Jesus Tomb backtracking continues
The Jerusalem Post put up a story last week, April 11th, concerning various pro-J-Tomb advocates racheting back a bit on their claims, under pressure from critics on every side of the aisle.
This is somewhat different than cases where a scholar was interviewed for the film and then later revealed that they were taken out of context. This is more like statistician Professor Andrey Feuerverger trying to come up with a more realistic way of keeping that 600:1 odds number (and commissioning alterations to a J-Tomb page on the Discovery Channel website); or DNA scientist Dr. Carney Matheson revising his original statement that "these two individuals [i.e. Jesus bar Joseph and Mary / Mara], if they were unrelated, would most likely be husband and wife."
In addition, Professor Francois Bovon--quoted in the film as saying the enigmatic ossuary inscription "Mariamne" is the same woman known as Mary Magdalene--has now issued a disclaimer. I'm not _entirely_ sure this counts as an actual retraction, instead of clarification of convenient miscontext by the filmmakers; but there's some of that, too, from Harvard university professor Frank Moore Cross.
(I'm being vague about the results because it's the Jerusalem Post's story and I don't want to scoop them on it. Details can be found here. Though I think the details aren't going to be all that surprising to anyone who has been keeping up with the crits. {wry g})
Hat tip to s8int.com for the info!
This is somewhat different than cases where a scholar was interviewed for the film and then later revealed that they were taken out of context. This is more like statistician Professor Andrey Feuerverger trying to come up with a more realistic way of keeping that 600:1 odds number (and commissioning alterations to a J-Tomb page on the Discovery Channel website); or DNA scientist Dr. Carney Matheson revising his original statement that "these two individuals [i.e. Jesus bar Joseph and Mary / Mara], if they were unrelated, would most likely be husband and wife."
In addition, Professor Francois Bovon--quoted in the film as saying the enigmatic ossuary inscription "Mariamne" is the same woman known as Mary Magdalene--has now issued a disclaimer. I'm not _entirely_ sure this counts as an actual retraction, instead of clarification of convenient miscontext by the filmmakers; but there's some of that, too, from Harvard university professor Frank Moore Cross.
(I'm being vague about the results because it's the Jerusalem Post's story and I don't want to scoop them on it. Details can be found here. Though I think the details aren't going to be all that surprising to anyone who has been keeping up with the crits. {wry g})
Hat tip to s8int.com for the info!
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