The Lost Tomb of Christ
The Providence Visitor, Rhode Island's Catholic Weekly Newspaper, had this article on director, James Cameron:
Oscar-winning movie
director James Cameron, who gained fame and fortune for his work
on the movie Titanic, has now turned his sights on Jesus Christ.
In a new documentary he produced, The Lost Tomb of Christ, he
suggests that ten ancient ossuaries vaults containing the
bodies of the deceased discovered outside Jerusalem in 1980
contain the remains of Jesus and his family. The documentary,
aired on the Discovery Channel last Sunday night, attempts to
debunk a central tenet of Christianity, namely the bodily resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
The hype surrounding
the documentary has produced a startling amount of media interest
and sensationalist headlines around the world.
Leading archaeologists in both Israel and the United States have
denounced the alleged "discovery" for what it truly
is, a publicity stunt. Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a world
renowned Biblical archeologist and Biblical scholar, denied the
claims of the documentary and suggested that "it is a commercial
ploy that all the media is playing into." Murphy-O'Connor's
skepticism was joined by Jewish scholars and even non-believing
scholars such as Professor William G. Dever, the dean of Biblical
archeologists, who dismissed Cameron and his documentary as manipulating
the discoveries for publicity.
The self-proclaimed experts who joined Cameron in making the dramatic
claims waited more than 20 years after the tomb was discovered
to reveal their sensational "secret."
Rather than presenting a scholarly examination of a discovery
of antiquities, Cameron and company have attempted to attack the
core of Christianity with little proof and even less convincing
evidence. Authentic scholarship and legitimate science are missing
from Cameron and company's claims; their unfounded conclusions
about the ossuaries were quickly dismissed by the leading experts
across the globe.
This so-called documentary joins a long list of anti-Christian
movies and television shows that continually seep from Hollywood
like so much slime. Rather than rocking the faith of Christians,
it should shock us into standing up to denounce Cameron's movie
for what it truly is, a publicity stunt.
We suggest that in the future, this director would be better off
retaining his focus on sinking ships rather than trying to sink
Christianity.
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