Free Republic

(NBC NEWS) A long-running archaeological controversy has been resurrected, thanks to a newly revealed analysis of scrapings from a first-century tomb in East Jerusalem and a bone box attributed to “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The analysis, described on Easter Sunday in The New York Times and the Jerusalem Post, links the limestone box (also known as an ossuary) to the tomb — which in turn has been linked to Jesus’ family story. Both the box and the tomb have previously created media sensations: In 2004, Israeli authorities charged antiquities dealer Oded Golan with forging the “Jesus inscription”...

The Jewish people took the burial of the dead quite seriously; it was the way a community paid its last respects to the one who died. The Scriptures laid down quite firmly that no dead body was to be left unburied—even that of one’s worst enemy. Perhaps one of the stronger horrors that a Jewish person could imagine was stated in Psalm 78: They have thrown the bodies of thy servants as food for the birds of heaven; wild beast feast on the corpses of the just.The dead, therefore, had a right to ceremonial care. As soon as a...

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...

Rare, detailed inscription is genuine, says a TAU researcherIn Jerusalem and Judah, ancient limestone burial boxes containing skeletal remains — called ossuaries — are fairly common archaeological finds from the 1st century BCE to the 1st century AD period. Forgers have also added inscriptions or decorations to fraudulently increase their value. So three years ago, when the Israel Antiquities Authority confiscated an ossuary with a rare inscription from antiquities looters, they turned to Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology to authenticate the fascinating discovery. Prof. Goren, who worked in collaboration with Prof. Boaz Zissu from Bar...

A judge is set to throw out charges against experts accused of faking a stone box that claimed to offer the first physical proof of the existence of Christ - raising the possibility once again that it could be genuine. The discovery of the 2,000-year-old ossuary, or bone box, bearing the words, 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus', was regarded as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries when it emerged nearly a decade ago. Fake or genuine: Men accused of forging an inscription of the 'Jesus Box' could be released The disputed inscription on the 'Jesus Box' But other...

John Robson The Ottawa Citizen Friday, March 02, 2007 Well, it's Lent, when Jesus-debunking news stories rise from the dead. This time it's a tomb with the whole family gathered, including his wife and kid. Unless it's just the dusty bones of decency and good sense in those boxes. In a way it's a backhanded tribute that, to the modern mind, Christianity is like a train wreck: gruesome, but they can't look away. Newspapers don't greet major Buddhist festivals with claims that Siddhartha Gautama was a cokehead, or open Ramadan by saying Mohammed was -- (do NOT fill in this...

Talpiot tomb Remember the tale of the Titanic? How it was supposed to be impregnable, and nothing could poke holes in it? How it would never be sunk? Well all I can say is that human hubris knows no bounds, and that hasn’t changed in the last century. On April 15th 1912 the supposedly leak proof Titanic rammed into an iceberg and sank—sank like a giant stone. Sank quickly, with great loss of life. Why do I bring this up? Because in one of the interesting ironies in recent memory, James Cameron the movie director who made the enormously successful...

The ossuary was discovered in 1941 by archaeologists Eliezer L. Sukenik and Nahman Avigad of Jerusalem's Hebrew University and came to light through a systematic survey of tombs in the Kidron Valley, south of Jerusalem's Old City and the Arab village of Silwan. This ossuary and ten others were found as an intact assemblage in a tomb chamber that had survived the centuries untouched by tomb robbers, with its blocking stone still in place. In short, there is absolutely no question about this object's provenance and authenticity... The burial cave was a single, rock-hewn chamber without niches of any sort,...

Update—Finds or Fakes? Forgery Bombshell May 16, 2006 The ossuary inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" has recently been studied by Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, a world-renowned authority. He has reached startling conclusions that will change the debate over this highly controversial artifact. Printed below is a summary of Professor Krumbein's report; click the following links for the full text of the report and the accompanying photographs. As this is being written, Israeli antiquities collector Oded Golan is being tried in criminal court for forging the now-famous James ossuary inscription ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). A...

<p>JERUSALEM, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Israeli police in riot gear stormed the square outside Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, to disperse stone throwers.</p> <p>The operation followed Palestinians stoning Jewish worshippers at Judaism's Western Wall, which is below the mosque, Ha'aretz reported.</p>

w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m Not a shard of truth Sensational claims have been made about bonesfound in Qumran, but no, this is not John the Baptist,say the heads of the dig. In August 2002, Time Magazine carried a headline that aroused curiosity: "Digging for the Baptist." The reference was to an archaeological dig being carried out for the past two years or so in Qumran, near the shore of the Dead Sea. The dig is headed by Prof. Hanan Eshel, head of the...

