Posted on 12/03/2002 9:08:03 PM PST by Kaiwen
keptics in growing number are weighing in with doubts about the authenticity of the inscription on a burial box that may have contained the bones of James, a brother of Jesus, and so could be the earliest surviving archaeological link to Jesus Christ.
When the existence of the limestone bone box, or ossuary, was announced five weeks ago, a French scholar asserted that the inscription — "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" — most probably referred to the Jesus of the New Testament. The script, he said, was in the style of the Aramaic language of the first century A.D.
Now that more experts have studied photographs of the inscription or seen it on display at a Toronto museum, they generally accept the antiquity of the ossuary itself, but some of them suspect that all or part of the script is a forgery. Apparent differences in the handwriting, they said, suggested that the Jesus phrase in particular could have been added by a forger, either in ancient or modern times.
"To say the least, I have a very bad feeling about the matter," Dr. Eric M. Meyers, an archaeologist and a scholar of Judaic studies at Duke University, said recently at a conference of biblical and archaeological researchers in Toronto.
Dr. Meyers said he had "serious questions about authenticity," in no small part because the origin of the ossuary is clouded in mystery. It was apparently found by looters at an undisclosed site and bought on the antiquities market in Israel. Professional archaeologists are not comfortable with artifacts of such dubious provenance.
Others who had just examined the ossuary at the Royal Ontario Museum were most concerned that the inscription appeared to be written by two different hands. The first part, about James, son of Joseph, seemed to be written in a formal script, while the second, about Jesus, is in a more free-flowing cursive style.
"The fact that the cursive and the formal types of letters appear in the two parts of the inscription suggests to me at least the possibility of a second hand," said Dr. P. Kyle McCarter Jr., a specialist in Middle East languages at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. André Lemaire, the French scholar in Aramaic who proposed the inscription's connection to Jesus, stoutly defended his interpretation at a conference of the Society of Biblical Literature, also held in Toronto. A researcher at the Sorbonne in Paris and a respected specialist on inscriptions of the biblical period, he published his findings in the current issue of the American magazine Biblical Archaeology Review.
Dr. Lemaire repeated his contention that "it is very probable" that the burial box had held the bones of James, a leader of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem, and that the inscription referred to Jesus of Nazareth. It was extremely rare to name a brother on one's ossuary, he said, and so this particular Jesus must have been someone of prominence.
In an interview, Hershel Shanks, the magazine editor who published the report, said there were at least two reasons to doubt the accusations of forgery.
"If a modern forger did it, for a couple of hundred dollars he could get a blank ossuary, and it would be a dumb forger who doesn't start from scratch so the writing is consistent," Mr. Shanks said. "Also, you've got to assume the forger knows how to forge patina — something not known by others. All these things are possible, but extraordinarily unlikely."
Geologists in Israel who examined the ossuary judged its patina, the surface coating from aging and weathering, to be consistent with estimates that the box is about 2,000 years old. They also said they detected no signs of later tampering with the inscription. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, recorded that James was executed in A.D. 62.
Mr. Shanks is co-author of a book, "The Brother of Jesus," to be published in March by HarperSanFrancisco. He will describe the discovery and interpretation of the James ossuary, and his collaborator, Ben Witherington III, who is an author and lecturer on the New Testament, will discuss its implications for understanding Jesus.
But the controversy is not likely to die down any time soon.
The owner of the ossuary, whose identity was not disclosed in the magazine article, has now come forward. He is Oded Golan, a Tel Aviv engineer and ardent collector of artifacts from biblical times. Called in for questioning by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Mr. Golan said he bought the ossuary 35 years ago but could not remember from whom, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported recently. Mr. Shanks said Mr. Golan had no understanding of the ossuary's possible importance until Dr. Lemaire saw it on a visit last year.
Israeli authorities said they were continuing the investigation. The ossuary is to be returned to Israel at the conclusion of its exhibition in Toronto, which continues until the end of this month. Other researchers have entered the fray, calling more attention to signs of possible forgery.
Rochelle I. Altman, who moderates an Internet bulletin board for scholars of ancient Judaism and describes herself as an expert on scripts, was one of the first to note the apparent discrepancy in script styles in the inscription. "There are two hands of clearly different levels of literacy and two different scripts," Ms. Altman wrote. "The second part of the inscription bears the hallmarks of a fraudulent later addition and is questionable to say the least."
Dr. Daniel Eylon, an Israeli engineering professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio, approached the problem from his experience in failure analysis investigations for the aerospace industry. Applying a technique used in determining if a malfunction of an airplane part occurred before or after an accident, he examined photographs of the inscription for scratches caused by moving the box against other boxes in the cave or in the final excavation.
"The inscription would be underneath these scratches if it had been on the box at the time of burial, but the majority of this inscription is on top of the scratches," Dr. Eylon said. "And the sharpness of some of the letters doesn't look right — sharp edges do not last 2,000 years."
