Film to document discovery of Jesus' burial site

For me personally, it doesn't matter if they find Jesus' bones or not. The fact is, if people lived by the teachings of Jesus Christ, I really don't think the world would be in the shape it is in today. This "discovery" does little to disuade me from any of my beliefs. Sorry, nice try.

Originally posted by Myrtales Instinct
The article only states they have coffins "that held" the remains.

To reiterate, there's no way that what they have are coffins. Jews of the time tended to collect the bones of their dead in small stone boxes called ossuaries.

There is just no way. There is nothing to test against.

Indeed, however they could test what the relationships were between the 10 or so indivuduals buried together. I think that that is what has happened, they are saying 'here is a guy named jesus, who's mother is named mary, who has a brother named james, and there's another mary that isn't related to him, and there is a kid that is the son of jesus and mary'.

But, the problem is, these are all extremely common names for the time.

Even if all the known relics purported to be of John the Baptists - even if all were tested, they would be looking for mitachondrial DNA from...... Mathan's mother. Mathan being both Mary and Elizabeth's grandfather.

THey wouldn't be restricted to mitochrondrial dna, they could test the regular DNA. That brings up a good point though, there are lots of holy relicts out there, why not start genetically testing them. Imagine IF you could say 'this proported John the baptist relict IS related to this proported Mary relict'.




Also, lets all recal something here. Lets pretend for a moment that we could say 'this tomb contained the body of jesus'.


So what? THe christians claim that the body was in teh tomb, and then left, as it was physically resurrected. This would merely show that we now have that tomb.

(granted, the issue of it being a bone receptacle, rather than a regular tomb, would be a problem), but as far as I know they aren't necessarily saying that they have the body.

This is a hoax. If its not a modern one, than its an ancient one and here is why.

Mr Gat found 10 ossuaries bearing inscriptions. Some were in ancient Greek and some were in Hebrew.

As far as I know, there can be no Greek scripts in the tromb of jesus as the languages of the time would have been aramaic, hebrew, and the latin the romans spoke.

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
As far as I know, there can be no Greek scripts in the tromb of jesus as the languages of the time would have been aramaic, hebrew, and the latin the romans spoke.

you make an easy mistake here, phan

latin wasn't the language of the whole of the roman empire
greek was the trade language of the eastern parts
it was simply an easier choice because of the previous conquests of alexander
also, all of the new testament was written in greek

Originally posted by John Nada
You may have had a bit of a point had you had any understanding of the film business or Cameron's contributions to both the science community and movies, but you haven't and you don't.

I have an understanding of both. The film business is about making money for investors, and James Cameron is a producer of fantasy films designed to make money for investors. For you to foist this pretense of noble intentions on an intelligent audience is disingenuous, at best. So much for nobility.

Originally posted by John Nada
20th Century Fox provided the budget for Titanic, not Cameron with 'all of his millions' as you seem to want to imply...

As you inferred. Fox provided the money, and Cameron spent it.

Originally posted by John Nada
Does that sound like a man concerned by money to you? This is a compromise made by most filmmakers to get the money necessary to create the stories they want to tell, yet you make out like he's some evil genius. Hmmm...

I have not implied that James Cameron is either good or evil, or that he is right or wrong. I stated specifically that he's an "over-the-top showman" who makes money for his investors through sensational fantasy. Again, if you want to explore noble intentions in film making, try searching the low-budget independent film world, not the gargantuan budget, formula fantasy blockbuster machine.

Originally posted by John Nada
The factual parts of that movie [Titanic] are breath taking, whilst the love story is told in a typical sentimentally tacky way that the girls in their millions are sure to love... The love story was to make the huge budget of the movie viable for the studios, but no one can take away the awesome recreation of the Titanic and how its sinking was presented. How brilliantly that part of the film came across and how corny the love story did only shows the contempt he had for the love story aspect and where his real interests lied within making the movie. That is not a coincidence.

Well, it's easy to see that you were just as impressed with the movie as were millions of sentimental girls. I didn't think Cameron's "recreation" of the sinking was particularly factual nor brilliant, and it was fraught with sensationalism and showmanship rather than "factual" detail.

Originally posted by John Nada
Now onto his motives. Cameron is a man of science. The guy has created the latest in effects technology as well as other advances in the film industry since the early 80's.

Give...Me...A...Friggin'...Break. Industrial Light & Magic (LucasFilm) has dominated the visual FX industry since the late 70s, and Cameron is merely a user of that technology. And his brother is more of a scientist than James is.

Originally posted by John Nada
All very seriously handled science fiction films, dealing with advances in technology and future science that he has an interest in. Of course all have a blockbuster element involved to make these movies financially viable to the studios, but that is a compromise that all filmmakers have to make. As a result of it Cameron has been at the cutting edge of science with such movies as the technology has had to be invented to make these movies work!

James Cameron makes fantasy films, short and simple. The Terminator franchise was not about science, and utilized Industrial Light & Magic (LucasFilm) technology for its "cutting edge" visual effects (not to be confused with archaic stop-motion animation, puppeteering & miniatures). The Abyss was not about science, and it utilized Industrial Light & Magic (LucasFilm) technology for its "cutting edge" visual effects. "Aliens" was not about science, and its visual effects were hardly cutting edge, primarily using miniatures and puppeteering.

