Is Easter canceled?

Question

Apparently film director James Cameron has found the tomb and remains of Jesus Christ as part of a film documentary. He is having a press conference on Monday in New York.

The link is on the Drudge Report

Answer 1

Well, you know Kdog, that easter is less about religion and more about consumerism. Eggs, candy, chocolate, movies, etc. It is becoming one of those holidays that is no longer about the religious origin of it.
In any case, given that you arent religious, what is this all about?
PS. you dont get to NOT buy easter candy for your wife!

Answer 2

February 23, 2007 6:55
Jesus: Tales from the Crypt

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

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.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,"King Kong", whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) 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, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned.

Answer 3

Director James Cameron is the latest of a string of gold-diggers cashing in on the contemporary rise of revisionist Christian history. Same old story, you know it, Barbara Thiering and Dan Brown style, that Jesus was actually married, which was debunked by numerous scholars as a cheap hoax.

James Cameron has teamed up with Israeli-born, Canadian-based filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici to make a documentary about a 1980 archeological site, at Talpiot, which produced some 10 ossuaries. Some of them are inscribed as "Jesus son of Joseph," and respectively "Mary" (twice) and also Matthew, Josa and Judah, which were probably the most common names during the time. They also appear many times in the Bible, referring to many different characters.

Their documentary will be screened this week in the US, UK, on Channel 8 in Israel and around the world.

The only problem to their elaborate hoax is that the original Jewish professor who worked on the site, Amos Kloner, has already come forward to expose the claims as sheer nonsense.

Bar-Ilan University Prof. Amos Kloner, the Jerusalem District archeologist who officially oversaw the work at the tomb-cave in 1980 and has published detailed findings on its contents, on Saturday night dismissed the claims. "It makes a great story for a TV film," he told The Jerusalem Post. "But it's impossible. It's nonsense."

"There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb," Kloner said. "They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE."

In Jerusalem, faithful Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The documentary, titled "The Burial Cave of Jesus," is a joint production by Israeli-born Canadian documentary maker Simcha Jacobovici and three-time-Oscar-winning Canadian film director James Cameron (Titanic, The Terminator). Apparently, they also allege Jesus was married with formerly posessed aristocrat (not Mary the prostitute, a common mistake) Mary Magdalene, whose body they also "found".

"It's a beautiful story but without any proof whatsoever," Professor Amos Kloner, who had published the findings of his research in the Israeli periodical Atigot in 1996, told DPA Friday.

"The names that are found on the tombs are names that are similar to the names of the family of Jesus," he conceded.

"But those were the most common names found among Jews in the first centuries BCE and CE," he added.

Kloner dismissed the combination of names found in the cave as a "coincidence."

Apparently, Cameron & Jacobovici have also, as with any elaborate hoax, some "evidence" by "world-renowned archeologists, statisticians and DNA specialists." I can hardly see how a DNA test would help. As with the "world-renowned archeologists," I would see why a second-hand archeologist would compromise his scholarship to make a buck.

Such fantasies, like Dan Brown's, appeal to people for many reasons. One of them, which the authors of the hoax presuppose, is ignorance on the subject.

Answer 4

I guess many people will be deceived by this. Many, many people are trying to discredit Christianity anyway they can. Therefore seeing a pile of bones in a cave somewhere is a great chance to do just that. Those who do not believe in Christ will grab this as another oppurtunity to disbelieve. Those who believe, though, will call it a hoax.

Answer 5

Very interesting, and here is a link from Time magazine:

Answer 6

I saw that yesterday! But I refuse to give up my chocolate Easter bunnies or my Peeps or Cadbury eggs...the list goes on and on.....

Answer 7

Someone posted that yesterday. It was very short on details like how he established that.

But I would go along with canceling it.

Answer 8

ah that's a con for his new film and hear was i thinking you were going to tell me that the Easter bunny was dead

Answer 9

I bought his crown of thorns on ebay

Answer 10

Well i'll be damned...
you know you've opend one hell of a can of worms..right?