A team of religion scholars ignited a firestorm of controversy this week with the release of a documentary film and book claiming to shed light on the burial practices of 1st-century Christians living near Jerusalem. Although there’s a good deal of debate over what the researchers have actually discovered, it’s interesting to note that this debate has been made possible by a high-definition camera setup enabling documentary filmmakers to capture images from inside a tomb buried beneath two meters of rock without entering the site or in any way disturbing its contents. In December 2010, filmmaker Simcha Jacobivici and his crew snaked a high-definition camera down into what’s come to be known as the “Patio tomb,” discovered in 1981 about five kilometers south of the Old City in East Jerusalem and so named because it’s now located beneath an apartment patio.
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