Theologians, scholars scoff "Lost Tomb" tale

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BEIJING, March 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Jerusalem archeologists and scholars continued Wednesday to scold filmmaker James Cameron and Emmy Award-winning documentary director Simcha Jacobovici over claims in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" that a 2,000-year-old tomb containing 10 ossuaries belonged to the family of Jesus Christs are bogus, unscientific, heretical gimmicks made with one thought in mind: make a lot of money. The documentary -- due to air on the Discovery Channel on March 4 -- claims inscriptions on six of 10 bone boxes discovered in a single tomb indicate there is a one in 600 chance that bones in the tomb were those of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and a son, along with other family members, a press release said. But the Bible says Jesus was God incarnate. He was crucified, resurrected and ascended into heaven. He wasn't married and never had any natural children. Mary Magdalene was a woman out of whom seven demons were exorcized and became a follower of Jesus. Cameron and Jacobovici presented their findings at a press conference in New York on Monday where they displayed two ossuaries on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) Unlike previous "discoveries," there is no doubt about the authenticity of the ossuaries, IAA spokeswoman Osnat Goaz told Cybercast News Service. What is in question is the interpretation of the facts and conclusions drawn by the documentary filmmakers, she said. The IAA loaned the ossuaries to Cameron and his colleague for their press conference in the interest of "artistic freedom," Goaz said. That does not mean that the IAA backs the film's assertions, she added, although the IAA has chosen not to comment on the film. Discovered in 1980 and excavated by the Israeli government ahead of a building project in the area, the tomb is currently wedged into the Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot and covered by a cement slab. Professor Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar, archeologist and historian at the University of the Holyland, said what was unusual about the tomb is so many of the ossuaries had names inscribed on them. But the names themselves were not unusual at all. Most ossuaries that have been found have no names on them, likely because they contained the skeletons of more than one family member, Pfann explained. He also questioned the actual inscription of the box. It supposedly says "Yeshua ben Yoseph" (Jesus the son of Joseph) but he noted that it was "scratchy" and hard to read. The filmmakers want to "stir up a hornets nest," said Pfann. He doubted the documentary would affect Christians as long as they don't succumb to skepticism, he added. Ken Trestrail is the chaplain at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, one of two traditional sites of the tomb in which Jesus was buried and from which he rose from the dead. Another Christian tradition says he was buried on the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands inside the Old City of Jerusalem. In either case, what the two have in common is that they have empty tombs and no bones. Claiming that Jesus' bones have been found is "a load of nonsense," said Trestrail. "We know that Jesus was raised gloriously from the dead." He noted that according to the biblical account, Jesus was seen by his disciples and more than 500 people at one time, so it could hardly have been a hallucination. As to the claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had had a son, Trestrail described it as "heresy." There is no reason to make up stories about Jesus when the story is recorded clearly in the Bible, he added. "People would always rather believe in the ridiculous than the miraculous."