Truth and the Devil

I would imagine that many people might expect some of a secular persuasion like myself might be inclined to jump all over new ‘evidence’ that the tomb of Jesus might have been found. I’m not so inclined. My interest in secular values as well as the study of religion has everything to do with evidence and a search for the truth, not trying to make religion look bad.

With that philosophy, I try to treat all fantastic claims with the same skepticism I would any other. Just as I find the claims of any conspiracy about UFOs or 9/11 or even The Da Vinici Code lacking in evidence, so do I James Cameron’s claim that he has found the tomb of Jesus Christ.

Of course, my own reasons for doubting these claims are mostly separate from the religious. Unfortunately, as a Roman Catholic priest said on CNN yesterday, most people wouldn’t change their minds about Christ even if there happened to be good evidence to the contrary.

I’ll still watch the documentary, I wouldn’t want to judge it prematurely, but the facts presented don’t really seem to have the support of anyone besides James Cameron and the people who worked with him.

I’ve recently been reading a book on the same subject called The Jesus Dynasty by James D. Tabor. He is an archeologist and Biblical scholar who makes the same claim that these tombs might be related to the family of Jesus. Unfortunately, even though his book is treated as a scholarly work, I hardly find his claims compelling. As it seems with pseudoscientific claims, as well as conspiracy theories, a very flimsy footing is all that is required to get a full-blown conspiracy in the works.

The evidence, as far as I can tell seems to fall under some spurious DNA evidence and some apparently weak statistical analysis. They’ve got these ossuaries that have the names of a few people on them like Jesus, Joseph and Mary, which is supposed to be shocking right there. But these happen to be some of the most popular names among Jews at the time. Their DNA comparison consists of the existence of two Marys in the tomb which don’t seem to be blood-related, therefore one of them has to be Mary Magdalene, which supposedly implies that she was married to Jesus, and that because one of the ossuaries says ‘Judah, son of Jesus’, then they had a kid together. You can see that any normal chain of logic in no way necessarily leads to the claims being made.

However, the possibility does still exist that the claims being made by James Cameron is true, but I would much rather see issues of science be debated by experts in the field within an academic realm peer review, rather than by a film-maker.

I wouldn’t mind seeing evidence, if you could ever produce any, that the tomb of Jesus Christ had been found. I have no particular theological or ideological interest one way or the other. But to think that some spurious claim like this will somehow shake the foundations of Christianity to its core, is just wishful thinking. I’m sure they’ll get a lot of people to watch the show, and make tons of money off of it, but if someone’s faith can be reinforced by finding the face of Mary in a grilled-cheese sandwich, it’s gonna take a lot more than a few empty boxes to get people to change their mind about their most deeply-held beliefs.

The Atheist Ethicist delves deeper into the moral implications of presenting evidence of scientific claim in such a sensationalist manner:

Being convinced by this documentary would be like being convinced of a suspect’s guilt while sitting on a grand jury. A grand jury only hears the prosecutor’s case - all expertly wrapped to make it look as pretty as possible. No doubt, the message in this documentary will be well packaged to make it look as attractive as possible, to get unthinking people to buy it.

In saying that the documentary will not provide us with sufficient evidence to make an informed decision, I am not saying that Cameron’s conclusions have a 50% chance of being true. Actually, they are far more likely to be false. There is going to be a long list of possible explanations for this data. These odds alone give the Cameron explanation a very low chance of being true.

Yet, those who hold that Cameron’s chances of being wrong are 100%, rather than some smaller number, because their religion will not tolerate him being right, are also mistaken. There is a very real non-zero chance that Cameron’s claims are accurate. The dogmatic Christian who says that Cameron cannot be right because the Bible says so is no lover of truth.

These conclusions speak to a certain amount of justified moral condemnation for James Cameron and his crew. If they are lovers of truth, then they would not be telling their audience, “In 45 minutes, we can give you enough information to make decisions that professional archaeologists do not feel qualified to make.” How wonderful it would be if one of us can get the equivalent of a PhD in archaeology just by watching one documentary. Consider the tons of information that cannot be presented in a forum such as this.

Any attempt to claim truth based on ideology rather than evidence, is not looking for truth. Whether it be Christians who will say Cameron is wrong before looking at the evidence, or anti-religious ideologues who will grab hold of any claim that contradicts religious claims before first verifying their validity.

What should be true of skeptics “in general” […] is that the love of truth itself is more important than the love of any given belief, such that the belief can be accepted or rejected based on the evidence. A certain amount of condemnation would be appropriate for any who love a belief more than they love truth.

(I think I’m going to put this last quote on my quotes page.)

UPDATE:

Carl Zimmer presents his take on the story related to the role of journalistic integrity in science.