Simcha Jacobovici

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (January 2010)

Simcha Jacobovici
Born	April 4, 1953(1953-04-04) Petah Tikva, Israel
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Film director, producer, journalist, writer

Simcha Jacobovici (pronounced /ˈsɪm.hə jəˈkoʊbɵvɪtʃ/) (born April 4, 1953) is a Canadian film director, producer, free-lance journalist, and writer.

He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from McGill University and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Toronto. He hosts the The Naked Archaeologist on VisionTV in Canada and The History Channel in the United States.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Personal life 2 Filmography 3 Criticism of Jacobovici's films 4 Reviews of Jacobovici's filmography 4.1 The Exodus 4.2 The Lost Tomb of Jesus 4.3 Graves in Mycenae 4.4 Other criticisms 5 Awards 6 Bibliography 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Biography

This section requires expansion.

[edit] Early life

Jacobovici was born in Petah Tikva, Israel to Romanian-born Jewish parents, Joseph and Ida, who had moved to Israel after surviving the Holocaust. In 1962, when he was nine years old, the family moved to Montreal, Canada, where his father had been offered an engineering contract.^[1]

[edit] Personal life

Jacobovici is an Orthodox Jew.^{[2][dead link]} He is married to Nicole Kornberg and has 4 girls and a boy.^{[3][dead link]}

[edit] Filmography

Jacobovici's films include:

• Falasha: Exile of the Black Jews
• Deadly Currents
• Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies & the American Dream
• Quest for the Lost Tribes
• The Struma
• James, Brother of Jesus?
• Impact of Terror
• Sex Slaves
• The Exodus Decoded
• The Lost Tomb of Jesus, also co-wrote with Dr. Charles Pellegrino its companion book The Jesus Family Tomb (Harper Collins 2007).
• Charging the Rhino

[edit] Criticism of Jacobovici's films

This section's representation of one or more viewpoints about a controversial issue may be unbalanced or inaccurate. Please improve the article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Much criticism has focused on Jacobovici since the announcement of the release of his 2007 work with James Cameron. This included an opinion piece by David Warren, a religious affairs columnist for the Ottawa Citizen who criticized Jacobovici's work on The Lost Tomb of Christ as a "disgusting little exercise in money-making,".^[4] The column cited Amos Kloner, the first archeologist to examine the site where the ossuaries were taken, "They just want to get money for it. It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave. The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time." It also cited the film's own archeologist Dr. Shimon Gibson who stated his own skepticism on Jacobovici's interpretation of the finds.^[4] Kloner’s opposition has appeared in several media outlets who points out that Cameron and Jacobovici “are not archeologists” and calling their claims “impossible” and “nonsense.” ^[5] Archaeologists Joe Zias (of Rockefeller University in Jerusalem) said that “Simcha [Jacobovici] has no credibility whatsoever.”^[5] Jacobovici’s critics also point to a 2006 episode of Jacobovici’s The Naked Archaeologist were he defended the possibility that an ossuary found in 2002 actually belonged to “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” despite the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in 2003 condemning part of the inscription (not the name itself) as a modern addition added by a forger.^[5] The IAA's investigation of the alleged forgery and related cases of archaeological fraud in Israel has been examined in two subsequent television documentary films - King Solomon's Tablet of Stone (2004)^[6] and The Solomon Treasures (2008) ^[7] (also titled Decoding Bible Relics^[8] and Les Tresors Perdus de Salomon ^[9]). Archaeologists interviewed for these documentaries offer little support for Jacobovici's interpretation of the evidence.

In an episode of The Naked Archaeologist, Carl Ehrlich, Biblical Historian at York University, Toronto, noted that Jacobovici's hypothesis that an earthquake may have been responsible for the collapse of the walls of Jericho requires inserting an earthquake into the narrative (such an event not having been mentioned in the Bible). Consequently, Ehrlich labels Jacobovici a Velikovskian.

[edit] Reviews of Jacobovici's filmography

This section's representation of one or more viewpoints about a controversial issue may be unbalanced or inaccurate. Please improve the article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

[edit] The Exodus

Bryant G. Wood criticizes The Exodus Decoded, saying that "Jacobovici does more harm than good since he mishandles the archaeological evidence, hence providing fuel to skeptics who wish to undermine the Exodus."^[10]

[edit] The Lost Tomb of Jesus

This work presented the theory that the Talpiot tomb was the burial place of Jesus' family. The heart of Jacobovici's theory is that while Jesus, Joseph, and other names found in the tomb were common names in Jesus' time, the probability of finding the particular combination of names found there pointed to the possibility that this was, in fact, Jesus' family tomb. This theory has been widely denounced by biblical scholars.

