Toto

They're Fakes - or are they?



But the whole point of this was that, although Jesus was a very common name, the combination of James, Jesus, and Joseph and some fancy statistical arguments allowed believers to think that this was the Jesus. And I do not recall Yuval Goren or Avner Ayalon saying that the word Jesus was ancient, and can't find the reference in a quick search.

MortalWombat

OK, I get what happened. Jesus' family went to a stone-cutter after the crucifixion to have a box with the name Jesus on it. Then they return to the tomb on the third day, notice he has been resurrected, then rush to the stone-cutter to cancel the order, but it's too late. They ordered it, he put the name on it, so they have to buy it ("My hands are tied Mr. and Mrs. Christ. It's store policy").

So they think "Great, now what the hell are we going to do with a Jesus bone box that he isn't going to need?" So they put it in the basement and forget about it until James dies. Now, with both boys dead, there is no income coming in (Joseph and Sons Carpentry really suffered a big blow with Jesus' death; Joseph wasn't getting any younger, so James had to do most of the work and they had to cut down on their customer base. Now with James' death, they have to declare bankruptcy).

Having little money, they couldn't afford to buy a new bone box for James, or even enough to hire a stone-cutter to add James' name on the old one in the basement, they just put his bones in Jesus' box. Mary writes up a papyrus with instructions to carve "James son of Joseph brother of" on the box, has it notarized, and puts it in her will that the proceeds from her estate should go to paying for the addition to the Jesus inscription on James' ossuary.

She dies a few years later, but her estate has no money left for her surviving relatives to carry out her wishes. The upshot was that she was assumed bodily into heaven, so at least they didn't have to worry about coming up with some more cash for her funeral. So the only thing her surviving relatives could do was to put the papyrus into James' ossuary (naturally the best place to put it, otherwise it might get lost) in the hope that after a few years, they would be able to scrape up enough money to have "James son of Joseph brother of" carved on it. But just their luck, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and remaining Christ family was scattered to the four winds. Eventually no one was left to remember to have the James inscription finished.

Cut to 2000 years later. The people who dig up the ossuary notice the papyrus inside, and decide the only decent thing to do would be to finish the inscription, as it apparently was the wish of an old woman for her dead son. Not being experts in Aramaic, they did the best they could with samples of writing from other known ossuaries. So it's not technically a forgery, since they were just finishing up what the original owner had wanted.

QED.

Peter Kirby

MortalWombat:

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

Doctor X

. . . it could happen. . . .

. . . just because you lack the insight to see The TRUTH [Director's Cut Available on DVD.--Ed.]. . . .

--J. "Reminds Me of the O.J. Defense" D.

Vorkosigan

Frank Moore Cross is circulating a letter asking Shanks to stop. And Yuval Goren thinks it is a fake. Shanks is pathetic.

Kosh

Nit: it would be the "Yeshua" (Joshua) name which was very common and which is on the box. Jesus is just the western bastardization of the Greek spelling, right?

Rick Sumner

In light of threads such as these--which seem to pop-up on every e-list on the 'net, as of late--I must wonder if I'm the only person on the planet who read BAR before the James Ossuary.

Shanks isn't "pathetic," he's stubborn, and always has been. I'm amazed that people seem to have entertained the idea that he would change his mind--he seldom does--look at his disagreements with Finkelstein; and this pales in comparison to those, which reached a crescendo when Shanks accused Finkelstein of anti-semitism.

It's the same tenacity that is endorsed when he's arguing for one's position. Yet now it's condemned since he's arguing against. Is Shanks wrong? Yes. Do I think we can justifiably condemn Shanks' position? Yes. Do I think we can justify condemning Shanks? Not unless one always did, because he hasn't changed.

I certainly didn't condemn Shanks before, and I'm not about to start now. The real shame is that Shanks didn't use his forum--easily the most widely read in the field--to condemn Golan as the scumbag he is.

Regards,
Rick

Artemus

If he habitually refuses to change his mind despite overwhelming evidence, I would have to agree that "pathetic" is a valid description.

Rick Sumner

At the behest of Robert Eisenman, the DSS were carbon-dated. When the dates didn't agree, Eisenman promptly ignored them and wrote a book doing so, James the Brother of Jesus. Were I to dismiss Eisenman with a wave of my hand and a "he's pathetic," I would be crucified by this list at large.

Earl Doherty wrote a glowing review of Acharya S.' The Christ Conspiracy. Despite the fact that I am aware of at least two people (besides myself), who have pointed out what nonsense both the review and Acharya S.' work is, the review is still there. Can you imagine the response I would get on this list if I waved my hand and declared Earl Doherty "pathetic?" I would, again, be crucified by this list at large, and rightly so.

The point, of course, is that exactly the double-standard I outlined above is being employed.

Shanks is wrong, to be sure. He's also stubborn as a mule, and in my opinion a jackass of a human being (for his accusation against Finkelstein). But declaring him "pathetic" is nonsense. I've enjoyed and learned from a great many of articles and books written or editted by Shanks. I intend to continue doing so.

Regards,
Rick

Bill

Yup.

== Bill