The Lost tomb of Jesus

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

9pm March 4, Discovery Channel

It must be Easter, the most sacred day on the Christian calendar. I know it's Easter because another so called documentary attacking the historical accuracy of the Bible or the historicity of Jesus is being widely publicized. There is no better time to sell air conditioners than August and there is no better time to trot out the old re-hashed arguments against orthodox Christianity than right around Easter. If my memory serves me right, and it doesn’t very often, last year there was a similar program attacking the historicity of the Bible that aired on Easter Sunday. Only those who already have a bias against Christianity or the most gullible and misinformed swallow these shallow arguments based upon a faulty premise and faulty reasoning.

If you are interested in digging a little deeper, try Dr. Darrell Bock’s blog. Dr. Bock is Professor of NT at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas Texas; I highly recommend his blog.

http://dev.bible.org/bock/node/106

There is also an interesting discussion of this so called documentary in USA Today.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-02-26-jesus-documentary_x.htm

Although widely criticized at the time, “The Passion of the Christ”, came out at Easter too. Once it proved to be wildly successful financially there have been many films sympathetic to Christianity following in its wake. Just this week Walden Films released Amazing Grace, the story about William Wilberforce the Christian social activist who overturned the institution of slavery. The story of John Newton and William Wilberforce is one the greatest stories of how the grace of God not only changed the lives of these two men but changed the course of a nation and resulted in the abolition of slavery within the British Empire. The movie is worth seeing although it tends to focus the viewers attention on Wilberforce’s social action rather than his conversion to Christianity which was at the root of his activism. The reason for this omission is an attempt to reach a wider audience. If the truth were really told about Wilberforce’s profound conversion to Christianity and his deep faith the movie would probably flop financially. Tone down his Christianity, this way we get the evangelical Christian to go to the movies and his un-churched neighbor too. I don’t want to be too harsh, after all I think these are the kind of movies we want Hollywood to make and it’s encouraging to me that they are box office hits. However, as is usually the case the book is much better than the movie. The movie is based on Eric Metaxas book Amazing Grace (Harper Collins, 2007). In an interview for World Magazine, February 24, 2007, (www.worldmag.com) Metaxas was asked why anyone should be interested in Wilberforce. His answer gets to the heart of Wilberforce’s activism, “(Wilberforce) is one of the greatest Christian heroes of all time. He dedicated himself to doing what was utterly unthinkable in his day, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire. He also knew how to be thoroughly in the Word while being utterly not of the world. He could serve as a new model of what it is to be devoutly Christian while powerfully and effectively engaging the culture around us.” Look for more similar fare, some portraying Christianity in a positive light and some denigrating it. Jesus sells.