Documentary about Jesus challenged

JERUSALEM -- The Academy Award-winning director behind "Titanic" is attempting to challenge fundamental tenets of Christianity by suggesting that Jesus may have been a father whose body was buried far from the Jerusalem tomb where believers say he rose from the dead.

In a documentary set to air Sunday, filmmaker James Cameron and his team contend that they've produced new evidence that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered a son named Judah. Biblical experts and archaeologists who are familiar with the central evidence instantly discounted the claim, which the Discovery Channel has touted as possibly "the greatest archaeological find in history," as an ill-informed, recycled publicity grab.

The chances that the findings in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" are real "are more than remote," said Israel Museum curator David Mevorah. "They are closer to fantasy."

If proved true, the findings would undercut Christian beliefs that Jesus never had children and that he rose from the dead. The documentary also contradicts long-held beliefs by Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians that Jesus had lain in a tomb around which Christians built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem.

"It doesn't get bigger than this," Cameron said Monday. "We've done our homework ... now it's time for the debate to begin."

The Discovery Channel documentary and an accompanying book center on a 2,000-year-old limestone tomb that was discovered more than 25 years ago in Jerusalem between the Old City and Bethlehem.

When the tomb was uncovered in 1980, specialists were called in. The man who led the effort was Amos Kloner, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, who documented the findings. The tomb contained 10 limestone burial boxes and scattered bones. Among the inscriptions on the caskets: Jesus, son of Joseph; Mary; and Judah, son of Jesus.

Five of the burial boxes, known as ossuaries, had names that could be linked to the Bible, including versions of Joseph and Matthew. Then and now, Kloner took no note of the names, saying they were common at the time.

But Discovery hired a statistician who concluded that the chances that this was the tomb of Jesus and his family were 600 to 1.

Mevorah called that "a good trick." While the collection of names might seem compelling, he said the names were popular at the time and that another ossuary with the inscription "Jesus, son of Joseph" is on display in Florida as part of a traveling exhibition of Christian artifacts.

The documentary used DNA testing on samples from the ossuary for Jesus and for Mary to show that the two sets of bones weren't related, evidence the TV researchers said indicated that the two probably were married.

The documentary suggests that the ossuary labeled Judah, son of Jesus, may have carried the bones of their son, though the researchers make no mention of doing DNA testing on that box.

After watching a review copy of the documentary, Kloner said it was little more than a publicity stunt.

The documentary and book aren't the first to focus on the tomb. A BBC crew in 1996 concluded the tomb was that of Jesus and his family. Scientists and religious leaders also challenged that report.

Leading the latest team was Simcha Jacobovici, who was at the center of a similar stir four years ago when he produced another piece for the cable company. That documentary focused on an ossuary that was thought to be the oldest archaeological find to bolster the Bible. It bore the inscription: James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. Within months, however, Israel's Antiquities Authority deemed the ossuary a fake.