Day 13, April 22, 2011

Jesus DVDs:

As most Holy Weeks go, people either do 'Visita Iglesia' (Church visits), go to Confession, do the Ways of the Cross, take Long treks (by foot) to Antipolo Church from various locations in the Metro, do  self-flagellation... either privately - or in public view, or dust off and watch classic religious themed videos... all to reconnect... or become more religious. 

Well with exception to the self-flagellation part, I could say that I've been there and done that to all of the above. This week though, as we had not really planned any trips out of town - being too busy and all, we could not go out of town, so we opted to rest. But I decided to watch videos - avoiding the usual 'Way of the Cross' type movies - with exception to 'Jesus Christ Superstar' the rock opera, which I showed to Bryce (he got amused - and through his amusement, I remembered my own amusement) at the in-your-face poking of the director with hsi modern touch (a machine gun in the marketplace being just one such scene).

Anyway, the videos in the picture were more research-oriented, and quite educational - if not controversial... the first one was about proving the 'Jesus papyrus' to be proof of eye-witness accounts to Jesus's life through the eyes of his apostles - as opposed to being stories handed down form generation to generation before being written as gospel. Intriguing...

The second was about the Shroud of Turin, and how it was mislabeled a clever forgery - and how multiple researches seem to be proving it as anything but fake... and by the way, though they do not conclusively state who the shroud represented, many people take it upon faith as to who it is... and his blood type was AB by the way.

The third was about reconciling faith with the seeming historical incongruencies (huh, why is this word not recognized?) to the Bible's writings - e.g Herod getting a bum wrap by way of the 'slaughter of innocents',

and how people - scholars of faith see these incongurencies as metaphorical, rather than factual stories... and not be considered as stubborn and not willing to see factual holes. They do see the holes, yet accept it in a different light (by the way, I fall in this category).

The fourth... and most controversial would be the Holy Blood line possibly continuing on - as postulated in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code. This one Barbie found to be viewed in poor taste on a Good Friday - even if she was not viewing it. Me? I found it fascinating... not generally offensive and not something that would rock my faith. So what if we indulge in 'what ifs'? So what if there really is a Sang Real? Would that change my faith and beliefs? I don't think so.

All four documentaries (fictitious or otherwise) were shown in the Discovery channel - in fact, this DVD set you see in the picture is marketed as a collection of Jesus related researches by the Discovery Channel. So as you can see, it was not your typical classical Holy Week viewing for me.