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SAYS SCHOLAR WHOSE WORK WAS USED IN THE UPCOMING JESUS TOMB DOCUMENTARY: "I
THINK IT'S COMPLETELY MISHANDLED. I AM ANGRY."
By Christopher Mims
Scientific American
March 2, 2007

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=says_scholar_whose_work_was_used_in_th
e_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

In researching our special report on the upcoming Jesus Tomb documentary,
fronted by James Cameron (of Titanic fame), I encountered more than a few
angry scholars and archaeologists.

Of special note was Tal Ilan, whose Lexicon of Jewish Names was essential to
the statistical calculation made by Andrey Feuerverger, the U. of Toronto
professor of statistics and mathematics who is quoted in the documentary as
saying that the odds that any family other than that of the historical Jesus
family would have the same names as that family, and be buried in the Tomb
the documentary covers, are 600 to 1. In other words, that number argues,
the odds are slim that this isn't the tomb of Jesus.

You'd be forgiven for finding such claims far-fetched, and with the
exception of the historian, James Tabor, who was consulted for the film, the
professionals in the field appear to find these claims no less incredible.

In an interview I conducted this morning, the scholar Tal Ilan, without
whose work these calculations would have been impossible, expressed outrage
over the film and its use of her work -- she's the source of the quotation
in the headline of this post.

Jodi Magness, a professor of archaeology and Jewish history of that period
at UNC Chapel Hill, had this to say in an interview conducted yesterday:


"Let me tell you what I think. So first of all if you're writing for
Scientific American, so it's important to point out that this debate is
taking place in a most unscientific of manners.

"Archaeology is a scientific and academic discipline and there are proper
fora for these discussions -- if you're a scholar and you have something you
want to present to the larger world, there are proper ways of doing that,
specifically publishing papers in peer reviewed journals or at meetings, so
your colleageus can respond to it.

"If after that you can go ahead and announce that and people can say 'Well
I've responded to this,' then that's fine. But I've been slammed with
[interviews for] this now -- it was announced in the public media.

"I'm reacting to something that has not been published or peer reviewed and
I haven't even seen the film -- the entire way this has been done has been
an injustice to the entire discipline and also to the public.

"I think it's a very important point to make -- that this is almost a
wikipedia form of scholarship. They're presenting it or setting it up as
though we have a discovery and you can react and it's all legitimate and
valid which it's not."


I also spoke to James Tabor, the biblical historian who consulted on the
documentary who has, by his own account, excavated over 500 tombs in
Jerusalem. He was very sure of himself and was quite knowledgeable, even
though some of what he said is obviously still up for debate, judging by how
many of his peers have directly contradicted some of the things he has said
publicly.

In Tabor's defense, I will say that though he is in many respects the nexus
of the debate on this documentary, at least scientifically, the credit (or
blame) probably can't be laid at his feet. This project was put together by
Simcha Jacobovici, a filmmaker and investigative journalism. The reason all
this data was ever synthesized at all is probably largely, or even entirely,
due to his efforts.

When I asked Tabor why this was brought into the public eye in the form of a
documentary and not in peer-reviewed journals, he said this:


"I could publish something on the names and someone else on the stats and
the DNA and over 4 or 5 years you could finally have enough scholarly
articles to see what's going on. I couldn't do that myself, I could do
something on the names and the history, one article, then I would need
someone else to do the statistics article and a DNA report and on and on.

"Now that it's come out, gibson (shimon) and I are going to write a
comprehensive academic article on the question. It's like the dead sea
scrolls and so much came out and over 50 years, and people sorted it out
slowly.

"Another thing I'd say in Simcha's defense, he felt for 10 years this was
important (it surfaced in 96) everyone said it's not important. He felt if
anyone was going to do it, then they should do it, but they were all
dismissing it.

"He's a facilitator -- no one had ever contacted a statistician or a DNA
person. There's a sense in which one reason he did this is that I wasn't
thinking of doing this, and the DNA guy wasn't thinking about it -- it
almost needed a single person to say 'This is what I want to do.' Then it
just began to skyrocket because Cameron came in and it became high profile
and that gave us the budget. If we were just talking about one subject, the
names, then I think it would be correct that we would not say let's have a
documentary on that -- we'd publish first.

