Layman

I just wanted to gather together some of the information I've seen and put it in one place. I tried to break it down to relevant sections and always provided a link to the cited material.

WHAT WAS FOUND?

<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11547_1.html&boardID=47141" target="_blank">http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11547_1.html&boardID=47141</a>

IS IT A FORGERY?

Probably not. It seems to date to the correct time period and there is no evidence of tampering.

"Laboratory tests performed by the Geological Survey of Israel confirm that the box's limestone comes from the Jerusalem area. The patina--a thin sheen or covering that forms on stone and other materials over time--has the cauliflower-type shape known to develop in a cave environment; more importantly, it shows no trace of modern elements."

<a href="http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html" target="_blank">http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html</a>

"The article's author, a well-known epigrapher from the Sorbonne in Paris, scrutinized this ossuary carefully. Scans by electron microscopes show no trace of modern tools – and full evidence of layers of a patina that could have developed only over many centuries."

<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html" target="_blank">http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html</a>

"Retired Wheaton College professor John McRay, author of Archaelogy and the New Testament, says the survey's lab report was convincing. "Six different pieces of the patina of the stone were looked at through that laboratory," he said. "It was verified, by people who are not Christians, that the date on this is first century and there is no evidence of recent disturbances of the box."

<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html" target="_blank">http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html</a>

"I have no question it is an ancient artifact from the first century," said Eric Meyers, the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University. "It appears to be the oldest extra-biblical, non-literary mention of Jesus in the context of the nascent Christian church, and that's pretty significant."

<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html" target="_blank">http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html</a>

"Further laboratory tests by the Geological Survey of Israel concluded that the ossuary has no modern elements, was worked with no modern tools, and appears to be genuine."

<a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20021021/jesus.html" target="_blank">http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20021021/jesus.html</a>

HOW WAS IT DATED?

Two main methods. First, such ossuaries were most commonly used from 20 BCE to 70 CE. Second, the writing was a style peculiar to the middle of the first century.

Ossauries Were Mostly Used from 20 BCE to 70 CE

"In the first century, ossuaries were used in the second of a two- stage burial process, when bones of the deceased were transferred from burial caves. Largely abandoned in 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple, the practice offers a rare period of self documentation, with hundreds of names carved in stone."

<a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20021021/jesus.html" target="_blank">http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20021021/jesus.html</a>

"From the first century B.C. to about 70 A.D., it was the burial custom of Jews to place their dead in a cave for a year, then retrieve the bones and put them in an ossuary. Several hundred such boxes from that era have been found—some ornately carved and others plain, some with feet and others without. The burial custom changed in 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and torched the Temple there."

<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1021_021021_christianrelicbox.html" target="_blank">http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1021_021021_christianrelicbox.html</a>

"Indeed, bone boxes or ossuaries were used between the 1st century BC and AD 70."

<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html" target="_blank">http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html</a>

The Type of Writing Indicates a Date to the Mid-First Century

"The Aramaic words etched on the box's side show a cursive form of writing used only from about 10 to 70 A.D., according to noted paleographer André Lemaire of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (popularly known as the Sorbonne University) in Paris, who verified the inscription's authenticity. The ossuary has been dated to approximately 63 A.D. Lemaire details his full investigation in the November/December 2002 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, the leading popular publication in its field."

<a href="http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html" target="_blank">http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html</a>

""The script is very important for the date because the Aramaic script changed over time in ways we could measure," said P. Kyle McCarter, a paleographer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. "It's the most important criterion for dating this object, and the script is consistent with a date in the middle of the first century A.D."

<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1021_021021_christianrelicbox.html" target="_blank">http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1021_021021_christianrelicbox.html</a>

"The inscription's grammar and script also appear to fit normal usage in the decades leading up to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70."

<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html" target="_blank">http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html</a>

"[Ben] Witherington is intrigued as much by the beautiful Aramaic lettering of the inscription as by what it says. Handwriting analysis also helps date the ossuary to around A.D. 62, the traditional date of James' death."October 23, 2002"

<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html" target="_blank">http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html</a>

"The Rev. Joseph Fitzmyer, a Bible professor at Catholic University who studied photos of the box, agrees with Lemaire that the writing style ``fits perfectly'' with other first century examples."

<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11547_1.html&boardID=47141" target="_blank">http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11547_1.html&boardID=47141</a>

In an interview, Hershel Shanks and Scholar Kyle McCarter discussed this form of dating in more detail:

<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/july-dec02/jesus_10-22.html" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/july-dec02/jesus_10-22.html</a>

WHY DO THEY SUGGEST THAT THIS IS JAMES THE BROTHER OF JESUS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT?

Even if it's a real artifact, why should we think that this was James the brother of Jesus discussed in the New Testament? Were not these names common back then?

Two main reasons.

First, the combination of "James, the Son of Joseph, the Brother of Jesus" is a very uncommon combination of names and relationships. Second, the mention of a brother on an ossuary is also rare, and indicates that the person was important or well-known.

