Why does "2000 years ago" so significant in prometheus

[b]You throw religion and spirituality into the equation for Prometheus, though, and it almost acts as a hand grenade. We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered?[/b] Ridley Scott: [i]We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an "our children are misbehaving down there" scenario, there are moments where it looks like we've gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, "Lets' send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him. [/i]

Prometheus is filled with religious referances and questions. The name of the planetoid itself - LV 223 - looks like it's tied in with the biblical referance LV 22:3 (levicitus) that says that anyone unclean who enters the temple where one worships the creator will be punished by the Lord. What happens when the crew first enters the room with the monolithic head ritualistically surrounded by the vials of bio-former? The murals in the room begin to disintegrate....we are shown that the mural of creation (a sacrificial engineer that is in the process of being dissolved) is disintegrating. Black goo starts oozing from the vials and Elisabeth Shaw comments that they have 'changed the atmosphere in the room'. When they start to leave we are shown a prolonged shot of the mural of the Destroyer (the xenomorph) remaining stable and unaffected by the disintegration of the other murals in the room. We are then show the worms wriggling in the black goo - a promise of horrors to come. At this point one understands they have not changed the chemical atmosphere in the room...something else is taking place. Elisabeth herself shares name with a biblical person who god cures for barrenness. 2000 years ago give or take was the time at which the son of God came to the earth according to christian tradition. Answering specific speculation about this being linked to the engineers somehow Scott confirmed: "Movies.com: You throw religion and spirituality into the equation for Prometheus, though, and it almost acts as a hand grenade. We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered? RS: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him. " Few things are random in the script of a Ridley Scott movie...the murals (which Giger was brought in to make) are not random. Elisabeths comment on the atmosphere is not random. That the disaster in the temple and the decission to wipe out humanity happened 2000 years ago (give or take) is of course not random.

LV426 [i]He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the man's sin, and he will be forgiven.[/i] Ripley is the Priestess that uses fire in the last scene of Alien too escape the Xenomorph.

on a side note, shit happens to engineers 2000 years ago, and ever since no more alien.engineer visits to earth

Just an observation... they use Carbon dating... how did they get anything to calibrate their reading against? They have no reference point for the normally expected amount of Carbon 14 isotopes in order to work out the decay factor (And thus the time). I think the 2000 year thing is misleading many of us into going down the religious lines of thinking. I don't think that the future plot line will feature Jesus in space. I think there will be reference to the decline of primitive religions around that time, who were worshiping creatures that came from the stars.

2000 years ago, Jesus Christ / Engineer inadvertently started a religion which turned the Roman Empire (whose patron was the archangel Samael, more below) from a growing power based on killing into a unifying force based on loving. This was the act that determined the Gods and thus their biomechanical slaves, the Engineers, upon the destruction of mankind. Prometheus had also upset them as that Titan had helped mankind to develop - they previously knew what their fate was - into beings searching for knowledge. Samael's entire dominion was based on killing and he was charged by God / other God to first kill and then make alive (to create you must first destroy). His first of four wives was Lillith, Adam's first wife, who wanted to be on top and who left Eden (paradise / walled garden) to have a good time by the Red Sea. She gave birth to over one hundred children each day. She would not return to Eden but married Samael. Consider Elizabeth Shaw who gave birth to what could be the Destroyer of Mankind on Christmas Day, an anniversary of Mary's birth to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of Mankind. Dr Shaw is another Lillith? A good Christian subverted by engineered, murderous DNA.

@ xenodochy... Samael, is actually another name for Satanel, better known as Satan, commonly confused with, incorrectly, Lucifer.

@Snorkelbottom ... Yes and apparently he was so big that it would have taken 500 years to travel his length and from top to toe he was studded with glaring eyes. His wedding to Lillith must have been quite a spectacle: think of the size of the cake! I'm sure that if Lillith could run away from her husband, Adam, to marry such a one as Samael she could easily have more than 100 children a day! No wonder the Romans adopted him. It just goes to show that Samael was badly observed and wrongly described. Today we'd cry out, "It's a spaceship, it's a spaceship!" just before its crew extirpated us as an unwanted society, supplanting us with their preference. Star Trek's 'non-intervention' article was ignored in every episode but the real thing was all about intervention. Well, 'the real thing' in terms of Prometheus, perhaps. Now Pandora and her urn, sent by Zeus to punish mankind for receiving stolen goods (makes 8 and-a-third to 25 seem a kiss on the cheek) are much more unsettling. That's just my airhead view. I can't shift it. I'm stuck with it, up it, round it or in it but, anyhow, it's a good movie because it makes you think rather than just be entertained, amused, excited or frightened and scoop up the popcorn. It's a box of lethal delights packed with allegories and 2000 year old enigmas. Sit back, unwrap one and ... Oh! ... What on earth is that?