Misstatements On Television

I don’t have a lot of time to write my post today. My workday was busy before I got to the office, and it’s become hectic since then.

I was going to give an interim report on the book I’m reading, but thought of a different, shorter topic. Yesterday was a leisurely day for me, as the Lord’s Day should be, especially one so important. I even was able to watch a little television. In that watching I heard some incredible misstatements.

First, on a morning news program, when the commentator at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City talked about what the pope was doing, he said, “The pope is giving mass right now.” No, the celebrant doesn’t “give” mass, he/she “celebrates” mass. Okay, that’s somewhat minor. I’m not in a denomination that celebrates mass (thought I grew up in one), so this didn’t offend me. I found it amusing, though possibly some people around the world would be offended by this reporter’s ignorance.

The second one was on a show on the History Channel in the evening, about the search for Jesus’ DNA and determining if any relatives to Him could be found. It was a 2-hour program, kind of interesting (different than the usual Easter program of the Bible story). At the start of the program, they made it clear that the Bible said Jesus had no descendants, and that they were looking for relatives. That is, they said that in the program. In the various trailers leading up to it, they acted like they were looking for Jesus’ DNA descendants.

Right at the end of the program, they actually said that. I didn’t write it down, so can’t give you the exact quote, but it was essentially, “With this DNA research, we hope to be able to find Jesus’ descendants.” The entire program they made it clear they were looking for relatives of Jesus—i.e. people descended from a common ancestor with Jesus.  Then, at the end, they resorted to yellow journalism.

Very disappointing. I may write the History Channel and tell them so.

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