Ancient Box Supposedly Containing the Remains of Jesus' Brother Set for Public Display

A 2,000-year-old burial box believed by some to contain the remains of James, the brother of Jesus Christ, is set to go on public display in Israel, after its owner was cleared of forgery.

Oded Golan, the Israeli antiquities collector who owns the limestone burial box, insists that "this is the oldest evidence that mentions the name of Jesus Christ," according to a report in The Guardian.

"There is no doubt that it's ancient, and the probability is that it belonged to the brother of Jesus Christ," he added.

Golan was cleared by the Israeli Supreme Court of having forged the inscription that mentions the name of Jesus after a 10-year investigation, though the Israeli officials who analyzed the evidence have been accused of vandalizing the box.

"It's not in the same condition as before the trial. The inscription was defaced, contaminated. They poured red silicon into the inscription and they let it dry and when they took it out they took the patina. It's ruined," Golan said.

"I have to evaluate the damage, see if it can be restored and if there is the possibility of carrying out further tests on the inscription in the future that will allow us to show its authenticity. The government said the second half of the inscription was forged – the words 'brother of Jesus' – and that's where the major damage has been done."

People will soon be able to see the inscription for themselves for the first time since it was briefly exhibited in Toronto in 2002. Despite the finding by the Israeli judges that the inscription was not forged, the authenticity of the box remains in question.

"Because of the differences in the depth and the clarity and the kerning (spacing) between the first half of the inscription that mentions James son of Joseph, and the second half, I'd be willing to wager that the second half was added in modern times," offered Prof Christopher Rollston of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Others, however, such as Professor Gabriel Barkay of Bar-Ilan University, have said that it is an authentic inscription.

"The inscription is written in the Jewish script, it was done with a sharp instrument and I think it was done by the same hand. It is an authentic inscription," Barkay said.

The authenticity of the box could also be a point of controversy for the Roman Catholic Church, which disputes claims that Christ had brothers and sisters.

Golan will also offer expert opinions from the trial as part of evidence in favor of the burial box, though further details about the public display have not yet been available. The James Ossuary Trial Jerusalem blog, maintained by journalist Matthew Kalman, offers updated news on the fallout of the trial and the future of the disputed box.

The best and most precise explanation of that comes from a group of Evangelicals, coming together to make a doctrinal statement for the church ...

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Preface

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God’s written Word. To stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God’s own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstandings of this doctrine in the world at large.

This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary Statement, Articles of Affirmation and Denial, and an accompanying Exposition. It has been prepared in the course of a three-day consultation in Chicago. Those who have signed the Summary Statement and the Articles wish to affirm their own conviction as to the inerrancy of Scripture and to encourage and challenge one another and all Christians to growing appreciation and understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge the limitations of a document prepared in a brief, intensive conference and do not propose that this Statement be given creedal weight. Yet we rejoice in the deepening of our own convictions through our discussions together, and we pray that the Statement we have signed may be used to the glory of our God toward a new reformation of the Church in its faith, life, and mission.

We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and love, which we purpose by God’s grace to maintain in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly acknowledge that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the consequences of this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior, and we are conscious that we who confess this doctrine often deny it in life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and habits, into true subjection to the divine Word.

We invite response to this statement from any who see reason to amend its affirmations about Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority we stand as we speak. We claim no personal infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help which enables us to strengthen this testimony to God’s Word we shall be grateful.

— The Draft Committee

A Short Statement

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

AND THEN ... they get into the doctrinal points ... See the full article ...

http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html

-— -— -— -— -—

The full contents and all the writings for the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and the two subsequent doctrinal state,ends for the church, are archived and housed at Dallas Theological Seminary, in Dallas, Texas.

There is nothing said about intimate relations between Joseph and Mary after Jesus was born.

“knew her not” meant no intercourse had existed between them.

“not till she had brought her firstborn son and he called his name Jesus” meant she had no children previously and the first child was Jesus.

Anything after is pure speculation.

The Orthodox codified the terms ‘brother and sister’ to mean siblings and cousins in order to stop the speculation which existed in generations immediately following the crucifixion. It was important to early church leaders to keep the laity focused on the message of Christ and not the speculative fringes.

As Zefferelli had minor actors argue and scream during the film (my favorite) shooting of the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin “ I heard him say he would build the Temple in THREE days!” and another chiming in “No, I heard him say in TWO days!”. This is a sad part of human nature to zero in on trivia and not see the true important message.

Same with James as sibling brother of Jesus.

The theologian Josef Blinzler, however, in Die Brüder und Schwestern Jesu, found:

“James and Joses (Joseph) were cousins of Jesus, probably of Levitical ancestry, and sons of the “other Mary.” James was the oldest of the brothers, unconvinced about Jesus’ messiahship until the resurrection; Jesus appeared to him then, and he became the leader of the brothers; he also became the leader of the believers in Jerusalem after Peter had to depart (Acts 12:17ff.), and was visited by Paul, who mentions James as a “brother of the Lord” in Galatians. He was not an apostle, since there were two apostles named James, one of whom was designated as a son of Zebedee (Mark 3:17), along with John, and was martyred under Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2), and the other was designated as the Son of Alpaeus (Mark 3:18). James was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin when Annas II, the son of the Annas mentioned in the Gospels, became high priest.
• Simon was born seven years before Jesus, according to the chronicles of St. Hegesippus, and chosen as bishop of Jerusalem after the martyrdom of James. Hegesippus writes: “[After James’ death] the son of an uncle of Jesus, Clopas, was installed. All agreed to his precedence, since he was another cousin of the Lord.”
• Judas, like Simon, was a son of Clopas, the brother of Jesus’ father, Joseph. According to Hegesippus, two grandsons of Judas were summoned to Rome about 95 A.D., since the Emperor Domitian heard that they were descendants in the Davidic line. But the Emperor released them when it was established that they were farmers with no troublesome claims to the throne of David. Judas was the author, or “designated” author, of the short letter of Jude in the New Testament (the so-called “Catholic Epistle”).”

RE: The Bible uses adelphos for “brother,” because the Greek used in the LXX (and Hebrew and Aramaic) at that time had no commonly used word for “cousin” and other close kin.

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1) The Septuagint ( or LXX ) is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek.

The title and its Roman numeral acronym “LXX” refer to the legendary seventy Jewish scholars who completed the translation as early as the late 2nd century BCE. As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the “Greek Old Testament”.

LXX is NOT used to refer to the New Testament.

2) The New Testament on the other hand, was written in Koine Greek ( the lingua franca at that time). Koine Greek does indeed have a word for “cousin,”. The word is -— anepsios, which is used in Colossians 4:10 to describe the relationship between Barnabas and Mark.

3) Paul, who wrote Colossians, and evidently knew the word for “cousin”, did not apply it to James, the Lord’s “brother”, in Galatians 1:19.

4) Matthew and Luke also wrote their gospels in Greek, and they certainly had a word for “cousin” (anepsios) at their disposal. They didn’t use it.

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