To Jerusalem
Tomorrow I return to Israel for a short visit. I will be filming with the British film company CTVC with whom I have worked before on several documentary specials. They are the ones who produced “The Mystery of the Shroud” that aired on The Learning Channel in August, 2003. It was not about the Shroud of Turin, but the only authenticated 1st century Jewish burial shroud ever found–the one tomb I discuss in the Introduction to my book. Producer and program director Ray Bruce was behind that one, and he was also part of the CTVC team that first broke the story about the Talpiot tomb with its ossuaries in 1996, through a BBC documentary, “The Body in Question,” which was shown on Easter Sunday, heraled by a front page story in the London Sunday Times “The Tomb that Dare Not Speak Its Name.”
This time CTVC program director Ray Bruce and his team, including award winning producer/director David Batty, and noted UK presenter, Prof. Robert Beckford, are doing a special for Channel Four in the UK on, you guessed it, “The Jesus Family.” Beckford is recently known for his role in the Channel 4 controversial program “Who Wrote the Bible?” This latest production is to air Christmas Eve in the UK on Channel 4 and I suspect it will also run in the USA but I don’t think the details have been worked out on that as of yet. The filming will be done on location and will explore various aspects of the Jesus family idea. I will be talking about John the Baptist and James, the brother of Jesus.
While in Jerusalem I will also be consulting with Dr. Shimon Gibson about several of our projects, including the full academic publication of our “Tomb of the Shroud” which we expect to come out in 2007, mostly likely through the Israel Exploration Society.
I am hoping I will be able to comment on two other bits of news while on that trip, after consulting further with Dr. Gibson. First, a new “hidden chamber,” dating to the Iron Age, recently discovered at the Suba cave. And second, details of our plans to excavate in the Old City of Jerusalem, just off the slopes of Mt. Zion, east of the Zion Gate, in the Spring of 2007. This will be a dig open to volunteers and I anticipate that some the readers of this Blog will be interested in participating. We will be uncovering the Herodian city as it was left after the 70 AD destruction by the Romans. It promises to be pretty spectacular. I will publish preliminary information here, but also a full report in the January/February issue of Biblical Archaeology Review that catalogues each year excavations all around the Holy Land related to biblical sites and topics.
I also hope to see some of you in Austin next week. I return from Israel next Wednesday and turn around and fly to Austin for the Biblical Archaeology Seminar early Thursday morning. You can scroll back to August 27th to get further details.
I hope to write several posts from Jerusalem, so stay tuned…