godfry n. glad

By the by,this in next Monday in the November 18, issue of _MacLean's_, now online at the macleans.ca site:

<a href="http://www.macleans.ca/xta-doc2/2002/11/18/Religion/75502.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.macleans.ca/xta-doc2/2002/11/18/Religion/75502.shtml</a>

"Religious studies professor Herbert Basser, a specialist in Judaism and Christianity at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., and an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, last week did a careful examination of photos of the James inscription. While translating and analyzing the text, he was immediately struck by a disparity.

"It seems clear to me that this is actually two inscriptions run together," he says. He sees clear differences in the style of letters between the initial section, reading right to left, that means "James, son of Joseph" and the latter part, meaning "brother of Jesus." As an example, the author of the first part of the inscription clearly distinguished between the use of the Hebrew letters yod and waw, while no such distinction was made in the latter part. That was not unusual. "The authors of The Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as some medieval scribes, made no distinction between the two letters," he explains. "It was easier on the scribe as he wrote." According to Basser, the second inscription shows a looser, freehand style, while the first employs a crisper, more formal script.

The easiest means to show that the inscription had two authors, he says, would be simply to draw a line under the text. "This script was originally made for a family who paid someone to inscribe the name," he notes. "When this is done, the inscriber draws a line beneath the text to keep it straight. If you do this, you will see that the first part of the inscription is in a neat line, while the latter part falls inappropriately above and below this line."

Basser cautions, however, that this revelation does not prove or disprove the identity or lineage of the person whose bones were placed in the box. "It could very well be that a family member who revered James wanted to add the 'Yeshua' line to clarify the inscription years later," he says. "This does not make the second author illegitimate. If this were intended to be a forgery, it would have been done far better. That it is so obvious speaks to an intent to inform, not mislead."

Basser figures that the second half of the inscription was likely added some time after the first century. "The spelling of the word d [of] is much more common after the first century, while the earlier form was di. The writer was likely from Galilee because of the dropping of the letter heh in the word for brother, a well-attested Galilean trait."

What Basser finds odd about the inscription is that it does not identify the Jesus mentioned as being Jesus Christ. As with the Jesus ossuary, both names on the inscription were very common in the first century. But since it was unusual to place the name of a brother on an ossuary, that name must have had some importance to the author. Yet the inscription does not identify the brother as being the Christ, the Lord, or any other title that might distinguish him from any average person named Jesus.

In the end, what we might know at best from this ossuary is that there was a man named Jacob who had a father named Joseph and, possibly, a brother named Jesus. Because the James ossuary was not part of any archaeological dig, there is no official record of its origins or context. We have little idea where it was found; owner Golan, a 51-year-old engineer, says he bought it in the mid-1970s from an Arab antiquities dealer who maintained it came from caves at Silwan, near Jerusalem. In all likelihood, the tale of the James ossuary will go the way of the Jesus ossuary. Like the Shroud of Turin or the Fatima visitations, belief in the authenticity of the religious claims will rest on the faith of those who wish to believe it."

Amen to that, brother....

godfry n. glad

Toto

Interesting article. The author, William Hopper, is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0968358500/internetinfidelsA" target="_blank">The Heathen's Guide to World Religions</a>.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

CX

What I said was: Nonsense. Concluding from the "get-go" that something is or is not a forgery is not mitigated by being accidentally proven correct. Critical thinking is critical thinking. Being irrationally correct is not trivially different from being rationally correct. The problem is that the former state of affairs leads more often to being incorrect whereas the latter does not.

I stand by that statement. I did not say you personally were lacking in critical thinking, it is clear that you are not. It is however uncritical to conclude anything "from the get-go" which I take to mean a priori of a complete examination of the facts. If I have misinterpreted you I apologize. The fact is though for as many believers who saw the very 1st headline about this artifact and concluded it was proof for the existence of Jesus there are just as many nonbelievers who immediately concluded that it must have been a fake. While I think forgery has to be considered, there is nothing so fantastically unusual about the James ossuary to warrant immediate dismissal.


I fail to see a distinction. A conclusion predicated on insufficient evidence is "accidentally" correct by definition. As to my own discernment skills since I have continued to reserve judgement for the most part that accusation would be entirely unfounded. This is not the shroud of Turin we're talking about. It's a bone box with three relatively common names on it. What was questionable from the beginning was Lemaire's conclusion that the James named on the box is the same James who purportedly led the Jerusalem congregation in the 1st century. The truth value of that particular claim, however, has no bearing on questions of forgery or authenticity of the artifact. I'm not sure there is any way to prove whether or not this bone box belongs to James the Just or not. I doubt there is.

Whatever. I'm not sure why you have your panties in such a bunch nor why this entire issue has become so controversial. You made a smug remark that you knew along the ossuary was a forgery and how "delicious" it would be to be proven correct. I was merely pointing out that an a priori conclusion being shown to be correct did not make it rational.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

Clutch

How much simpler can I make it? A balance of evidence judgement based on relevant background knowledge and inductive evidence is not a priori. It is thoroughly empirical, just as my judgement (and yours) about the "psychic surgeon" would be empirical, not a priori.

