Did anyone watch 'The Lost Tomb Of Jesus' last night?

Question

Now that the program has been aired, I would like to know what you thought of it. Any opinions?

Answer 1

Besides the obvious agenda of making money, what was the agenda? Was it part of the litigation of the James ossuary? Was he trying to disprove Christianity? Was he trying to discredit the IAA? What? There was obviously an agenda there, but I can't put my finger on what it was.

Answer 2

I watched and thought it was interesting, I also watched the debate after the show and it brought up alot of things that need to be looked at. I don't think that it was conclusive nor did the guy doing the show, he said that it was not conclusive and that he was trying to bring it to the attention of more scientists and professinals. Though I think that in part he was a little biast and wanted it to be true in the film I think that having the debate after the show cleared it up that it wasn't conclusive and only something to look into. I personally don't feel like finding the bones of Jesus will change my heart or mind. However I think that it is possible that the bible was misinterpreted, possibly several times over, that Jesus's whole body acendended into heaven. I also keep in mind how much of the bible is metaphoric and can be interpreted in many ways. To me finding the bones of Jesus would only tell me that one part of the bible is inaccurate... simply someone didn't read it right that only his spirit or maybe a different kind of "body" was being talked about. So many possiblities and I don't think that anyone can EVER prove that his bones have been found 100% or anything else. I am sure that they can find alot of evidence either way but unless they have DNA from Jesus to prove it matches the little bit of DNA in the tomb, then it is pretty much always going to be argued about.

Answer 3

Too many commercials but otherwise a pretty good show. I don't know why so many people discount finding this tomb and that it might be the tomb of Jesus and other family members. I mean a pizza with the face of Mary gets more credibility than a tomb with all of Jesus' family laid out on little boxes. Pretty convincing. I wish the Catholic Church would reveal what they know about Jesus's children, wife and siblings. I

Answer 4

I did watch the program. Let me start by saying that I am NOT a religious person. I do not believe in organized religion, but I am on the fence about what I saw on this program. The names that they found where said to be unusual spellings of popular names, the spellings did coincide with the specific people they where meant to address. My question is... If there is such a thing as the
'Jesus" we have all learned about, by his word there is supposed to be a second coming of the flesh person near the end times... Is this his second coming? It doesnt get anymore flesh and bone than this? I think that if there is anything to this find, the other question is why are we finding it now after 2000 years? Why not in the 1930's? Are we close to the end?

Answer 5

First off, the show was incredibly boring. It seemed to have about 20 minutes worth of material to stretch into two hours.

Interesting how they only found scientists who would accept their conclusions. No skeptics or alternative opinions at all, at least in the parts I saw. It all had a “forced conclusion” feel about it, rather like an Al Gore book. To find people as props to back up your preconceived conclusion is not science.

I knew we were really in trouble when they brought in a statistician to calculate the odds of finding the names together. That’s about when I turned over to The History Channel to watch the program on The Dark Ages. Much more interesting.

Seriously though. It would have been better viewing if they had let the Myth Busters do the program.

Answer 6

Do you've any theory ,what number Jesus Mary & Josephs there became after Jesus Christ rose from the lifeless. one and all that witness the activities on the time approx 2000 yrs in the past wanted to call their offspring those names!!!!!!besides the undeniable fact that, the bones of Jesus isn't stumbled on. He already ascended body & soul into heaven after his resurrection the position is the precise region of the cave-tomb? + What precisely became stumbled on contained in the ossuaries? + How can DNA attempting out ascertain marital spouses? + How will all of us understand the inscriptions are genuine and in no way forgeries? + Who stumbled on the tomb initially and how became it stumbled on? + Is there evidence of human presence in tomb between 30 ad & 1980?

Answer 7

I watched it. It was a slightly entertaining dramatization but it was not good archaeology (biblical or otherwise) because they sought from the beginning to prove that this was the tomb of the biblical Jesus rather than to just examine the evidence scientifically without an agenda.

Newsday is kind enough to call it a theory ... it is an extremely weak hypothesis at best and that's being lenient.