Originally posted by John Nada
After seeing where his primary interests lay (Science/Science Fiction), and after seeing the ground-breaking work he has made in his field, what would suddenly make the man turn to the subject of religion?!

ANSWER: Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which defied months of anti-Semitic controversy and public criticism and hit a homerun at the boxoffice upon its release. And Ron Howard's The DaVinci Code, which similarly endured months of pre-release theist and secular controversy and went on to shatter the boxoffice. Look no further.

Originally posted by John Nada
For you to disrespect the man by claiming his primary motives are money and pretty much labelling him a hack is a disgrace!

You need to go back and read my original post, which calls a spade a spade in a fairly objective fashion and doesn't "disrespect" the man and his motives in the least. Now, if you're still offended, I would suggest you go partake a nice cup of tea, Mrs. Cameron, and give your son James my best.

— Doc Velocity

[edit on 2/25/2007 by Doc Velocity]

I'd like to know how DNA tests could possibly prove who these people were? I think the entire proposal sounds ridiculous to the extreme. But not because I don't believe that Jesus and Mary had a child together.

I've read sources claiming that Mary and the child went to southern France to live and Jesus later died some where in Africa. I've believed this likely for years now. But even I, a self styled Buddhist, raised a Christian, felt extremely violated when first hearing the claim that Jesus was mortal.

After doing some research, I remember approaching my Mother on the phone one day with these radical ideas. She became furious, acting as if I'd made up the story myself, then hung up on me. When she died last year, even she had come to accept these theories as probable.

I like the idea that people are starting to toy with the idea that Jesus and Mary were married and had a child. I think it well take many years before it is universally accepted though.

Wasn't Jesus buried in Japan?


*shrug* This whole thing just proves nothing one way or the other.
But it plays nicely with America's current religious mania. A bit of Chariot of the Gods opportunism, unless James is also caught up in the mania too.

I predict... it'll be a curiosity for a little while, but most people will give it a short curious consideration, go "meh", and go on with their lives.

I can't wait to see all the Davinci code Fans and believers faces. The story is his mother and Mary M went to France oui oui..! Why would they assume its Jesus and not just a ancient burial?


havent been here in ages and this site looks fantastic!

Am I the only one who wants to see this press conference tomorrow? Does anyone know what time or channel this thing is supposed to be on?

One thing to keep in mind is that in today's world, the more outlandish the theme behind a movie, the more $$$ it will rake in. Add a religious factor and you have a box office blockbuster in the making. It seems that the dollar is now the God of our society. Chalk up yet another end-time prophesy as being fulfilled.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
we could most likely find people alive today that could be DNA tested to match up with (if those people allowed the DNA testing, which could be problematic)

There are plenty who can do that, including me. My family can trace our ancestry to Muhammad, making the males in my family Saa'dah, and making me a Sayid (belonging to Muhmmad's lineage).

I say we should see what these people found before deciding on what can be proven or disproved. They may have very well found a tomb dating back to the time of Jesus, but with no proof of it actually being Jesus. Still, it would be an interesting archaeological find if they submitted it to the rest of the archaeologist community, and allowed other scientists to examine it.

[edit on 26-2-2007 by DJMessiah]

From another article I found, and I'll do my best to post a link, the presser is tomorrow morning at the New York Library. Ossuaries belonging to two people named Jesus and Mary Magdalene have been flown in from Israel for display. No specific time was mentioned.

There is no doubt, this is going to get interesting real quick. They sort of "tip their hand" in this article by using Jesus's own words from the cross "Mother, behold thy son" - with the arguement that Jesus was speaking to Mary Magdalene, instead of to his own mother. The book of Mark is also cited , as possibly referring to Jesus having a son, of a young man wearing linen, was following Jesus after his arrest, guards tried to arrest him, but he slipped away naked. Since the age of the tomb, and the ossuaries are not in question, like Nygan said they will basically produce DNA results from those found in the tomb - showing who is related and who could be spouces/brothers etc.

I agree that they should start testing what known relics there are, but in my opinion those that own the relics will never allow it. For historical reasons they should. We all have our hero's and my personal favorite three are Jesus, John the Baptist, and Alexander the Great. And I find it sad, that so very little is truly known about John and Jesus. Even though the libraries in Alexandria were twice burnt - I am still able to trace Alexander's body up to the time about when John and Jesus lived. Caligula stole his armour, Pompey rumaged through closets of conquered nations for Alexander's 260 year old cloak, Augustuss accidently broke the former king's nose from kissing him - all of this a couple hundred years after Alexander's death. It's a given Alexander's body hasn't been found to date - but if it was - at least through coins, paintings and the various busts that exist - we could pretty much identify him. But that's not so with John nor Jesus. Even though Christianity has been around since the 1st century A.D. there are no precise records that exist for these two men. I know faith is supposed to be the given word here - but those with the task of putting into words about the life of the two most important men of Christianity didn't document very well from a historical standpoint. And for some reson Jesus himself must have found it unimportant to document his life from beginning to end.