A symposium at Princeton University in January 2008 reignited media interest in the Talpiot tomb. Time magazine covered the event as a re-opening of the argument about the tomb.^[11] "I feel vindicated," Jacobovici told Time. "It's moved from 'it can't be the Jesus' family tomb' to 'it could be.' " ^[11]

Some scholars present at the symposium accused Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron of misleading the media by claiming that the symposium bolstered the viability of their theory. An open letter of complaint was published against what they viewed as misrepresentation. It was signed by most of the scholars, including all of the archaeologists and epigraphers, who had delivered papers at the symposium.^[12] The list of scholars who signed the open letter critical of Jacobovici's presentation of the symposium and its findings included:

• Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
• Choon-Leon Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
• F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
• Lee McDonald, Princeton Theological Seminary, visiting
• Rachel Hachlili, University of Haifa
• Motti Aviam, University of Rochester
• Amos Kloner, Bar Ilan University
• Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
• Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
• Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
• C.D. Elledge, Gustavus Adolphus College

Geza Vermes issued a statement saying that the arguments for the Talpiot tomb are not "just unconvincing but insignificant."^[13] Vermes added, "[d]iscounting a handful, headed by James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici, the maker of the documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, most of the fifty or so participants shared this opinion"

Princeton Theological Seminary issued a letter following the controversy stating:

Unfortunately, many of the initial reports in the press following the symposium gave almost the exact opposite impression [of the symposium's results], stating, instead, that the conference proceedings gave credence to the identification of the Talpiot tomb with a putative family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As is abundantly clear from the statements to the contrary that have been issued since the symposium by many of the participants, such representations are patently false and blatantly misrepresent the spirit and scholarly content of the deliberations.^[13]

[edit] Graves in Mycenae

Jacobovici has also theorized that the graves found in Mycenae by Heinrich Schliemann belonged to runaway Jews. In particular, he claimed that one of the artifacts found at the site had a visual depiction of the Ark of the Covenant. According to Michael Wood in "In Search of the Trojan War," the graves were 1000 years older than the Trojan War and would, therefore, be about 750–800 years older than the Exodus. In addition, it is unclear what the images on the artifacts really are.

[edit] Other criticisms

• According to Bryant G. Wood, the Trojan gold and graves in present day Turkey are not actually Trojan (or Greek) but are those of a group of Hebrews that were fleeing Egypt, got separated and lost, and somehow ended up in Asia Minor.^[10]
• According to Bryant G. Wood, Hebrew slaves invented the alphabet.^{[citation needed]} In one of the Naked Archaeologist episodes,^[which?] Jacobovici makes the argument that Hebrew slaves invented the Proto-Sinaitic script, rather than the Phoenicians.
• According to Bryant G. Wood, Jacobovici says that the reasons why Egyptian authority did not grant him permission to dig around the border with Gaza and Israel during the making of the The Exodus Decoded was because the Egyptians did not want him to expose the truth that the biblical story of the Exodus is actually fact.^[10]
• According to Bryant G. Wood, Hebrew slaves built the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. (Although no religious, historical (Egyptologists or other) or scientific proof exists to validate such claim especially when the cemeteries of the builders have already been found, near the pyramids of Giza.^[14]
• According to Bryant G. Wood, Jacobovici says that the water at El Balah descended into sinkholes so that the Hebrews could pass,^[10] although the Old Testament states that the water parted and the Hebrews walked on dry land.

[edit] Awards

• Gold Medal, Visions du réel documentary film festival, Nyon, Switzerland.^[15]
• Certificate of Special Merit from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles^[15]
• Genie Award^[15]
• U.S. Cable Ace Award (three times)^[15]
• Canadian Gemini Award (twice)^[15]
• Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award^[15]
• Broadcast Award (UK)^[15]
• Royal Television Society Award^[15]
• Edward R. Murrow Award from the Overseas Press Club (US)^[15]
• Emmy for "Outstanding Investigative Journalism" three times (1996, 1997 and 2007)^[15]

[edit] Bibliography

• Jacobovici, Simcha; Pellegrino, Charles (March 2007). The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History. New York: HarperLuxe. ISBN 0061252999. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Simcha Jacobovici at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Site for The Lost Tomb of Jesus
• Simcha Jacobovici honors his father
• Simcha Jacobovici Interview
• Charging the Rhino