Stop The Press!

So I decided to try an experiment and visit the homepages of the major news organizations and see what religion-related stories are out there….here are the results:

Cnn.com: None.

MsNbc.com: There were two. One was about the major Protestant and Catholic political parties in Northern Ireland signing an agreement to form a power-sharing government. The other was a story about France trying to push back on the rise of creationism in their country. Oh, there was also a story talking about how Europe is dealing with the culture increase in cultural conflicts due to their rise in Islamic immigrants.

Abcnews.com: An article about an Al-Qaida prisoner who escaped and is now calling on Somolia to launch a holy war.

Foxnews.com: A story discussing the Koran and domestic abuse. Also one about a Jewish seminary admitting gay students.

Cbsnews.com: None.

Pbs.org: None.

Ap.org: None.

Reuters.com: A couple of the above articles…plus: A story about a car safety group asking the Vatican for help w/ a priest who likes to speed, and one about one of the victims of the 2004 Madrid train bombing wearing a T-shirt w/ a Mohammed cartoon on it.

Have you noticed that none of these stories are particularly warm and fuzzy? A couple are neutral, and the one about the speeding priest is kind of humorous, but none of these are upbeat and positive. I’d like to see an article that says “This just in – God loves us, thinks we’re idiots for not acting like it.” My guess is that if we saw more positive news stories about religion in the mainstream media (and more positive news stories in general!), then the whole lot of us would be less pessimistic and more likely to treat each other like human beings. Remember folks, it’s all about the love: God loving us, and us loving each other (and ourselves).

Peace. Out. Kevin.

Beware the Ides of March!

Greetings and Salutations!,

Well, there is all sorts of nuttiness going on this week, so let’s cover it in turn, shall we?

1) March Madness starts tonight! The NCAA men’s basketball championship is a field of 65 teams that play in an elimination tournament. 65 is not a nice number for such things, so before the real action starts on Thursday, tonight they will have two teams play to be the 64^th team starting Thursday. My beloved Syracuse didn’t make it in this year, amidst much controversy. There’s still time to fill out your bracket – here’s a link.

2) Besides being when the ‘meat’ of the basketball tourney starts, Thursday is also the Ides of March. Very simply, it just means March 15^th (or May, July, or October 15^th…or the 13^th of any other month). It was Shakespeare’s play ‘Julius Caesar’, a dramatization of Julius Caesar’s assassination on March 15^th, 44 BCE, that gives us its modern connotation. Because of the play, the ‘Ides of March’ means something tragic is about to happen. In reality, its just a way of talking about the old Roman calendar (which Caesar had just done away with in favor of the Julian calendar…talk about ego!).

3) Finally we have St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday. But what’s the deal with this St. Patrick guy, anyway? Well, as is usual with church figures from “way back in the day”, its hard to say for sure and people disagree on the details. But here is where the balance of thought lays these days…He was born in England and was kidnapped by the Irish when he was a teenager. After a few years in slavery he escaped and returned to his family. Later, he had a vision that convinced him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Let me say, by the way, that I give him a lot of credit for this move. I was raised in upstate NY. If I had been kidnapped by Quebec, and managed to escape, there’s no way I’d go back as a missionary. Anyway, Patrick was a missionary there for decades until his death. He lived in the 5^th century, although the exact dates of his birth and death are in dispute…partially because his legacy has likely been intertwined and merged with another Irish missionary from roughly the same time named Palladius.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print for the moment. Looking forward to my next communiqué with each of you. Grace and peace!

Blessings,

Kevin

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

Hey Folks,

OK. So Sunday night I watched the Jesus Tomb special on Discovery and then Ted Koppel’s show about it directly afterwards. Before I get into what I thought, let me first say that I’m ALWAYS available to talk to about things of this type that show up in the media from time to time (this, Di Vinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, etc).

For those of you that didn’t catch the docudrama (there’s your first clue…I didn’t call it a documentary), I’m sure it will be shown again on Discovery Channel. Plus, at the Discovery Channel website you can order the DVD of the show or the book that goes along with it. Oh, the official website is: http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com.

Alright, on with my reaction and reflection to this idea (the idea, in a nutshell, is that they suggest that the family tomb of Jesus has been found in southern Jerusalem and had the remains of Jesus, Jesus’ son, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ brothers Jose and James, and another possible brother and 4 other unidentified family members in it).

Let me start with my above statement of ‘docudrama.’ I said this because my overall impression is that the film is intended to entertain more than inform. It has dramatic recreations and is formatted to have several ‘cliffhanger’ moments during the course of it. The feel is that they are trying to persuasively convince you of their hypothesis through these mechanisms, rather than trying to objectively present the evidence.

Aside from the overall presentation, let’s talk about their approach. They did the opposite of what I had hoped: they started with the idea they wanted to confirm, and then hunted for ways to make it happen. They started with the idea that Jesus was buried in that tomb. Then they proceeded to try and fit things into this theory. If they had started with considering all the evidence, and then drawing conclusions based upon it, it would have seemed less contrived to me.

That’s as far as I can go with generalizations. Personally, I’m not persuaded by the argument they lay out.

Now I’ll go on into specifics that will make the most sense if you’ve seen it:

1) They never addressed why Jesus’ family would have a tomb in Jerusalem in the first place. Jesus’ family was from Nazareth. If there were any tomb for the family of Jesus at all, it would be in Nazareth, where Jesus’ father Joseph was most likely already buried. The Bible talks about Jesus being laid in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea (its mentioned in all 4 Gospels: Mark 15, Matthew 27, Luke 23, John 19. If the Jesus family had a tomb in Jerusalem, it would have made no sense for Joseph of Arimathea to ask for the body.

2) In order to justify the bone box (ossuary) of ‘Matthew’, the show suggests that the genealogy in Luke 3 is that of Mary’s family. This has carried some weight in church tradition (for reasons I won’t get into here…but please ask me if you’re curious), but a lot of modern scholars now find this highly doubtful at best.

3) The show goes through a great effort to connect the ‘Mariamne’ ossuary to Mary Magdalene. It says that Mary Magdalene was referred to as Mariamne in the text the Acts of Philip (aka, The Gospel of Philip). My problem here is that this text was written sometime in the 300’s – a couple centuries after Mary Magdalene died. No Biblical text talking about Mary Magdalene refers to her in that way. Also, the name may not be ‘Mariamne’ on the ossuary at all. Go googling for the inscription, ‘MARIAMENOUMARA’, and you can find some interesting stuff about the translation (if you like reading about ancient Greek in the genitive form).

4) A mitochondrial DNA test shows the ‘Jesus’ remains and the ‘Mariamne’ remains are not maternally related, meaning they can’t be brother and sister or mother and son. From this the show concludes that they were married. But it does not even acknowledge the following possibilities: a paternal relationship (father/daughter for instance) or ‘Mariamne’ being married to any of the other at least 3 males in the tomb.

I have more tidbits, but those are some of the highlights anyway. On the whole, they present a confluence of circumstantial evidence and do it with theatrical flair. Entertaining, but not scientifically compelling. Have a good one everybody – and email me if you have questions or comments!

Peace,

Kevin