David Bowden

I'm aware of the Josephus literature and the arguments for and against his testimony with regard to the question of the historical Jesus.

My point was (is) that no matter how sure we may be that this ossuary is a genuine 1st-century artifact, it still doesn't tell us whether the individuals referred to in the inscription are in fact NT characters, as some people claim they are.

I'm not sure why you referred to Josephus with regard to my position that these two issues are separate...

-David

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: David Bowden ]</p>

Kosh

&lt;Advocate client="devil"&gt;
Of course, if the "brother of Jesus" were taken as a figurative phrase, as in modern day "brothers in Christ" type thing, then it could simply be indicating that he was a Christian...
&lt;/Advocate&gt;

Apikorus

Sauron, indeed you did appropriately identify your concerns as tentative. I shouldn't have been so judgemental. Sorry!

Layman

The inscription was in Aramaic. This is unusual. Most inscriptions on ossuaries from that time-period and location are in Greek.

James was a leader of the more conservative, non-hellenized Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. It is, therefore, more likely that an inscription on his ossuary would be in Aramaic than in Greek.

So, although it is more likely that an ossuary inscription will be written in Greek, this particular ossuary which many are claiming was James of Nazareth was inscribed in Aramaic--which is the language that we would expect his ossuary to be inscribed with.

FunkyRes

Because the James of this bone box and the James of Josephus died at very nearly the same time and both had a brother named Jesus who was prominant to be mentioned (one in Josephus, other on the bone box).

That's a decent arguement for a link between them and the bone box gives physical evidence for the existance of the James josephus mentioned- who was the brother of Jesus who was called Christ.

Given that the Jesus of the NT was called Christ and had a brother named James who would have been in Jerusalem at the right time and a candidate for martyrdom, its a pretty safe conclusion that the james of the NT is also the James of Josephus which means there is extrabiblical evidence for Jesus of the NT in both Josephus and on this bone box.

Josephus really helps tie them together due to his specification that the brother of James was Jesus who was called Christ.

Apikorus

Layman, before you and others here read too much into all this, here's an AP story from 1996:

HEADLINE: Caskets Labeled Jesus, Mary and Joseph Probably Coincidence

BYLINE: By HILARY APPELMAN, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

Researchers say they have found caskets from 1st-century tomb near Jerusalem that bear the names Joseph, Mary and Jesus, son of Joseph. But archeologists say the find is probably a coincidence.

The oblong limestone caskets, which contained no bones, were excavated in 1980 from a building site near Jerusalem. They were rediscovered two weeks ago by researchers for a television program, and found to have come from the same tomb.

"There is no proof that these belonged to the Holy Family, but the combination of names is interesting," said Ray Bruce, director of the independent television company CCTV, which produces "Heart of the Matter" for the British Broadcasting Corp.

But Israel's Antiquities Authority and other archeologists dismissed the find as a coincidence, saying the names Joseph, Mary and Yehoshua - or Jesus - were common in the 1st century.

"They're all very common, perhaps the most common names," said biblical scholar Father Murphy O'Connor. "It would be a statistical abnormality if you didn't find them in conjunction at some point."

O'Connor said scholars believe Joseph probably was buried in the Galilee, in what is now northern Israel. Mary is believed to be buried in Jerusalem. The Bible holds that Jesus' body was taken to heaven.

"Archeological evidence shows that chances of these being the actual burials of the Holy Family are almost nil," said Motti Neiger, a spokesman for the Antiquities Authority.

The BBC planned to broadcast the findings on April 7, Easter Sunday.

Aramaic inscriptions from that time and location are not rare by any means. (For example, there's a very famous Aramaic inscription on the ossuary of "Simon the Temple Builder", discovered just north of the Old City.)

From another news article on the 1996 hoopla (USA Today, 4/3/96, p. 6A):

The engraving on one side of a mud-encrusted box appears to read "Yeshua bar Yehosef," or Jesus son of Joseph, in Aramaic...

...Biblical scholars also note that nearly one in four women at the time was named Mary. And at least 10 urns bearing the name Jesus in Hebrew or Greek have been found in recent years.

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Layman

I'm not "reading" more into it than what many respected scholars are discussing. And I've said before that we should wait to see hot this plays out in the scholarly community.

