Life at a Lively Pace

As a kid, I loved “connect the dots” puzzles. There was something very satisfying in drawing one line segment after another until a picture emerged. There was one rule: you had to connect the dots sequentially. Otherwise, the picture you ended up with would, in all likelihood, not be the right picture.

It seems that James Cameron, Simcha Jacobovici and their cohorts have spent the last two years connecting the dots to a puzzle that revolves around the 27-year-old discovery of a tomb. They didn’t stop to make sure that their line segments were drawn according to the right sequences. Frankly, it appears that the dots they connected don’t even belong to the puzzle in question. The picture they have ended up with is not the right one.

 I once heard this “proof” for why fire engines were red:

• There are 4 wheels and 8 firemen on a fire truck
• 8 + 4 = 12
• There are 12 inches in a foot
• A foot is a ruler
• Queen Elizabeth was a ruler
• Queen Elizabeth was the name of a ship
• Ships sail on seas
• Seas have fish
• Fish have fins
• The Finns fought the Russians
• Russians are “Red”Therefore, fire engines are red.

While completely nonsensical and rather silly, the proof makes my point. It is possible to string together a series of truthful, factual statements to prove something that has little or no relation to the facts themselves. 

The press conference that was held this morning to introduce the documentary (airing on Discovery Channel this coming Sunday, March 4) was quite the exercise in connecting the wrong dots. After James Cameron made a series of initial remarks, Simcha Jacobovici began his thoughts.  He proclaimed himself to be an expert - an expert in investigative journalism.  He noted that, as an investigative journalist, it was his job to “connect the dots”, consult with experts and see what picture emerges. 

Too many things were said and I cannot recount them all (I was at work at the time, listening to the conference and trying to jot down notes in between all of the craziness known as my job responsibilities).  However, these are a few gems - not necessarily verbatim - along with my thoughts:

• Luke wrote that the beloved disciple leaned up against Jesus like a child leans against his father.  Why would anyone want to hide the identity of a disciple by leaving them unnamed unless the person in question was the child of a person condemned to the cross and, therefore, likely to be sent to the cross as well?

  Umm, yeah. This dot doesn’t even belong in the picture - frankly, it can hardly be classified as a dot.  Luke does not make any mention of a disciple leaning up against Jesus, much less like a child.  The book of Luke wasn’t written until some 30 years after the crucifixion.  By then, the “lad” in question would have been a man and could have easily gone off to live an obscure life elsewhere, away from any purported danger (remember Joseph’s & Mary’s flight to Egypt with young Jesus?) Also, Jesus’s crucifixion was performed by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish leaders.  Even if there was indisputable evidence of a son, his mere existence would most likely not have been enough to warrant a death sentence - he would have needed to anger the Jewish authorities by claiming diety as Jesus had done. Yep, not really a dot.

• Mariamne = Mary, Mara = Master

  I am not a linguist.  Yes, English is my third language and I am able to find common patterns in languages that give me an inkling of what is being said, but I am not a student of languages.  I have to rely on what experts say.  That Mariamne may very well mean Mary is no stretch.  However, I’m guessing that the Mara = Master is another linguistic form of hoop jumping to put on an entertaining show for the unsuspecting masses, much like the Aramaic “translation” in the DVC, indicating that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife.  From what I’ve read today, experts seem to be in agreement on that point.  Dog and pony show, anyone?

• Mitochondrial DNA samples show that the individuals “identified” as Jesus and Mary are not related, therefore indicating that they most likely were married to each other.

  Hmmm.  Throw some more million dollar words around - words that people may have heard in the passing - add some facts to the mix and you can draw some interesting, though faulty conclusions that, hopefully, the general public won’t pick up on.  Mitochondrial DNA is used primarily to trace maternal lineage. I don’t have a problem with the finding that J & M were not related and could very well be married to each other. However, there is some really bad science in this conclusion.

  When performing any kind of experiment, one of the most crucial parts is what is called the “control”.  This is the norm, your valid/verified entity, the part that stays constant so you have something with which to compare your results.  Take, for instance, the testing of potential sleep medication.  There are at least three groups of people involved in the test, all of which have difficulty sleeping: the ones taking the actual pill, the ones taking a pill they believe to be the medication and the “control” group - they aren’t taking anything.  The test results are then tallied at the end of the testing period and compared to the control group.  In comparison, did the ones with the actual pill fall asleep and stay asleep more often?  Did the group taking the fake pill report any changes in their sleep patterns?  Without the control group, the results from the other two groups is useless, at best.

  This DNA experiment is missing its control group - DNA taken from a confirmed member of Jesus’s family.  I’m not talking about someone who is speculated to be a member of that family - I’m talking about a bona fide, paper trail, blood relative.  If you claimed to be a blood relative of Ernest Hemingway, a sample of your DNA would be compared to whatever is left of his DNA at this point.  We know that it is his body in that grave - there are records and family members with which to verify that information.  Other than the mention of names, we have no idea who Jesus’s blood relatives were, where they are buried or where their current descendants are.  That’s the missing control group.  Without the genetic material from a confirmed relative, DNA samples from the ossuaries can only indicate familial relationship of the people to each other but they cannot tell us if they are specifically from Jesus’s family since we don’t know what their mitochondrial DNA looks like. No scientist worth his salt would make that claim.

I could go on and on. This “discovery” is not only an example of bad history as well as bad translation and/or interpretation, but also that of bad science.  Dan Brown’s research may have been horribly shoddy.  In my opinion, however, this Jesus tomb story makes Brown look like a student of history. Cameron’s/Jacobovici’s dots don’t connect to reveal a picture of Jesus - it looks more like the portrait of a court jester.