Toto

Time magazine: The Burial Box of Jesus' Brother: Fraud? by Matthew Kalman

mountainman

and

The ossuary production line.

Is the quietness a quietness before a storm?

avi

This story of the ossuary of the brother of Jesus has troubled me, since I first encountered it, many months ago.

1. Was it not terribly expensive to construct such a box? Was Jesus' brother so wealthy? Was Jesus' family so wealthy? Mind you, I know there are no facts, and as far as I am concerned, this is like asking a question about Jason's brothers, or Superman's brothers, etc, but, according to theory, I thought that all of Jesus' followers, especially his family, accepted his teachings about wealth, or rather, the importance of eschewing same to reach heaven. How could his brother have acquired so much private money to pay for this box, or are we to understand that the nascent Christian community in Jerusalem paid for this box? If this custom was widespread, why didn't they save Jesus' bones, rather? Surely, they don't imagine that in Heaven, sitting next to his father, God, Jesus has need for mere bones? Wouldn't his bones have been left behind upon Jesus' ascension?

2. If this custom of saving bones in an ossuary was widespread, at that time, shouldn't there be a lot more of these valuable boxes in existence? How did the Jews themselves, in that era, justify this practice of saving the bones in a crypt? What was the rationale behind it? Was it less expensive than a grave plot?

DCHindley

Not expensive at all. In fact, using ossuaries was much less expensive than individual burials. Real estate available for such a purpose was at a premium then as now. Any one burial cave could have dozens or scores of burials.

The cave area where the flesh of the body was allowed to decay could be re-used endlessly (niches were carved into the walls - as neeed - for the ossuaries after the bones were gathered up and placed into them).

Generally, these caves (sometimes mausoleums) were "owned" by extended families and used by the family members, and if they were wealthy, by their retainers and slaves (if they liked them, that is).

DCH

avi

Whew, thank you, for a minute there I was wondering how this supposed brother of a guy who urged his followers to give away all their worldly goods could afford something so precious as a limestone box, 20", x 10", x 12", but, now, I am reassured, that it is "not expensive at all", and I realize that our misunderstanding is based on a simple difference of life experiences.

Some folks drive a Mercedes Benz automobile, and if you ask them, how much does it cost to have a routine maintenance performed on their automobile, at the mandated interval, they reply: Oh, "not expensive at all". The cost for such a simple manoeuvre is about $500, which, for them, is tip money....

I drive an old ford, and change my oil myself, to avoid paying $30 to WalMart. For me, $500 is a considerable quantity of money, so, I wouldn't regard it as "not expensive at all".

With regard to $500, that is just about the cost to purchase a stone box 18" x 14" x 12", hmm, just about the same size as this ossuary....

limestone, just like the ossuary

Petergdi

The cost of a stone box is equal to the labour of quarrying the stone and the labour of a stoneworker turning it into a box. Is it more than a few days of labour? Is the labour more expensive than that of the average worker? If the answers are "no" and "no" then an ordinary person could certainly afford such a thing.

Peter.

Joni-san

For some reason this thread made me think of the Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice Ace Attorney series.

DCHindley

You're making a silk purse out of a sows ear by imagining a box cut out of chalk to be an extravagance that no one could afford.

The fact is, the practice became widespread in the 1st Century CE precisely (do a Google search) because it was within the affordability range of the bulk of the families of Judea. Or are you supposing that the large number of Jewish families who did start to use them in that period had become suddenly wealthy?

DCH (This is spoken by a fellow with a wife and two kids who together have a whopping $140 in the bank to last until next Friday's paycheck).

Minimalist

There is something to be said DCH for the argument that Herod's building projects put a lot of money into the hands of the workers on the various projects. Wealthy? Of course not. But as you say, you didn't have to be "wealthy" to have an ossuary. "Middle Class" would do nicely.

One does wonder if the "priestly" class, which so villified Herod the Great, was not far more upset with what they saw as his coddling of the lower classes. "Priests" always seem to like it when the masses are downtrodden.

DCHindley

It is true that Herod's kingdom experienced a sort of economic boom, although his kids weren't able to maintain the same level of prosperity. Also, temple building and city beautification projects, which employed a large number of the common priests as stone masons, continued after his death until shortly before the War of 66 CE.

But yes, these would be "tradesmen" type jobs in the modern world, which are good income jobs when building operations are in full progress but not especially long lasting or consistent in regards to the level of demand for labor. This is the kind who buy bungalows in town or ranch style homes in the rural areas, not 2,500+ sq ft high end dwellings, and take vacations within a hundred miles from home and not Aruba or Club Med. Of course, land ownership was quite different then than today, and transportation much slower and long trips more impractical for all but the most well off and some merchants.

I could see these workers buying outright, or obtaining rights to, burial caves and niches, as alternatives to pit graves or cremation.

DCH