Scholars say Jesus box may be genuine (Scholars: Israel's labeling of the find as a fake premature)

AP ^ | Tuesday, November 25, 2003

[presidio9]

A purported first-century inscription naming Jesus may or may not be the real thing, but Israel's labeling of the find as a fake is premature, scientists and scholars said at a panel discussion.

At issue is a limestone burial box, or ossuary, with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," that emerged on Israel's antiquities market last year.

[presidio9]

[polemikos]

It doesn't say: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"
It says: "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus".

I read that the grammer construction makes it possible that the "brother of Jesus" could be either James or Joseph.

[presidio9]

That is interesting, because one of the things I remember them talking about was the statistical probablities of there being very many Jesus/Joseph/James associations at the time. That would tend to change the mathmatics a bit.

[Varda]

Couldn't there be another explanation for the inscription?
It could be this is James bio brother to Jesus, or
or more likely its "James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" i.e. a disciple.

Mark 3:35 -"whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

[JohnnyZ]

"Jesus box" -- that's funny!

[MineralMan]

"It doesn't say: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"
It says: "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus".

I read that the grammer construction makes it possible that the "brother of Jesus" could be either James or Joseph."


Well, since neither James or Jesus are names from that period, I'd really like to know what the names were, as actually written. What we're hearing is a translation of those names into what we call these people in English. Let's hear the names as written.

[presidio9]

Why did you remove this post?

[Varda]

Funny, yes, I just noticed that! LOL. But the behavior of the Israeli antiques authority isn't. They should let the scholars hash it out the way they always do.

[Agnes Heep]

There were lots of Jameses, Josephs and Jesuses (rendered in their own tongue, of course) in that time and place. Without more specificity it would be impossible to tell exactly who the inscription referred to, even if it's not a fake.

[Question_Assumptions]

"Ya'akov bar Yosef akhui diYeshua"

[bethelgrad]

One of the scholars involved in the find, ben Witherington, is on faculty at the seminary I attend. He co-wrote "The Brother of JEsus" with Shanks.

Doesn't make me important or "in the know" or anything like that.

[thulldud]

Here's an attempt at transcribing what's in the picture.

IQOV BN IOSF 'H Y(SH)?`

The ? is something that seems to be between the shin and the ayin. It's big enough to be a letter, but I can't tell what it is from this picture.

Anyway, that's what it looks like to me.

[thulldud]

"Bar" instead of "BN". (Aramaic instead of Hebrew) Works for me. I wondered if I was just not seeing the tail on the terminal nun, but if it's a resh it wouldn't have one.

[MineralMan]

""Ya'akov bar Yosef akhui diYeshua"
"

Thanks. That seems important to me, really. Jacob, not James, and Yeshua (Joshua) rather than Jesus. So many people have no idea what these people were really called back then. All these names were quite common in that time, so this ossuary box could refer to almost anyone. I imagine there were lots of Jacobs who were the son of Joseph and the brother of Joshua.

Do you know how Yeshua became Jesus in the first place? Pretty strange, it seems to me.

[Campion]

"Yeshua" in Hebrew became "Iesous" in Greek, and that became "Jesus" in English. Some old Bibles refer to the Book of Joshua as "the Book of Jesus, son of Nun".

[yankeedame]

The hard, brown patina that covers the box could not be found on the inscription, where a soft, grayish chalk-and-water paste had been applied instead to imitate weathering, the authority said.

Well...that's good enough for me.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Do you know how Yeshua became Jesus in the first place

So much is Europeanized isn't it? I don't mean that in a derogatory way, it's just the way it is. The Hebrew roots of the bible have become very removed. There is so much to learn, it's fascinating and never-ending.

(P.S. Same way a Turkish Saint became a big fat guy with a white beard!)

[winstonchurchill]

We see from the nonsensical arguments posed in the postings here how desperate this little box makes both Jews and Catholics: Jews because it is yet further historical validation of Jesus and His contemporary importance (after all, the traditional inscription would not have gone beyond James' father (Joseph); the addition of the reference to Jesus displays that the inscriber felt it would add importance to the occupant's bones (James) by inference by simply mentioning his famous brother); and the RCC because, if valid, the box draws into question the RCC's various accretionist teachings about Jesus having no brothers or sisters in an attempt to shore-up their 'doctrine' of the 'perpetual virginity' of Mary, etc. Both groups will go to almost any length to 'explain away' a simple and straightforward inscription, which, if valid, is indeed revolutionary.

[MineralMan]

"So much is Europeanized isn't it? I don't mean that in a derogatory way, it's just the way it is. The Hebrew roots of the bible have become very removed. There is so much to learn, it's fascinating and never-ending."

Yes, and it's a shame, really. Most modern day Christians don't know that there was nobody called Jesus in those days. Yeshua (Joshua) becomes Jesus. Jacob becomes James. I've always disliked altering people's names when translating works of any kind, and this is worse, in my opinion.

I understand how this happens, I guess, but it's a darned shame that we don't even speak the names of those written about. Instead, we change them to more familiar English names.

It does make you wonder what else was changed or redacted, doesn't it?