Thursday, March 01, 2007

Well, that explains everything.

As many of you know, James Cameron discovered the remains of Jesus' body over the weekend. Supporting Cameron's claim are a You Tube video showing Jesus not rising from the dead, a third-grade report card noting that Cameron's tendency to tell outlandish stories is becoming "less habitual," and voices inside Cameron's head.

This unexpected development restores Cameron to his rightful place as "King of the World." We're still awaiting word on whether Cameron can forgive sins, raise the dead, proclaim liberty to the captives, announce good news to the poor, restore sight to the blind, love his enemies, judge the living and the dead and renew creation.

On the off chance Cameron is full of baloney, there remains hope for him and all the rest of us.

Update: Obviously the above is not intended to preempt discussion concerning the resurrection or anything else for that matter. It's just that I think this sensationalistic stunt is worth a little fun.
Here the prolific NT Wright makes a compelling case for the resurrection's historical credibility. An excerpt:

I would not pretend to have found an argument that would force a sceptic to admit that Jesus ‘must have’ been raised from the dead. It is always open to anyone to say, at least, ‘I can’t think of a better explanation, but I know there must be one, because I intend to hold to my presupposition that dead people don’t rise.’ Cautious agnosticism is always an option. What historical investigation can do, and in this case I believe must do, is to clear away the overgrown thickets of misunderstanding, misreading, sheer bad history, and sometimes willful obfuscation, in order that the main texts can be allowed to say what they are saying and the main questions may stand out in their stark simplicity.

Historical investigation, I propose, brings us to the point where we must say that the tomb previously housing a thoroughly dead Jesus was empty, and that his followers saw and met someone they were convinced was this same Jesus, bodily alive though in a new, transformed fashion. The empty tomb on the one hand and the convincing appearances of Jesus on the other are the two conclusions the historian must draw. I do not think that history can force us to draw any particular further deductions beyond these two phenomena; the conclusion the disciples drew is there for the taking, but it is open to us, as it was to them, to remain cautious. Thomas waited a week before believing what he had been told. On Matthew’s mountain, some had their doubts.

However, the elegance and simplicity of explaining the two outstanding phenomena, the empty tomb and the visions, by means of one another, ought to be obvious. Were it not for the astounding, and world-view-challenging, claim that is thereby made, I think everyone would long since have concluded that this was the correct historical result. If some other account explained the rise of Christianity as naturally, completely and satisfyingly as does the early Christians’ belief, while leaving normal worldviews intact, it would be accepted without demur.

That, I believe, is the result of the investigation I have conducted. There are many other things to say about Jesus’ resurrection. But, as far as I am concerned, the historian may and must say that all other explanations for why Christianity arose, and why it took the shape it did, are far less convincing as historical explanations than the one the early Christians themselves offer: that Jesus really did rise from the dead on Easter morning, leaving an empty tomb behind him. The origins of Christianity, the reason why this new movement came into being and took the unexpected form it did, and particularly the strange mutations it produced within the Jewish hope for resurrection and the Jewish hope for a Messiah, are best explained by saying that something happened, two or three days after Jesus’ death, for which the accounts in the four gospels are the least inadequate expression we have.

HT: The Boar’s Head Tavern