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Film details finding of Jesus' baptism siteFilmmakers have Louisville ties ( The Courier Journal )Scenes of baptisms open the film as religious leaders discuss how the act symbolizes a joining with Jesus Christ in his death, and his Easter Resurrection. The film then becomes a detective story about efforts to locate the site of the most famous baptism of all: that of Jesus himself by John the Baptist. "The Baptism of Jesus Christ: Uncovering Bethany Beyond the Jordan," was made by two filmmakers with longstanding Louisville connections and features interviews with scholars, Kentucky religious leaders and others. The filmmakers and several scholars say there's an impressive body of evidence to authenticate the site in an area of Jordan called Wadi al-Kharrar, east of the Jordan River. They're entering the 53-minute film in various film festivals and are trying to interest broadcasters such as the BBC or PBS. The idea arose about two years ago when Mustafa Gouverneur-Henry, 36, whose mother publishes spiritual books in Louisville, was catching up with a friend from Cambridge University. That friend, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, "was telling me about this baptism site," recalled Gouverneur-Henry, who was born in Egypt but raised largely in England. "I had never heard anything about it." Gouverneur-Henry enlisted Ghazi's help and a longtime friend, Louisville native Clay Lyons Morton, also 36. The two had little film experience, but had often spoken of working together on a film. With a small crew and small budget financed by friends in Louisville and elsewhere, their long-awaited project was under way. The documentary features J. Carl Laney, a scholar from Western Seminary in Portland, Ore., who for his doctoral dissertation 30 years ago reviewed ancient texts and concluded the baptismal site would be in the Wadi al-Kharrar area. "When they began to discover the remains there, it got very exciting, because it served to confirm it," he said in an interview. Whether the site is truly Jesus' baptismal site is not an entirely settled question. Israel continues to promote a place known as Kasser-el-Yahud, west of the Jordan River, as the authentic site. The film tells how researchers followed a 2,000-year-old trail of clues -- Bible references, pilgrim journals, Bedouin tales and long-buried ruins. The area is traditionally linked to stories in Scriptures about Moses, Joshua and Elijah. Scholars have known from ancient pilgrim journals that there was a shrine in that area to the site where Jesus was baptized by John at the start of Jesus' ministry. The site is described in the gospel of John as "Bethany across the Jordan" in contrast to Bethany near Jerusalem, which also figures in the Gospels. The pilgrimage site was abandoned amid the Crusades, but clues to its existence continued to surface even as wars in the 20th century made it inaccessible. After the 1994 peace accord between Jordan and Israel, Ghazi, a former cultural secretary to the king of Jordan, and a Franciscan archaeologist from Jerusalem, Michele Piccirillo, teamed up to start excavation. A subsequent team of archaeologists, acting on tips from local Bedouin tribesmen, unveiled the remains of several churches, each built on the ruins of previous ones. Further digging uncovered what ancient pilgrims described: a marble staircase leading from the churches to the river, the course of which has since changed. At the river, new converts were baptized beneath a stone canopy by candlelight as thousands of believers watched. Since the peace treaty, the site has been transformed from a no man's land into a shrine that has drawn hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, including Pope John Paul II. For Gouverneur-Henry and Morton, who co-produced the film, telling the story was a spiritual journey as well. "I felt there was a certain peace and a certain grace about the place," Gouverneur-Henry said. "I don't know how else to put it." Said Morton: "I'm not that well versed in biblical history, but it just started hitting me how profound it was that I was standing in these places where these historical and spiritual events occurred." The documentary weaves together the baptismal site's story and interviews with various religious leaders about its significance. The Rev. Matthew Kelty, a monk and author at the Roman Catholic Abbey of Gethsemani in Nelson County, Ky., speaks in the film of how in baptism, "You die ... with Christ and rise with him." Pastor Kirk M. Bush, standing before a painting of John baptizing Jesus at the baptismal font in his Harrods Creek Baptist Church in Jefferson County, Ky., speaks of how the baptized "receive power, which is the Holy Ghost." Gouverneur-Henry said the film seeks to avoid what he sees as a "continuous attack" from "this historical skeptical paradigm" in reports about biblical archaeology. Books such as "The Gospel of Judas" and documentaries such as James Cameron's "Lost Tomb of Jesus" are promoted as challenges to fundamental Christian claims. Such challenges assume "Everybody does something for power or money," he said. "It can never be because somebody is sincere, to preserve what Christ did." He said he "wanted to hear what Christians say about it from within." Now that this film is complete, Gouverneur-Henry, who lives in Germany, is at work on a film on Muslim-Christian cooperation. Morton is attending film school in Santa Fe, N.M., and hopes to work on documentaries about Kentucky and narrative films. But, he said, it will be difficult for any experience to match this one. "Now that that bar is set, it will be hard for me to accept … things that aren't as inspirational," he said. Reporter Peter Smith can be reached at (502) 582-4469. http://beta.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080323/NEWS01/803230457
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