News Release #410

Scholars Say Discovery Channel’s ‘Documentary’ Makes for Good TV, Bad History and Bad Science

James Cameron, director of the movie, Titanic, and TV-director, Simcha Jacobovici, are contending in what they are calling a TV 'documentary' that two ossuaries, stone boxes that once held human bones, held not just anyone's bones, but the bones of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The documentary presents as fact that a tomb discovered in 1980 held the bones of Jesus, his possible wife, Mary Magdalene, their son Judah, and his mother, Mary. Fiction and the use of the imagination are once again at their pinnacle in this claim. What we see is perhaps good fiction TV but definitely a bad critical reading of history and bad science.

Once again, the entertainment industry attempts to capitalize on the public's vivid imagination and gain publicity and profit for a film project. The Discovery Channel will air this fraudulent claim called The Lost Tomb of Jesus , on Sunday, March 4 at 9:00 p.m.

The claims that the two ossuaries, which have inscribed on them the names "Jesus son of Joseph" and "Mariamene e Mara,” indicate that the tomb was the family tomb of Jesus. The authors of the film are saying that this would contradict the New Testament and challenge the belief in the resurrection and that Jesus rose from the dead.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) condemned the claim as a modern forgery in June of 2003. Harvard's Frank Cross and Tel Aviv University professor Edward Greenstein concurred with their decision. Joe Zias, an archeologist from the Rockefeller University in Jerusalem has said that "Simcha has no credibility whatsoever."

New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Ben Witherington, and author of What Have They Done With Jesus? has pointed out why the "Jesus Tomb" claim is bogus. He said:

1.   There is no DNA evidence that this is the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

2.   The statistical analysis is untrustworthy.

3.   The name "Jesus" was a popular name in the first century and appeared on 98 other tombs and on 21 other

ossuaries that have been found.

4.   There is no historical evidence that Jesus was ever married or had a child.

5.   The earliest followers of Jesus never called him "Jesus, son of Joseph.”

6.   The name Mary was one of the most common of all ancient Jewish female names and therefore, the two

ossuaries with the name Mary on them cannot be used to determine the identity of whose bones they

contained.

Shimon Gibson, of the Albright Institute in Jerusalem , one of the three archeologists who first explored the tomb, was also skeptical. All the names on the tomb were of the top ten names used in that era.