I know I'm going off the path here, and I don't mean to, I apologize, but unless someone comes forward with historical records regarding Christ, (and they need to be meticulate) then all this other stuff is asinine and futile.

Do such records exist? I think they do. Common sense tells me that if someone is performing miracles and arising from the dead - somebody, somwhere has some pretty good authoritive information documented somewhere. I could even get really speculative and say it's possible a marriage took place, a child existed and lineage is being protected. Even more speculative... that those around Christ knew not only about Alexander the Great's easy conquest of Jerusalem, but that they knew the horrid stories of how his bloodline was wiped out.

Polyxena, Myrtale, and Olympias - all three names of Alexander's mother. She outlived her husband and both of her children. She was about 59 when they finally caught and killed her. And she died protecting Alexander's wife, and son Alexander IV. They were all slaughtered - by those closest to Alexander. From the time her sons body was stolen and taken to Egypt - until her death - some 7 years later. I call it Myrtale's instinct. She tried to save the linage. And it's the best example I can give to show what potentially can go wrong with a bloodline.

Article here



[edit on 26-2-2007 by Myrtales Instinct]

[edit on 26-2-2007 by Myrtales Instinct]

About the coffins:

Ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains 3,000 years ago by the Zoroastrians.

Bereavement in Judaism (Jewish funeral)

is a combination of minhag (traditional custom) and mitzvot ("commandments") derived from Judaism's classical Torah and rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community.

en.wikipedia.org...--_Tahar ah
The jews used some sort of coffin with the name ''aron''.

The world coffin is a greek one ''kophinos'' and means a basket. In English, the word wasn't used in a funeral sense until the 1500s.
We know that in the eastern Roman empire Greek were used widely from the Hellenistic era, so probably the word ''Kofinos'' could have been used...

Now, a basket (with the Greek meaning-not as today as used) has pretty the same capacity with a chest (an ossuary)...

Concluding that era should be: ossuary=coffin


[edit on 26-2-2007 by Dragonlike]

Originally posted by dollmonster
I'd like to know how DNA tests could possibly prove who these people were? I think the entire proposal sounds ridiculous to the extreme. But not because I don't believe that Jesus and Mary had a child together.

At most, they could prove that the ones in the grave was indeed from the middle east, and maybe, related to people around where Jesus and his parents was born.. This would definately not be conclusive, but would at least show that it wasnt an asian or something lying in there.

What you can prove though, is that the child is or is not, a child of two of the people lying in there.

But of course, proving that it was Jesus, no. And get the world to believe it was him, even if the DNA spells JESUS, definately no.

I didn't realize there were two threads for this topic so I'll repost what I wrote on the other one here. I would think if they could aquire a DNA test from the Shroud they could compare that to the remains. Anthropologists can determine the location where the bodies spent their youth as well as their adult life by studying the isotopes found on teeth and bones. What bothers me about this, is the fact a Hollywood director is bringing this story to the masses, instead of professionals in the field of archeology. That should be a red flag plain and simple.

The original caretaker of the shroud wrote a note to the Pope claiming it's a fake, so the DNA found from the shroud would not help.

[edit on 26-2-2007 by DJMessiah]

I have a hard time believing the Shroud is a fake if not for the simple reason the Vatican holds on to it and has refused to have any testing done on it since the 80's. It also has never been proven to be a fake by the scientific community. If your have a reliable source that says otherwise please post it.

As far as this new documentary is concerned how can they prove or disprove the statements that these people are Jesus and family?




I dunno, but I can't wait to find out.

I'm with Madness on the bittersweet thingie.

The name Jesus was fairly common. Not quite as common as Joses/Joseph, but surely extremely common anyway. And as for Mary, we already know of at least three just in the limited narrative of the NT (aka Miriam, Miriamne, etc.).

Rather like finding the tomb of a Mr and Mrs Smith and assuming it must be that of any one famous Smith you like.

The fact is, if people lived by the teachings of Jesus Christ, I really don't think the world would be in the shape it is in today.

Exactly...

Whether you believe Jesus was the son of God that died and was resurrected, or if he was simply a prophet as mentioned in the Koran, what everyone fails to realize is that we should not follow a man, but the teachings of him and others like him.....

As for this topic, I chalk it up to another publicity stunt. As stated, we have no way of obtaining DNA of the man named Jesus written of in the Bible. It would all be speculative. Even the Shroud of Turin hasn't been proven as anything. It would be interesting to see how they came to this conclusion, but I highly doubt they have any solid evidence at all. Personally, I'll let it play itself out before I even try and look into it myself.

Before you research anything involved in this case, I would recommend taking a step back and asking yourself the purpose of your queries. Do you WANT it to be the bones of Jesus? Do you NOT want it to be? Why?

What if it is?

What if it isn't?

Does this all mean we should change our lives accordingly?

Live your life the way you feel is best for yourself and for the other folks on this rock. Treat yourself good, but put others first the majority of the time. If you do that, you won't need any proof of anything....