Okay, after the last post I couldn't not include this bit from Peter David's blog entry about the upcoming James Cameron documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus:
Still, I have to admit I was in stitches over the comments of one Rev. David Knapp of Port Jefferson Station in Long Island who asserted:
"This is all hocus-pocus. Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven--and there were 500 witnesses to that, so there are no bones to be found. This is not going to shake our faith."
It's not the sentiment that breaks me up so much as the phrasing. The announcement of a scientific discovery, an archaeological find, is considered "hocus-pocus," while the notion of rising from the dead, departing your burial place and being transported to heaven...a concept rooted in, at the very least, the supernatural, the uncanny, the magical...THAT he's got no problem accepting.
Another interesting point is that the term "hocus pocus" was possibly born out of Christianity. Some sources say it was a mishearing of a Latin phrase used during the mass when the host and wine were transformed into the body and blood of Christ, thus making it a phrase associated with magical powers.
More info here.
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