James Cameron's apparent discovery of an old coffin that used to belong to Jesus is so huge that we can't really comprehend it; imagine if John Woo announced that he'd found the Virgin Mary's holy home immaculate pregnancy test kit – it's that big.
But weirdly enough, some people aren't quite so keen to buy into James Cameron's Jesus-coffin claims. Scholars and clergymen have been pouring out of the woodwork to heap scorn on Cameron's idea that Jesus died in a box instead of hopping on a cloud and going up to heaven. However, James Cameron has urged everyone to withhold their assessment of his Jesus-coffin until they've watched his Discovery Channel documentary on it, The Lost Tombs Of Jesus Christ – or at least waited for the sequel, The Lost Tombs Of Jesus Christ: Judgement Day, which is more or less the same as The Lost Tomb of Jesus Christ, except Jesus fights another Jesus who's made of liquid metal in it. And there's a Guns N' Roses soundtrack.
Jesus Christ – who often goes by the earth name of Tom Cruise – has been quite cool lately. Jesus approved Madonna's ridiculous crucifixion stunt and when Kanye West dressed up as Jesus, Jesus retaliated only by making his last album not quite as good as his first one. It's this laissez-faire attitude that's served Jesus well over the years, not like his Dad – who traditionally tends to try and solve problems with swarms of of things and sexually transmitted diseases.
Despite all this, though, followers of Jesus – let's call them Jesusians – have had to deal with a lot of bad press recently. There was the whole Catholic flap about The Da Vinci Code, of course – where the big riddle about why Amelie was related to Jesus was solved by Forrest Gump in a mullet – and then the biggest Christian in the world was caught drink-driving and being awfully rude about the Jews just last year. But both these incidents pale into insignificance when faced with yesterday's news that movie director James Cameron owns a Jesus-coffin.
Apparently – for all you Jesus-coffin newcomers – James Cameron is saying that ten 2,000-year-old ossuaries found in a Jerusalem suburb 27 years ago belonged to Jesus and his family, including one for Judah, his son. And all of this will be discussed in a new documentary to be broadcast this weekend entitled The Lost Tomb Of Jesus Christ as well as a new book entitled The Jesus Family Tomb and an album entitled The Dead Bones Of Jesus Christ And His Family Sing The Hits Of Motown. OK, not the last one. Jesus preferred Stax.
Strangely enough, though, James Cameron popping up and waving the bones of Jesus around willy-nilly has upset swathes of Christian scholars and members of the clergy, who had sort of understood that the body of Jesus was in heaven, as the Daily Bulletin reports:
Tammi Schneider, a religion professor at Claremont Graduate University… says Cameron's argument is circular. She points out that religion requires a leap of faith and asking someone to believe that Jesus' bones were unearthed would go against the principles of faith. "If you're going to take that leap of faith to believe, then you have to believe," Schneider said. "If you believe (the documentary), you haven't leapt far enough." … "The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection," said Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem. The documentary, he said, "contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to."
It's no done deal, of course, that James Cameron has actually unearthed the coffin of Jesus Christ. Although statisticians are giving a probability of 600 to one in favour of the ossuaries belong to Jesus and his family, they're also putting evens on it being down to James Cameron realising that Indiana Jones 4 was going to be about a Jesus-coffin and wanting to piss off Spielberg and Lucas a bit by getting there first.
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Grouse says
Would we still have Christmas if they’re Jesus’s bones? Because if it’ll stop, I hope they’re not. Otherwise i’m not fussed either way, really