This is fun. James Cameron gave a straight-faced assessment of his Discovery Channel documentary on supposedly finding the family tomb and bones of Jesus Christ. “This is the biggest archaeological story of the century," he solemnly proclaimed. To add to the merriment, we are informed that there will be DNA testing on the remains.
So, who’s going to do the Q-Tip mouth swab on God?
Even for a Hollywood hotshot, Cameron’s got a hilariously exalted opinion of himself. He’s been telling stories on film for, oh, about 25 years. The New Testament, with its accounts of the fearlessly faithful witnesses of the early Church, has stood as revered truth for twenty centuries. The first martyrs of Christianity, many of them eyewitnesses to the miracles of Our Lord, died for their faith in an irrefutable set of facts.
The thought of James Cameron presenting his version of Gospel truth has me shaking—with laughter.
As noted in Scripture, on a practical level, Jesus of Nazareth was a poor man, with no place to lay his head (Matt 8:20). It’s highly unlikely that his family would have the wherewithal to own a tomb. The ever-popular wife-and-child theory never gains real traction (outside of Hollywood films) because there is zero evidence of such relationships in Our Lord’s life.
In addition, as scholars of the era are quick to point out, the names in the tomb—Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Judah, son of Jesus--are common to that time. It’s kind of like archaeologists in the year 4000 finding a tomb of Ethan, Emily, Christopher, and Andrew, son of Ethan. These future tomb finders would encounter the same conundrum. (“How do we know it’s THAT Ethan?”) Captain's Quarters makes the logical observation that the Romans would surely have quashed the troublesome Christian movement by producing Christ's body, if they could locate it.
My guess is that “The Da Vinci Code” has spawned some green-eyed reaction in the incomparably egotistical inner sanctums of Hollywood’s halls of power. If Ron Howard can find the pot of gold at the end of a Jesus fairy tale, why then oh why can’t James Cameron fly over the very same rainbow?
The Anchoress has lots more on this unholy subject.
