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Now playing in the theater of the absurd, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus", produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron, written and directed by award winning documentarian Simcha Jacobovici.

Yes, Its that time of year once again. The beginning of the Lenten season and concluding with Easter Sunday.

Last year it was NBC and their glorification of Michael Baigent's book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail". The year before that it was an ABC special aimed directly at mythologizing the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This year it is a documentary showing on the Discovery Channel on Sunday, March 4th, and its companion book "The Jesus Tomb" .

The "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" is about a burial tomb unearthed by a team of archeologists in 1980 in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Inside they found ten ossuaries or bone boxes. Inscribed on these boxes, claim Cameron and Jacobovici are the names of Jesus, Joseph, Matthew, Judah and two Marys. In fact according to the authors, two of the inscriptions read "Jesus, son of Joseph", "Judah, son of Jesus" written in Aramaic. Mary, Matthew and Joseph are written in Hebrew and the second Mary in Greek.

They theorize that this tomb once held the body of Jesus and His family. The ground Jacobvici and Cameron build their hypothesis on is two fold. They base their conclusions on the basis of mathematical probability, and DNA samples taken from the ossuaries.

The DNA evidence clamed by the film makers is ultimately the lesser of the two arguments presented in an attempted defense of their supposition. In fact Jacobvici's only direct claim regarding the DNA evidence is that it proves that two of the people in the tomb were not related therefore they must be married and further it must be Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala.
Quite a logical leap of faith on Mr. Jacobvici's part, going from unrelated to married to Jesus.

Jacobvici also over emphasizes the importance of the DNA that was found. Insinuating that a DNA sample by itself can prove a point. A DNA sample can not tell us who is in the tomb without a control sample used for comparison. The simple fact that DNA was found does not support any argument, either pro or con.

The main thrust of their argument is based on mathematical probability. They theorize that even though the names found on the boxes were quite common for the time period, it is in the combing of the names that the odds favor their assumption.

Mr. Jacobvici admits that it is true, Jesus was a very popular name in the

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