And They Were Affrighted

- - posted in Ancient Archives

If you want value for money, skip ‘The Passion of The Christ’ and see ‘Shawn of the Dead’ instead: it’s probably less offensive, funnier, more realisticly cast, and has many more coming-back-from-the-dead scenes per hour, which is what Easter is all about, apparently.

The resurrection of Jesus seems like a wasted opportunity - the Christian Messiah returned from the dead and then did nothing much for a few days before going off to heaven, which we have to assume is where he was going anyway when he died. True, he passed on extra instructions to his disciples, but if he’d planned ahead he could have just written them a note beforehand. The resurrection seems to a sort of Holy Columbo-like “Oh, just one more thing…”. Jesus didn’t even make a big thing of it - popping in to visit the Roman authorities and a few priests would have been quite effective, but instead he grumbled a bit and left. Church of England leaders often stress that belief in the resurrection is the keystone of Christianity, yet it’s one of the least impressive feats of Jesus.

On a more positive note, the disciples were lucky he didn’t try to eat their brains.