Gadfly

On Sunday, March 9th, The Discovery Channel is airing a documentary by James Cameron called The Lost Tomb of Jesus.

Shame on The Discovery Channel. And James Cameron. Talk about a transparent ploy to create a controversy and make some money!

No archeologist (or theologian, for that matter) believes the tomb discovered in the suburbs of Jerusalem is the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family, although The Discovery Channel says (on its website) that the odds are 600 to 1 that the tomb is, in fact, that of Jesus Christ. The channel also claims to have “new evidence” that sheds light on Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene.

Unless they claim to have the DNA of Jesus, it seems unlikely they have evidence that sheds light on anything.

There are a host of reasons why the documentary’s claims are preposterous. For one thing, the family was poor and couldn’t have afforded such a burial place (and why Jerusalem and not Nazareth? I suppose the burial site could have been donated, and the family permanently relocated from Nazareth to Jerusalem). For another, the names inscribed on the ossuaries were extremely common 2,000 years ago, so identifying them with a specific family (absent other evidence) is terrible logic. And if a string of Jesus’ relatives were buried in the same place, someone, somewhere, would have mentioned it.

None of this has anything to do with science or theology, although scientists should be irritated that a veneer of science has been used to create a charade.