Getting "a lot of Christians with their knickers in a knot"

We finally discovered the true purpose of biblical scholars and journalists!

The Discovery Channel is airing Sunday (a/k/a the Lord's day) a sensational story claiming to have found ossuaries that once held the bones of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, His "wife" Mary Magdalene, and two other members of the family. The highly paid strategists at the Discovery Channel have apparently decided that they are in the same business as the tabloids at the supermarket checkout counter.

The Wall Street Journal's David Hall found last Tuesday’s quote of the day in Laurie Goldstein's coverage of this momentous event:

“’A lot of conservative, orthodox and moderate Christians are going to be upset by the recklessness of this,’ said Ben Witherington, a Bible scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. ‘Of course, we want to know more about Jesus, but please don’t insult our intelligence by giving us this sort of stuff. It’s going to get a lot of Christians with their knickers in a knot unnecessarily.’”

Tying our knickers in knots! So that what biblical scholars and journalists are for! That’s a mystery that has baffled me for decades!

(If you are too embarrassed to ask: "knickers" are what you wear under your pants or skirt. An Aussie friend of mine, who was rather a rake, one confided in me that "Sheilas that don't wear knickers are more fun." I have no personal knowledge with which to judge whether his generalization be true or false. He was a sort who rather enjoyed testing such hypotheses: a line of research I neither recommend nor condone.)