Tomb Raiders
By this time most of you have probably heard about the international kafuffle around "the family tomb of Jesus." It's interesting that the overall reaction to the documentary has been a collective rolling of the eyes from both the scholarly and Christian communties. Although it's been more hype than anything else, the major news outlets have already seemed to have dropped it two days after the story originally broke. This isn't a good thing for the networks who plan to carry the documentary in a few weeks. The hype has come and gone. On a quick look around the internet, any links to the story have been quietly dropped from all the major news servers... the only ones that are still up are from the original story when it broke on Monday morning. I've seen flash-bulbs that have lasted longer than this did.
What I found interesting was the near universality amongst voices from the Church (expected), and scholars (not-so-expected) in casually dismissing the claims that the upcoming documentary makes. It's based on speculation and probability around names, but ignores dating, as well as the political realities of the day that would make such a link unlikely. I think the most telling part was the documentary apparently makes a direct link to the James Ossuary which got a lot more attention a few years ago. The trouble is, it's since been proven to be a fraud.
Yet things like this do attract our attention. They get mileage from news media because the general public is increasingly un-aware of the Christian story. There is a collective lack of understanding of religious history, both in the public sphere, but also within churches themselves. I remember once speaking to a baptist who firmly believed that their tradition was founded by John the Baptist. At the time, I didn't know any better, but it sounded a bit odd to me.
Maybe we need to a bit more digging ourselves...
Edit: Well. not quite off the radar... Seems it's being denounced further as a publicity stunt. Here's the link to the Washington Post Article.
What I found interesting was the near universality amongst voices from the Church (expected), and scholars (not-so-expected) in casually dismissing the claims that the upcoming documentary makes. It's based on speculation and probability around names, but ignores dating, as well as the political realities of the day that would make such a link unlikely. I think the most telling part was the documentary apparently makes a direct link to the James Ossuary which got a lot more attention a few years ago. The trouble is, it's since been proven to be a fraud.
Yet things like this do attract our attention. They get mileage from news media because the general public is increasingly un-aware of the Christian story. There is a collective lack of understanding of religious history, both in the public sphere, but also within churches themselves. I remember once speaking to a baptist who firmly believed that their tradition was founded by John the Baptist. At the time, I didn't know any better, but it sounded a bit odd to me.
Maybe we need to a bit more digging ourselves...
Edit: Well. not quite off the radar... Seems it's being denounced further as a publicity stunt. Here's the link to the Washington Post Article.
posted by John Crowdis at 8:48 a.m.
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