The Jesus Tomb Hoax

Last year, a book with accompanying film entitled "The Jesus Tomb" claimed that the burial box of Jesus -- the same Jesus revered as the risen Savior by millions of Christians -- had been found. Published on this blog were several articles (many of which can be found here) that contained arguments and resources for reasonably concluding that the claims by the authors/filmmakers were . . . well, more than a bit forced. As time has passed, it seems to me that few people, if anyone, still claims that this particular tomb at Talipot was the tomb of the same Jesus, son of Joseph, who is revered in the Bible.

Now, apparently some new filmmakers have decided to follow in the footsteps of the original film and book. They have chosen to re-examine the evidence and in the process interview the very same experts that the original filmmakers used to buttress their rather weak arguments. The result of these new filmmakers' efforts is a new documentary film entitled "The Jesus Tomb Hoax". The trailer for the upcoming film can be seen here.

The trailer seems to suggest that the original filmmakers parsed the words of the experts used in the original film in a way that was not agreeable to those experts. This is a rather serious charge which, if true, would mean that there was not even an attempt to review the evidence honestly and with integrity. While I was personally critical of the original book and film because I think that it erred in many ways, I don't recall claiming that the filmmakers were outright manipulating the evidence to drive an agenda. If this trailer supports what it seems to say about the misuse of the evidence and experts, then absent an apology from Mr. Jacobovici, Mr. Cameron and the others involved in the making of the original film, they have proven themselves to be little more than snake-oil salesmen.

Comments

Jason Pratt said…
Bill,

I do in fact recall quite a bit of testimony coming out at the time, to the effect that the filmmakers had parsed and selectively edited the expert opinions in the film too selectively--they were nailed on live television by this by... was it Dan Rather? (I remember watching the live interview which aired after the first television broadcast of the film, moderated by the former news anchor, whoever he was. But I've slept since then. It wasn't pretty. {g}) The Jerusalem Post nailed them on this, too, mid-April of last year. I'm glad someone is making a definitive check, though, as a documentary.


As a bit of clarification for readers, the link Bill gives to a list of Cadre articles is simply a search for the terms "Jesus tomb"; which includes a few things (like my harmonization entries last year) that have nothing directly to do with the JTomb claims being made by Jacobovichi et al. It's still the easiest way to find most (or all?) of the entries; just don't be confused when you run across non-entries.

Thanks for the news item Bill!

JRP

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