the tomb  

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

By now you've probably heard of or read reviews for or seen for yourself the controversial show The Lost Tomb of Jesus. It took me longer than usual to watch it because I couldn't stomach more than a little per night, but I finally finished the recording last night.



Going into it I didn't have much of an expectation that it would offer any kind of unbiased opinion. I'd read other people's comments on it, but more importantly I'd seen Simcha Jacobovici's shoddy work on The Naked Archaeologist on History International. He isn't an archaeologist. He's a journalist, and not a very good one at that. In his show he determines what he wants the outcome to be and drives towards that by cherry-picking the theories and scientific proof that he wants to believe. If the proof gets in the way of his intended target, he simply ignores it.

I'm not offended by the subject of his new tv special, but I am offended by his method of presenting information. He does it under a veil of science and scholarship, which he doesn't know the least bit about. He even admits as much in an interview.

"We're not scientists. At the end of the day we can't wait till every ossuary is tested for DNA," he said. "We took the story that far. At some point you have to say, 'I've done my job as a journalist.'" -- The Loom

It certainly doesn't speak well for History International or The Discovery Channel that they've carried his drivel.

For more in-depth blow-by-blow about The Tomb in particular check here.

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