Jesus' Ossuary - CTV News and Newsnet

I did two CTV bits last night: somewhere between five and ten minutes on Newnet and about 90 seconds with Lloyd Robertson commenting on the National News's lead story at 11 PM. Both were situations of talking to a camera rather than a person and I think my inexperience at that shone through.

To my "discussion" with Lloyd Robertson, however, I need to add the kind footnote that sound bites don't allow. Beyond picking at the very thin threads that join the "argument" of the producers of the Tomb of Jesus, the whole picture needs to be reconciled with the deep and wide witness to the ideal of sexual abstinence that Jesus proclaims. Amy-Jill Levine's "The Earth Moved: Jesus, Sex and Eschatology" (in Apocalypticism, Anti-Semitism and the Historical Jesus: Subtexts in Criticism. Edited by J. S. Kloppenborg, with J. W. Marshall.JSNT Supplement Series, 275.) London and New York: T & T Clark International, 2005, pp. 83–97.) makes this case at length and with verve.

Jesus' Ossuary - AM800 Windsor

Today I heard Andy Barry lobbing overenthusiastic softballs at Simcha Jacobovici on Metro Morning and I thought that I should pay attention. My colleague Michael Wayne read the papers and said it was going to be a busy day. I did a short interview on with Melanie Deveau on "Windsor Now" (AM800 Windsor) and thought I conveyed the distance between public relations and historical argumentation reasonably. I'll try TV in a couple hours.

National Post -- "Popcorn Panel"

I did a post-movie dialogue on The DaVinci Code in the National Post. Here's a link to it. They cut off my last comment, so I've reproduced it below. It was fun to do and I realise that space constraints are the most plausible reason for the cut, but since I have no restraints here, I thought I'd post it.

Submitted but not published:
Thanks for the soft segue. The debunking job to be done on Dan Brown is massive, and I'd have to change my 150 word limit to a 150 page limit to give it a good start. But flip your phrase around Craig and run with the insight that the gospels may have as many holes as the Da Vinci Code. Run to the library to be specific. The film, as opposed to the book, actually did have a consulting professor from Harvard, Karen King, who is very respectable on these issues. I think she is responsible for the "Whoas" that Tom Hank's character adds to the mix. It must have pained her to be able to do so little, but she did what she could. Doing more would require people entering our classrooms or reading our books, which I'm all for.

AM 640 -- The Stafford Show

Is it worth it to do 10 minutes on AM talk radio? It went well, I got my points across -- both of them, but it's hard to tell. The topic was the Da Vinci Code.

Toronto Star

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Da Vinci conspiracy far-fetched: Prof

Author jumps between 'distant lily pads'
Opus Dei critical of book's take on Constantine

May 15, 2006.

STUART LAIDLAW

FAITH AND ETHICS REPORTER

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Well, I knew something was coming out since I sat for the picture, but the prominence of the interview surprised me. Seriously, I thought Stuart Laidlaw did a reasonable job of working with some pretty free conversations we had. I need to set the record straight, however, on the dating of the Gospel of Mark. Laidlaw's article says:

Marshall says there is no shortage of other gospels that could have been — but weren't — included in the Bible as it was being developed in the centuries after the death of Jesus. In fact, the first gospel, Mark, wasn't written until some 60 years after Jesus died.

"He could have lived and died twice by the time the gospels were written," says Marshall.

I don't have access to Laidlaw's voice recording, but I doubt that I said specifically that the Gospel of Mark was 60 years after Jesus and if I did it was a slip of the tongue in a fast conversation. I hold to a fairly standard dating of 69 or 70 C.E. The actual quote Laidlaw offers is accurate, but it speaks of Gospels in the plural and I would stand by it for the canonical gospels.

The article's introductory gambit--an embarassingly flattering introduction--reproduces an episode in the novel. I'll be getting grief over that one.

TV Ontario -- Studio Two

Twenty minute interview with Paula Todd on the Gospel of Judas. This was my first TV interview. Obviously I need a little work.