Posted on 03/02/2007 7:39:39 AM PST by maryz
Year after year in spring, a new crop of religious dandelions pop up in our post-Christian culture. Like the real ones growing in my yard, they make a colorful splash that briefly captures our attention, until we realize that they are only shallow-rooted weeds, not beautiful flowers planted long ago in the deep rich soil of the past, such as Easter lilies.
Last year, it was the Gnostic nonsense of the "Da Vinci Code." We've had the "Gospel of Judas Iscariot," written centuries after the eyewitnesses were dead. This year it's a variation on the "Da Vinci" theme. We are not only being told that there was a Mrs. Jesus (a k a Mary Magdalene). We are also informed that her tomb and that of Jesus have been found in Jerusalem; that DNA testing has proved that they are not related and so must have been married (how exactly does it prove that?) and that an ossuary or small casket of at least one of their offspring has been found as well. News at 11! Or, in this case, on the Discovery Channel's documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," scheduled for Sunday night.
In a surreal moment on "Larry King Live" earlier this week, the film's producer, James Cameron (of "Titanic" fame), told us with a straight face that we should all be thankful that we now have tangible evidence that Jesus existed. . . . [I]t tells us a lot about the state of our culture that Mr. Cameron's remark, backed by pseudo-science, could be seriously made on national television and that the film's companion book has already shot up to No. 5 on Amazon's rankings. We are a Jesus-haunted culture that is so historically illiterate that anything can now pass for knowledge of Jesus.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Occasional ping!
This all reminds me of the old SNL skit where Fr. Guido Sarducci was trying to sell what he claimed was the menu for the Last Supper.
What is amazing about all of this hype is that it is not new information. I have excavated in Jerusalem for nearly 30 years, and I have seen the following: thousands of ossuaries (bone boxes), most of which were labeled Yeshua (or Joshua-Hebrew name for Jesus, Miriam (Mary), Yochanan (John), Judah or Judas, Shimon (Simon.) These were all common names at the time. For all of those that don't know, traditional Judaism of that day: when a person died, they were placed in a tomb until the flesh rotted off. Then the bones were collected and fit into a small box about 2' long by 1' wide, and collected with other bone boxes in a burial chamber. This was called the second burial, or the second death. There are thousands of ossuaries that have been found, most of which have had their bones romoved....to try to suggest that this was the tomb of Jesus and that his "wife" was buried with him because of DNA testing is criminally stupid (you could, at best, prove that she was Jewish.) This Gnostic attempts were first generated in the 4th century to acquire wealth--that is why you see the same attempts now--the Da Vinci code made money.
It had to be from the 1970's.
Are you an archaeologist by trade or is this more of an avocation? Sounds interesting, in any case!
Could you expand a bit on 4th century Gnostic attempts to make money? I don't think I ever heard of that.
Gnosticism was basically a cult. It comes from the Greek "gnosis," meaning knowledge. It is based on the usual cult assumption that there is a hidden knowledge, which only the elect or the elite know about. So you join the organization as a beginner, and pretty much pay your way into it, with money, work, admiration, and so forth.
It's a pattern that you see over and over again: an inner circle toward which newcomers strive.
Catholicism, to take one instance by contrast, is hierarchical, but there is no "hidden knowledge" at the core. The Pope has authority, but he doesn't know anything vital that is hidden and secret and different from what is made publicly known, that is hidden from the masses.
Not to judge it, Masonry has one thing in common with Gnosticism, because you have 33 degrees of initiation into the inner secrets of the organization.
Why can't the resurrection be compatible with the finding of human bones? If Jesus was resurrected with a 4 dimensional perdurantistic body, he would still have a physical and natural body, but would not need 3 dimensional pre-resurrection bones. His new body would allow him to vanish and reappear suddenly, and also appear to enter closed rooms without having to go through the door.
I knew that much about Gnosticism -- I never encountered any connection of it with acquiring wealth.
The tomb was empty. What would He have done with His old three-dimensional body and why wouldn't the Jews and Romans eager to disprove the Resurrection have found it?
this thing was "found" in 1980. wasn't that about the time all this "alternate Jesus" thoeries began sprouting like locusts?
Well, that idiot "Jesus seminar" started in 1985 . . . ;-)
Sounds a lot like Scientology. which was started as a means to make money. People pay a lot of money to reach the "clear" state.
Scientology's a scam? Just ... damn.
Yes, as it happens I bought a pulp SF magazine when I was a teenager, and one of the letters to the editor was from L. Ron Hubbard, at that time a science fiction writer.
The going rate for the pulps was a penny a word. Hubbard wrote in to say that he had thought of a better way to make a living than that. He proposed to start a religion.
I think I still have a copy of that pulp magazine somewhere in my attic, but I disremember exactly which one it was.
They can't wait to debase and smear the Catholic Church and Christians in general, especially around Easter or Christmas. And all for money. Well, we know where James Cameron and the author of the 'Da Vinci Code' are going when they assume room temperature.
If I have read my Rudy Rucker correctly, a 4 dimensional being can put 3 dimensional objects into a 4 dimensional bag and lift it out of the tomb and out of the third dimension entirely.What He did specifically with the old body after that, only He knows.
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