May 16, 2004. 08:48 AM No historical evidence of Jesus TOM HARPUR Ever since the publication of The Pagan Christ, literalist clergy and others have been hammering away at the theme of the alleged historicity of the Gospels. Yet, Bible scholars today know that the Gospels never were historical biographies even though they may appear to be such. Listen to the genius Dr. Albert Schweitzer, in his landmark book The Quest Of The Historical Jesus: "The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of...

Monday January 13, 2003 7:10 PM JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli geologists said Monday they have examined a stone tablet detailing repair plans for the Jewish Temple of King Solomon that, if authenticated, would be a rare piece of physical evidence confirming biblical narrative. The find - whose origin is murky - is about the size of a legal pad, with a 15-line inscription in ancient Hebrew that strongly resembles descriptions in the Bible's Book of Kings. It could also strengthen Jewish claims to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem's Old City that is now home to two major mosques. Muslim...

The ruins of the synagogue at Umm al-Umdan. (Alex Levac) The Hasmoneans were here - maybe By Ran Shapira In late 1995, not far from the city of Modi'in, whose construction had begun a short time earlier, several excavated burial caves were found. The find aroused tremendous excitement initially, mainly because on one of the ossuaries an engraved inscription was interpreted to read "Hasmonean." Had they found a burial plot belonging to the family of the Hasmoneans? When the discovery was announced, the archaeologist digging there, Shimon Riklin, explained that this was not the grave built by Simon the son...

Researcher Develops Methods to Test Artifacts' Links to the Bible Newswise — A Purdue University professor has invented a system to judge whether ancient inscriptions refer to people in the Bible. Lawrence Mykytiuk (MICK-ee-took) uses the system to test whether archaeological inscriptions refer to ancient Hebrew kings such as David, Omri, Jeroboam II, Uzziah and other Old Testament personages such as Mesha and the high priest Hilkiah. The system and results are detailed in his new book, "Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E." (Society of Biblical Literature, $42.95). Mykytiuk's work steps outside the conflict between two...

The most remarkable aspect of the discovery of a 1st century ossuary in Jerusalem is the sobriety with which the news of possibly the first non-Biblical attestation of Christ has been greeted. Despite the startling inscription engraved on the limestone box's side -- "James, Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus" -- international scholars are calmly debating the matter and refusing to get drawn into excited speculation. Good. To this end, the Geological Survey of Israel is microscopically examining the chisel marks (are they authentic?); statisticians are estimating how many of the 40,000 men living in ancient Jerusalem were not only...

"Brother of Jesus" bone-box plot thickens By Ellis Shuman November 5, 2002 An ancient burial box believed to have belonged to James, the Biblical brother of Jesus, was damaged while being sent for display at a Toronto museum. The museum is awaiting word from the ossuary's owner before attempting to repair the box, but the owner is being questioned by police as the burial box may actually belong to the State of Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli scholars insist that the inscription on the box is a fraud. Staff at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto discovered numerous cracks Friday in the...

Jerusalem Burial Cave Reveals:Names, Testimonies of First Christiansby Jean Gilman JERUSALEM, Israel - Does your heart quicken when you hear someone give a personal testimony about Jesus? Do you feel excited when you read about the ways the Lord has worked in someone's life? The first century catacomb, uncovered by archaeologist P. Bagatti on the Mount of Olives, contains inscriptions clearly indicating its use, "by the very first Christians in Jerusalem."If you know the feeling of genuine excitement about the workings of the Lord, then you will be ecstatic to learn that archaeologists have found first-century dedications with the names...

Reprinted from JAMA - The Journal of the American Medical Association March 21, 1986, Volume 256 Copyright 1986, American Medical Association By Permission of Mayo Foundation ON THE PHYSICAL DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST William D. Edwards, MD; Wesley J. Gabel, MDiv; Floyd E Hosmer, MS, AMI From the Departments of Pathology (Dr. Edwards) and Medical Graphics (Mr. Hoamer), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; and the Homestead United Methodist Church, Rochester, Minn., and the West Bethel United Methodist Church, Bethel, Minn. (Pastor Gabel). Reprint requests to Department of Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905 (Dr. Edwards) * Jesus of Nazareth underwent Jewish...

Literacy in the Time of Jesus Could His Words Have Been Recorded in His Lifetime? Sidebar: Writing Tablets Sidebar: Priceless Garbage How likely is it that someone would have written down and collected Jesus’ sayings into a book in Jesus’ lifetime? Several lines of evidence converge to suggest it is quite probable. The first factor to consider is how prevalent literacy was in Jesus’ time. Full literacy means being able to read and write proficiently, but degrees of literacy vary; people who can read, for example, may not be able to write. A common view is that of W.H....