“What is Jerusalem worth?” the bastard knight at the end of KINGDOM OF GOD asks Saladin, the leader of the Muslim army.
“Nothing.” Saladin answered and walked away, then turns and says, “Everything.”
For centuries faith has determined the worth of Jerusalem for the Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
As an atheist I think they all believe what they believe to be true, but several years ago James Cameron, director of THE TERMINATOR series had declared his discovery of Jesus’ tomb in Talpiot, Israeli neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem, established in 1922 by Zionists and current site of the IDF’s Talpiot scientific war program .
His DNA evidence attested to the veracity of his findings along with the suggestion that Jesus might have sired a son named Judah.
Holy Jesus conspiracy freaks!
While an intransigent non-believer, I ascribe to the theory laid out in Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST purporting that Jesus and Magdalene had fled Judea for India. VS Naipul’s TRAVELS AMONGST THE BELIEVERS mentioned a tomb of Jesus in Kashmir. Supposedly the messiah lived to the ripe age of 124. The wounds never healed in his hands and feet. According to Wikipedia Jesus was buried at the Roza Bal shrine in the downtown area of Srinagar in Kashmir. The word roza means tomb, the word bal mean place. Locals believe a sage is buried here, Yuzasaf (alternatively Yuz Asaf or Youza Asouph), alongside another Muslim holy man, Mir Sayyid Naseeruddin.
The shrine was relatively unknown until the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, claimed in 1899 that it is actually the tomb of Jesus. This view is maintained by Ahmadis today, though it is rejected by the local Sunni caretakers of the shrine, one of whom said “the theory that Jesus is buried anywhere on the face of the earth is blasphemous to Islam.
Lastly according to Wikipedia a Shingō village in Japan contains what is purported to be the last resting place of Jesus, the so-called “Tomb of Jesus” (Kirisuto no haka), and the residence of Jesus’ last descendants. The Sawaguchi family’s claims that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross at Golgotha. Instead his brother, Isukiri took his place on the cross, while Jesus fled across Siberia to Mutsu Province, in northern Japan. Once in Japan, he changed his name to Torai Tora Daitenku, became a rice farmer, married a twenty-year old Japanese woman named Miyuko, and raised three daughters near what is now Shingō. While in Japan, it is asserted that he traveled, learned, and eventually died at the age of 106. His body was exposed on a hilltop for four years. According to the customs of the time, Jesus’ bones were collected, bundled, and buried in the mound purported to be the grave of Jesus Christ.
I have a question for James Cameron.
“What is Jesus’ Tomb worth?”
Everything or nothing or something in between?