Christ 'Coffin' Empty (Review of “Lost Tomb of Jesus”: Al Capone’s vault has met it’s match)

NY Post ^ | February 28, 2007 | Adam Buckman

[dead]

AL Capone's vault has met its match.

I'm no scientist, but after watching a bunch of people who are scientists sift through the dust and bones of a 2000-year-old family burial chamber in Jerusalem, I have to offer this unscientific conclusion: There ain't no way them bones belong to Jesus.

Or, if they are his bones, they don't come anywhere near proving it in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," the Discovery Channel documentary that is supposed to rock Christianity to its very foundations.

Well, I have some good news for Christianity: Your foundations are safe.

Why were they going to be rocked in the first place? Because if the bones turned out to be Jesus', then the long-held Christian belief that he was resurrected bodily from his grave would have to be reconsidered - perhaps limited to a resurrection that was "merely" spiritual in nature.

< snip >

Laboratories from Israel to Ontario were enlisted to analyze genetic material from old bones and train "electron microprobes" on tiny mounds of patina scraped from the sides of the limestone bone boxes (called "ossuaries").

The tests were aimed at determining if the bones belonged to people who were related to each other and whether the ossuaries came out of the same cave. FYI: The results varied.

The whole process began when scholars realized that the names inscribed on these particular ossuaries mirrored those of the known (or suspected) members of Jesus' family.

What are the odds that this group of people with names common to their place and time were the family of Jesus Christ?

Despite the best efforts of a statistician recruited to stand up the show's hypothesis, the odds remain long indeed.

[spotbust1]

I thought He liked Coke :-)

[Gator113]

Dead,

You own me a new keyboard, new monitor and whatever it cost for the trip to ER.

My God that was funny.

[ReignOfError]

I never watch it myself, but I always thought the Discovery Channel was at least moderately serious. Is their other stuff of this -- I hestitate to use the word -- calibre?

I watch a lot of documentary programming, and all the channels -- A&E, Discovery, History, TLC, Court TV, and so on -- can be hit or miss. They all feature a lot of "reality TV" and things like ghost stories, "psychic detectives" and the search for Bigfoot that lead me to change the channel.

Most of their programming is good, entertaining, factual and somewhat informative, but not particularly in-depth or insightful. Most of the Bill Kurtis ouevre falls in that category for me. Maybe 10% is really gripping and educational.

I haven't observed that any one channel is consistently better than the others, except that PBS, which has far fewer hours of documentaries than the networks that carry them 24 hours, has consistently more depth and higher production values. To what degree that's offset by bias or agenda is an argument I'll leave aside for now.

[maryz]

At least I know I'm not missing much -- thanks!

[mbynack]

I believe they're still waiting for the DNA results to come back proving that the tomb was the burial place of Jimmy Hoffa, Judge Crater, and the missing alien from Roswell so they can produce another series of documentaries.

[servantboy777]

The Kerry pic........now that's funny!!!!!!!!

[servantboy777]

DaVinci code
Lost Tomb of Jesus
Gospel of Judas
Gospel of Timothy
Sea of Reeds

and other so called documentary's are just another avenue for the deception of man.

I lent a guy the Passion for he and his wife to view. He appeared to be seeking. This fella kept the movie for like 2 months or more.

One Monday he was talking about how much he liked the DaVinci code movie after handing me the Passion of Christ.

I asked how he like the Passion.....he responded, "Oh, we never really got a chance to watch it."

Garbage in, garbage out! Very sad.