"The publicity of its all then was then picked up by Discovery, but that's
their decision -- they've taken a lot of heat for it. I don't want to be
critical of that -- I'm not paid by them in any way. I and about 4 other
people were brought in as consultants -- shimon gibson for archaeolgoy, me
for history etc. Nobody was paid -- they paid our expenses, but no stipends
and we have no stake in the film."


Finally, Carney Matheson, whose titles include everything from mortuary
archaeologist to forensic examiner, conducted the DNA examination the film
cites. Basically, the filmmakers scraped a tiny amount of biological
material out of the ossuary (or bone box) labeled Jesus, and a tiny amount
out of the one that they think belonged to Mary Magdalene. Matheson then
sequenced the mitochondrial DNA in both samples in order to establish that
whoever those two boxes once contained was not related on their mother's
side--in other words, they're not family. It's a negative result that
doesn't say much (and it begs the question - if you were gathering material
for testing, why not test the boxes that you believed belonged to related
people, such as Jesus and his mother, as well?)

Matheson had this to say:


"The only conclusions we made was that these two sets were not maternally
related. To me it sounds like absolutely nothing."


So the experts have weighed in -- but don't expect that to end the spotlight
on this controversy any time soon. Even if scholars conclude the whole thing
is bunk, I have a feeling this will become a permanent part of the our
culture's conspiracy lore, like the JFK conspiracy, the staging of the moon
landing, the Turin Shroud, and all the rest before it.

------------

THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/

SIMCHA'S JOURNEY:
http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/movie_overview/journey.html

FILM CLIPS:

All About Ossuaries
James Brother of Jesus: The Film Behind the Scenes
The Jesus Movement
Ossuary Inscriptions: An Ancient Phone Book
Discovering the Jesus Tomb
Using Probability As Proof for the Jesus Tomb
Was Mariamne Mary Magdalene? Mary ³the Master²

http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/movie_clips.html

------------

THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB:
THE DISCOVERY, THE INVESTIGATION, AND THE EVIDENCE
THAT COULD CHANGE HISTORY
By Simcha Jacobovici (Author), Charles Pellegrino (Author)
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco (February 27, 2007)
Language: English
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #349 in Books

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061192023/newheavenneweart

------------

THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS DISCOVERY CHANNEL WEBSITE:
http://www.discovery.com/tomb/

ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/about/about.html

EXPLORE THE TOMB:
(Includes diagram of tomb, tomb discovery outline, photos of ossuaries and
engravings, a downloadable pdf that describes and illustrates evidence, and
an outline of supporting evidence)
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/explore/explore.html

LAND OF JESUS:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/land/land.html

FILMMAKERS AND EXPERTS:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/bios/bios.html

THEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/theology/theology.html

DISCUSSION FORUM:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/forum/forum.html

------------

PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

UPDATE 11: ABOUT 'THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS' DOCUMENTARY (3/2/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12664

UPDATE 10: TED KOPPEL TO MODERATE JESUS TOMB DISCUSSION (2/28/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12657

UPDATE 9: BUSH NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO ALLEGED JESUS TOMB (2/28/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12653

UPDATE 8: E. TALPIOT RESIDENTS THOUGHTS ON JESUS TOMB (2/28/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12652

UPDATE 7: ISRAEL MAY OPEN 'JESUS TOMB' TO PUBLIC (2/27/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12650

UPDATE 6: THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB (2/27/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12645

UPDATE 5: THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB (2/27/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12644

UPDATE 4: THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB (2/26/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12641

UPDATE 3: THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB (2/26/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12640

UPDATE 2: THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB (2/25/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12639

UPDATE 1: THE JESUS FAMILY TOMB (2/25/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12638

DOCUMENTARY: JAMES CAMERON TO REVEAL CAVE JESUS BURIED IN (2/24/2007):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/12634

------------

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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