Lost Tomb of Jesus

[johnhuey]

Well, last night, here in the US and maybe Canada, the Discovery channel aired the film "Lost Tomb of Jesus" and then afterward they had a panel discussion with the flimmakers and with some critical experts in the field. I was extremely disappointed in the critical experts because they would state that the ideas presented in the film were not tenable but would never give a good reason why. The one good reason that I would put forward for discounting the film, is that the initial archaeological survery of the tomb was rushed and incomplete (they only had the weekend to work because an apartment building was going to be constructed on the site). It seems to me that without a good forensic examination of the bones no real definitive conclusions can be drawn.

The filmmakers, of course, have a very dramatic and controversial theory to account for the inscriptions on the ossuaries but I was able to think of, at least, one other theory that would fit the evidence presented. I'm sure that people that are versed in the history of the time would be able to come up with other theories as well. But, sadly, alternate theories were not presented or tested in the movie.

I would be interested in hearing some real archaeological criticism of the show.

[Buffy]

I missed the show itself and saw only a few minutes of the discussion. But what disturbed me in the pre-show interviews as well as the snippet of the discussion is that the proponents keep saying something along the lines of "the dna will show we are correct" which sounds absolutely silly to me: unless you have a verified sample of Jesus' DNA, you have nothing to compare what's in the bones to, so you're not going to prove anything. It sounds like both sides were equally worthless in their analysis. Too bad somebody with such credibility as Ted Koppel got wrapped up in this one.

Anyone remember Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's Vault? This one sounds almost as big of a bust, but at least they have some mysterious ossuaries with ancient Israel's equivalent of John and Jane Doe written on them.

Stay tuned: the mystery revealed, right after a word from our sponsor,
Buffy

[johnhuey]

Originally Posted by Buffy

I missed the show itself and saw only a few minutes of the discussion. But what disturbed me in the pre-show interviews as well as the snippet of the discussion is that the proponents keep saying something along the lines of "the dna will show we are correct" which sounds absolutely silly to me: unless you have a verified sample of Jesus' DNA, you have nothing to compare what's in the bones to, so you're not going to prove anything. It sounds like both sides were equally worthless in their analysis. Too bad somebody with such credibility as Ted Koppel got wrapped up in this one.

Anyone remember Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's Vault? This one sounds almost as big of a bust, but at least they have some mysterious ossuaries with ancient Israel's equivalent of John and Jane Doe written on them.

Stay tuned: the mystery revealed, right after a word from our sponsor,
Buffy

Well, to be fair to the filmmakers, the conclusion of the movie was much more compelling than Al Capone's Vault.

Besides the DNA evidence presented said that the person in the Jesus ossuary did not share the mitocondrial DNA with the (possible) Mary Magnalene ossuary. This means that they were not related on the mothers side (ie not siblings). The proponets then made what I consider an unwarranted leap and proposed that they were married. The presence of an ossuary containing a childs bones and marked 'Judah son of Jesus' was supposedly the key to the marriage conjecture.

However, the whole premise of the film is based on the assumption that the inscriptions on the ossuaries are real. The possiblity that I came up with is that the inscriptions were a hoax perpertrated by some early anti-christian segment, perhaps the priests in the Temple prior to the Rebellion. It would be a convincing argument for the Jewish priest to say, 'All this resurrection stuff is just silly, if you want proof go look in the Jesus Family tomb, it's right over there. You can see his bones.'

There is also the possibility that the inscriptions are a modern hoax (things like that have happened). The so called James ossuary inscription is very likely a hoax.

Again, the real shame in all of this is that the bones were not studied. The forensics on the bones would have easily disproved or strongly confirmed the conjecture.

[Tormod]

I didn't get to see the docu yet, but how were those DNA samples collected? I thought DNA decayed pretty quickly.

[johnhuey]

Originally Posted by Tormod

I didn't get to see the docu yet, but how were those DNA samples collected? I thought DNA decayed pretty quickly.

At the bottom of two of the ossuaries were deposits of material that looked to be organic residue. The samples were scraped and put in plastic containers and ship to a place (in Canada, if memory serves) that specilizes in extracting ancient DNA. They first tried to extract nuclear DNA but failed. However, they were able to extract some pretty degraded mitochondrial DNA from each of the ossuaries. They used PCR to make enough copies of the DNA to produce a sample that was large enough for comparison. While the DNA strands were rather small, there was enough to do a comparison between between the samples to see if they were closely related on the mothers side. The probability that they were not so related was very high.

Since they were not so related, then the DNA does not rule out that they were married. It, of course, dosen't say they were married or that they were not related on the fathers side.

[eric l]

Well, they could compare the DNA from that tomb with DNA from one of the several heads of Saint John the Baptist. He was after all a close relative (according to the Gospels) and I've heard there are at least six of those heads recognized as genuine relics !

[maikeru]

Scholar suggests that one of the inscriptions was misread:

LiveScience.com - Scholar: 'Jesus Tomb' Makers Mistaken

[clapstyx]

An apartment building huh..seems even Jesus couldnt stop progress

[hootenanny]

Has anyone seen the director's cut of Lost Tomb tha just came out on DVD? The bonus footage includes some interesting extra expert interviews that weren't included in the discovery channel version. Worth checking out.