the DNA is new, and only two of the ossuaries have been tested, and then only for maternal relation. Not a lot to go on actually. Sure it's a one in 600 chance of having all of the names in one spot, but given the number of people who lived at that time in the region - Jerusalem alone accounted for 600,000 people according to Tacitus - there were probably quite a few families who had those name combinations. Then add the fact that no brother of Jesus named Matthew is known from any document, nor is a son named Judah (or any child for that matter) - other married Jesus theories have usually centred on a daughter btw - and you have a very tenuous conclusion. There's also no evidence that the James ossuary came from the same tomb, actually there's quite a lot of evidence that it didn't as the missing tenth ossuary was listed with different dimensions and was listed as having no inscription and there are photographs that show the James ossuary sitting in a living room in the 1970s, well before the tomb was discovered. In the end, unless subsequent DNA evidence shows that all of the people in the tomb are related exactly as the documentary makers suggest, there's really not a whole lot going on here.

[Metal Vendetta]

The fact that they didn't DNA test the other remains is very infuriating - it's like leaving your homework half done It will be interesting to see what results arise from a proper analysis.

Aliens still rocks though.

[Optimus Prime Rib]

What amuses me is that noone will even ATTEMPT to disprove Muslims or Hindus or any other religion. Its become fashionable to go out of ones way to discredit Christianity, because the majority of Christians are in 'polite' society and are expected to just take the bashing with a grain of salt.

I challenge anyone who is willing to stand in front of a Church and cry 'Foul' at the parishners to take that same attitude to a hostile Muslim community. What? Its not worth the risk of getting beat down? Dont back down from your convictions because its the easy way out. And no I am not saying all Muslims are hostile. There are jerks in any group. Athiests included.

What I am saying is, if you are going to go out of your way to piss off one religion, dont stick with just the 'safe' ones. Dont quote me percentages of people affected or anything like that. If a person believes in a rock with a piece of turtle crap on it, you should treat that person with equal contempt.

[Metal Vendetta]

What I am saying is, if you are going to go out of your way to piss off one religion, dont stick with just the 'safe' ones. Dont quote me percentages of people affected or anything like that. If a person believes in a rock with a piece of turtle crap on it, you should treat that person with equal contempt.

Whoa, did you miss all my arguments with Yaya on here? I've got no bones about poking holes in religions other than Christianity, and I certainly don't hold one religion above or below another, because they're all, quite frankly, ridiculous. I've argued with Jews, Muslims, Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus and Scientologists - I'm an equal opportunities pain in the arse and I resent the implication that I might be singling out any one backward belief system for ridicule over the others. Except maybe Scientology. You know they still believe Piltdown Man was real?

[The Last Autobot]

What I am saying is, if you are going to go out of your way to piss off one religion, dont stick with just the 'safe' ones. Dont quote me percentages of people affected or anything like that. If a person believes in a rock with a piece of turtle crap on it, you should treat that person with equal contempt.

Whoa, did you miss all my arguments with Yaya on here? I've got no bones about poking holes in religions other than Christianity, and I certainly don't hold one religion above or below another, because they're all, quite frankly, ridiculous. I've argued with Jews, Muslims, Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus and Scientologists - I'm an equal opportunities pain in the arse and I resent the implication that I might be singling out any one backward belief system for ridicule over the others. Except maybe Scientology. You know they still believe Piltdown Man was real?

I think Op refers more to the media (Tv) than you, MV.

[Denyer]

I wish people would stop to think about these sorts of things and see them for the cheap marketing stunts they are.

"It astonishes and worries me that so many people believe these lies. The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true." —Cardinal Bertone

Wonder which book he was talking about...

[Optimus Prime Rib]

What I am saying is, if you are going to go out of your way to piss off one religion, dont stick with just the 'safe' ones. Dont quote me percentages of people affected or anything like that. If a person believes in a rock with a piece of turtle crap on it, you should treat that person with equal contempt.

Whoa, did you miss all my arguments with Yaya on here? I've got no bones about poking holes in religions other than Christianity, and I certainly don't hold one religion above or below another, because they're all, quite frankly, ridiculous. I've argued with Jews, Muslims, Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus and Scientologists - I'm an equal opportunities pain in the arse and I resent the implication that I might be singling out any one backward belief system for ridicule over the others. Except maybe Scientology. You know they still believe Piltdown Man was real?

I think Op refers more to the media (Tv) than you, MV.

Indeed. No harshness towards MV

[Blacksword]

"It astonishes and worries me that so many people believe these lies. The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true." —Cardinal Bertone

Wonder which book he was talking about...

Michael Chrichton's Eaters of the Dead? only the first two chapters are real, Ibn Fadlan didn't actually hang out with Beowulf's mates and fight Grendel monsters. It has the potential to be very misleading.

[Legion]

Crikey lads, I've just found Jesus too! He was down the back of my sofa all this time!...

[Professor Smooth]

I'm about as anti-religion as they come, and I love when faith-heads have to deny obvious evidence that goes against their beliefs but...

Honestly, this thing with Jesus' tomb is not what they think it is. A bunch of people with very common names are in a tomb together.

Religion is still incompatible with. This isn't the nail in its coffin, though.

[sprunkner]

Blackie, you mentioned that the gospel of John is familiar with the area around Jerusalem.

Then you said that you believed John the Apostle probably wrote his Gospel, or at least was behind it in some way. But John the Beloved was a Galilean. The only way to avoid the contradiction is to disavow the Beloved as the author.

And your arguments are good, but stop hurting the poor commas!

[Blacksword]

Reread my post Sprunker me boy, and you'll find I said that it is highly unlikely that John son of Zebedee, the Apostle, wrote the Gospel. There is the theory out there that John of Patmos was the final editor, giving the gospel the name John. There's not proof anywhere, other than later tradition, that the two were the same person. The Judean focus is one major reason for John being eliminated as the beloved disciple, the other is that none of the John and James stories that are all over the Synoptics are in John: none. John is basically absent. Peter is still prominent, Thomas makes a few important appearances and there's the unique to John figure Nathaniel. Then there's the fact that all three Synoptics say that none of the Twelve was at the crucifixion. That means that the beloved disciple is not one of the twelve. There is an interesting theory that the beloved disciple is Lazarus, as he only appears (under that name at least) in John and is referred to as the one Jesus loved. Then there's the fact that Bethany, Lazarus' town, which hasn't been positively identified, but from the text we know it was on the Jordan river not far from Jerusalem. Overall he makes a better candidate than John the Apostle but we will never know who the beloved disciple was to any certainty.

[Metal Vendetta]

Crikey lads, I've just found Jesus too! He was down the back of my sofa all this time!...

Haha, Mrs. V. bought me a Jesus statue the other week...He's about 18 inches high, bright neon pink, and He's got a "magic 8-ball" thing in the base, so you can shake Him and turn Him upside down for advice - "Repent, sinner", "Pray harder"...that sort of thing. He's great.

[Legion]

Haha, Mrs. V. bought me a Jesus statue the other week...He's about 18 inches high, bright neon pink, and He's got a "magic 8-ball" thing in the base, so you can shake Him and turn Him upside down for advice - "Repent, sinner", "Pray harder"...that sort of thing. He's great.

Sounds fantastic!!

and in some ways more useful...

[Metal Vendetta]

Oh he really is!

Totally, dude. At least my Jesus gives you a definite answer every time, instead of leaving it to your imagination what he actually wants...

[Legion]

[sprunkner]

Reread my post Sprunker me boy

Apparently I had to avert my eyes from the comma carnage at the wrong time...