Why are people calling 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus' a fabrication?

Question

No one has even seen the documentary yet. It's on Sunday night on the Discovery Channel. I know I'll be watching with an open mind.

Answer 1

Dear Kim,

Thank you for asking an easy question.

Tombs are for the dead.
Jesus is not dead but risen.
Those of us who know that call "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" a fabrication.

Answer 2

Well, watching with an open mind is a good idea as long as one doesn't watch with an empty mind. Use your common sense. Keep in mind that the purpose of broadcasting is to make money, sell products and only very occasionally promote truth (and those are the deodorant commercials).

Having studied the information on the Tomb of James (the brother of Jesus) which was found a few years ago we will most likely be told the history of these bone boxes ("ossuaries"), during what period they were used, the different styles used by different regions and classes, etc.

Then we will be told that this bone box has names on it. Those names are Jesus, Mary, and some other Jesus linked names.

In the case of the tomb of James it had "James the brother of Jesus" and a whole book was written about this amazing find. After the book was written it turned out that the finder of the box was arrested for falsifying antiquities and this also had been falsified (the patina on the "brother of Jesus" had been baked on much later. It looked real but the microscopic particles came from a completely different part of Israel than the patina on "James".

Is the tomb of Jesus also a fake? I would say the fake of the James ossuary certainly shows it is possible, but even if it actually is the ossuary of persons named Jesus, Mary, etc. we need to have some way of determining if these are the "right" ones. Since Jesus, Mary, Joseph, etc. were common names at the time the set of names are of little help. Is there something else we can use?

Well there is a whole bunch of writings from that time, in particular non-Christian writers which confirm the biblical account. So the chance that these names randomly fell into the same ossuary has to be combined with the chance that this is not a fake (either recent or ancient like all those pieces of the "true cross") with the chance that the contemporary writings of non-Christians are fake.

Since I do math for a living I can assure you that the odds they present will only reflect one of the many uncertainties related to this find and when all the other factors are considered the "one in a hundred" odds will fall to fifty-fifty or less.

When we find a reliquary that says it holds a piece of the "true cross" we hold that as very unlikely. When we find an ossuary with "Jesus, Mary, etc." I think it deserves the same treatment.

Answer 3

Essentially they are calling it a fabrication without seeing the documentary because they hate to have their faith challenged.

The media has since done an incredible job trying to debunk and discredit this find as much as possible (Fox News especially) by only showing the counterarguments and the few scholars who come out about it. And these scholars all miss the few points we do know.

It's very easy to point back to the original discoverers, and the poorly researched BBC documentary 11 years ago and think it's a re-hash of the same stuff. These people are either foolishly missing or willfully ignoring the fact that they are proposing NEW arguments and NEW evidence. Nobody will doubt that previous attempts to show this as Christ's tomb have been soundly defeated, but this argument hasn't even been seen yet. It's absolutely moronic to assume it will be a retread of old ground while ignoring the little teaser information which is new.

Many of the names were common, but not in the combinations seen in the tomb... Say Todd is a common name today, but how common would "Todd son of Richard" be? at least a thousand times less common. Then you factor in a mother named Mary and the odds drop far less. Including the other names makes it even less common.

The study (which is soon to appear in a famous statistician journal - so any claims the stats are bunk are preemptive and based on nothing) takes into account how many people there were during that time period with each name (based on census, other tombs, historical records/accounts, allowing for another 1000 more people of each name just in case, etc.) According to the math, the odds of this being the right tomb based on the names is 99.84%...

To make things more interesting, the name for Mary Magdalene which appears on the tomb (Mariamene e Mara) is extremely rare. While it known to be Magdalene's name, this tomb is the first recorded appearance of it before 185 AD. That shoots the probability to a completely new level.

In any case, people are just being stupid and trying to find anything they can to assuage their faith, it's a remarkable form of self delusion but they apparently need to try and defeat or weaken an argument that hasn't even been forwarded yet. I don't think particularly think this could be Christ's tomb, but I have enough logical sense to wait and see what they have to say before I make conclusions.

EDIT: Oh and look at the repeated comments about wanting money, or trying to undermine christianity. These are logical fallacies (specifically the "ad hominem" or "personal attack" fallacy). Obviously such people should never be taken seriously.

