Das Jesus Video (2002)

During an archaeological excavation in Israel, German student Steffen Vogt accidentally discovers the skeleton of a man whose age is dated at around 2,000 years using the radiocarbon method. What causes confusion is not only a modern titanium plate on the dead man’s thigh and an amalgam filling in one of his teeth, but also a plastic bag lying beside the bones. In it, the scientists find, along with a letter, the instruction manual for a camcorder with a built-in hard drive. However, this model is a camcorder Sony will not release for at least another three years. Steffen can think of only one possible explanation: he has found the skeleton of a time traveler. Since his colleagues declare him insane and the businessman John Kaun, who is financing the excavation, suddenly classifies the find as an extremely closely guarded secret, Steffen begins searching for the camera on his own. He is certain that the time traveler filmed Jesus, especially since the letter contains clues to that effect. But this sensational discovery sets a dangerous conspiracy in motion: the Vatican fears the video’s release because its contents could destroy the foundations of the Catholic Church. A conservative splinter group within the Vatican, the Lucan Order, assigns its agent Scarfaro to prevent the video from surfacing by any means necessary. When Steffen secretly obtains a copy of the computer printouts from the laboratory at the University of Jerusalem, he is caught and identified, and soon several ruthless pursuers are after him. The pursuers steal the second part of the letter, cut off every possibility for Steffen to leave Israel, and murder his friend Dan when Steffen tries to bring the story to the public with Dan’s help. While on the run, Steffen turns to Sharon, a young Israeli woman he met at the excavation and has fallen in love with. After Dan’s murder, Sharon and her friend Yehoshua, a research assistant at Jerusalem’s Archaeological Institute, agree to help Steffen. In the lab, Yehoshua manages to reveal an impression of the letter on the paper of the instruction manual. Instead of information about where the camera is hidden, however, they find only a mysterious code: L 15, 4 U. While Sharon and Yehoshua go to a bar mitzvah celebration, Steffen returns to their apartment. There, Scarfaro’s men ambush and abduct him. They try to torture the location of the camera out of him, but Steffen cannot tell them anything. Two days later, he manages to escape when the Lucan Order is about to dispose of him in the desert, and he returns to his friends. Through joint research, they work out that the camera must be hidden 15 meters from the eastern end, in the fourth layer from the bottom of the Western Wall, although the spot is now about 20 meters underground. Kaun and his men have followed the same lead and arrive with a Thumper to create a profile of the ground below. Steffen and his friends seize the vehicle at gunpoint. In the middle of the Negev Desert, they are finally alone with Kaun. The businessman acts peacefully and shows them a video recording of an unusual experiment conducted in one of his company’s laboratories, in which an object was sent four seconds into the past—the first step toward functioning time-travel technology. But a subsequent first experiment with a living organism produced a paradox: the time-shifted rat rematerialized turned inside out, and the technician stopped the experiment before it could be sent back into the past. From what Kaun tells them, Steffen, Sharon, and Yehoshua conclude that he has no connection whatsoever to the Lucan Order, and that their pursuers therefore belong to a second, independently operating party. The three friends eventually leave Kaun behind and escape with the Thumper recording. They are unable to interpret the data, however, and ask Professor Wilford, Steffen’s supervisor, for help. The scientist then reveals that, during an earlier archaeological excavation in the same area in the 1930s, evidence had already been found—a ballpoint pen bearing the words “JK Enterprises”—that John Kaun’s company must have been involved in time travel. In the recording, he sees that a tunnel leads to the indicated stone. However, the underground tunnel system in Jerusalem has since been flooded by groundwater. Steffen points out that he has diving experience. Before the professor can bring them the map they need of the tunnels, however, he is murdered by his assistant Roland, who works for the Lucan Order. Roland tells Steffen, Sharon, and Yehoshua that the professor sent him. Steffen enters the tunnel system through a well Roland shows him. Sharon discovers Roland’s true intentions; he seriously injures Yehoshua. Steffen, unable to find the camera and forced to leave the tunnel through another exit, manages to outwit the Lucan Order and escape with his friends. But Yehoshua dies before he can receive medical attention. Despite her friend’s death and the immediate danger, Steffen persuades Sharon to continue the search. In a library, they discover that a monastery of Armenian monks stood at the other end of the tunnel 500 years ago. An old legend tells of a “mirror” into which Jesus looked and which “captured his face”; it was later found and kept by an order of Armenian monks, who now live in a monastery in the Negev. The Lucan Order has already been there and massacred the inhabitants by the time the two adventurers arrive. One survivor takes them to a secret chamber, where he hands over the camera for safekeeping. As Steffen and Sharon leave the building, their Lucan pursuers appear in two helicopters and open fire on them in their car. Sharon is shot in the chest, and Steffen is captured. Scarfaro connects the camera to a power supply in the helicopter, plays the video, and makes Steffen watch. At first, the body of Jesus is visible in the tomb, but, surprisingly, so are Steffen and Sharon, who had filmed each other. Realizing that they and he had traveled into the past at a later point in time, Steffen moves toward Sharon, whom he had thought dead. Just then, a unit of the Israeli army arrives, having been alerted by Kaun, and forces their opponents to surrender. When Scarfaro nevertheless tries to kill Steffen, Kaun shoots him. A ricocheting bullet hits the helicopter’s fuel tank and causes it to explode, destroying the camera. Steffen has an army doctor resuscitate Sharon. After she recovers, Steffen and Sharon, together with Kaun, watch as Steffen’s own skeleton is recovered from the tomb. Kaun gives Steffen his card so he can contact him if he decides to make the time trip. Steffen says he could choose not to take the trip, but he and Kaun know that the answer has already been decided.