Discovery Channel’s new publicists: Opus Dei?

If you think the uproar over and/or premise of the Discovery Channel’s upcoming documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” is bizarre, try getting an advance screener.

“The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” of course, suggests that archaeologists discovered back in 1980 a tomb in Jerusalem that some people now think contained the remains of Jesus and his family, including his wife, Mary Magdalene, and a son, Judah (certainly not a shout out to Judas Iscariot). This, of course, would run counter to Biblical accounts which neglected to mention Jesus’ big wedding-day bash (he converted water into wine at someone else’s wedding) and suggested that since He ascended to heaven, there wouldn’t’ve had been any remains, as Tim LaHaye might have it, left behind.

First, a little “inside baseball” that’ll give you “deep cover” in order to sneak into the “secret mechanisms” of the “entertainment-industrial complex:” Traditionally, networks and cable channels will send critics DVD or (if they’re hopelessly passé) VHS screeners of shows they’d like said critics to write about. Barring that, they’ll at least send out a press release about a program, with the name, number and email address of a publicist one can contact if you want a screener. Pretty standard stuff, really.

However, in the case of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” Discovery sent out a press release for the show Monday (the same day as the New York press conference) that read a little like the conspiracy-fueled fever dream of someone who keeps the government from controlling his mind by wearing tin foil on his head. No publicist was name-checked; no phone number was included; the Email address from which the missive was sent had been created specifically for this event (and if I don’t hear back from these clowns soon, I’ll share it so you can clog up their system).

Your Mayor, a conscientious servant determined to supply his constituency with the most current trends in transgressive historical revisionism, replied Monday requesting a copy of the documentary. An email appeared Tuesday informing me my email had been “received.” Not “read,” mind you, and certainly not “acted upon,” just “received.” The email also helpfully provided a link to the Discovery Channel’s online store, where I could buy all manner of – well, I don’t know, since the link didn’t actually work.

Dogged in my pursuit of this bombshell story, I phoned a publicist at Discovery, who gave me a number to call; when I asked her who I should ask for, she said she didn’t know. And, indeed, she didn’t, because it was a phone-mail box taking “media requests” for the show. Again, no names of whom one should contact to expedite service; no promise that anyone would ever contact you about this in this lifetime.

This seems a particularly arcane and even slightly sinister approach to television publicity, particularly for a show about Jesus. Discovery Channel publicity seems to have cribbed a page from Opus Dei, that unnervingly secretive group demonized in “The Da Vinci Code,” only working to utterly contradictory ends. But, wait: If Discovery Channel really wanted critics to write about this, they’d make it easy to get screeners; if Opus Dei wanted to squelch this, of course they’d create an utterly obfuscating publicity campaign. So apparently Discovery Channel was duped into outsourcing publicity services on “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” to Opus Dei, who operates under the same shroud of secrecy as Yale University’s Skull and Bones. Which is precisely what was found in those Jerusalem ossuaries – mere coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, a lot of critics are grousing that it seems quite a stretch to make the claims the documentary posits, and yes, having not seen the documentary but having heard various experts weigh in, there doesn’t seem to be enough persuasive evidence to tilt two millennia of spiritual faith in their direction. Were the film right, however, what, really, is the big deal? It seems to me that following Christ’s teachings because they’re inordinately humane and square with one’s own moral beliefs is a lot more noble and true than adhering to them because if you don’t, you’re afraid you’ll go to hell.

* UPDATE: A screener of "Jesus" has ascended to my hilltop duplex.