“The Lost Tomb of Jesus” documentary aired on the Discovery Channel March 4, claiming a tomb in Jerusalem once housed the bones of Jesus and His family. Once again, we have an arm of the liberal media presenting us with information that tries to debunk Christianity.

The two-hour special was bankrolled by famed Titanic director John Cameron, and it drew a sizable 4.19 million viewers. The lion's share of the coverage came from all the free press it received. Nearly every news outlet on the planet ran a story about the program. The way the liberal press was hyping the documentary, one would think they had found a tomb containing Jesus’ birth certificate and high school yearbook.

Having watched the show, I don't know why this "archeo-porn," as one archeologist described it, was given the green light. I would rank its dud factor equal to the Geraldo Rivera opening of Al Capone's vault. The man who found the tomb has publicly said the tomb is not connected to Jesus. Even the Discovery Channel team now realizes the hollowness of the claims in the program. The network has yanked plans to run future repeats.

Documentarian Simcha Jacobovici was the voice of the project, and he presented the core argument that this "Jesus tomb" is real because of the unlikelihood of finding another tomb with ossuaries containing the inscriptions “Jesus son of Joseph,” “Mary,” “Mariamene e Mara” and “Judah son of Jesus.” Jacobovici said “Jesus son of Joseph” was the Jesus of the Bible"; “Mary” was Jesus' mother; “Mariamene” was his wife, Mary Magdalene; and “Judah son of Jesus” was the son of Christ and Mary Magdalene. He put the odds of it not being Christ's tomb at 1 in 600.

There is nothing impressive about the names found on the ossuaries. The name Mary is shared by 21 percent of the women from the 1st-century Judean area; Jesus, Joseph and Judah were among the top four male names. "Jesus" is actually an English translation of Joshua.

When you consider that 88,000 people lived in the Jerusalem area at the time of the 1st century, it should be easy to find a few other tombs with the same names. I would liken it to someone finding graves marked with the names George, John, and Thomas, and then claiming they had found the burial site of America's first three presidents.

There is a major problem with one of the key names. Jacobovici said that “Mariamene e Mara” was Mary Magdalene, or "Mary the Master." Nearly every scholar who has looked at the inscription believes it actually says "Mary Martha" or "Mary known as Martha." Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, has doubts that the name ``Jesus'' on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it looks more like the name ``Hanun.'' Ancient Semitic script is notoriously difficult to decipher. Of course, if this is true, the claims made by “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” completely collapse.

What irritates me the most about these so-called new discoveries in the past few years is how they ignore the biblical and historical record. Thousands of documents provide details about the life of Jesus, and liberals say the evidence is not strong enough. Plato made the only documented reference to a city called Atlantis in 355 B.C., and people are still looking for it today.

The evidence in support of the Bible is so strong, Christians have no business going into the panic mode whenever Time Magazine, Newsweek, ABC "Primetime Live" or any other media outlet decides to fire a cheap shot at our Lord and Savior. From all the witnesses we have from the 1st century, it's going to take more than an empty bone box to rewrite history.

The non-Christian writer Josephus backs the New Testament account of a risen Jesus: “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he...wrought surprising feats...He was the Christ. When Pilate condemned him to be crucified, those who had...come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared...restored to life....And the tribe of Christians has not disappeared.”

I think the frequency of these attacks on the Christian faith provide strong evidence that the Bible is real. The Word of God predicts that the devil will do his best to attack the name of Jesus. You don't see the media attacking the validity of the Koran. I would love to see a documentary on how Mohammad plagiarized his ideas from the Bible. Of course, the god of this world would never allow that type of program to go into production.