Video Camera

Some thoughts on what event captured on video tape would revolutionize this world:

• The birth of Jesus

Only because I suspect it would de-mythologize things quite a bit. We've been taught to think that it was a somehow different birth, when in fact there's nothing in the Bible to cast doubt on it being anything more than a normal human birth. I'm sure the baby Jesus did not have a halo around his head, nor did the manger glow and cast shadows.

The implication of that de-mythologizing could be profound. It wouldn't refute anything about Jesus, his life or what he was or did ... but it would be a pin in the balloon of a lot of people's picture of it.

• Moses parting the Red Sea

This is something everyone has in their minds because of movies. But I think everyone (including me) harbours a bit of doubt about the reality of it. Imagine removing the deniability of it with an impossible-to-falsify recording of the actual event. I think that would make people pause and really think about the existence of God, and the presence of the supernatural.

• Pretty much any one of Jesus' miracles

Two in particular come to mind: his walking on water, and his calming the sea with his command.

Note: in reality, just capturing Jesus on film doing nothing more than talking would be revolutionary. Everyone has an impression in their mind what he looks like and what he sounds like. To reinforce/refute that with tape would be mindboggling.

• The conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus

I'm stuck in a rut on the Christian themes. :-)

• Abraham Lincoln delivering his Gettysburg address

There is a common impression among Americans that the Gettysburg address was delivered in some almost supernatural manner ... but I suspect the truth of it was that Lincoln voice was nasally (I've read that), that the crowd probably wasn't silent, and given how short it was, the import of it was probably lost on many people at the time. The grandeur of that speech was gloss added through time. To burst that bubble by showing the actual event might go a long way to de-mythologize Lincoln.

I could make a similar argument for nearly any of the great men (or women) of the past ... Napolean, Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc.

• The death of Ghengis Khan

Only because it was immortalized by Monty Python. :-)