I’m sure most of you have heard about the special the Discovery Channel will have on a tomb found that could be the tomb of Jesus and his family. Ben Witherington has a series of posts on why this probably isn’t the tomb of Jesus and his family. He starts his critique of the special with this:
First of all, I have worked with Simcha [Jacobovici, one of the producers]. He is a practicing Jew, indeed he is an orthodox Jew so far as I can tell. He was the producer of the Discovery Channel special on the James ossuary which I was involved with. He is a good film maker, and he knows a good sensational story when he sees one. This is such a story. Unfortunately it is a story full of holes, conjectures, and problems. It will make good TV and involves a bad critical reading of history. Basically this is old news with a new interpretation. We have known about this tomb since it was discovered in 1980. There are all sorts of reasons to see this as much ado about nothing much.
Ben goes on to list those reasons in The Jesus Tomb? “Titanic” Talpoit Tomb Theory Sunk from the Start.
He has also posted two other posts as more evidence has come to him: Problems Multiply for Jesus Tomb Theory and The Smoking Gun—Tenth Talpoit Ossuary Proved to Be Blank.
The picture is from The Discovery Channel.
Very true but Ben was also the first to admit he was wrong and had been duped. He wasn’t the only NT scholar pulling his foot out of mouth. He does protest too much, but there is also a lot of good information in the posts as well.
In 2002 Ben Witherington said this about his phony James Ossuary:
“This is probably going to be the biggest New Testament find in my lifetime, as big as the Dead Sea scrolls.â€
In 2007, James Cameron said this about HIS phony ossuaries:
“This is the biggest archeological story of the century. It’s absolutely not a publicity stunt.â€
It’s true that a prophet has no honor in his own country. The press in Witherington’s native Kentucky have delicately raised the issue of the pot calling the kettle black, I mean, the pot calling the ossuary cracked in Witherington’s overheated (the gentleman protests too much) protestations against the latest “biggest New Testament find†in his lifetime.
See: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/nation/16791591.htm