Jacobovici’s claims.įirst, it is not certain that the tomb discovered by the Israelis in 1990 (and “rediscovered” by Mr. Any one of these problems renders Simcha’s theory impossible, and their aggregate renders the theory preposterous. Unfortunately for Simcha, his theory has a problem, and its name is Legion, for they are many. Simcha makes two bold claims to say the least: the first is that the lost nails of Jesus’ crucifixion have been recovered, and the second is an implicit assertion that the IAA covered it up. Jacobovici needed to begin constructing his conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, in the world of conspiracy and make believe, this fact that the nails were discovered but not photographed is precisely the kind of opening Mr. Because nails are not uncommon in excavation sites, and because only those of significant size, shape, or those found in peculiar locations are considered significant, these nails were not photographed, sketched, or measured. 9 Simcha, however, also notes in the excavation report that two small nails were discovered in the tomb. 7Īmong the objects discovered and catalogued in the tomb were typical objects associated with Jewish rock-cut burial caves in the first century CE: the aforementioned ossuaries, a perfume vial, a Roman coin in Ossuary 8, 8 and an oil lamp. Twelve ossuaries were discovered in the so-called “Caiaphas” tomb, including a highly ornate ossuary discovered in situ (Ossuary 6) with two inscribed Aramaic inscriptions reading, יהוסף בר קיפא and יהוסף בר קפא (variant spellings of “Joseph, son of Caiaphas”), and another (Ossuary 3) with just the name קפא (“Caiaphas”) etched in an almost graffito fashion on the ossuary. Wanting to tie Caiaphas to the tomb, the documentary begins with Simcha re-examining an already well-attested discovery: the tomb of a first-century family discovered in 1990 by construction workers, which was excavated and published in 1992. 5 Caiaphas certainly did much more as High Priest than recommend one man to the Romans for execution, but it is this myopic error of biblical tunnel vision, which assumes the only “history” that exists is the history recorded in the Bible, that forces Simcha and so many others into preposterous theories based upon limited information. Simcha attempts to tie the nails of Jesus’ crucifixion to the supposed tomb of the High Priest Caiaphas because, as he states, Caiaphas is only known from the Bible as the Jewish High Priest during the time of Jesus’ execution. Unfortunately for Simcha, this most recent eccentric contribution is perhaps the weakest argument he has ever made – a dubious achievement if one considers that Simcha’s previous sensational claims include the discovery of the route of the Exodus, 2 the lost tomb of Jesus’ family, 3 and Atlantis 4 (in Spain), among others. “Simcha” (as the show’s narrator regularly referred to him) claims to have discovered the very nails used to crucify Jesus, and subtly implies that archaeologists excavating a tomb in Israel participated in a cover-up to suppress the fact that these “nails of the cross” had been discovered. That host is Simcha Jacobovici and the show is Secrets of Christianity: Nails of the Cross. Late Tuesday night around 11:00 PM during Easter week 2011, the History Channel aired a television documentary featuring a host making a particularly sensational claim about Jesus.

On the Misuse of Archaeology for Evangelistic Purposes Pseudo-Science and Sensationalist Archaeology:

Secrets of the bible discovery channel