The Jesus Tomb

I'm never surprised that the latest effort to debunk traditional and historical Christianity comes during Lent. It's almost as if the devil is that stupid (or that smart) that he fills the airways with the most childish, non-sensical anti-Christian propaganda during our forty days of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.

Last year it was The Da Vinci Code and the Gnostic Gospel of Judas. This year it is the Jesus tomb. James Cameron, director of Alien 2 and Titanic, has made a 'documentary' about the discovery of the real tomb of Jesus Christ. This tomb contains a sarcophagus inscribed with the names Mary, Jesus, Joseph and Judas. It also apparently says that Mary and Jesus were married, and Judas was their son. Within the sarcophagus are the remains of the man and woman.

Now our first instinct is probably to ask: So what makes this tomb so special? Well, it was found in Jerusalem and might date from the time of Christ. So 2+2=1283, and therefore this is tomb of Christ, and therefore Christ didn't resurrect Himself, and therefore he was married to Mary Magdelene, and therefore he had a son, and therefore Christianity is wrong canweallgobacktocommunismplease.

Cameron and those involved seemed to have conveniently missed a few important issues which complicate, if not directly invalidate, their account . First, there is the question of why a Galilean is buried in Jerusalem. Second, there is the question of why a woman would have been buried with Him, since after the Crucifixion, Christ's followers went into hiding and were persecuted for the next several decades. Third, there is the question of names. Mary, Jesus, Joseph, and Judas were at the time the most popular names in Israel amongst the Jews.

Scholars and journalists are already rounding, and Cameron et al. are circling their wagons. Cameron will no doubt contain to claim that this is just his take, albeit his take that he is aggressively selling through the MSM as fact. In the end, the movie will excite the exciteable, while the rest of us finish up our Lent and get down to celebrating the Glorious Resurrection.