"Archaeo-porn"

That's what prominent biblical scholar called the "dramatic reinactment" filled Lost Tomb of Jesus last night on the Discovery Channel. It was so poorly done that it would make Michael Moore blush. Not only did it ignore evidence provided to its producers and gloss over inconvenient questions that arise along the way, it failed to even entertain. It was really that bad. But my concerns wasn't that it was bad TV. My concern was whether or not James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici gave their claims the serious scientific consideration that responsible journalism would require before airing them on American and British television. Suffice it to say they did not.

First of all, just about everyone who had anything to do with this documentary, with the exceptions of Cameron, Jacobovici, James Tabor, and Charles Pellegrino have either outright rejected the claims upon which their work is based or substantially disclaimed their participation. After the documentary, Ted Koppel hosted a discussion between Tabor and Jacobovici on the one hand and two biblical history scholars on the other (one of whom specifically noted that he is not a Christian and doesn't "have a dog in this fight). Koppel confronted Jacobovici with an e-mail from the lab that performed Jacobovici's DNA analysis on the Jesus ostuary and the Miriamne ostuary, disputing the assertion contained in the film that the two must have been husband and wife. "The only conclusions we made was that these two sets were not maternally related. To me it sounds like absolutely nothing." (That's from their DNA "expert.") The statistician has distanced himself, claiming that he took no part in making the assumptions underlying his data, such as counting "Mary" and "Miriamne" as different names, the existence of a brother named Matia, etc. The woman who created the lexicon of Jewish names from 100 A.D. based upon other ossuaries claims to be furious that her data was used and believes it to be wholly inappropriate for statistical purposes.

But experts distancing themselves is the least of the show's problems. The real problem is the lack of substance:

• Why no DNA analysis on the ostuaries that the producers claim belong to persons related to Jesus? I asked this question in my last post on the subject and Koppel made it his first question last night. Jacobovici vacilated in his answer. He first stammered that the others might not have had sufficient patinas to test, which would sound halfway legitimate, but he then concedes that more analysis could provide DNA. He says that this would have cost more. Koppel asked him why they spent so much of the documentary providing hokey dramatizations (Mary Magdalene gazing lovingly at Jesus, etc.) instead of trying to provide an answer. Jacobovici had no answer.
• Who are the others? One of the most spurious claims is the existence of two brothers of Jesus: Yose and Matia. There is no historical evidence whatsoever of Jesus having brothers named Matthew or Joseph. Instead of conceding that this would be evidence tending to show that this tomb is not that of Jesus' family, they attempt to show the possibility that there could have been siblings of these names based upon Joseph and Mary's respective genealogies. The only justification for Matia being a sibling is the fact that Mary has other variations of the name "Matthew" in her family tree. Now, while there is evidence of Jesus having brothers named James or Simon, neither of them were there. This is a family tomb, right? If so, who are these two strangers and where are Jesus' actual kin? What was even more amazing was that as the show progressed, Jacobovici forgets that these two brothers are speculatory and bases his statistics upon the assumptions that Jesus had two brothers named "Matia" and "Yose," i.e., "What are the chances of two Jesuses living at the same time having a brother named 'Matia' and another named 'Yose?'" Finally, note that neither "Matia" or "Yose" were noted to be "sons of Joseph."
• What about Miriamne? Her name is in Greek. Why would her name be in Greek and everyone else's in Aramaic? Ben Witherington notes that Mary Magdalene grew up in Migdal, a Jewish fishing village, not a Greek speaking town. If anything, this is evidence that this tomb is from after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
• "Mary Magdalene" is not "Miriamne." As Witherington notes again, she is referred in 1st and 2nd century documents as Mary, not Miriamne. Jacobovici relies upon the Gospel of Philip, which is a 4th century Gnostic document. They quote Francis Bovon in the documentary for the assertion that her real name was Miriamne, but he's apparently one of the few scholars out there who believes the theory. Jacobovici relays it to the viewer as fact. There is no real explanation of why she is called "Miriamne the master" in the documentary or why there is no indication of a marital relation to Jesus. He claims that she may have gone on to be a respected Christian teacher (he makes the Dan Brown allegation that her existence was wiped from historical records by Catholic sexists and even shows you a dramatization of them doing so--no joke). This is all speculation though. It seems more likely that if she was the wife of Christ, they would put that notation on her ossuary rather than "the master."
• The criticism I haven't heard elsewhere is that Jacobovici assumes throughout the documentary that if Miriamne is the wife of anyone in the tomb, she is the wife of Jesus. All he's shown through analysis of mitochondrial DNA is that she and the Jesus person do not share the same mother. If she is married to someone in the tomb, she could just as easily be married to any of the other three males that we know were laid to rest there (or to one of the persons resting in the four unmarked ossuaries). There is absolutely no consideration of this possibility in the documentary.
• Jesus was never known by anyone as "Jesus son of Joseph," except by his enemies. Everyone else called him "Jesus of Nazareth," "Jesus the carpenter," or even "Jesus son of Mary."
• The "James" ossuary. In 2002, an ossuary came to light that contained the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." It made quite a stir because it was uncommon to list one's brother on an ossuary unless he was famous somehow. Scientific analysis has shown that the writing is recent. Ironically, the owner is currently on trial in Israel for perpetrating the fraud. Well, the producers of this film seem to think it fits in nicely. They claim that although there are ten niches for ossuaries, only 9 were present. This is false. They were told beforehand that it was false. That simply didn't fit the agenda. They try to allege that the James ossuary was uncovered when the tomb was uncovered in 1980. Also false. Well, it just so happens that Oded Golan, the man on trial for forging the James ossuary, has produced a time-stamped photograph of it from 1976, four years before the tomb was discovered. These inconvenient facts are discarded. Instead, Jacobovici "proves" that the James ossuary came from the same tomb through use of a comparison of patinas--a previously untested method in which he compares eight ossuaries from incomparable areas. In other words, they created the methodology for the purpose of the study and chose controls from places that are likely to show elements different from those of the James and Talpiot ossuaries. Total scam. From Real Clear Politics:

In their book, they report comparisons of the "James" and Talpiot patinas to eight patinas from other environments. Five of these are, according to the documentarians, not similar to the environment at Talpiot. However, all control samples should have been taken from a similar environment. It is a waste of time to test patinas known to have been from radically different environments than the "James" and Talpiot patinas. This is especially necessary considering that the type of soil at Talpiot - terra rosa - is not uncommon in Jerusalem. Indeed, the only appropriate test is to test patina from all places where terra rosa is known to be. Why waste time and resources on other environments? At least as far as their book goes, the documentarians tests are insufficient to prove that the "James" ossuary came from the Talpiot tomb.

• As noted in the previous post, Amos Kloner, the man who oversaw the initial dig in 1980 has noted that other ossuaries have been found in Israel with the inscription "Jesus son of Joseph." Ossuaries were only used for about a century. So not only do we know of other persons of the same relation with the same names at the same time, we've already discovered their graves.
• The statistical analysis is an unmitigated disaster. I make no claim to be an expert statistician, but I knew that something was off when the statistician divides the probability by 4 to account for "bias." Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics gives this issue much more depth.
• Jacobovici makes a big deal out of the symbol above the tomb. This is important for a number of reasons. First, the symbol is not subtle by any means. It is a clear marker. The Romans (and for that matter, the Jews at the time) had an interest in producing Jesus' body. If it was right under their noses in a glitzy tomb, isn't there a chance that someone would have figured that out? Second, he implies that it must be some sort of family or religious symbol unique to his followers. He finds it on another ossuary at a Christian monastery in Jerusalem and gets all giddy over it. As Joe Zias explains yet again, "Throughout the film as well as the marketing circus, one sees prominently on the façade of the tomb, the dot within the triangle, minus the base as if this is some mystical Judeo-Christian symbol. Had they simply taken the time to scan photos in the catalogue of Jewish ossuaries by LY Rahmani, they would have seen that many ossuaries with triangular lids have decorative elements or functional elements serving as handgrips to raise the lid, which resemble the ornament on the tomb façade. Thusly, the façade motif could easily be seen in and of itself to resemble an ossuary lid with the tomb itself serving as an ossuary."
• The filmmakers do not address the question of why a family of Galilleans would be buried Jerusalem, or how a poor family of carpenters could afford both a family tomb and ossuaries. These were expensive at the time and used by those who could afford them.
• Judah son of Jesus. Jacobovici tries to insert Judah into the Gospel of John. As Christ hung on the cross, he looks to Mary and says, "Woman, behold, your son." Jacobovici suggests the he could have been directing this statement to Mary Magdalene, telling her to take care of their child. I looked up the verse as I was watching. This underscores the degree to which these people go to distort the evidence. Here is the actual passage from John 19:25-27:

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

When you read the passage, there is no way you could conclude that Jacobovici's tortured revision is possible. It is clear who he is talking to and what he is saying, but Jacobovici knows that most people aren't anal enough to pull out their Bible and look it up. If he read the passage and included it anyway, then his research is at best reckless and at worst intentionally deceptive.

This is the tenor of the entire film. It excludes evidence that is inconvenient, distorts information that is favorable, and uses dumb little vignettes to demonstrate his theories, even going so far as to show conspiring church officials. This wouldn't be so bad if it was another cable documentary on the Huns or something, but it's not. It's an assault upon the core beliefs of more than a billion people. Some people out there are going to give this more credibility than it deserves. This is not only insulting to Christians, but to archaeology.