James Cameron claims he has found Christ's tomb

[Herman Munster]

http://time-blog.com/middle_east/

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.

[Beelzebud]

1. Sounds interesting. However one thing has my red light blinking:

They say part of their evidence is DNA testing. How do you verify that something is the DNA of Jesus? We don't have any samples of his blood that can be tested right? So how did they do a DNA test to verify lineage?

I'm interested to see what they have to show.

[DRoseDARs]

3. The Shroud of Turin perhaps? n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Great line!

:rofl:

[Beelzebud]

6. Radiocarbon dating showed the shroud to be a medieval hoax..

[skepticscott]

30. Not quite

It was well known that the shroud was not as old as the time of Christ when it was first reported, and it may not even have been intended as a hoax by the person who painted it, even if it was falsely represented later. And microscopical work on the pigments showed that it was a painting even before the RC dating.

[TahitiNut]

8. Mitochondrial DNA

Female inheritance

Mitochondria in mammalian sperm are usually destroyed by the egg cell after fertilization. In 1999 it was reported that paternal sperm mitochondria (containing mtDNA) are marked with ubiquitin to select them for later destruction inside the embryo (Sutovsky et al. 1999). Some in vitro fertilization techniques, particularly injecting a sperm into an oocyte, may interfere with this.

The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables researchers to trace uterine lineage far back in time. (Y chromosomal DNA, paternally inherited, is used in an analogous way to trace the agnate lineage.) This is accomplished in humans by sequencing one or more of the hypervariable control regions (HVR1 or HVR2) of the mitochondrial DNA. HVR1 consists of about 440 base pairs. These 440 base pairs are then compared to the control regions of other individuals (either specific people or subjects in a database) to determine maternal lineage. Most often, the comparison is made to the revised. Vilà et al have published studies tracing the matrilineal descent of domestic dogs to wolves. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the same type of analysis, attempting to discover the origin of humanity by tracking the lineage back in time.

Because mtDNA is not highly conserved, and has a rapid mutation rate, it can be used in phylogenetic study. Biologists sequence a few selected genes across different species, and can build an evolutionary tree depending on how conserved or divergent the sequences happen to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA

If Mary's remains were found, it'd be news to the Vatican.

[Dems Will Win]

9. The DNA testing would just show that these remains were ethnically of that time period

That would be all it would show.

AS a dating method.

[Beelzebud]

10. Ok I didn't think of that, you're right.

[okasha]

20. If there are remains

DNA comparison could also establish whether or not the persons were related to each other.

[BurtWorm]

33. And what would that mean?

Absolutely nothing as far as "proving" the remains belonged to Jesus H. Christ of 14 Carpenter Lane, Nazareth, Gallilee.

[Evoman]

36. Not really. If they only had mitochondrial DNA, it would tell us if the

child and the mother was related, but couldn't tell us anything about daddy Jesus. Mitchondrial DNA is maternally inherited.

I don't think it would be possible to get any other kind of DNA. I find it hard enough to extract nuclear dna from museum specimen thats less that a hundred years old, let alone a 2000 year old skeleton.

ON edit: Unless there was inbreeding. Then you would be right.

[Warpy]

12. I know there's a marker for the Cohen line

and I know they've found it among people across the globe who have claimed to be of the priestly line. There may be other markers, dunno.

I'd be more interested in radiocarbon dating.

[BurtWorm]

34. There must be a marker for the God line.

:patriot:

There just MUST be.

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. You may laught but it amkes sense

the cohanim try to marry amongs themselves...

Over 5000 years, yep you will find the markers

[BurtWorm]

48. I have no doubt that the Cohens are all related, and that the Levys are.

But no one has yet shown a marker for the God line.

[charlie]

28. Wine --> Blood --> DNA

Case closed.

[BurtWorm]

32. The genes actually spell out "Hey, stupid, I'm Jesus!"

:patriot:

(In Aramaic, of course...)

[DRoseDARs]

2. I bet more than a few reichwing nut jobs are going to declare Fatwah on Mr. Cameron... n/t

[jhrobbins]

4. I'm not a reichwing nut, but I am a Christian and this is more than

a bit interesting to me. It won't make any difference to the right however, since they cannot even admit to the mutual compatibility of religion and evolution.

[cyborg_jim]

7. The compatibility is a function of the religion

You'll just have to accept that - under their religion they are not compatible. You'll just have to live with the fact that you share the name.

[jhrobbins]

17. I also share the name 'human' with a lot of folk and many are

some pieces of work. (Also, male, American, caucasian, etc - even gay {I remember as a young gay man, I had this notion I needed to defend all gay people and then realized that many are indefensible})

[xchrom]

14. i'm a christian too -- but not a literalist.

so even if this is true -- there i am on sunday still occupying a seat in my church.

this WILL throw conservative for a real loop however. -- first there will be a backlash, which i imagine will get worse over time.

but there will be the evidence -- sitting there and not going away.

at some point the literalist will despair and be angry at their institutions -- because they cannot bear too close introspection.

then things will really fall apart for them.

[AzDar]

11. Bahhhh! Everyone KNOWS Jesus is buried in France. n/t

[Beelzebud]

13. Everyone KNOWS Jesus and the lost tribe of Abraham settled in Southern Illinois!!!!111

:D

[WinkyDink]

18. I thought it was The Magdalen.

[jcrew2001]

15. is it real

is this real or part of the plot by the new york money people to control the world.

[BurtWorm]

37. "plot by the new york money people to control the world."

Can you be more specific?

:wtf:

[varkam]

41. I think he means Jews.

And I hope he forgot a sarcasm icon.

