Cameron and the Discovery channel are taking some heat for this.

Los Angeles (E! Online) - He hasn't cracked the Da Vinci code, but religious groups are annoyed at James Cameron all the same.

The Titanic Oscar winner's latest project, the Discovery Channel documentary The Last Tomb of Jesus, has been called an attack on Christianity by some who are none too pleased with the film's so-called revelatory findings.

Last Tomb, produced by Cameron and written and directed by Simcha Jacobovi, chronicles the 1980 discovery of a 2,000-year-old tomb in Jerusalem's East Talpiot neighborhood that, the film argues, was the final resting place of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Mary Magdalene and a boy who could have been her and Jesus' son.

Of course, it was partly the Jesus-and-Mary-Magdalene-had-a-kid subplot in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code that ticked off Christians and resulted in worldwide protests when Ron Howard's film adaptation came out last May.

"It's time the Discovery Channel discovered ethics and stopped with the sensationalism," Catholic League president Bill Donohue told Variety Tuesday. The film is scheduled to be televised on Sunday.

"If the Discovery Channel fails to cancel this slanderous documentary, it will have to explain why it is intentionally misleading the public," Brent Bozell, president of the conservative watchdog group Media Research Center, told the trade. "They should be embarrassed by this plunge into sensational speculation masquerading as science. The Discovery Channel will have dug its own grave if it doesn't pull this documentary."

Meanwhile, network spokeswoman Catherine Frymark said that Discovery has never yanked a film because of protest before and isn't going to start now.

"People will have to believe what they want to believe," Jacobovi says in an article about the film in Newsweek's Mar. 5 issue.

According to the documentary and its tie-in book, in 1980 a construction crew unearthed 10 "bone boxes," or ossuaries, buried beneath a small concrete plot next to an apartment building in the Talpiot suburb. One of the caskets is said to have the words "Judah, son of Jesus" scripted on the side.

The very idea that Jesus had a final resting place refutes one of the basic tenets of Christianity, which is that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected after the Crucifixion and ascended to heaven.

James Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary, who also consulted on the film, told Newsweek that the documentary makes a strong case for the biblical lineage, which is supported in part by archaeologists, historians, statisticians and DNA and forensics experts.

"A very good claim could be made that this was Jesus' clan," he said.

Cameron, who since hoisting his Best Picture and Director
Oscars for 1997's Titanic has been busy exploring the real-life heart of the ocean in nonfiction projects such as Ghost of the Abyss and Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, has also come under fire for his role in the film.

Namely, what does the self-proclaimed "King of the World" think he's doing?

"[Simcha] got this guy Cameron, who made Titanic or something like that—what does this guy know about archaeology?" queried Joe Zias, a former curator at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem who personally numbered the bone boxes found in the tomb.

"I am an archeologist, but if I were to write a book about brain surgery, you would say, 'Who is this guy?' People want signs and wonders," Zias told Newsweek. "Projects like these make a mockery of the archeological profession."

Cameron, for one, had the answer.

"I don't profess to be an archeologist or a Biblical scholar," the filmmaker, who helped Simcha secure a $3.5 million budget for the project, said. "I'm a film producer. I found it compelling. I think we're on firm ground to say that much."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/2007...c_d7bdc5968269

Interesting quote. If true, that means Jesus died just like the rest of us.

If you're Christian does this shake your faith in Christianity?

I believe this film brings an important discussion to the table. Here ar KR we love to argue incessantly over trivial matters of interpretations, meanings, and reality in general.

I believe the Spirit of Christ lives in the present and has ascended into our collective unconsciousness, whether we want to accept Him or not.

Resurrection: Mary Magdeline was a very close confidant to Jesus, possibly his wife; I don't believe that Mary stated that "the Body" of Jesus ascended into Heaven--she already knew that He was talking about a spiritual transcendence, and Jesus' teachings were already recorded by Didymos Judas Thomas about Heaven:
I'm sure "the leaders" will have a problem with Cameron.

Who cares.

They're filmmakers. They want to make shit tons of money. And they will.

Bottom line.

BTW, archaeologists have not confirmed this tomb as belonging to Jesus.

It'd be like finding a grave marked "John Smith and his wife Elizabeth" and saying it was someone you knew.

The names on the tomb in question were very common at the time.

Still, they will make shit tons of money ... which is the entire point.

It'll be better than Apocalypto. So who cares?

What the heck kind of dna evidence could possibly prove or disprove this? I guess they could provide the older woman was the mother of the younger man (if the older man is the biological father of the younger one, would that be evidence for or against the theory?), and that the younger man and woman are the parents of the boy. But that means nothing in terms of what they're claiming.

__________________
We are sorry, the mind you have reached is not a working mind.
Please hang up and die again.
Please hang up,
And die again.

Some religious and conservative groups seem to care. They care enough to urge the Discovery Channel not to show it.

And most of it is brought up by you if I'm not mistaken.

It is just Catholicism where Mary was supposed to have bodily ascended to Heaven as well?

__________________
We are sorry, the mind you have reached is not a working mind.
Please hang up and die again.
Please hang up,
And die again.

Ultimately we all must make our own assesment of our beliefs and experiences. We are all, each one of us, a unique universe bounded by heaven or hell or nothingness. When we think, we expand our worldview.

Wow, that's like the opposite of quibbling. Rather than being finicky and obsessive over the small details, you're being impossibly vague over "the bigger picture", while still drawing plenty of attention to it.

Tard.

Critical thinking can dissect the whole into minute parts for examination--like dining on an artichoke with hollandaize sauce--when you are finished with your self-indulgence, the sum of the physical parts in the experience may end up less than the whole.


"At a wedding, the fault-finder will even conclude that the bride was too beautiful"
~~old yiddish wisdom

I'm a bad bad wittle fault-finder

Yet again: fuck off you waste of life.

Apparently the Koran says he escaped crucifixtion. Its easy to get lost with all the science and evidense and different faiths saying different things but I think if you believe in the main principles, love your neighbour as yourself, ect. its all we need to do for each other.

BTW, JESUS WASNT THE ONLY MIDDLE EASTERN MAN WITH THE NAME JESUS, THERE ARE A SHIT LOAD OF JESUS EVEN AROUND TODAY. CHRIST, KING OF THE JEWS OR SOME OTHER INDICATION IS WHAT THEY SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR.

Yes, I even looked that up last night to confirm it is just a name, since I knew Christ isn't.

__________________
We are sorry, the mind you have reached is not a working mind.
Please hang up and die again.
Please hang up,
And die again.

Does any of this change the "Golden Rule"?

People do not treat others better than they treat themselves. If they did, they would understand the Resurrection.

You know that not giving a shit is an option, right?

i've been meaning to tivo (well i dont have a tivo, so just regular record) this special.

i had no idea it was produced by james cameron, mehh... it lowers the credibility of it project.

__________________

Are those TV documentaries about American History that David Lynch did worth tracking down?