Lost Tomb of Jesus, Why Not
I just finished watching the Documentary on the Discovery channel called The Lost Tomb of Jesus. After I was finished watching it, which I did with an open mind, they had Ted Kopel rip it apart with the so called experts.
The first thing they brought up, and kept bringing up, was the little visual excerpts of the how life might have looked if it had been the way things were pointing. They seemed to think that by watching those little re-enactments we would be swayed to believe everything was true fact and all viewers would believe everything being put before us without question. As if it took our free thinking abilities would be taken away from us.
Come on, Documentaries of archaeological shows do it all the time.. Think of all the shows in Egypt when they are going into the tombs. It keeps us interested. Depicting theory by demonstration is what documentaries do of any ancient event.
Give people credit for some intelligence we know that it not a true news feed of something that really happened with absolute proof of realism. They are like artists renderings of people they never seen.. Lets face it some of the most famous pictures of Jesus make him look like he was blond Caucasian sitting amongst a dozen or so perfectly clean Caucasian children. Yet those are the pictures donned by our churches and put on walls in thousands of houses around the world. But do they compare the movie makers renderings to their false pictures as idols they want us to pray to.
They cut that defence off twice while letting the “experts” go on with archological porn references and insulting the viewing pubic by saying we could not have our own minds if we see and actors rendering of a possible way things might have happened.
Time and time again the writer/film maker is attacked for his rendering of how things may have occurred. He is attacked for the way he edited his documentary. There is no possible way a person with a limited amount of time could show all the possibilities.
To me the show was to open door to new possibilities to peak the interest of people with the money to follow up his findings and explore them further. To let people think for themselves.. Hmmmm what if?
Did these “expert” people forget to read the disclaimers at the beginning and end of the movie inviting people to come to their own decisions. It wasn’t as though the film maker was saying this it the truth leaving no room for open debate. He wrote his film to open debate and for open minds.
Debating should not be cutting him down for his depictions of the reenacting the possibilities of events. Come on Ted Kopel want was that all about? The only person that made any sense to me at all was the woman with the theologians.. I forget her name but she seemed to be the only sensible one there. Of course they barely let her talk.
I think Simcha Jacobovici and James Cammeron did a fine job of making this film. It succeeded in bringing to light the possibilities in the discoveries in the tomb.
it is possible that Jesus was able to rise on Easter Sunday without his physical bones. As a spiritual being that he was. Whether this was the real tomb of Jesus’ Family I don’t feel I am really the judge of such things. With the history of the inaccuracies of many of the biblical accounts and exclusions I have learned of over the years. I think this is a subject that needs further investigation.
I think the little clips of depictions of the times 2000 years ago were good and added a bit of extra interest in the show but unlike the “experts” I do not feel that people watching this show were influenced by the acting into thinking it was a true fact being acted out.. Most people know the difference between pretend and real.. and lets face it can anyone really know what happened 2000 years again in the streets in Jerusalem.
When it comes down to it no one will ever have perfect proof.. After all we weren’t there. No one living was there and as far as I know even the church does not have Jesus’s DNA so there is no way of proving that there wasn’t another family with 9 members in the same 100 years of generation all buried in the same place with the same names as the most famous biblical historical family.
Will we ever have proof positive one way or the other. Even after more forensic study… I doubt it.. Is it worth more study? Why Not???
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By Meridian, March 9, 2007 @ 12:22 am
The movie/documentary was called “Lost Tomb of Jesus”? I wish I saw it. Archaelogists are brilliant people. Biologists. Scientists. But because they are imperfect beings like the rest of the world, there will be some investigations that will never have conclusions. There will be some mysteries that will never get solved. Jesus is an interesting supernatural power. Being that we’ve never met Him physically, it is impossible to know what He looks like…His glory is so great. I used to believe that those “pictures” of Jesus were true until I started thinking for myself instead of believing everything that I saw and heard.
Some people say the Bible has a lot of errors and isn’t fully accurate. I won’t touch on that. Although I will say, if these following scriptures were written in the Bible, then it’s self-explanatory. “. . .thy word is truth”
(John 17:17)
What word?
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we behld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
A whole lot of people know about Daniel and the Lion’s Den, Queen Esther, a woman who saved the Jews from oppression and was cherished by Ahasuerus. A lot of people know about the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace. Stories. I don’t know everything. And I’m not a scholar, but I hope to be someday. But scriptures like Acts 2:38, salvation scriptures aren’t predominately quoted. Only feel-good messages are stated. So, if one is to say that the Bible has errors, where exactly are they?
And you’re right. Jesus’s DNA will be impossible to track. If there was any. Now that’s a mystery within itself. Jesus was born from Mary, yet His father was God. It’s too deep to be explained.
Great blog Dreamer!
By Dreamer, March 9, 2007 @ 1:46 am
Alot of the known inaccuacies are in the bibical time lines of events mentioned in the Bible.. I cannot remember the specific ones right now. I remember how confusing Christianity 101 was when I was helping my husband with his homework in his college class he was required to take. They started talking about words not meaning the same things at different times such a virgin not meaning the same thing as it does now.
I do remember that there were wars that were spoke of in the bible that were not at the time they were said to have occurred biblically.. I really think that it is due to the way bibical stories were spread in story telling lessons rather than written forms originally and then sometimes put to words a century after the event.
After taking the class it really made me question the bible and some of the accuracies of other mentioned events. But what it really comes down to for me is a matter of faith.. Whether all the stories are exactly true or not they are a good basis to for human behaviors to be structured..
As for the “Word” I think the Word was/is “Love” Love is the driving force for everything good.
Meri I am sure they will show it several times.. they usually do on those channels so perhaps you will get to see it too. Though if they show the commentaries at the end I wouldn’t bother watching that and enjoy the actual movie of the findings and the questions it brings to mind..
Thanks for reading