The body

Our satellite TV supplier broadcast a film, "The Body", during the week. I only recorded it because I saw that it starred Olivia Williams, an actress of whom I can never get enough. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the film was what might be termed an 'archeological thriller' set in Jerusalem (and totally filmed on location). Ms Williams is an Israeli archeologist, although no attempt whatsoever was made to explain away her British accent. Similarly, British workhorse actor John Shrapnel was also cast as an Israeli (and spoke some words in Hebrew, correct grammatically, but with a ludicrous accent), despite his British vowels. 

Both these actors were seldom without a cigarette in their mouths; this was shown so much that I wonder whether the film was hinting that Israelis are heavy smokers. Fortunately, the percentage of smokers has decreased dramatically and the ban on smoking inside buildings means that I rarely - if ever - have to smell cigarette smoke.

At one stage, Antonio Banderas, cast as a Spanish priest (at least they got his ancestry correct), drives to a monastery to visit another priest who is hiding lest someone kill him (one has to watch the film to understand why). That monastery is only a few kilometres from my home, and as it is floodlit every night, I can see it from my balcony. As shown in the film (and in real life), the building has two stories, but one sequence apparently has Banderas running up three flights of stairs....

The film is primarily concerned with the discovery of a set of bones belonging to someone who had been crucified. As someone points out at the beginning, Romans only crucified poor people, yet the skeleton was found in a rich man's grave. People begin to suspect that the bones belong to Jesus, which is why the Pope dispatches Banderas to investigate, alongside his Israeli colleagues. 

Not being a Christian myself, I can only partially understand the emotional upset which would be caused by finding Jesus' bones (although at the end, one realises that the bones belonged to someone else). I can understand how important this would be, but the part about the find negating their belief I can only appreciate intellectually and am not qualified to comment whether it would be true.

Incidentally, no Jew would refer to Jesus as Christ, this being 'Messiah' in Greek. As far as the Jews are concerned, the Messiah has yet to come. The Jewish Israelis in the film refer to Jesus as Christ, and this seems to be a mistake in my opinion (no one has yet pointed this out in IMDB). One interesting point of interest appeared when I looked at the Hebrew subtitles: Jesus in Hebrew is 'Yeshu', spelt yod, shin, vav, ayin [ישוע]. The word for 'saviour' is 'moshia', spelt mem, vav, shin, yod, ayin [מושיע]. The laws of Hebrew grammar suggest to me that the two words have the same three letter root, yod, shin, ayin; very interesting theologically if this is true.