Now everyone has had a chance to see this show and the debate in its aftermath. Feel free to use the comments to tell us what you think or to ask any questions.This show will make its way around most of Europe and Israel this week. The last stop is Germany on Thursday. 

The latest is from the statisitcs man for the special, Andrey Feuerverger. Site is below. Here is the key citation."It is not in the purview of statistics to conclude whether or not this tombsite is that of the New Testament family. Any such conclusion much more rightfully belongs to the purview of biblical historical scholars who are in a much better position to assess the assumptions entering into the computations. The role of statistics here is primarily to attempt to assess the odds of an equally (or more) `compelling' cluster of names arising purely by chance under certain random sampling assumptions and under certain historical assumptions. In this respect I now believe that I should not assert any conclusions connecting this tomb with any hypothetical one of the NT family. The interpretation of the computation should be that it is estimating the probability of there having been another family at the time whose tomb this might be, under certain specified assumptions."

One of the key people interviewed on this special is Tal Ilan. She has written a catalog of names for the centuries in question that is at the root of the statistical work. There is a story posted today about her reaction to the special at:http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=says_scholar_whose_work_was_used_i...Check this out.

Jim Tabor has summarized his take on the Ted Koppel show. Here is his take on what happened yesterday:"The Ted Koppel Show: A Critique of the Jesus Family TombFiled under: Tabor's Blog — James Tabor @ 1:51 pmI am in D.C. today filming a show with Ted Koppel as moderator that is scheduled to air Sunday night on Discovery after the showing of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus Film.” It is called: The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critique.

I am involved in an internal blog for scholars and one of the questions that came up was how certain experts were involved. Here is the answer I posted for them: "François Bovon of Harvard was brought in to make the critical link between the name Mariamne and Mary Magdalene. This link is made possible by the Acts of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, as this is a variant Greek name for Mary.

I am back from Washington DC today. I did a Ted Koppel special and an Anderson Cooper interview. The Koppel show will air right after the Special on Sunday. Be sure and watch it to see everyone interact. The investigative reporter and Jim Tabor are there along with others who do have challenged what they have done. Koppel does a great job moderating. The show is called The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look. And it will be. So this is a heads up.

This is a short note. One of the suggestions of the special is that a missing ossuary in the tomb is the James Ossuary about which there was so much discussion a few years ago. Two points here: The keeper of the warehouse where these ossuaries are stored has said tomb 10 is not lost but is housed outside the warehouse in a distinct locale. Second, despite the claim in the Special, the catalogued tomb sizes do not match, being 10 cm off in one of the key dimensions.

I told you last night that I was getting material on statistics from folks far more gifted in that area than I am. I have permission to run the following throught provoking piece from Jack Poirer. I need to thank the Jerusalem Perspective for permission to run this as they are publishing it as well. And, of course, big kudos to Jack as well for his work. Jack is a blog brother on Crosstalk, a discussion group on Jesus I am a part of.

I have been in email contact with some folks who also know this area. Richard Bauckham, teaches at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Bauckham will be writing a more complete piece more detailed piece for Chris Tilling, who will post it on his blog (Chrisendom). The fact the Mariamne/Mariamnou/Mara name is written in Greek (not Hebrew or Aramaic) is potentially significant and raises a variety of scenarios that seem to tell against the Mary Magdalene connection.

This blog is now up at http://www.christilling.de/blog/2007/03/guest-post-by-richard-bauckham.html This covers some issues about the names. Matthew cannot be outside the family. Only three names overlap. This is a big family, too big for Jesus' remaining family, the name of mariamenoumara cannot be linked to Mary Magdalene. He walks one through all the details of this, a step at a time. So take a