While Jesus and Joseph were very common names, James was significantly less common than they were:

"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 brother of Jesus.'"

<a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11561_1.html&boardID=47202" target="_blank">http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11561_1.html&boardID=47202</a>

"Of the 40,000 men living in Jerusalem at the time, he figures about 20 people could fit the description 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.' But the mention of a brother is highly unusual on ossuaries. This could hint that the Jesus mentioned here is particularly famous – thus perhaps Jesus of Nazareth."

<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html" target="_blank">http://www.csmonitor.com/search_content/1022/p01s04-usgn.html</a>

"Jesus, Joseph and James were common names in biblical times, but according to experts, the statistical probability of their appearing in that combination is extremely slim. In addition, said Lemaire, the mention of a brother is unusual, and indicates that this Jesus must have been a well-known figure."

<a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20021021/jesus.html" target="_blank">http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20021021/jesus.html</a>

"So far, with all the inscriptions we have, only one other has mentioned a brother," said Lemaire. "This is a very important point for the problem of identification. There would need to be a special reason to mention the brother. It suggests the brother was also prominent, an important person."

<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1021_021021_christianrelicbox.html" target="_blank">http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1021_021021_christianrelicbox.html</a>

"What is unusual about the inscription is not the patronymic "son of Joseph," but the reference to James's brother. This alone suggests that the Jesus in question was someone well known and important, since it was not the usual practice to put one's brother's name on one's own ossuary."

Ben Witherington: <a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11561_1.html&boardID=47202" target="_blank">http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/115/story_11561_1.html&boardID=47202</a>

WILL ANYONE ELSE GET TO SEE IT?

Although the owner sounds like he does not want the publicity, BAR has announced that the ossuary will be made available for others to see.

""We're making arrangements right now to have it exhibited in North America," Shanks adds. "Next month there are 8,000 biblical scholars meeting in Toronto at their annual meeting. We'd like it to be there." After that, he's not sure what will happen with the ossuary."

<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html" target="_blank">http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/141/11.0.html</a>

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

There's a stretch.

Apikorus

To give an idea of just how "rare" a name with a frequency of 2% is, take a look at the following chart from the U.S. census bureau: <a href="http://www.census.gov/ftp/pub/genealogy/names/dist.male.first" target="_blank">Frequency of American male first names according to the 1990 census</a>.

The most common male name is James, with a frequency of 3.318%. The name with a frequency of closest to 2% is Richard; 1.703% of American males have the name Richard.

Of course, the modern American onomasticon is immensely richer than that of Jerusalem during the first century CE, but it is nevertheless interesting to notice that the name "Richard" occurs in less than 2% of the population. Furthermore, the combination "Joseph, son of Charles, brother of Richard", which hardly seems distinctive to most American ears, would, after multiplying individual probabilities, have a frequency of one in 275,000. One concludes that in all of Atlanta (population 4.1 million) there should be about 7 instances of such a "rare" combination.

Of course, naively multiplying probabilities is problematic, because there are correlations in family names. A man named Richard is very unlikely to have a brother named Hilario or Orval - even less likely than the frequency of Hilario and Orval in the general population. Similarly, in Judea, it seems a priori likely that combinations involving three famous biblical names (yaakov, yosef, and ye(ho)shua) would be more common than multiplying probabilities alone (which I strongly suspect is what the scholars interviewed did) would suggest. Strongly Hellenized families would be much more likely to choose Greek names like Alexandros or Theodoros. The probability of having two children named Theodoros and Nataniel (which mean the same thing in Greek and Hebrew, respectively), should be negligible.

Another (anti-)correlation that I bet the scholars Layman quoted didn't think of is this: Jews generally did not reuse the same name in consecutive generations. Papponymy, or naming a child after a grandfather, was a much more common practice. Thus, if your father had a common name like yosef, and you had a common name like yeshua, then you could effectively rule out those names as options for any of your brothers. Given the relative poverty of the first century Jerusalem onomasticon (any population in which a single name, such as Salome/Shelomzion, can saturate 20% of the population doesn't have much diversity, by modern standards), it isn't long before some of your siblings get saddled with less popular names like yaakov. (Less popular than yosef, but slightly more popular than Richard in contemporary America!) Put another way, if one naively multiplies probabilities, one concludes that "Joseph, son of Joseph, brother of Joseph" should be 11 times more likely a combination than "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus". Yet, George Foreman's family not withstanding, we all know this is nonsense.

At any rate, some caution and indeed skepticism is called for when interpreting statistics, particularly if the statistical analysis is coming from historians.

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Geoff Hudson

What a pity the bones were not inside the box! Then we would have known if James was beheaded as in Acts or stoned as in Antiquities. Even the experts are sometimes be conned by enterprising manufacturers of fakes. But it all helps to sell the BAR and keep some in employment.

