Anyone watch TV? Anyone watch TV on Sunday? Anyone watch to see some Jesus bones and to know exactly why the religious right was primed to go batshit crazy on Monday morning?
Yeah, me too.I was pretty into the whole thing in a "Geraldo discovers Al Capone's vault" kind of way, but the lead in about Noah's Ark was pretty good, too.
Between those two shows and the constant promos for Ted Koppel's Our Childrens' Childrens' War this coming weekend, it seems like the Discovery Channel is dead set on pissing off Alabama on a weekly basis, huh? (Don'tchu be talking no mess 'bout Jesus or our troops, fancy pants book learnin' channel! America! Woo!)
The big revelation about Noah was that he wasn't totally crazy, probably didn't know much about zoology or exactly how many animals actually lived on the planet and more than likely was a merchant who got caught in a bad storm and swept out to sea.
Seeing as he and his family was already on the barge at the time with goats and such, the whole story took on a life of its own. The best part? The only thing that was safe to drink while floating on salt water were the gallons and gallons of beer also on board.
Even the kids. Man, Mesopotamia must have been a rockin' good place to spend your formative years, huh?
As far as the Jesus family grave site, it was pretty much what I expected with self-serving "scientists" cutting corners and being propped up by James Cameron with high production values and leaving themselves open to all sorts of criticism from those who refuse to believe that any of this would be remotely possible.
Considering I assumed the religious side of the fence was prepared to say, "Nuh-uh!" a few dozen times and call it a night, I was surprised at the scientific liberties taken before putting this on national television.
It was a pretty interesting intellectual exercise nonetheless, wondering how it would impact my faith if the bones of Christ were actually found. The best answer came from a theologian who asked rhetorically how it would change his faith. It made a lot of sense that he said whatever God chooses to do with the bodies is up to Him.
Good point.
Considering I don't believe that Jonah was really swallowed by a whale or that Lot's wife was really turned into a pillar of salt, hearing that Jesus rose from the dead in a metaphorical way and not in a physical way would be an interesting thing to prove, but wouldn't necessarily shake me to the core.
More interesting was the hunt for the correct tomb which was unearthed in the early 1980s, when an apartment complex was going up. Essentially, the filmmakers had to sweet talk tenants into letting them fish a camera down a storm drain to look for some Jesus bones.
That's got to be a weird conversation to have with a stranger standing on your doorstep, no?
Me: Can I help you?
Filmmaker: Yeah, we were really hoping to shoot some video in your apartment because we think there might be some groundbreaking archaeological findings under your outdoor patio.
Me: Really? Neat-o! What are you looking for?
Filmmaker: The remains of the son of God...
Me: Beat it, wackos.
The main filmmaker - who it was unclear from the edits that he was the main filmmaker - actually had to make a comment midway through the whole process that qualifies as my favorite moment on television this weekend as discussion swirled around hiring a plumber to clear a few blockages in the drain pipe to get access to the tomb they hoped was below.
"We're really going to use a plumber to break into the tomb of Christ?" was his rough assessment of the situation. It was like Indiana Jones, but with more of a Three Stooges vibe to it.
In any event, add in a little DNA magic and a rough calculation on the probability of finding the names on the bone boxes and they decided to call it
The thing is, I think there's a good enough chance that this might be the final resting place of Jesus' body along with mother, father and brother and possibly Mary Magdalene, but there were just too many liberties taken with the data and extrapolations off that data.
The whole thing just smacked of amateur hour and a rush to make a quick buck, but with something this emotionally charged, I doubt we'll ever get a straight answer. The post-show wrap - again, with Koppel, who is the managing editor for the channel - dumped everything into the laps of the science community, just as the show left all the moral wrangling to the viewers.
Essentially, the principal parties fell back on the position that they took the science this far and it's up to someone else to work away on the rest of it. Kind of a punk out if you ask me. If you're going to announce to the world that you've found the bones of Christ, you damn well better have something other than name games and DNA scraps to offer, staring with a strong peer review of your work.
In thinking about it for the past two days, I think the fight over the Shroud of Turin, which people swore up and down for years was a legitimate relic, provides an interesting contrast. All of the believers who had to play defense for years now have a chance to try and shred this new assertion.
And if someone needs to believe that Christ was actually, physically resurrected in order to keep their personal faith, that's fine and I can grant them that. It just upsets me to know that most of the people who will continue to be vocal on the issue will dismiss all of the evidence out of hand, not because they take issue with the techniques, but because it challenges their faith.
That's the whole point of faith in my estimation - it needs to be challenged to be worth much of anything at all. Call it what you will, believe what you need to and interpret scripture however you like, but I'm pretty sure that nowhere in the Bible does it say that blind fealty is the path to salvation.
From everything I've seen, that only serves to cause more problems down here.
(Photo from: www.stuff.co.nz)
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