“In their documentary, Cameron and the director, Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, say that the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family has been found, a claim that would have profound implications for the Christian faith.”

-CTV news

…no kidding?

“I think there will certainly be those that will say we are attempting to in some way undermine Christianity, but that’s really very, very far from the case,…”

-James Cameron

“13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

-1 Corinthians 15: 12-19

Regardless of motives undermining is what’s going down.

It just doesn’t bode well that the latest news on the ‘finding the historical Jesus’ front comes from a documentary, supplementary book, and James Cameron. People aren’t yet finished making great whopping gobs of cash off Davinci and his code and here’s James and crew horning in on the action.

This is the stuff I love (on the improbablility ‘of all of the names of Jesus’ family being found on ossuaries in the same cave’):

” In The Lost Tomb, however, University of Toronto statistician Andre Feuerverger calculates that the chances of the names being found together are 600 to one….Feuerverger says that if James is added to the equation, there is a 30,000 to one chance that the Talpiot Tomb belonged to Jesus’ family….Another calculation, commissioned by James Tabor, chair of the department of religion studies at the University of North Carolina, puts the odds at one in 42 million.”

Wow, those are some impressive and convincing numbers cuz even 600 to one is a big chance so image 42 million! So if this is that and that is this and then we calculate the odds of this being that, and odds turn out to be this or perhaps that, we have some pretty amazingly compelling evidence…indeed! Good fodder for a profitable tv show and book at least.

My friend Derek from work is going through the horrendous experience of finding out he has cancer and subsequent treatment of it. Being the prolific blogger he is we get the sometimes touching, sometimes yucky, sometimes funny, blow by blow of his experience. One of his recent posts addresses the philosophical/religious aspects of dealing with death and his perspective on it.

The perspective is one that inspired me to post a very little on my perspective.

(more…)

My Google calendar diligently informed me today is ‘Shrove Tuesday’ and having little idea what it’s all about I punched it into Wikipedia.  What a wonderful surprise to find out that today is in fact pancake day! A better reason to segregate and celebrate a day than pancakes I can not imagine.
I missed breakfast but I wonder if we could manage pancakes for supper.