Lemaire says the writing style, and the fact that Jews practiced ossuary burials only between 20 B.C. and A.D. 70, puts the inscription squarely in the time of Jesus and James, who led the early church in Jerusalem.
The ossuary's owner also is requiring Lemaire to shield his identity, so the box's current location was not revealed.
The owner of the ossuary never realized its potential importance until Lemaire examined it last spring. Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, himself saw the box Sept. 25.
Lemaire told The Associated Press the owner wants anonymity to avoid time-consuming contacts with reporters and religious figures. The owner also wants to avoid the cost of insurance and guarding the artifact, and has no plans to display it publicly, he said.
How does it happen that the ossuary is in private ownership? How could the archeologists who discovered the artifact sell it to someone? I find that very strange. At least, I've never heard of such a thing. I always thought artifacts belonged to the country in which they were found. Was the artifact discovered on private property? Did someone commission a dig on their own property? This is weird.
I find it surprising that no one has questioned this: James, who led the early church in Jerusalem.
Jesus' successor was James, not Peter. Interesting that no one has tried to refute this!! Oh Aquinasfan where are you??? lol
But, it's true, James was the successor:
Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History
http://biblefacts.org/ecf/cvol1/euseb_b2.html
Book II
CHAPTER I.
The Course pursued by the Apostles after the Ascension of Christ. First, then, in the place of Judas, the betrayer, Matthias, who, as has been shown was also one of the Seventy, was chosen to the apostolate. And there were appointed to the diaconate, for the service of the congregation, by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the apostles, approved men, seven in number, of whom Stephen was one. He first, after the Lord, was stoned to death at the time of his ordination by the slayers of the Lord, as if he had been promoted for this very purpose. And thus he was the first to receive the crown, corresponding to his name, which belongs to the martyrs of Christ. Then James, whom the ancients surnamed the Just on account of the excellence of his virtue, is recorded to have been the first to be made bishop of the church of Jerusalem. This James was called the brother of the Lord because he was known as a son of Joseph, and Joseph was supposed to be the father of Christ, because the Virgin, being betrothed to him, "was found with child by the Holy Ghost before they came together," as the account of the holy Gospels shows. But Clement in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes writes thus: "For they say that Peter and James and John after the ascension of our Savior, as if also preferred by our Lord, strove not after honor, but chose James the Just bishop of Jerusalem."
It probably was not found by archeologists but rather by some goat-herder among the caves. Quite common in the Middle East.