What is the NYT intent on this story?

The story about a Discovery Channel presentation begins with "Creationists reject the theory of evolution. Religious pilgrims still line up for the Shroud of Turin. So it is unlikely that many Christians will lose sleep — let alone faith — because of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” on the Discovery Channel tomorrow." About half way into the story the following conclusion is offered "The archaeological arguments are plausible but not persuasive: this is a breakthrough that relies more on “what if” than “here’s how.”

The case that this site might be the family tomb of Jesus is one based primarily on statistics. "Andrey Feuerverger, a mathematics professor at the University of Toronto, calculates that the odds that all six names would appear together in one tomb are 1 in 600, calculated conservatively — or possibly even as much as one in one million." But the logic of the professor is absurd.

A lot bothered me about the way the Times handled this story. First, why should a lead in the story deal with creationists - do all Christians believe in creationism? The line of reasoning is also designed to elicit scoffs - the creationists and then the rubes who believe in the Shroud of Turin - clearly the writer here thinks that Christians are descendents of PT Barnum's best buddies. There is at least some reason to believe that some of the things that the Times derides are at least unexplained at this point by conventional methods.

Had the writer looked a bit more at the issues surrounding the Shroud of Turin there is still a lot to be explained. In a 2004 article in the Journal of Optics - science has not proven this is Jesus' shroud but neither has it been disproven and some of the images on the shroud cannot be explained by current methods of science.

A similar thing happens when you look at the Tilma in the Shrine of Guadalupe. Tilmas were made of a cloth of woven cactus fiber which has a life of about 20 years - but that garmet continues to this day. The image does not conform to art of the day.

The reason for a recitation of these issues is not to suggest that we know that either the Shroud or the Tilma are examples of miracles. But to suggest that there is a lot we do not know and at this point there may be very good reason to have faith about the objects.

But then there is the second concern - the article ignores the substantial body of evidence that the claims made in the documentary have been questioned by numerous highly qualified academics. The "evidence" from these digs in Israel has been the subject of peer reviewed research which has consistently argued that the claims made by some that the site found tombs is Jesus is bunk. Even the fundamental claim that Feuerverger offers is subject to dispute. Other known researchers have commented that the names on the tombs have no direct reference to Mary Magdalene and merely have inscriptions on them which make no reference to Jesus' family. But the Times for what ever reason ignored this body of commentary.

Why then in the story in the NYT seem to a) make fun of Christian belief and b) not present any of the scholarly evidence that this discovery is considered to be a hoax by many important academics?

I did not get to see this documentary, although I have read about this claim before. As I read about it when I originally heard about it I was reminded of the documentary of several years ago where Geraldo Rivera claimed to have found the secret vault of Al Capone - he spent a whole lot of time slinging (what Mayor Daley once called) insinuendos about his find and came up with nothing. Did Geraldo help co produce this for the Discovery Channel.