Tell Me About Jesus, Rose

I was doing some last minute Oscar web surfing this weekend when I came across the following headline: James Cameron finds Jesus. At first I thought this was horrible news that the man who brought us Aliens, The Abyss, and Titanic had become some kind of born again religious zealot. Then I read the article and discovered this was much much more interesting.

In case you haven’t heard Cameron has produced a new documentary that claims to prove that ancient tombs or ossuaries discovered in Israel in 1980 are those of Jesus and his family, and when I say family I mean wife and son. According to an interview he gave on Monday’s Today Show the documentary will show how scientists used testing including DNA technology will prove this theory.

I am not a religious man and I’m not even a spiritual man but I must admit I find shit like this fascinating. So many questions are worth asking about these ancient times. If I was ever able to travel back in time and observe history I think I’d chose to see just what Moses saw on Mount Sinai, watch a little bit of Jesus in his hey day, and then go way back to Sumerian times and see how their advanced civilization developed. Ancient history is so flawed that we really have no clear idea of what happened and even when. For example recent studies have put the construction dates of the Egyptian pyramids a full 5000 years before what is readily taught in schools today.

Back to the special though, it is obviously stirring up controversy and I guess this is why religion is hard for me to grasp. Isn’t it more about faith then proof? I mean we don’t even know there was a Jesus? If there was then who was he? Was he a man? Was he a magician? Was he an alien? Was he a mutant like the X-men or Heroes’ indestructible cheerleader? Was he a god? Did he have a family? If you believe he was resurrected why does his physical grave make such a difference? I’ve know plenty of people that believe in heaven but I’m think most of them believe your physical body doesn’t teleport out of your coffin. All Cameron is doing here is shedding some light on the man that inspired one of the largest religions on Earth and he’s certainly not saying any of that religion is a lie just that some of the facts might have been left out.

Of course the flipside to that is how Cameron and company can prove these caskets belonged to Jesus and kin. As far as I know there are no DNA samples from God, Mary, or Jesus just lying about and the names found on the caskets were some of the most common names back in the day. This is why specials like these are fascinating to me. In the end this special can spur more healthy questions and research from a historical aspect and do it in an entertaining manner. As Cameron himself said, “I’m a documentary filmmaker not a theologian.” The special is on The Discovery Channel this Sunday at 8pm CST.