Here is what I think we can learn from the Jesus tomb saga. This is especially dedicated to my—and your!—graduate students.
1. First do the research, then make the movie.
2. Don’t just hire consultants who you know already agree with you; what’s the value of that?
3. Don’t rely uncritically on the work of others, even experts in the field, especially when your central thesis depends on it.
4. Avoid getting infatuated with your own theory so that you are no longer able to evaluate the evidence objectively.
5. Don’t be tempted to “follow the money”; follow the evidence instead. Be on a quest for truth, not fame or fortune.
6. Don’t circumvent the peer review process and address yourself directly to the public; your scholarly reputation will almost certainly suffer if you do.
7. Don’t persist in a state of denial when you’ve been proven wrong. Admit your mistake; everyone else already knows it anyway. Denying the obvious will only make you look even more ridiculous.
8. Don’t miss the subtle clues—a backwards “N,” a supposed “U” that looks a lot more like an “I”—even if it requires you to change your theory.
9. Be modest in stating your case. Don’t overreach.
10. Don’t use statistics or DNA evidence to pad a weak case.
11. Don’t confuse your theory with the facts.
12. Develop a healthy respect for the need for expertise in a certain area before making confident pronouncement of things you know little about.
I’d love to hear from you on this one. Do you agree with these lessons? Can you add more?
How to Ensure Bias in a Presentation
The Lost Tomb television special on the Discovery Channel reached four million viewers, and the accompanying book is now number six on the New York Times nonfiction best seller list. Unfortunately, unless these viewers and readers look elsewhere for in…
An excellent list. Thanks.
Thank you for the great insights!
Hello,
A question out of context. If you were to write a dissertation on JOhn what are some of the number of issues that will be of interest to you?
From a reader/student who reads your blog frequently and is passionate about John’s Gospel.
Thanks
When Jesus meet mary magdalene at the well, she has own husband. If Jesus was on that tomb means He was not risen from the dead. And the tomb was a rich man tomb, not as this people claim. On that time they are under persecution as Christian, how they can buried properly those people in a proper manner when they were persecuted and some of them are exiled to other places. The bone that they found was merely the true husband of mary when she meet Jesus on the well not Jesus Himself. Because Jesus not remained on the tomb He is risen from the dead.
Read on Jhon 4:1-18.”4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 4:16 He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” 4:17 The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ 4:18 for you have had five husbands and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”. Means that true mary magdalene was already married with somebody. And Mary magdalene was there when she meet Jesus when He rise from the dead. And when you believe that Jesus Christ did not raise from the dead your most mesirable man on the earth.
Brad: The woman at the well was almost certainly not Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was from the Galilean fishing village of Magdala, while the woman at the well was a Samaritan woman. But I certainly agree that Jesus did not remain in the tomb but rose from the dead as he and the Scriptures predicted.