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James Cameron says I'm a Jew

At least, that was supposed to be what he said this last Sunday night on his non-peer reviewed pupportedly serious desertation presented on the Discovery Channel about finding the tomb of Jesus & Family. And actually, I shouldn't give him all credit as he was only one of the producers and not the director, finder, etc.

I didn't see it, having better things to do, matters involving OTC cures for a head cold and finishing John Frankenheimer's underappreciated Black Sunday. So, for problems with the "documentary" itself, see here, which begins...

Apparently moviemaker James Cameron wishes he had obtained the film rights to The Da Vinci Code.

What else could explain his association with The Lost Tomb of Jesus? This much-hyped show makes a series of provocative claims about the Christian messiah and his kin: Jesus was betrothed to Mary Magdalene, they had a son named Judah, DNA testing of their remains proves it, and so on.

Yawn. Haven’t we read this novel?

What I find fascinating with "documentaries" like this, or novels like those by Dan Brown, is this obsessive assault on Christianity. What's especially fascinating is that they don't quite understand the underlying principles of the theology. They think "Christian" but they don't think "Judeo-Christian", which is far more accurate but more of a tongue-twister, so people just shorten it.

Unless you exist in a Brown-Cameron bubble, you know that both Jews and Christians -- and Muslims, for that matter -- worship the God of Abraham. The two religions differ sharply over the nature of the Christ, Jesus. Put crudely, a Jew would say that Jesus was a good Jewish boy and let it go at that.  Meanwhile, a Christian (like me) says that Jesus was the Son of God, God made manifest on Earth, to atone for the sins of man, to establish a new covenant, and to bring man closer in spirit and in life with God.

But take Jesus out of the equation. Slip into that Brown-Cameron bubble of unfaith and disbelief, and what do you have left? I still believe in the God of Abraham and a whole bunch of Jews around the world get to stand up, point, and say, "We told you!"

See, while Jesus might go away, the God of Abraham wouldn't. And since the Old Testament of my Bible has much in common with the holy writings of the Judaic faith, and since that's what I'm left with, Brown-Cameron would succeed in making me a Jew. Cool! My faith in a righteous and loving God wouldn't change, only my approach to Him. The Islamists would be soooo pissed off!

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