While some sources are referring to "The Lost Tomb
of Jesus" as the work of director James Cameron, it is actually the work a
man named Simcha Jacobovici.
Cameron co-produced the piece and as he has a more well-known name, the
news knows it will draw in more readers.
However, when I first found out about the program that
aired this past Sunday, it was not the first time I had heard of Mr.
Jacobovici. Just this past August, I had
heard him on a Catholic radio station promoting another documentary he made called
"The Exodus Decoded." The program was being promoted on the show
because it held a favorable position toward the Exodus, mainly that it is
plausable that it occurred and that, according to Jacobovici, there was
evidence of it.
I watched the program and enjoyed it. And while it was criticized by scholars, a
lot of us who watched it went away pretty convinced that Jacobovici’s
hypothesis was compelling enough for us to take seriously. Then
this past Monday came and Jacobovici informed the press of his new discovery. He and his crew had found what he touted to
be the lost tomb of Jesus. If it were,
it defied the belief in Jesus’ physical ascension into Heaven, as it contained
an ossuary (or bone box) labeled "Jesus son of Joseph."
And, as I had placed
some faith in his authority in his previous program, I was torn. I was caught up in reanalyzing how I had gone
into watching the previous program and how I was going into this one. As non believers on the Discovery Channel’s
forum touted that Christians were ready to embrace anything that affirmed their
beliefs and bury their heads in the sand at the things that opposed them, I
felt a certain element of truth.
Granted, I also found myself aware of the same thing occuring among the
non-believers. I had known that the most
critical audience of "The Exodus Decoded" had been the non-believers,
and now even before the show had aired, the forum was filled with non believers
spouting about how science had proven Christians wrong.
Watching the program
on Sunday didn’t shake my faith. But it
did overwhelm me.