[jcrew2001]

49. yeah

yeah some christians may perceive it as a jewish attempt to deny christ's holiness.

[mainer]

16. well, this is very cool. Thanks for posting it.

Although I fear it will all fizzle like the ossuary of "Jesus's brother".

But imagine the shock to the Christian world if any of this was true...

[CJCRANE]

19. If James Cameron has Jesus' DNA...

are you thinking what I'm thinking..?

[BoneDaddy]

21. A Jesus/velociraptor combo?

my thoughts exactly... a savior who eats you instead of the other way around

[jcrew2001]

31. cloning

are u talking about cloning?

like jurassic park?

[BurtWorm]

35. Jesus Park.

Lots of little Jesuses running around, selling hotdogs, operating the rides, parading and putting on shows...

:patriot:

[Evoman]

45. Meh..the island would be taken over by Big Pharma and the Wine cartels.

They would need to stop people from being cured by the Jesi. Although, maybe they would make a Jesus processing plant and come up with a new product that cures Aids and Cancer (but still doesn't do shit for amputees).

[frankly_fedup2]

52. The second coming? (nt)

[EST]

22. Oh, my!

Now it begins-
The "attacks" on christmas, christianity, religion, on and on.

The right wing nut jobs whose "kill a commie for christ" of the sixties has been transformed into "kill a commie, islamist, black person, brown person, atheist, etc, for Christ."

I do hope Cameron has a very good security team and lots of safe houses.

[MonkeyFunk]

23. Why would it take 20 years to decipher

10 common Hebrew names?

[CJCRANE]

29. It's possible there

was some sort of political/theological wrangling over the remains and release of the information. AFAIK, for instance, there was several years delay in public release of the translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls

[frankly_fedup2]

53. And that was because they felt some of the books should not be

included in the old testament we have today. Who are they to judge which books were to be in the Bible and which not to include. That alone reeks of a coverup to me.

[Bronyraurus]

24. This is awesome

I doubt that this will or could ever be conclusively proven, but I'm looking forward to what Cameron has to say. Can you imagine the pandemonium that would ensue?

[BurtWorm]

40. Pandemonium!

That's a great choice of a word!

:toast:

No one ever lost money underestimating the desire of people to have their beliefs massaged.

[Orrex]

25. And now the $64,000 question:

Who is buried in Christ's tomb?

[BurtWorm]

38. Grant?

:shrug:

[Orrex]

43. Dude, that's HUGH!!!!1!

[princehal]

26. Christ has returned

And he's Dead.

Not the second coming Christians hoped for.

[Evoman]

39. I don't know why, but I all of a sudden got this image in my head.

[varkam]

42. You're a strange fellow.

:D

[Evoman]

44. I think that my ass pimple is a talking god, and I write plays about it

and the fact that I post a picture about the lion king finally clues you in that I'm strange? BWahahaha

[frankly_fedup2]

55. Ass pimple? (nt)

[struggle4progress]

27. The press conference is marketing for the book "The Jesus Family Tomb"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=113452&mesg_id=113510

[Done]

46. Excitement over the discovery of Jesus’ burial site is premature

Excitement over the discovery of Jesus’ burial site is premature, Israeli archeologist Professor Amos Kloner said.

Kloner was referring to the hype surrounding a new documentary film, which has made the claim that coffins found in a Jerusalem cave nearly 30 years ago contain the remains of Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other family members.

The internationally renowned archeologist, who revealed the findings of the dig 10 years ago, criticized the filmmakers' marketing strategy and warned against being over enthusiastic about the alleged discovery.


http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3369346,00.html

[jcrew2001]

50. jesus was a man

I thoroughly believe jesus was a man, a great man. Christian mythology is just that, it is a blend of historical fact and mythology. The Bible was written many years after Jesus' death and it was influenced heavily by Catholic Church leaders and Constantine seeking to maintain polticial power. The promoted Jesus as the savior and minimized his normalcy, such as his family and children.

I don't know how or why they chose to ignore his tomb, maybe the Romans didn't know about it, or Jesus followers whitewashed it, or maybe it was too out of the way. Maybe his wife and child died soon after his own death, and they were buried with him.

[TheBaldyMan]

51. I think you might be interested in this YouTube clip *dial-up warning*

from a special Christmas edition of a UK gameshow called Q.I. (it stands for Quite Interesting)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snc5AOYt1Ak

It is quite interesting to note the religion of Mithras and the myths surrounding his origins.

[frankly_fedup2]

54. I find irony in the name of the so-called childs' remains.

Judah?

[BurtWorm]

56. What do you think was great about Jesus, specifically, if the Bible is lying about him?

How do you know which are the lies and which are the facts? Assuming there really was a Jesus (for the sake of argument only), how do you know he was "normal?"

My suspicion: You don't know. No one alive today knows. Everything we understand about Jesus, no matter where we get our ideas about him, must be taken on faith. And that includes whatever anyone thinks Cameron's crypt tells them about Jesus. Including Cameron.

[derby378]

57. I think the ramifications for Mary Magdalene's role in the early church bear closer inspection

I find the discovery both enlightening and disturbing on various levels. In the case of Mary Magdalene, there has been an underground "alternative" view of her, mainly among Gnostics, as being not only an apostle, but also married to Jesus. The usual story, and one not without merit, was that her contribution to the early Church was suppressed by the male-dominated Roman hierarchy under Constantine and his successors - the same climate that allowed Hypatia (female curator at the Library of Alexandria) to be butchered by Christian monks because she was critical of the impending new order.