NEW YORK, USA - A panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel, former anchor of ABC's Nightline, was held late Sunday night to discuss the implications of the new controversial documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which reported the supposed discovery of Jesus' bones and his family's tomb, including alleged wife Mary Magdalene and son Judah.
The debate, which was named The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look and aired directly after the documentary on the Discovery Channel, addressed the implications the film has on Christian faith and spoke about possible weak points in director Simcha Jacobovici's argument."Simcha has done his job now," explained Koppel. "He's brought everyone in the tent [to speak]."
The show was split into two segments: the first dealing with possible errors that could be found in the film, the second talking about the theological ramifications that could come about.
As a first question, Koppel asked about the DNA testing that Jacobovici ran and why he did not push it as far as it could go. The evidence that the filmmaker provided could only make small claims to whether Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.
Jacobovici, a Jewish archaeologist and filmmaker, noted that they could only obtain sufficient DNA from two of their ossuaries, boxes that hold remains of the dead. The rest were vacuum cleaned.
"I followed the DNA as far as I could," explained the archaeologist. "I'm not a university. I'm a filmmaker .... Now let the critics weigh in."
Following this, two of the present Christian panelists expressed that they thought his research was poor, and how it puts archaeology in a bad light.
"It's like a romantic game and treasure hunt," noted Jonathan Reed, professor of religion at the University of La Verne and author of Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. He added that it seemed that the conclusions of the film were already drawn in the beginning.
"I call it 'archaeoporn,'" stated William Dever, an archaeologist with 40 years experience of digs in the Middle East. "It's exciting, but in the end, it's wrong. It isn't a long lasting relationship."
The program then when on to talk about the impact that media has on viewers.
"Visual imagery carries a certain power that the spoken word does not. You have made recreations in which you show Jesus and Mary Magdalene," said the moderator. "You don't say that it happened but by depicting it, you lend a power to that theory that it wouldn't otherwise have."