Geoff

Steven Carr

Layman
'First, the combination of "James, the Son of Joseph, the Brother of Jesus" is a very uncommon combination of names and relationships. Second, the mention of a brother on an ossuary is also rare, and indicates that the person was important or well-known.'

Layman is invited to give evidence for that second statement - by quoting similar examples.

Why would the family want to identify James by reference to a better known brother? Did they not know who James was? Was there a risk of a family member coming to pay the respects to the remain of James , and having to look at the inscription to remind themselves who James was?

Did they expect the general public to wander through looking at ossuaries and wondering who this James was?

I find it hard to believe that the mention of a brother was to identify somebody (especially for somebody claimed to be the leader of the Jerusalem church)

Gregg

You know, I'd be perfectly willing to accept that there was a historical figure named Jesus who became mythologized, if that explanation harmonized with all the available evidence. I have absolutely no problems with that theory...in fact I subscribed to it for a long time.

But the explanation that Jesus started out as a Hellenistic/Jewish version of the dying/rising savior gods of the mystery cults (Mithrais, Attis, Horus, etc.) and became "historical" only when Gentiles began to take the allegorical gospel stories literally, just makes more sense. It fits into the religious currents of the time. It explains why even the earliest Christian writers never unambiguously refer to Jesus as a historical person, instead always referring to him in terms that would have been familiar to a mystery cultist. It explains why the only mention of Jesus outside the NT are two references in Josephus that are almost certainly later Christian interpolations. And so on.

If you set aside the Josephus references, you're left wondering how this "famous, prominent" person, who at the VERY LEAST gathered an inner circle of followers, preached enough to gather a large outer circle of followers and draw the attention of the authorities, did something subversive enough to be considered an insurrectionist (perhaps causing a ruckus in the Temple courtyard), was arrested, tried and crucified as such, and whose followers almost immediately began to not only declare him resurrected but to heap every conceivable title on him and call him the incarnate Logos (Word), pre-existent with God, isn't better documented outside the NT. And if he existed, why wouldn't Josephus have put him on his list with the other rabble-rousers and charlatans who he blamed for bringing about Israel's destruction?

I suppose you could argue that Jesus revealed his identity as the bodily fulfillment of every Jewish Messianic and apocalyptic prophecy only to a very select circle of fanatical believers (maybe the Qumran crowd) and did absolutely nothing but preach to very small groups in the desert until the day he popped up in the Temple courtyard and somehow caused enough of a disturbance to get branded by the Jewish authorities as a blasphemer and by the Romans as a dangerous rebel (even though they'd never heard of him before) and get himself crucified. But how would this make him famous or prominent in the way they're saying he would have had to be in order for the family to put his name on his brother's bone box? Crucifixions were a common occurrence. And why would Jesus' family, who the Gospels portray as not being part of his inner circle and even considering him a nut job, do an about-face and accept all his followers' claims about him, just because he went and got himself killed like just about every other would-be revolutionary?

Even if the box is authentic (personally I think it will turn out to be a forgery), here's another possible explanation for the "brother of Jesus" line--it's a title, not a family relationship. We know from Paul that James was the leader of the Jerusalem church and was called "the Lord's brother." Earl Doherty makes a good case that this is a title indicating a spiritual rather than a biological relationship to Jesus.

Given that a mystery cult member "died" to his former life and was "reborn" into the life of the savior god, it makes sense that James' family (or perhaps members of the Jerusalem brotherhood) would have qualified "son of Joseph" with "brother of Jesus." Admittedly, there's a problem here in that the inscription uses just "Jesus" when "Jesus Christ" or "the Lord" would seem to fit better.

Gregg

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Gregg ]</p>

MortalWombat

Where do they arrive at a figure of 40,000, since the ossuary was not found in situ, they don't know that the family was from Jerusalem itself, or from a surrounding area?

Psycho Economist

So no, not everyone is in lock-step. That first item is a real red flag to historians.

I just have to ask... 1. Which Christian church? 2. Will this church allow analysis to continue or, learning from the Shroud of Turin flap, will they keep it locked away from anyone who might be skeptical.

leonarde

Posted by PE: The Shroud of Turin is, in toto, the most thoroughly studied ancient artifact in human history, with "hands-on" examination by various
investigators numbering in the hundreds of thousands of man-hours over the last century or
so. The single most comprehensive team to examine
the Shroud, the Shroud of Turin Research Project
(STURP)included disparate persons of assorted religious beliefs; many of the members had never
heard of (or knew almost nothing about)the Shroud
of Turin before being invited to study it around
1977.

Cheers!

Jayhawker Soule

Apikorus, great input. Thanks. I do, however, have a side question concerning papponymy. Is it your understanding that this was the tradition, or was it the consequence of a tradition of carrying on the name of a deceased relative/friend? For example, my Orthodox son-in-law would not think of naming a son after a living grandparent. And, in fact, dispite his grandfather being dead, he chose to name his first son after a great uncle because he had been dead for some time and had no one named after him. Just curious.

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>