The blogosphere and mainstream media have been abuzz this week with James Cameron's 90-minute documentary on the discovery of Jesus' bones, to air this Sunday on the Discovery Channel.
The documentary, launched alongside the book "The Jesus Family Tomb," co-authored by Simcha Jacobvici, claims not speculation, but scientific fact that they have found the burial site for Jesus and his family, using DNA testing as evidence.
Sounds fantastic and totally true! Except, a little more research shows that the testing of the DNA of "Jesus" and his supposed wife "Mary" could only find that the two weren't related.
So, what we have here is a box o' bones labeled Jesus and a box o' bones labeled Mary, found in Jerusalem from a time period when Mary and Jesua (Jesus) were some of the most common names, and who are not related. This has Jesus Christ and the demise of Christianity written all over it.
Perhaps press credentials and journalistic barriers need to be implemented in other places besides the blogosphere. Like, I don't know, the mostly widely distributed cable network.
Derick Vollrath @ Sat, 03/03/2007 - 1:36pm
Yeah, I agree. This buzz is largely bogus and designed to win press for James Cameron's movie and the book. It's very unfortunate. CBS has a decent article about it here.
The most important part:
Unfortunately, like Dylan Avery and the movement for "9/11 Truth" this likely isn't something that will go away even though it's patently false.