Nobody who understood the term a priori would think otherwise.

Toto

The only one who immediately said it was fake without examining it was Robert Eisenman. He did not say this because he hoped it was fake, but because all of the circumstances did not make sense to him as an expert, including the wording of the inscription and the circumstances of its discovery. If he is proved correct, it will not be an accident, it will be a confirmation of his knowledge.

I posted a quote from the BAR article - Lemaire operated on his sense of smell, and it smelled right to him (he said). Altman and Eisenman smelled a forgery. The truth will only come out as each side tries to confirm the validity of their sense of smell.

The rest of us do not have that degree of knowledge, but we still have some idea of the probabilities of any claimed Christian artifact to be genuine.

Butters

Toto has hit the nail square on the head!

Vorkosigan

Whatever. I'm not sure why you have your panties in such a bunch nor why this entire issue has become so controversial. You made a smug remark that you knew along the ossuary was a forgery and how "delicious" it would be to be proven correct. I was merely pointing out that an a priori conclusion being shown to be correct did not make it rational.

The mistake here, again, lies in your irrational insistence that it was somehow a priori or irrational. I don't suppose you'd like to consider, just for a moment, that there were powerful reasons to assume it was a fraud from the beginning.

• Like, for example, the logic fork that said that if it was really about Jesus of Nazareth, it had to be a fake, because James was not Jesus' brother.
• Like, that the things you believe warranted withholding judgment, like the initial judgments about the inscriptions by experts like McCarter and Lemaire, were actually things that, properly viewed, strongly indicated the possibility of fraud (someone who knew it was a forgery would never make it public without expert support).
• Like the initial geological report, whose circumstances suggested that someone who knew it was a fraud was trying to retain control of the information flow (and their brilliantly ambiguous formulation "We find nothing against authenticity").
• Like that I am a fledgling porcelain collecter, and used to be presented with fraudulent pieces, both ancient and modern, on a fairly regular basis, back when I was still active. Additionally, I did the translation work for a series of DVDs produced by a local art house on detecting porcelain fakes. It was an education. Do you collect anything ancient? Try doing so, it will revolutionize your thinking.
• And then there is the lack of context,
• the suspicious story about the box from the collector whom I thought was lying from the beginning (and said so, and turned out to be right again, but I was just being a priori irrational I suppose). As I initially thought, Golan probably knew from the beginning what the inscription said, as later news articles said he had considerable expertise.
• and the hype of course....hype should send up red flags...

And so on. I've listed others. And yes, after several remarks like:

• Perhaps it's just me, but I get the sense from some of a near palpable anxiety in response to any development not easily and immediately dismissed as fraud. I'm looking forward to the magazine.

it was certainly delicious to see it demonstrated to be a highly suspicious item. But then, I saw that at the beginning.

The thing is that you really do not know how to think about an item like this. For instance, the things you thought indicated authenticity (like the initial assessments of Lemaire and McCarter) had no bearing on that issue and in fact tended to show, from the social context, that it was a fraud!

I did, of course, make several errors, ironically due to insufficient suspicion. I believed the geological report that said the patina covered everything, when in reality it did not....

Finally, after the barrage of insults you and others have delivered -- to complain that I am "getting my panties in a bunch" is totally out of line. I wasn't really expecting an apology -- you obviously still think your ignorant remarks were somehow justified -- but it would be nice if you acknowledged that there was both rationality in my point of view and some justification for the way I feel.

Vorkosigan

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

leonarde

Partial repost of statement by Rochelle Altman
(previously posted in its entirety by Clarice O'C): While I feel sorry for Dr. Altman, this last sentence of hers (my bold face added)makes me question her judgement on at least human psychology: her critical remarks about the ossuary
have made her (via the internet) a very high profile individual (a mini-celebrity). The very type (ie prominent) who are attractive to "hackers".

For all we know the "campaign" may be one fourteen
year old with too much time on his hands, computer access and minimal adult supervision. Certainly the pornography bit seems something a teenager would do (the pornography subscription could only possibly smear someone if it 1)became known to the
world at large that she was a subscriber 2)it was
equally known that it was Dr Altman's doing.

I don't see this as the product of someone very
interested in archaeology or Biblical criticism.
How this is clear evidence that the ossuary
inscription was forged is beyond me.

Cheers!

Clarice O'C

Hi leonarde,

What you've said about the hacker being a teenager with too much time on his/her hands is entirely reasonable. I was thinking that the person is a Christian because some people have their hopes up that the bone box with inscription will be deemed authentic which would 'prove' that their Jesus-god exists. That Dr. Altman is calling it a forgery would make me angry if I was a Christian. But I can't say that I would take revenge on her.

Best,
Clarice

Jayhawker Soule

That depends entirely on what is meant by "authentic". If, by authentic, we mean that the object is an inscribed ossuary, with both box and inscription reasonably dated to the 1st century CE, such authenticity 'proves' nothing other than the likelihood that some James, son of some Joseph, brother of some Jesus, underwent a secondary burial during that period.