"Lost Tomb" Credibility Evaporates

Well, I've previously said that James Cameron's "Lost Tomb of Jesus" (which recently debuted on The Discovery Channel) was a flawed and possibly fraudulent piece of sensationalism — at the very best, it was a showcase of bad science.

And, today...

"Lost Tomb" losing credibility

Many observers were left exasperated with the preposterous "statistical" evidence offered by Cameron's "Lost Tomb of Jesus"... And, as it turns out, the "scientists" who provided those stats are now backing down and revising their stories.

Too bad their sense of scientific exactitude wasn't more fully developed in the weeks and months before the program was rushed to the public.

— Doc Velocity

I'm not christain but this prophecy appears to be coming true:

Matt 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many .

I thought the documentary, although quite biased, was well done.

Whether it is or isn't the Tomb of Jesus, is left up to the viewer.

Personally, I think it 'could' be the lost tomb of Jesus. Even though 'some' of the experts who appeared on the show are now changing some of their statistical offerings.

There are an awful lot of coincedences to rule out the possibility. IMO

From OP source:

Reading the link it says that the conclusion of the statistical analysis has been changed from a '600:1 in favor of this being the tomb of Jesus and family' to '600:1 chance of finding this cluster of names in on spot by random chance.' And even the new wording is suspect ie, "ubiquity of Biblical names in that period in Jerusalem."

The DNA conclusions have been changed from, "these two individuals, if they were unrelated, would most likely be husband and wife," to " the only conclusions we made were that these two sets were not maternally related. To me, it sounds like absolutely nothing."


In the film Professor Bovin is quoted as saying 'Mariamne' is Mary Magdalene. Bovin says he never said it. Dr. Pfann (see below "further reading") argues that it doesn't even say Mariamne.


RE: The statistical analysis see: ntgateway.com...'Mello2.pdf

Dr. Feuerverger indicates that an accurate interpretation of his results are to be
found at his recently updated “Tomb Computation” link on his University of Toronto
website. Please note the following excerpts from that website:

A. It is not in the purview of statistics to conclude whether or not this
tomb site is that of the New Testament family. Any such conclusion
much more rightfully belongs to the purview of biblical historical
scholars who are in a much better position to assess the assumptions
entering into the computations.


B. The role of statistics here is primarily to attempt to assess the odds of
an equally (or more) `compelling' cluster of names arising purely by
chance under certain random sampling assumptions and under
certain historical assumptions In this respect I now believe that I
should not assert any conclusions connecting this tomb with any
hypothetical one of the NT family.


C. The computations do not take into account families who could not
afford ossuary burials or who did not have sufficient literacy to have
their ossuaries inscribed, and does not take into account families
living outside of the Jerusalem area.

Further Reading

University Of Toronto's Andrey Feuerverger explains how they did the calculations and, most importantly, which assumptions they were based on.



From University of the Holy Lands' Stephen J. Pfann, Ph.D.

MARY MAGDALENE IS NOW MISSING:
A CORRECTED READING OF RAHMANI OSSUARY 701


SUMMARY POINTS OF DISCUSSION:
*The original transcription of the inscription was incorrect.

*The inscription does not read “Mariamene the Master”nor does the name Mariamene or Mariamne appear on the ossuary at all.

*The inscription reflects the writing of two distinct scribes who wrote in different forms of the Greek script.

*The correct reading of the inscription is “Mariame and Mara,” based on parallels from contemporary inscriptions and documents.

*The ossuary thus contained the bones of at least two different women, interred at two separate times, one named Mariame and the other Mara.

*No support exists for ascribing the ossuary to Mary Magdalene.

Here's Dr. Pfann's paper, titled: "Cracks in the Foundation: How the Lost Tomb of Jesus story is losing its scholarly support" which is mentioned in the OP article. (I just started reading this one)

Regards.