And its being brought to you by Director James Cameron. Why do I think this is not going to go over well....
In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.
As alluded to above, if true (and that's a huge if), this presents a problem for those that interpret the Bible literally since it would mean Jesus had a child, and for them it's an article of faith that Jesus "rose" from the grave on the third day after the crucifixion, so there should be no body.....
What is the basis for this?
Inscribed in Hebrew, Latin or Greek, six boxes — taken from a 2,000-year-old cave discovered in March, 1980, during excavation for a housing project in Talpiyot, south of Jerusalem — bear the names: Yeshua (Jesus) bar Yosef (son of Joseph); Maria (the Latin version of Miriam, which is the English Mary); Matia (the Hebrew equivalent of Matthew, a name common in the lineage of both Mary and Joseph); Yose; (the Gospel of Mark refers to Yose as a brother of Jesus); Yehuda bar Yeshua, or Judah, son of Jesus; and in Greek, Mariamne e mara — meaning 'Mariamne, known as the master.' According to Harvard professor Francois Bovon, interviewed in the film, Mariamne was Mary Magdalene's real name.
The bones once contained in the boxes have long since been reburied, according to Jewish custom — in unmarked graves in Israel.
If the evidence adduced is correct, the bone boxes — and microscopic remains of DNA still contained inside — would constitute the first archaeological evidence of the existence of the Christian saviour and his family. Tests on mitochondrial DNA obtained from the Jesus and Mariamne boxes and conducted at Lakehead University's Paleo-DNA laboratory, in Thunder Bay, Ont., show conclusively that the two individuals were not maternally related. According to Dr. Carney Matheson, the lab's head, this likely means they were related by marriage.
The odds that a burial plot, 2,000 years ago, would have the exact same set of names as the family described in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament?
To calculate the odds, Mr. Jacobovici took the data to University of Toronto mathematician Dr. Andrey Feuerverger. Factoring in the commonality of these names in first-Century Israel, Dr. Feuerverger puts the odds of this tomb not belonging to Jesus and his family at one in 600.
Another estimate, commissioned by Dr. James Tabor, chair of the department of religion studies at the University of North Carolina, puts the odds at one in 42 million. "If you took the entire population of Jerusalem at the time," says Dr. Taber, "and put it in a stadium, and asked everyone named Jesus to stand up, you'd have about 2,700 men. Then you'd ask only those with a father named Joseph and a mother named Mary to remain standing. And then those with a brother named Yose and a brother named James. Statistically, you end up with one person."
And James Cameron has the coffins....
.....Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision, and Israel's Channel 8....