Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code was a load of cockney, as was the book it was based on. Though based on an interesting premise, both the film and the book left a lot to be desired.
Historians, religious leaders, anthropologists and even genealogists have long debated the idea that Jesus did marry and have children and that his descendants are walking the earth. It’s a curious idea and one that would have serious implications for the church but is there any real truth to it?
A new documentary titled Bloodline is an attempt at finding the grave and/or body of Jesus and proving once and for all that this theory is real. Bruce Burgess who has, in the past, been involved in made-for-tv documentaries such as In Search of the Holy Grail and The Ark of the Covenant Revealed is behind the film whose trailer looks like a documentary style version of The Da Vinci Code complete with bugged cell phones, cult groups and chases.
I haven’t seen any of Burgess’ previous works so I’m not sure whether this guy is a trustworthy documentarian but the subject matter is one of interest to me and the colourful events may make the thing that much easier to take in for entertainment value though I’m not expecting too much on the historical side of things. If anything, reading about the film reminded me of the James Cameron produced The Lost Tomb of Jesus which gathered a whole load of attention when it was announced last year.
Bloodline begins it’s run in New York on May 9th with additional screenings to follow.
Thanks to Neil at FSR, you can check out the trailer under the third row.
Wow that looks….. pretty crappy and overly dramatic for a ducumentary. And obviously acted as well.
Not to be an ass, but everything in every form of Media that has related to Dan Brown’s waaaay overachieving book irks me to no end. Pandering and silly to the max. oi.
Overachieving? Financially you mean? I would agree with that, the book and subsequent movie are both rather dull.
Financially, pop-culture embedding, all of the E!Now sort of crap that I end up mired in purely by osmosis (not by choice!).
Not worth my time. Certainly. (although I’ll be the first to admit that I waste my time on some real crap, you’ve got to draw the line somewheres!)
This sort of conspiracy stuff was of interest to me before Brown came along, dumbed it down and spoon fed it to the masses – hence my curiosity about this particular documentary.
I will say though I was shocked how little impact James Cameron’s Tomb of Jesus documentary had when it came out… I watched it and was very impressed with the conclusions, and anyone who considers statistical probability a harbinger of fact has to accept it is highly highly improbable that that was not Jesus’ tomb, and that Jesus was not married to Mary Magdalene. You either believe blindly otherwise or you are one who believes in statistical probability, in which case you have to concede the facts.
Any sentiment of Catholic sentiment was killed in me after seeing ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ long before.
Rot – excellent point. I actually never watched Cameron’s documentary (only read about the dust it lifted). And good point on “Deliver Us from Evil”. I’d lost faith in my Catholic roots years before but that film hardened me further. My mother, who also hasn’t been a practicing anything in years but was still going to church for some occasions (deaths, marriages, special masses) was so put off by the whole thing that she flatly refuses to attend anything church related. I can’t say I blame her either. I find it hard to imagine that anyone who sees that film can feel otherwise.
Oh yeah. What ever happened to that Cameron documentary?
I remember seeing a documentary about a guy who thinks he’s found Jesus’ tomb located under a Israel apartment building. Was that the Cameron flick?
yup, saw it on tv and it was very convincing. They used a well known statistician from University of Toronto to plead the case for the mathematical probability of it being the Tomb of Jesus… I believe it was 600 to 1 odds, so 599 times out of 600 it would be true.
Just cruised in. Just thought you guys might want to revisit the controversy re: the Cameron doc. The Toronto statistician poured a bunch of cold water on the premise, I don’t remember the particulars, however (see http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=25149). Also, the Israeli antiquities authority has refuted Jacabovici’s theory in this matter. Now, you may say that powerful forces are working to shut the theory down, but that is the fact as it stands, but it seems that you have to make a lot of assumptions to come to such a conclusion. What was that old proverb about assumptions?
Just apply Occam’s razor to everything you read/hear, and you will see that most conspiracy theories go up in smoke.
The statistics are right so long as you take the theory that the “Mariamene” inscription is “Mary Magdalene”, and the statistician is saying he is going on the scholarly opinion that it is, so there is no fault in the original math but rather controversy over the interpretation of this inscription. I have not watched the documentary since it aired but from what I remember it was a very convincing argument for the interpretation. As for any sort of proof against this theory on the basis that the name is not used in the NT and there is no mention of Christ being married, I hardly call that proof of anything, as the bible is a propagandistic tool, not to be relied on for historical accuracy. I could just as well go to Homer for a historical account of the Greeks. Lets not forget the significant gap in time between the events, the transference of the information via oral history, and the final laying down into text, even if there was the intention of historical accuracy the likelihood is slim. That is not being conspiratorial that is being fairly level-headed about it all. I forget was it 100 years? and there were gnostic texts which gave a pronounced emphasis to Magdalene’s relationship with Christ but which were cut out of the canon by the Church Fathers, so the idea of Christ’s marriage is not entirely without basis, or at least no more or less plausible then what was determined to be in keeping with the canon of then, an institution, that had the very real concern of demarcating its authority.
The arguments lies in the interpretation of the inscription, and of that I really cannot remember the argument other then it seemed convincing.
Right-on.