Answer 4

Yea I'll most likely watch it but I definitely don’t believe it. I am a strong atheist and oh how wonderful it would be to find such proof. But we should not be so gullible to assume any historical supposed evidence is fact. It is fair though I guess since almost all Christians that do some documentary about historical things never ask anyone that isn’t a strong Christian. Don’t expect anyone to take it seriously though 50 percent of the US doesn’t believe in evolution and that the earth is less then ten thousand years old. This seems like it is mostly propaganda by weak minded atheists. We already have enough scientific evidence to assume god is not real and that the earth was made in the big bang. We already have a huge edge on them why ruin it by talking about useless **** like this?
It made me laugh watching the news though because they jump on how there is no scientific evidence for this to be true. But never ask the question well is there any evidence that god is real? And they continually insult the Davinci Code saying it was all lies. When some of it had a lot of historical accuracy and a lot of people assume is a lie now. Such as the divinity of Christ being decided by the church which is a fact. Of course the Davinci stuff was fiction but it pisses me off that they just throw away the entire movie as fiction.


This is a huge dissapointment to me and other atheists in the scientific realm.

Answer 5

It is fine to watch anything with an open mind but then really be opened minded about it. I think people jumped all over this because Cameron is presenting it as fact and not speaking of the things that may make it wrong here are two big problems he never addresses

1) He claims to have DNA evidence that this is Jesus: Where did he get the DNA to compare it with. If I say I have DNA evidence that you were in a room, I need your DNA, or the DNA of a relative to prove that. No one has ever officially been declared a direct descendant of Jesus so where did he get the DNA?

2) Joshua and Miriam (Jesus and Mary) the names on the tomb were to of the most common names in first century Palestine. Saying you found a tomb with those names and therefore saying that they are Jesus and Mary Magdalen is about the same as saying you found a Tomb that said Jonathan and Martha so there fore they must be Clark Kent's parents. Or Ben and Jennifer or John and Mary, the names are just too common, Unless it said Joshua the one who was crucified for claiming to be King of the Jews, it is too vague

There are other problems as well. But Cameron is trying for ratings not facts

Answer 6

Can you say Ebay?

Wow, if this tomb gets into the wrong hands, imagine what people would pay for it.

P.S. I am not taking the scientists' claims seriously because I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, period.

If you are not Christian, then by all means keep an open mind, but for all Christians the death and Resurrection of Christ is not a matter open to discussion or interpretation.

Answer 7

No genuine scientific evidence to support it...this is not new news... just rehash... The facts have been well debated and disproved... the makers of the so-called documentary are just going on with it for the money and notoriety... The Discovery Channel and the National Geographic channel both run this kind of garbage all the time... they are both notoriously anti Christian organizations and will use any thing they can to cast doubt on Christian belief

Answer 8

Something sinister is really at work here. First, they were harping Jesus spent his remaining life in Kashmir and eventually died at the age of 120. In fact, he was buried observing Jewish tradition. Now, another documentary suggesting Jesus did not resurrect and died in the Jewish state? I am not baptized as Christian. But here I beginning to cast suspicion on so called documentary shows. I just hope someone would be generous to post this documentary in YouTube so I could also watch it. I don't have Discovery since my cable broke off.

Answer 9

well, though it's unlikely that anyone will stumble upon the actual bones of Jesus, i suppose it's possible. DNA scraping can't prove if the bones are Jesus' bones since there's no known Jesus DNA material with which to make comparisons so can only prove that the occupants of the tomb are genetically related or not. and if the names Jesus, Mary ET AL were so common how do Bible believers know that every mention of Jesus in the NT refers to the same guy?

and i find it amusing that Bible believers claim that Cameron's only motivation for this documentary is to make money (they can magically see into his heart, i guess). even if that's true is there a rule that only TV Evangelists and other Christian hucksters are allow to make money from the Jesus story?

Answer 10

Because it is a fabrication. Read what an atheist archaeologist says:

"I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer. I don't have a dog in this fight," said William G. Dever, who has been excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years and is widely considered the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars. "I just think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated. ... I've known about these ossuaries for many years and so have many other archaeologists, and none of us thought it was much of a story, because these are rather common Jewish names from that period," he said. "It's a publicity stunt, and it will make these guys very rich, and it will upset millions of innocent people because they don't know enough to separate fact from fiction."