The Canadian Jewish News reports that filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici has produced a 26-part documentary series on biblical archaeology, entitled “The Naked Archaeologist.” Jacobovici accuses “biblical archaeologists” of being motivated chiefly by politics and anti-Semitism:

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.

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!”

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.

I’m sure it will come as a surprise to the likes of Israel Finkelstein and even Bill Dever that doubting the historicity of the exodus makes them fascist, crassly political, anti-Semitic, and close cousins to Holocaust deniers. Although the writer of the CJN article was at least careful to include the word “some” at important points in the excerpt above, Jacobovici clearly seems to be engaging in something of a smear campaign to promote his own point of view. Notice Jacobovici’s use of a vague chronological correspondence to impute anti-Semitism to “biblical archaeologists”: “Modern archeology emerged with the rise of fascism.” But so what? Any such correspondence would be meaningless in terms of causality or in terms of characterizing individual archaeologists or archaeologists generally. Sir William Flinders Petrie excavated in Palestine between 1927 and his death in 1942, and fascism was ascendant in Italy c. 1922-1943; but it can hardly be said that Petrie was motivated by fascism, as had practiced his techniques in Egypt starting around 1880–some forty years before fascism took hold in Italy. Sure, some archaeologists may have been fascists (though Jacobovici may also have watched Raiders of the Lost Ark one too many times), but Jacobovici’s attempt to smear an entire discipline by an alleged chronological coincidence is just ridiculous.

It’s interesting too that Jacobovici seems, as represented in the article, to use the term “biblical archaeology” to encompass modern Syro-Palestinian archaeologists who don’t accept the historicity of (some of) the biblical stories. If that’s really Jacobovici’s language, he’s got it all wrong; the “biblical archaeologists” were those who precisely went digging “with the Bible in one hand and a spade in the other,” and modern Syro-Palestinian archaeologists tend to prefer other terms.

Finally, Jacobovici—who is neither a biblical scholar, nor a historian, nor an archaeologists, but a filmmaker—seems ignorant of good historicial methodology: “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. … If you don’t think it’s true, prove it!” Jacobovici seems to be serious, but he’s a walking caricature of the worst sort of “maximalist”: someone determined to believe what the Bible says, just because the Bible says it, unless given a reason to believe otherwise. Well, there are plenty of reasons that Syro-Palestinian archaeologists and biblical scholars could give Jacobovici to doubt the veracity of certain stories, but that’s beside the methodological point.

The CJN article doesn’t mention whether Jacobovici’s 26-part “The Naked Archaeologist” will air in the USA. It does, however, reveal that

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.

Sigh. We’re supposed to take that seriously?