Professor critiques film on purported Jesus tomb

10:22 AM CST on Saturday, March 3, 2007

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/arts/stories/DN-relq&abock_03met.ART.East.Edition1.44671e7.html

A remarkable announcement came from a news conference in New York on Monday: A team of archaeologists, theologians and filmmaker James Cameron (Titanic) claimed that they had found evidence that a tomb in Jerusalem might have held the bones of Jesus and his family.
Mr. Cameron produced a documentary laying out the hypothesis; it's slated to premiere Sunday on the Discovery Channel.
The announcement is the latest in a series of pop culture challenges to mainstream Christian teachings. They include the fictional Da Vinci Code, the "lost gospel" of Judas, the "James ossuary" that supposedly held the bones of Jesus' brother, and the tale of the "Jesus Dynasty."
Whether or not the latest claim is true – and many scholars spent the rest of the week challenging that – it's still remarkable. It's also remarkable that most of the scholars critiquing the premise had not seen the documentary.
One exception was Darrell Bock, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and author of The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. He was asked by a public relations agency two weeks ago to review the documentary for the Discovery Channel. He spoke with staff writer Jeffrey Weiss this week about what he thought of it. Here are excerpts:
What did you think when you saw it?
I thought to myself, "You have no idea how many people you've offended or how many problems there are with it."
What kinds of problems?
The show is filled with assumption after assumption, and "perhaps" goes to "is" very quickly.
How did the Discovery Channel react to your critique?
Their attitude has consistently been "let the discussion go forward and the hypothesis play itself out."
You're a conservative Christian scholar who believes the New Testament account of Jesus' resurrection, so your reaction couldn't have surprised network officials. What did you suggest to them?
I told them to be sure that the other side is out there. Set up a Web site where the other side is represented. Make sure both sides get a full airing.
What would you suggest for viewers of the show or readers of the book?
Look at the discussion from both sides. I don't think you'll need rocket science to figure this out.
What should discerning viewers look for?
I compare it to a slide show, with 20 slides. There's a hypothesis on every one, and every one needs to line up the same way for it to work.
What does the hoopla say about American culture?
All of this shows a lot of gullibility. Hopefully, we as a society are more discerning than that. We need to be more realistic about the hard edges of life.
Dr. Bock's full analysis of the documentary can be found at dev.bible.org/bock.