THIS DOESN'T SOUND GOOD:

Filmmaker Jacobovici offers biblical archeology with a twist

By SHELDON KIRSHNER
Staff Reporter (Canadian Jewish News)

When you think of Simcha Jacobovici’s finely wrought documentaries, words like earnest and serious immediately come to mind.

Over the past 15 years, Jacobovici, one of the founders of Associated Producers, has made films running the gamut from Deadly Currents, which dealt with the Arab-Israeli conflict, to The Selling of Innocents, which revolved around child trafficking and prostitution.

But now, in a shift of gears, the award-winning Toronto filmmaker has turned his talents to biblical archeology. He has churned out a 26-part series, The Naked Archaeologist, the first episode of which will be aired on Vision TV on Sept. 5 at 9:30 p.m.

[...]

“I want to serve it up naked, stripped of the bullshit,” he said in a burst of Jacobovician rhetoric. “I bring a kind of simplicity, an outsider’s perspective, the skills of an investigative journalist, to it.”

He gravitated to the subject of archeology after making The Quest for the Lost Tribes in 1996, a film that explored an intriguing dimension of Jewish history.

But what really got him going was his perception that archeologists generally treat chunks of the Bible as fiction rather than fact.

“The received wisdom of academia on biblical archeology is that the earliest parts, from Exodus onward, are mythological stories and fairy tales.”

Archeologists who indulge in such practices are falsifying the truth, somewhat like Holocaust deniers who deny that six million Jews were murdered during World War II.

Someone should tell him that the current fad of dragging the Holocaust into every argument cheapens not only the argument, but also the Holocaust. And this particular comparison is ignorant, offensive (to both archaeologists and Holocaust victims), and just silly.

Jacobovici, who became an Orthodox Jew more than a decade ago, stands firmly in the camp of the believers.

“From a historical aspect, I take the Bible as history, unless someone demonstrates it’s not. I have no reason to believe the stories in the Bible didn’t happen.” He paused, asserting, “If you don’t think it’s true, prove it!”

Here he shows how utterly unqualified he is to be making a program on archaeology. First, you can't prove a negative. Second, archaeologists have been evaluating the biblical text for many decades in light of what they've been digging up and, in certain cases such as those of the patriarchal narratives and the Exodus, the two don't add up. There is a vast scholarly literature on these subjects, much of it readily available to nonspecialists and aimed at them. Have a look at it, Mr. Jacobovici. Then, if you have a problem with it, go learn the ancient languages and read the archaeological reports. But don't say "If you don’t think it’s true, prove it!" as though this contributes something to the discussion.

He argued that some biblical archeologists are motivated by crass politics and a dislike of Jews.

Modern archeology emerged with the rise of fascism, and some archeologists were plainly anti-Semitic, he said.

And in the case of Palestinians seeking to delegitimize Israel’s claim to the land, archeology is merely another tool in their arsenal, he added.

Fascism too? And anti-Semitism? It's all very well to impute vile motives to people with whom one disagrees, but their arguments remain to be considered after the mudslinging is over. Rather than addressing the evidence for archaeological arguments with which he disagrees, he resorts to these generalized and undemonstrated accusations.

Currently, Jacobovici is editing and polishing his next documentary, The Exodus Decoded, which will be broadcast on the Discovery Channel come November and privately screened around the same time.

There is not a single shred of archeological evidence to support the thesis that the events in Exodus occurred, he allowed.

But in his forthcoming 90-minute film, a mix of The Matrix and The Da Vinci Code, he excavates proof that Exodus is not a figment of the imagination.

This doesn't sound very promising either. Why is the Discovery Channel airing this kind of nonsense?

I see that Christopher Heard has already published similar observations over at Higgaion.

UPDATE: Tyler Williams also noted the program some time ago at Codex.