"If 'The Lost Tomb' had been prepared to consider all the evidence - pro and con - then maybe this might be a more compelling theory." - Newsday.com

As for the statistical info that seemed to be the backbone of their argument, from Ben Witherington (Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary):

"The statistical analysis is of course only as good as the numbers that were provided to the statistician. He couldn’t run numbers he did not have. And when you try to run numbers on a combination name such as ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ you decrease the statistical sample dramatically. In fact, in the case of ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ you decrease it to a statistically insignificant number! Furthermore, so far as we can tell, the earliest followers of Jesus never called Jesus ‘son of Joseph’. It was outsiders who mistakenly called him that! Would the family members such as James who remained in Jerusalem really put that name on Jesus’ tomb when they knew otherwise? This is highly improbable."

And if you did watch it ... did you note anywhere that they informed you of the fact that there are several known ossuaries inscribed with the very common name of Jesus? No? Are that there is even another one in existence that is inscribed "Jesus, son of Joseph" that comes from a different tomb? No?

They barely touched on the fact that the practice of using ossuaries ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 72 CE (it only started about 20-10 BCE) but did you learn from them that it is important to authenticate an inscription on an ossuary to guard against fakes? No? Did you see them attempt to authenticate the inscriptions? No?

Did you know that the archaeologist Joe Zias, who cataloged the alleged "missing" ossuary, explained to the film maker the following but was ignored:

Joe Zias [e-mail]: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 6:02 AM

"Amos Kloner is right as I received and catalogued the objects, the 10th was plain and I put it out in the courtyard with all the rest of the plain ossuaries as was the standard procedure when one has little storage space available. Nothing was stolen nor missing and they were fully aware of this fact, just didn't fit in with their agenda." ShalomJoe

From: Joe [e-mail] To: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 4:31 PM

"There was no photo of the 10th ossuary as there was no reason to photograph it, plain white ossuaries, basically once you have seen one you have seen them all. time is money and it would be a waste of time to waste resources on something which was put out in the courtyard. Remember these are large, and heavy not to forget that Kloner has the measurements. They knows this from me personally. The conspiracy idea fits in well with their agenda of hyping the film as well as his/their book."
Joe


Another quote:

"The conclusion is that the name Mariamenon is unique, the diminutive of the very rare Mariamene. Neither is related to the form Maramne, except in the sense that all derive ultimately from the name Mariam. There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuarywith Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion." --- Prof. Richard Bauckham (M.A., Ph.D. Cambridge;F.B.A.; Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor, St Andrews.)

I could go on but you get the point.

Answer 8

I did. I thought that the filmmakers made a compelling argument that brought up many interesting avenues for further study. It wasn't totally convincing by itself, but I think that many of their claims should be investigated more fully. That will be the key to whether this program was successful--if it causes more rational, scientific inquiry in this area. Honestly, I care very little what the conclusions are right now; but I would love to see what happens in a few years, once more DNA and other forensic tests are completed.

Incidentally, for those worried that the discovery of Jesus' body will destroy their faith, I want to make a (albeit opinionated) plea that you develop your belief system beyond such rigid literalism. I'm a Christian, and it wouldn't affect my system of morality, faith, and concern for humanity one bit if we discovered good evidence that Jesus had a family, died, was buried, and decomposed like everyone else. Those who attack evidence because of "faith" end up making the rest of us look like fools when that evidence becomes incontrovertible.

Answer 9

I had already read the book which of course contained a lot more information. I thought it was well done and convincing although as a mathematician I had a few qualms with the way the calculation of the statistics was presented in the show.

Far too many people had their minds already made up on the subject. I see too many people desperate to prove it wrong. Huge financial stakes are involved.

Answer 10

It was interesting and they did a decent job of not claiming they can prove anything, but they jumped the shark a little when they brought in the James Ossuary.

I think the point was that there are more questions to be asked, and they seemed to do a good job making that point.

I didn't find it particularly compelling. Just an interesting idea.

Answer 11

I disagree that their main point was to "raise more questions". They had a clear agenda and a clearly presented conclusion. Their intention was to create controversy in order to make money. The guy said it himself, he is first and foremost a "journalist and a movie producer". He's not a theologian. He's not an archeologist.

Having said all that, I thought the show was immensely interesting. It had me wondering at the possibility toward the end. But then the hour-long critique session after quickly brought me back to my senses. There are way too many "ifs" and quite a few point blank "no ways" for it to be convincing in the end.