Exposing the 'Jesus' Brother' Fraud [James Ossuary inscription]

Time magazine book review of Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy La ^ | October 16, 2008 | Tim McGirk

[Mike Fieschko]

The bone box, or ossuary, reportedly bearing the Aramaic inscription "Yaakov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua" ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus") AFP / Getty

[snip]

After a two-year investigation, police in December 2004 charged the antiquities collector [Oded Golan] and four others of forgery, alleging that the James ossuary was a clever fake and that Golan had masterminded an international ring of thieves that over the past 20 years had duped major museums and collectors out of millions. Put on trial, Golan denied the charges ....

[snip]

The extraordinary story of how Israeli detectives built a case against Golan and his alleged cohorts is the subject of Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land by Nina Burleigh ... . Burleigh keeps her balance, and her humor, as she sifts - far more diligently than many archaeologists - through the evidence. She also has unprecedented access to all the major players in the James ossuary debate: ... detectives, ... antiquarians, ... collectors and suspected forgers of near genius.

[snip]

At first detectives from the Israel Antiquities Authority suspected that the ossuary was authentic but had been stolen from a site by Arab grave diggers and sold to Golan. Israeli sleuths say they discovered that the limestone casket was indeed authentic, and dated back to the correct period of A.D. 60. But the key inscription, linking the object to Jesus Christ, was a clever fake.

[snip]

Believers and scientists alike were shocked by the accusations that not only was the James ossuary a fake but so were two other rare objects of biblical significance: an inscribed pomegranate and the gold-flecked Jehoash tablet, which both supposedly came from Solomon's Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6th century B.C.

[snip]

[Mike Fieschko]

Found this review linked on Jim Davila's Paleojudaica blog, where he comments:

It was kind of a shock to hear that the Ivory Pomegranate inscription was a fake, but it was pretty obvious early on the the Joash/Jehoash inscription was.

[Varda]

I haven’t read that any verdict has come out and this trial has gone on for years. Anti-Christians of all stripes certainly want the ossuary to be fake but that hasn’t been determined . So far, some of the best scholars say it is real.

AFAIK this from Biblical Archaeology Review paints the current stage of the trial. Do you have anything newer?

“The case against Golan is different. He is charged with actually forging something—the famous ossuary, or bone box, inscribed, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The government claims it found in his apartment forgery instruments and materials to make forgeries, as well as some partially completed forgeries. On the other hand, some very prominent paleographers, including André Lemaire and the highly regarded Israeli paleographer Ada Yardeni, are convinced that the James ossuary is authentic. No expert paleographer has testified otherwise. Normally, the testimony of Lemaire and Yardeni would come as part of the defendants’ case. But, for some strange reason, the government called them as its witnesses. Their testimony that the inscription is authentic would in itself seem sufficient to raise a “reasonable doubt” concerning the government’s allegation that the inscription is a forgery, thus requiring dismissal of the charge.” http://www.bib-arch.org/debates/antiquities-trial-01.asp

[Mike Fieschko]

AFAIK this from Biblical Archaeology Review paints the current stage of the trial. Do you have anything newer?

About the trial, no, nothing newer.>br>
Google news has a timeline of articles on "Oded Golan" "trial" here, and there are more recent articles than Shanks' February 2008 article in BAR.

As an aside: though there may be / are 'Anti-Christians of all stripes [who] certainly want the ossuary to be fake', some Christians believe the James Ossuary is fake. That belief isn't limited to anti-Christians.

[Varda]

The trial needs to prove a forgery and it hasn’t done that even in a time span of years. Some Christians may believe the ossuary is fake but that it would be on the basis of a theology not evidence.

I don't see anything about the ossuary that should alarm the vast majority of Christians. Plain sense readings of ancient scripts from extinct cultures is almost never the appropriate way to approach interpretation.

[SunkenCiv]

Despite the big bandwagon the skepticultists jumped on, there has never been any compelling evidence of forgery.

‘2,000-year-old Jesus box’ may not be a fake,
as Jerusalem forgery trial nears collapses
Daily Mail | 30 Oct 2008 | Daily Mail
Posted on 10/29/2008 7:42:25 PM PDT by BGHater
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2119263/posts

Exposing the ‘Jesus’ Brother’ Fraud
Time | 10/16/08 | TIM MCGIRK
Posted on 10/16/2008 8:58:00 AM PDT by presidio9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2107117/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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