Laughable, but not funny
Two news stories in particular struck me as more than ordinarily absurd this week. Absurd- but hardly funny.
One dealt with a claim which, if true, would shake the universe. The other dealt merely with the sporting career of a decent human being who is the victim of a shocking, and repeated, injustice.
First, James Cameron- the producer of Titanic- has made the silly announcement that he has found the tomb of Jesus- with Jesus in it. Also his wife, Mary Magdalene, and their son, Judah.
This one is even lamer than the attempt a while back to prove that a fictional character- John of Gamala- was real, and that Jesus Christ (whose life is better attested in the historical record than, say, that of Socrates) was fictional. The names Yeshua (Jesus) and Miryam (Mary) were the First Century Hebrew equivalent of, say, Bob and Denise. Joseph- the name given on Yeshua's ossuary (coffin) as that of Yeshua's father- was similarly common. If I were somehow to become world famous (probably as the most mechanically incompetent able-bodied human being in history), and two thousand years from now archeologists were to dig up a tomb containing the bones of Robert, son of Robert, and his wife Denise even in Des Moines or Chicago (the most likely burial spots), nobody with an ounce of sense would consider it anything but statistically absurd to suspect- much less assume- that the remains in it were those of my wife and I. Yet this is the entire case Cameron has to offer for the tomb's owner having been Jesus of Nazareth. Even the most liberal, rationalistic, and atheistic scholars are laughing at Cameron's assertion- and rightly so.
Less earth-shattering, but still unfortunate, is the inexcusable fact that the Hall of Fame Veteran's Committee has once again failed to elect Ron Santo-one of the five or ten best third basemen ever to play the game of baseball, with statistics better than many of the third basemen already enshrined there- to the Hall of Fame.
Santo fell just a handful of votes short this time. Hopefully he'll make it in the near future, But his continued absence is a major blot on the credibility of the Hall, and if Santo- who is 72- dies before he is elected to the Hall of Fame it will be an injustice and an absurdity it will take the Hall quite a while to live down.
One dealt with a claim which, if true, would shake the universe. The other dealt merely with the sporting career of a decent human being who is the victim of a shocking, and repeated, injustice.
First, James Cameron- the producer of Titanic- has made the silly announcement that he has found the tomb of Jesus- with Jesus in it. Also his wife, Mary Magdalene, and their son, Judah.
This one is even lamer than the attempt a while back to prove that a fictional character- John of Gamala- was real, and that Jesus Christ (whose life is better attested in the historical record than, say, that of Socrates) was fictional. The names Yeshua (Jesus) and Miryam (Mary) were the First Century Hebrew equivalent of, say, Bob and Denise. Joseph- the name given on Yeshua's ossuary (coffin) as that of Yeshua's father- was similarly common. If I were somehow to become world famous (probably as the most mechanically incompetent able-bodied human being in history), and two thousand years from now archeologists were to dig up a tomb containing the bones of Robert, son of Robert, and his wife Denise even in Des Moines or Chicago (the most likely burial spots), nobody with an ounce of sense would consider it anything but statistically absurd to suspect- much less assume- that the remains in it were those of my wife and I. Yet this is the entire case Cameron has to offer for the tomb's owner having been Jesus of Nazareth. Even the most liberal, rationalistic, and atheistic scholars are laughing at Cameron's assertion- and rightly so.
Less earth-shattering, but still unfortunate, is the inexcusable fact that the Hall of Fame Veteran's Committee has once again failed to elect Ron Santo-one of the five or ten best third basemen ever to play the game of baseball, with statistics better than many of the third basemen already enshrined there- to the Hall of Fame.
Santo fell just a handful of votes short this time. Hopefully he'll make it in the near future, But his continued absence is a major blot on the credibility of the Hall, and if Santo- who is 72- dies before he is elected to the Hall of Fame it will be an injustice and an absurdity it will take the Hall quite a while to live down.
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