The Jesus Tomb and All That.

The Jesus Tomb "documentary" has been all over the news for the past week having exploded in the blogosphere just prior to that. While I was initially inclined to cavalierly dismiss it as part of the shadow cast by Dan Brown, there are those who want to take it seriously and thus it merits attention. However, since men faaaaar more educated than myself have already responded, I figure there's no sense in reinventing the wheel. Hence, you can access a response by Ben Witherington III published as an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal here. Likewise, Richard Bauckham has published a response as a guest post on Chris Tilling's blog here. Both scholars are fantastic, though at opposite ends of the spectrum. BW3 teaches at an evangelical seminary here in the states and publishes 100 or so books a year, all valuable contributions to the scholarly community and writes in a somewhat conversational style. Bauckham, on the other hand, teaches at the University of St. Andrews (in Scotland) and doesn't publish nearly as frequently, but when he does...watch out. The work is typically ground clearing and sets a new standard in the field it addresses. And so it goes with these two pieces; BW3's response is brief but poignant, whereas Bauckham's treatment is a bit more lengthy and engages the issues more critically (the differences are largely due to genre). Both are great.