"The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look" programme.

After The Lost Tomb of Jesus, Ted Koppel hosted an hour's discussion called The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look. The first half of the programme was a debate between Simcha Jacobovici and James Tabor on the one side and Jonathan Reed and William Dever on the other. Jacobovici was fairly defensive throughout, perhaps not surprisingly in view of some hostile questions from Koppel, who suggested on several occasions that he had quoted people out of context, and some barbed comments from Jonathan Reed, who called the programme "Archaeoporn". The second half of the programme was devoted to "Religious responses" and featured Darrell Bock and a couple of others I didn't know as well as Jacobovici and Tabor. It was a useful discussion, on the whole, with some good and some not so good contributions.

The next major bit of media discussion on the programme will be the Diane Rehm show today (Monday) at 11.00am, ET, in which Jacobovici will be in debate with my colleague Eric Meyers (HT: Jim West). I doubt that Eric will mince his words, so it may be an interesting piece.