Your Own Personal Jesus

News this week that James Cameron has an upcoming documentary on television showing what some are claiming is the "tomb of Jesus" doesn't sound like news to me. I've been hearing these stories now for a few years. The catacombs in Jerusalem, well known for a long time, have a tomb supposedly inscribed, "Jesus, son of Joseph," and one for Mary Magdelene and even one for "Jesus' son" by M.M.

Cameron, well-known for making a popular movie of one of the most famous disasters of the 20th Century, the Titanic, and turning it into a schmaltzy love story, has something to do with the Jesus documentary. Cameron is like a lot of Hollywood -types, a huckster selling a product. If they can get people to watch this stuff, why not? It's like those stories I've heard off and on of finding the remains of Noah's Ark, or relics, splinters of bone from a saint, or a vial of Christ's blood. There's no end to any of it, as witness the ongoing story of the Shroud of Turin, which pops up every now and again to some public attention. People eat this stuff up, whether they agree with it or not. How much furor was set off by a potboiler like The Da Vinci Code?

If it involves religion or Jesus it's going to get attention. The faithful won't believe it, the unbelievers will scoff, and the mystics will argue about it. In the meantime folks who made the documentary will walk away counting their money.

Jesus is a public figure whose image is everywhere. I went through my house and even I, the least religious person I know, have pictures of Jesus. I looked at them, scanned some of them and noticed that not one of them is identified as being Jesus. Not necessary. Jesus is like Santa Claus, with an image and persona instantly known.

Click on pictures for full-size images.Two of the pictures I have, the Jesus jigsaw puzzle and the cheap five-and-dime store black-and-white print, show a more effeminate Jesus; a kinder, gentler Jesus. The picture of Jesus talking to the couple in the garden is from a 1959 book called Your Bible and You by Arthur Maxwell. The picture is by the great illustrator, Harry Anderson. The anachronistic sight of Jesus in modern setting was popular a few years ago. I remember the button-down, crewcut 1950s and this Jesus would not have been talking to a couple in their garden. He probably would have been hauled off by the police. If it was ten years later the couple would have mistaken him for a hippie, flower power and all that. The picture up on top of this essay is of a more rugged and macho-looking Jesus I found on a postcard. This is the resurrected Jesus outside of the tomb where he laid for three days. The idea that the new documentary promotes is that Jesus was but a mortal person who lived, died and had a wife and kid.

TV hype and hoopla notwithstanding, my interest in all this is our common perception of Jesus. All of the pictures I've posted here have things in common: Jesus has long hair parted in the middle, he has a beard, and he's wearing a white robe. This is what people think when they picture Jesus. I believe this is more of a modern image, within the past few hundred years, anyway. Jesus wasn't described physically in the New Testament, so we're basing our image on an idealization made many years after he lived. Some of the pictures look like modern American guys, not like a resident of the Middle East from 2000 years ago.

What I wonder is, if it is true that Jesus actually was a god who was sent to earth, born and lived as a mortal, is the only person who ever died who has been resurrected, then what happens if he comes back and no one recognizes him? What if he looks more like someone of Middle Eastern origin than a guy from a Hollywood casting agency?

If Jesus is coming back, maybe it might be a good idea to know who we're looking for.

As for James Cameron and his documentary, I won't be watching. I'm tired of being burned by this sort of thing. The cable channels constantly run "documentaries" on UFOs, Bigfoot, haunted houses…the list goes on and on…and they never prove anything one way or another. They just repeat the same old unsolved mysteries we've heard about over and over, ad infinitum. I don't expect anything different from this documentary, thinking it's probably closer to the "mystery" of Al Capone's vault than the solution to a mystery 2,000 years old.

Ciao for now.