Tuesday, February 27, 2007

What if...? A New Messiah of Titanic Proportions

Yesterday I gave my students an assignment that simply reinforced my status as a the preeminent nerd in the class. I asked them to write an alternate history of some aspect of WWII. Take an incident from what we have studied (or you have on your own), and imagine if that event had gone differently- how would history have been changed. surprisingly, the kids really seemed to embrace the idea. I gave them a one page minimum and I had plenty of kids who went 3 pages or more.
I mention this little trifle, not to brag about my powers of engaging students (I'm pretty sure a fellow high school student could have gotten them to do what I did); I mention it because alternate history appears to be a fad of late in the news. Sunday I heard that reputable historian James Cameron, a man whose scholarship is equaled only by his humility, had announced that he had made a breakthrough in archeology. In a week , he would debut a documentary that would change Christianity forever. allegedly, James Cameron has found the final resting place of Jesus, Mary and their son Judah. Despite my immediate incredulity, this made me think: how would history be different if the story turns out true? How would the church respond? While Jesus celibacy is of absolutely no importance to me, the physical resurrection is one of the cornerstones of our faith. I have a feeling that immediately theologians would attempt to reconcile the two ideas: Jesus' death and the story of the resurrection. Now it would be a spiritual resurrection and the Church would find itself in the unenviable position of deciding whic of the "lost gospels" or gnostic accounts they ought to accept as canon.
Of course, I don't believe for a minute this will occur. Statistics aside, the common nature of the names Jesus, Mary, & Judah to 1st century Palestine makes Cameron's claim really extraordinary. Look how many Judases and Marys are mentioned in the gospel accounts- and that's the orthodox canon. It's just silly.
Besides, how can they prove that it was "our Jesus"? You'd need DNA testing or something and who's going to provide them with that? Oh, wait: him. Crap, what if?

Father,
I know your lov
e for me is limitless beyond imagining.
You care for me as a loving parent.
Through my smallest Lenten sacrifices,
help me to become less selfish
and more aware of your ways.
Fan the flame of my desire
to draw ever closer to you.
Guide me to seek your love.
pax, jefe
PS- check out the video that accompanies it. Ta-wisted!

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Nobody fucks with de Jesus"
~The Big Lebowski

11:35 PM, May 23, 2007  

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