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Jesus Bones--Fact or Faith?
for release 02-27-07
Washington DC

When I grew up in Abilene, Texas, my mother was a bridge fanatic. She played duplicate bridge in tournaments. She was a Life Master and played with people like Omar Sharif. She was crazy for it.

One of her bridge partners was a man named Jack Grimm. They called him Diamond Jack in Abilene because he was a larger than life fellow who had made a considerable amount of money in the oil business and liked to wear a diamond pinky ring. Being an adventurous sort of man who had explored for oil and found it, he chose to use some of his treasure for further explorations. In the 1970's he funded unsuccessful expeditions to find Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. He searched Mt. Ararat for Noah's Ark. Then in 1980 he funded the first major scientific search for the wreck of the Titanic. This was his territory. He was used to searching for treasures far under the surface. He was a geologist.

Diamond Jack never found any of these relics, but he sure had a good time trying. There is something about a quest that puts fire in a man's belly. It's not the kill that matters, but the hunt. Life is not about finding, it's about searching.

Which brings us to the welded subjects of Faith and Fact and to James Cameron. As we all know, when Diamond Jack Grimm's dream of finding the Titanic was realized after his death, James Cameron was the one who capitalized on the discovery by making a blockbuster movie.

Now Cameron is playing the Mel Gibson card. He knows that anything with 'Jesus' in the title is going to be dynamite at the box office, so he has resurrected a twenty-five year old 'discovery' and claims to have found the lost tomb of Jesus. It's a marriage made in heaven, religion and show business. Diamond Jack would have been proud.

Men of good conscience and sound intellect have been trying forever to reconcile the difference between fact and faith. Where do they intersect? Every philosopher since Aristotle has been wrestling with this dilemma. How much evidence do you need to believe what you want to believe?

There is no greater satisfaction than discovering 'facts' that support your beliefs. We love it when science seems to verify the myths that we cherish. And many people think that anything that is on the Discovery Channel is a fact.

Here is the fact. We don't know what happened in the past, before our lifetimes. Sure, we can survey the artwork or examine the shards of pottery or test for mitochondrial DNA and make statistical deductions or drill for ice cores, but we weren't there so we don't know what happened in the past. We can examine the evidence, but in the end we have to take history on faith. We have to believe the words of the historians and trust that they are valid.

The same is true of religion. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of faith. Did Jesus ever walk the earth? Who knows? Does it matter if Jesus ever existed to make the teachings attributed to him valid? No. It's not the messenger who is important, it is the message.

But this whole dust-up over the purported tomb of Jesus has been occupying the news for the past few days. It's advertising that money can't buy. I'm sure James Cameron is loving it. But my hat is off to Cameron, not just for being a brilliant promoter, but also for stimulating the question about Faith and Fact.

The cable channels are rolling out their old footage on every myth imaginable this week. They've dusted off the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Grail and The DaVinci Code and Noah's Ark and every crack-pot biblical quest known to man. None of it matters. In the end we each have to decide which 'facts' we accept to support our faith in what we believe.

The Poet's Eye can't see the past, nor can anyone else's, but The Poet's Eye doesn't need to see the evidence in order to see the point. It's just a matter of faith.

Jesus is just alright with me
Jesus is just alright, oh yeah
Jesus is just alright with me
Jesus is just alright

I don't care what they may know
I don't care where they may go
I don't care what they may know
Jesus is just alright, oh yeah

Jesus, he's my friend
Jesus, he's my friend
He took me by the hand
Led me far from this land
Jesus, he's my friend
---Doobie Brothers

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You are so right on with the message in this one, it is a matter of faith and what we choose to believe. I also think the choice of the Doobie Brothers' song fit the message. Another brilliant piece of writing based in fact but still able to leave the reader secure in his or her own personal faith.
I don't understand the whole DNA thing though, Jesus doesn't have any known descendants to compare it to so how can any DNA found be valid in proving it was the "real" Jesus. You have to consider that the names Jesus and Joseph were pretty common names in that time, and if we believe that Jesus was a carpenter and poor the odds of his family having a lavish vault that cost a lot back then is unlikely. Just my two cents worth.
I realized something from your writing, an epiphany of sorts. I believe Christ walked the earth, I even believe he was the son of the creative force we call God, but I find modern organized religions to be full of shit, and it isn't because of all the texts I have read or the evidence I have sweated over, it is simply because I have faith that all of this is much too intricate to have been an accident, thanks for awakening my faith in my ability to believe anything for any reason. Love your writing my friend.
"C"

I been thinking about this book since I heard the news
Fact or Fiction?
Another Road Side Attraction

Well if they prove it was really him, I might decide to believe he existed.

Make no bones or myth-take about it.

Believe it or not.

I have bones ...Why should'nt the Christ???...Wish he would come back, I have a bone or 2 to pick with him...

yeah, Kurt... any good Christ got dem bones.