Please don't tell berned we're here. He works my nerves something awful.
"The inscription would be underneath these scratches if it had been on the box at the time of burial, but the majority of this inscription is on top of the scratches," Dr. Eylon said. "And the sharpness of some of the letters doesn't look right — sharp edges do not last 2,000 years."
An aweful lot of wishful thinking was expended on this hoax, with some going so far as to claim it was the straw that broke the Catholic Marian doctrines back.
I don't expect to see them offer a mea culpa though...
Thus the rather expensive ossuaries said ONLY "A, Son of B." That is ALL!
Prior to this case, we knew of only one ossuary in all Second Temple Judaism that went on to say, "brother of C." Such an addition would only have been made if C was so well known as to be the best identifier of just which A we are talking about, better than his own father.
From what we know of the history of early Christianity, it could well be that it was only after the death of James, at some later point, that someone deemed Jesus to be famous enough to merit such an additional script. Also, the ossuary could have been bought by James years before his death, pre-need as it were, and here again the additional word added only after death, an afterthought.
Here is what YOU, Polycarp, "opined" on the subject earlier...
The stepbrother hypothesis is, in fact, the earliest one on record. It is endorsed by a document known as the Protoevangelium of James, which dates to the year 120, within sixty years of James' death (James died in A.D. 62). According to the Protoevangelium, Joseph was an elderly widower at the time he was betrothed to Mary. He already had a family and thus was willing to become the guardian of a virgin consecrated to God. The stepbrother hypothesis was the most common explanation of the brethren of the Lord until St. Jerome popularized the cousin hypothesis just before the year 400. The stepbrother hypothesis is also supported by the fact that Joseph apparently was significantly older than Mary, as he appears to have died before our Lord's public ministry began. Bottom line: If the ossuary of James bar-Joseph is that of James the brother of the Lord, it sheds light on which of the theories Catholics are permitted to hold is most likely the correct one, but it poses does nothing to refute Catholic doctrine. If authentic, as seems probable, it is to be welcomed as further archaeological confirmation of the life of our Lord.
Please, favor us all with some more of your "scholarly" thought on what YOU previously posted, Polycarp.
When I'm wrong, or incorrect, I openly admit it, apologize and seek forgiveness. You have never admitted the sinister way you used this hoax to try to deceive folks on this forum.
That is the difference between a Christian and a fraud.
YOU didn't answer my previous post, a tactic that you , and the Democrat Party, have perfected.
Answer my previous post to you. Expound on what YOU posted about your l'il opinions on how Joseph had a wife BEOFRE Mary that produced the four sons mentioned in God's Word.
I hereby ask God to deal with you calling me names.
You owe the Catholic Caucus as well as this Forum a great big mea culpa.
I don't answer the demands of frauds like you. Sorry.
The BIBLE says that Jesus had four brothers. One of them was named James.
The Bible says that Joseph refrained from having sex with Mary UNTIL she had delivered Jesus.
The fact that there are some skeptics who question the archaeological finding is normal. ALL Archaeological finds are questioned by someone somewhere. Skepticism is a natural and normal part of ALL archaeology.
I ask you, Polycarp, in the name of Jesus, the Son of the Living God, did you, or did you not, write the note that I reposted, saying that the early church believed that Joseph had a wife BEFORE Mary that produced the four brothers of Jesus, James, Jude, Joses, and Simon?
I did not write it. It was written by a Catholic apologist, if my memory serves me correctly. If I failed to post its source at the time, my apologies.
I've just dug up your old posts from previous threads on this bone box hoax.
Care to go tit for tat, or shall we both admit this was just a bad hoax, and we both made statements that have proven to be (to a greater or lesser degree, not commenting on whose was greater and whose was lesser ;-) both insupportable and even laughable given these latest developments?
I did indeed post the source of these comments in my post.
Yet you try to insinuate I wrote them, knowing fully that I posted a link to their original source.
Typical of the frauds you have perpetrated throughout the course of these bone box hoax debates.
I'll not debate any longer with a proven deceiver such as you.
God knows whether the inscriptions are ACCURATE or not. (WHEN they were inscribed is irrelevant to the TRUTH of whose bones, and what his relationship was to Jesus of Nazereth).
So God knew this box would surface, and that it would generate many conversations around the world about what it might mean.
God also knows that right now, there is a movement afoot in Roman Catholicism about elevating Mary to "Co-Redemptrix" status with Jesus.
The truth will play out about this box and about many many other things. God is absolutely in control of all these things. He knows what MY true motivations are, and what YOUR true motivations are.
Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity are on a collision course.
The future is known to God.
Get lost Berned. And be careful, because God does indeed know what is in your heart, no matter how much you engage in self deception.
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