Dr. Lowery Quoted in Local Newspaper
You may have caught the Discovery Channel’s airing of James Cameron’s, ahem, documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus at the beginning of March.
Or not.
At any rate, Sheila Smith of the Decatur Herald and Review contacted Dr. Bob for his thoughts on the subject. The story, entitled “Dry Bones: Christians find no body of evidence to support ‘The Lost Tomb of Christ’,” appeared in the Saturday, March 31, 2007 edition. Here’s an excerpt:
Many theology students have asked questions about this documentary and the purported discovery of Jesus’ bones, said Bob Lowery, dean of Lincoln Christian Seminary and a professor of the New Testament.
“I think it’s ironic and a humorous documentary led by James Cameron, director of the movie “Titanic.’ The documentary is like the Titanic, with holes in it,” Lowery said.
He said uncovering Jesus’ bones is a flawed theory based on scriptural and nonscriptural evidence.
One reason, he said, is that this discovery is old news with a new interpretation. “We knew about this discovery back in 1980,” he said.
“There is not proof that the bones found were related to the biblical Jesus.”
Thirdly, the DNA testing mentioned in the documentary is not realistic, Lowery said. “There is no independent DNA control sample to compare to Jesus.”
The fourth problem, he said, was: “Joseph’s ancestral home was in Bethlehem and his adult home was in Nazareth. Why would Joseph be buried in Jerusalem? One of the ossuaries had the name on it, Judah, son of Jesus. Where is the evidence that Jesus fathered a son?”
Get the full article at the link above.
NOTE: The DH&R story will likely disappear behind a paywall within a short time of this posting. What’s a “short time?” Maybe a week or two, maybe a month or two–I’m not sure. As in all things eschatological, however, the end is imminent. Click now before it’s too late.
ANOTHER NOTE: If the link doesn’t return the article, do a search at the DH&R site for “Lowery.”
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The documentary was enjoyable to watch, holes and all. Two things struck me:
First, the statistical probability of a Jewish family having all the names – 1:30000 (I believe that was the number given). In a town of 100,000 there would be three families with all those names. That is an interesting statitic on how common the names were. Unfortunately, the figure supports those who claim common names rather than James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici’s position.
Second, the IAA has a problem if Jacobovici is correct in identifying the James Ossuary as the missing ossuary from the 1980 dig. This would potentially lend credibility to Obed Golan picking it up on the market in the early 80′s, and be a black eye for the Israel Antiquities Authority since they are the ones who misplaced it (10 ossuaries in the tomb but only 9 delivered to the IAA warehouse).
The positive note is that people are now talking about Jesus and Christians do have an opportunity to correct the misconceptions, and they have two hooks to capture people’s attention (The Tomb of Jesus and The Davinci Code).
Good points, Tom. By the way, in the interview with Sheila Smith, I raised the issue about statistics and the names (In fact I shared with her the issue of statistics and the DNA issue were two of the greatest challenges to Cameron, et al, but for whatever reason–probably length of the article–she cut the information out about the names.) It has been established by numerous scholars that the names of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph were among the most popular names given in the first century. This surprises many people, since they believe that “Jesus” surely was a “special” name! Thanks for the insights.
With regard to the good news that people are talking about Jesus, right on! I put this right up there with the fradulent “Left Behind” series. At least even those books are getting non-Christians talking about Christ.