I swear to God I wasn’t going to write about Jesus again — maybe something on the county’s Confederate Heritage Week or the mainstream media ignoring Stephen Colbert’s filleting of Dubya at the Correspondents Association Dinner. But Jesus kept rearing his bearded head. A column I wrote a couple of weeks ago, featuring Da Vinci Code mania and our local Catholic bishop, generated way more reader e-mails than I had expected. Granted, most of them were of the unsigned, “you’re going to Hell and I’m glad of it” kind, but hey …
Then last week, a manager at a Charlotte bookstore started talking about how “the whole country seems to have gone Jesus-happy. The Da Vinci Code stuff is just the beginning — there’s Misquoting Jesus, The Jesus Papers, American Gospel, The Lost Gospel, The Gospel of Judas. Then there’s the whole ‘what would Jesus do, what would Jesus wear, or eat, or whatever’ thing, Jesus-this and Jesus-that, fish on the back of SUVs, there’s President Jesus in the White House, and now there’s that guy at UNCC. Enough already.”
“That guy at UNCC” is Dr. James Tabor, Charlotte’s own PR-savvy religious archeologist whose newest book, The Jesus Dynasty, is selling briskly (Number 33 on the New York Times bestseller list) after making headlines worldwide. Tabor says that research he’s done in the Middle East reveals a new, startling view of Jesus. At least it reveals it to him. Subtitled “The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family and the Birth of Christianity,” Tabor’s book says Jesus wasn’t resurrected, that his father was more than likely a Roman soldier and that his mother, Mary, had six other kids, probably by a guy or guys other than the soldier. So now it looks like Mary might have been a real party girl, probably ripe for a visit from Social Services. No word yet on whether she bought beer for teen Jesus, but I would imagine that she did, wouldn’t you?
Now, I don’t mean to make light of other people’s obsession with Jesus conspiracies, or of scholars’ mania for finding “the historical Jesus.” OK, actually, I do — because a lot of this stuff is absurd and/or based on the flimsiest of evidence. I’ve been interested in religious scholarship most of my life, and though I’m certainly no expert, I agree 100 percent with the bookstore guy: enough already.
The way I’ve come to see it, if you believe that Jesus was who his followers say he was — God incarnate, Savior and so forth — then go ahead and get to work helping other people, as he commanded. And if you don’t think he was the Savior, what possible difference does it make whether he was a carpenter, mechanic or certified public accountant? If he’s not God, then he’s just some guy who preached a long time ago in Palestine — one of a group of men who were a dime a dozen. In any case, is finding out what Jesus’ job was and how many men his mother shtuped really worth spending millions of dollars on research — or, for that matter, upsetting book store managers?
Jesus has had a hard enough time over the centuries with people interpreting him every which way. I think the choices today are clear. If you believe in Jesus, help solve some of the problems here on this planet — that’s apparently one of the things he tried to do. If you don’t believe in him — or if you consider him some sort of conspiracy/thriller entertainment — then, for the love of God, leave the guy alone and get a life.
• Kudos to the Observer’s Tim Funk for being one of the few members of the mainstream press to write about Stephen Colbert’s blistering speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — and for doing it before liberal blogs shamed other mainstreamers into admitting it had been a big deal. My favorite Colbert line was his advice for members of the media who, he said, should take some time off and “write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know — fiction.”
• City Attorney Mac McCarley would like you to think he’s some kind of hero for having convinced NASCAR to let the upcoming Hall of Fame use its logos and archival materials. It makes the city “an equal partner” with NASCAR, he says. No, an equal partnership would involve NASCAR ponying up millions of dollars to help build the Hall. That wasn’t about to happen, with Atlanta snapping at Charlotte’s heels for the right to roll over for the sport’s honchos. I don’t have a problem with the Hall of Fame itself — no property tax money is being used and the downtown location means it could actually turn a profit, unlike most sports halls of fame. Just don’t claim to be a heroic defender of the public’s interest when NASCAR got everything it wanted, and at no risk to itself.
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This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.
