The Jesus Tomb and the "drive-by media"?
A certain radio talk show host likes to refer to the "drive-by" media - which takes a story that discredits someone or something, usually along a more traditional bent, and reports it as "undisputable fact". Then, when the original report is discredited, they give 1/100th (or less) coverage of the correction than they did the original slanderous/libelous story.
The 'documentary' about the finding of Jesus' tomb, which got LOTS of media coverage as Lent began, is now being discredited by those very people who were quoted (or misquoted) in the film.
Below is an article concerning the correction, as covered in The Jerusalem Post - which has no particular desire to hold up Christianity as true, but seeks the truth when historical archeology in the region is concerned.
Now if we could get some reasonable scientific media coverage on "global warming" (is it snowing AGAIN tonight???)
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Several prominent scholars who were interviewed in a bitterly contested documentary that suggests that Jesus and his family members were buried in a nondescript ancient 
Jerusalem burial cave have now revised their conclusions, including the statistician who claimed that the odds were 600:1 in favor of the tomb being the family burial cave of Jesus of Nazareth, a new study on the fallout from the popular documentary shows.
The dramatic clarifications, compiled by epigrapher Stephen Pfann of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem in a paper titled "Cracks in the Foundation: How the Lost Tomb of Jesus story is losing its scholarly support," come two months after the screening of The Lost Tomb of Christ that attracted widespread public interest, despite the concomitant scholarly ridicule.
The film, made by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and Emmy-winning Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, prompted major criticism from both a leading Israeli archeologist involved in the original dig at the site as well as Christian leaders, who were angered over the documentary's contradictions of main tenets of Christianity.
But now, even some of the scholars who were interviewed for and appeared in the film are questioning some of its basic claims.
The most startling change of opinion featured in the 16-page paper is that of University of Toronto statistician Professor Andrey Feuerverger, who stated those 600 to one odds in the film. Feuerverger now says that these referred to the probability of a cluster of such names appearing together.
The dramatic clarifications, compiled by epigrapher Stephen Pfann of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem in a paper titled "Cracks in the Foundation: How the Lost Tomb of Jesus story is losing its scholarly support," come two months after the screening of The Lost Tomb of Christ that attracted widespread public interest, despite the concomitant scholarly ridicule.
The film, made by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and Emmy-winning Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, prompted major criticism from both a leading Israeli archeologist involved in the original dig at the site as well as Christian leaders, who were angered over the documentary's contradictions of main tenets of Christianity.
But now, even some of the scholars who were interviewed for and appeared in the film are questioning some of its basic claims.
The most startling change of opinion featured in the 16-page paper is that of University of Toronto statistician Professor Andrey Feuerverger, who stated those 600 to one odds in the film. Feuerverger now says that these referred to the probability of a cluster of such names appearing together.
For the rest of the article go to
posted by StJohnsPriest | 11:26 PM
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