Am I the only person who looks at pictures of those big honkin’ ossuaries that purportedly have the bones of the whole Jesus clan and wonders if female ghosts are going to emerge and melt the heads of anyone opening them?
Anyone? Anyone else at all?
In case you’re not up on this, a documentary entitled “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” produced by James Cameron–who is king of the world but not, so I’m told, king of the Jews–details the discovery of some bone boxes bearing the names of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and…best of all…the latter two’s son. This has resulted in the expected reactions ranging from dispassionate curiosity to outrage over another perceived attack on Christianity, and everything in between. Naturally my own leanings are toward the dispassionate curiosity side: I find it interesting, but I simply don’t see how it’s possible to prove it definitively. Still, I have to admit I was in stitches over the comments of one Rev. David Knapp of Port Jefferson Station in Long Island who asserted:
“This is all hocus-pocus. Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven–and there were 500 witnesses to that, so there are no bones to be found. This is not going to shake our faith.”
It’s not the sentiment that breaks me up so much as the phrasing. The announcement of a scientific discovery, an archaeological find, is considered “hocus-pocus,” while the notion of rising from the dead, departing your burial place and being transported to heaven…a concept rooted in, at the very least, the supernatural, the uncanny, the magical…THAT he’s got no problem accepting.
I’m just really saddened that Jesus is no longer a character on “South Park.” They’d have a field day with this.
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