From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Tue Dec 03 2002 - 17:35:58 EST
Experts Question Authenticity of Bone Box for `Brother of Jesus'
NYT December 3, 2002
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD=20
Skeptics 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.=20
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.=20
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.=20
"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.=20
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.=20
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.=20
"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.=20
Dr. Andr=E9 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.=20
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.=20
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.=20
"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."=20
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.=20
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.=20
But the controversy is not likely to die down any time
soon.=20
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.=20
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.=20
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."=20
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.=20
"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."=20
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/03/science/social/03JAME.html
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