Yes, it's common knowledge that Jesus and Joseph were common names. But what is missing from the previous story is the statistical analyasis supposedly limiting the number of "possibles" to 20.

Joseph was a very common name.

Jesus was a common name though less than Joseph.

James, however, appears to have been signficantly less common than either Joseph or James.

Biblical Archaeology Review on the frequency of the names:

"The names James (Jacob), Joseph, and Jesus were all fairly common among Jews at the turn of the era. ...Rachel Hachlili has studied names used at this time in all types of inscriptions. Joseph appeared in 14 percent, Jesus in 9 percent, and James/Jacob in 2 percent of the cases. ...in Jerusalem during the two generations before 70 C.E., there were therefore about twenty people who could be called 'Jacob son of Joseph broth er of Jesus.'"

Additionally, there was not the unusual reference to "the brother of XXX" in the previous find that would provide an additional, identifying element. This is very unusual and does indicate some significance to Jesus.

Moreover, O'Connor made a good point: "O'Connor said scholars believe Joseph probably was buried in the Galilee, in what is now northern Israel. Mary is believed to be buried in Jerusalem."

It is historically unlikely that Joseph would have been buried in Jerusalem.

Finally, there are other issues at play here. Why was there an inscription at all? Most ossuaries do not have them. Some that do are obviously because they contain notable people--such as Caiaphas. Why was the inscription in Aramaic? Most ossuary inscriptions were in Greek. But we know that James was a non-hellenized Jew whose family was probably much more conversant in Aramaic than Greek.

But I agree that we need to see how this plays out. There is a lot of information that might be relevant that we have not seen.

I think it is clear, however, that we do not have a simply "double standard" about these two finds: there are additional reasons to link the latest find with James of the New Testament that were lacking with the previous find.

MortalWombat

Why is it that everyone seemed to be bending over backward to proclaim the "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" ossuaries, which were from the same tomb, as "coincidence," while the same is not applied to the James ossuary, which we don't even know it's origin before it came into the possession of the current owner?

Edited to add: by "everyone" in the above paragraph, I'm referring to the writers of the news pieces and the people that they interview.

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: MortalWombat ]</p>

David Bowden

Please refresh me: What was the date of ossuary James' death? How was this datum arrived at?

...unless a variant reading of the ossuary is possible, making Jesus Joseph's brother and not James's...

...unless the bone box's Jesus refers only to a locally significant landowner, as has been posited.

Only if this "decent argument" holds up under reasonable scrutiny. Any number of complications, including those I've just listed, generate reasonable doubt as to whether this ossuary, and not any other, or none at all, belongs to the James of the NT.

The connection still doesn't hold. Even if we grant that an Historical Jesus existed, and even if we grant that Josephus's testimony is valid, we still don't have a clear link between this particular artifact and the James, Joseph and Jesus of scripture/Josephus. We still just have a box with the same names on it, from a setting where those names were very common.

Even if we grant for the sake of argument that the NT Jesus and company existed, to conclude without some reservations, that this certainly is the ossuary of Jesus Christ's brother, is still unwarranted.

And of course if Josephus and the NT don't persuade someone that Jesus Christ and his zodiac of disciples ever walked the earth, this box is merely an artifact from a region where folks named Jesus, James and Joseph lived.

Josephus actually doesn't help any more than the NT does, in connecting James with Jesus. The question remains, how can it be said conclusively that this box actually had Jesus Christ's brother's remains in it, and not some other James' bones?

-David

Layman

Aramaic inscriptions are much less common on ossuaries than Greek inscriptions.

Fitzmyer noted that one Israeli scholar, who has examined 895 ossuaries, had found incriptions on about 200 of them, "the overwhelming majority in Greek." Some have inscriptions in two languages, he said, while others are carved or etched with other artwork.

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59389-2002Oct21.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59389-2002Oct21.html</a>

The commonness of Mary's name is one of the reasons the find you referenced is so much less significant than the recent find.

Mary - 25%
James - 2 %.

And if I remember correctly, "Mary" was not identified as the mother of Jesus in the earlier find. She happened to be one of many other buried in the same tomb. So again there is another deliniator: the identificiation of two relationships, "son of Joseph" and "brother of Jesus" in the recent find.

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>