Freethought & Rationalism Archive

joedad · 11-09-2002, 01:20 PM

<a href="http://www.dreamwater.org/bccox/ossuary.html" target="_blank">http://www.dreamwater.org/bccox/ossuary.html</a>

What is very clear to me after viewing the first two images in the above link provided by David Bowden, is the difference in surface textures of the limestone which makes up the "background" of the inscriptions. Can anyone else see this?

Like DB and Altman, there is a definite difference between the two halves of the writing in the inscription. If indeed an addition were made, as Altman proposes, these differing backgrounds would seem to support that claim.

I'm not saying someone need be "blind as a bat" to miss the differences in the backgrounds, but the differences are obvious and clear to me, perhaps because I make a living looking for imperfections in machined and polished finishes. Those two "finishes" are not the same.

It would be nice to see a larger part of the inscription area, such as where the frame may have once been, to see if the texture of the stone in the "brother of Jesus" area corresponds to an area around the original inscription. That would pretty much answer any question about whether the original inscription was once framed.

joe

Sauron · 11-09-2002, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto:
<a href="http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=227760&contrassID=2&subContrass ID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y" target="_blank">another update</a>

OUCH! This guy's story is unraveling faster than cheap polyester. There are several other gems in the Ha'Aretz article, besides these two:

Quote:

The fact that Oded Golan has insisted on preserving his anonymity - and has been very stingy with information about the artifact in his possession - arouses suspicion. His insistence on not disclosing the name of the antiques dealer who sold him the ossuary even undermines its value. Researchers in Israel and abroad are casting doubt on its authenticity, because its origin is unknown. Kyle McArthur of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who participated in the press conference in Washington, raised this point, saying that he was disappointed that there is so little information about the source of the ossuary, and adding that doubts about it would always remain.

If it's impossible to tell where the ossuary was found, it's impossible to create a connection between the artifact and the people to whom it is attributed, said professor of religious studies Bruce Chilton of Bard College in New York.

Researchers believe that until they can examine the site where the ossuary was found, its connection to the historical figure of Jesus will remain largely speculative. "When something appears out of nowhere and we don't know where it came from, there are all kinds of possibilities," Prof. Glen Schwartz of Johns Hopkins University told The Guardian. It's possible that it isn't really ancient, or that it is ancient but was changed at a later date.

Seems like BAR might have overstepped itself, on the question of its validity. Fortunately, most sober experts were on the side of cautious skepticism here.

Wonder where Layman et. al. are hiding about now? I'd be curious to see how they reconcile their previous positions, in light of such info as the Ha'Aretz article.

Vorkosigan · 11-10-2002, 03:48 AM

Jack Kilmon over on XTALK mentioned briefly a report that the soil on the ossuary had come from the Mt. Scopus area.

Sojourner553 · 11-10-2002, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by David Bowden:
[QB]

But why couldn't the finished inscription refer to one of the other admittedly existing "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus" individuals, with the "faked" finishing touches merely having been added later for good measure by a relative seeking to clarify the relationships between his family members in a possibly crowded family bone-box collection?

I'm saying, okay, the inscription isn't by one hand. Does that automatically mean someone set out to deceive us with a pious forgery, or is it just one of those odd coincidences in history?

Is "forgery" the only reasonable conclusion?

Another reason I'm hesitant to impute something bad on the inscriber: this artifact was found in Palestine. Not Rome, or Latin Europe, or some desert abbey or Christian worship center. Apparently nobody back then thought it was necessarily of Christian importance, and it wasn't preserved as a relic.

That strikes me as being rather odd. One would expect a later pious forgery or "discovered" holy location to have shown up in Constantine's time or during the Crusades. Somebody should have known about it and kept taking care of it. That seems to imply that nobody was out there seeking fame or fortune after inscribing this box. And no Christian authority bothered to remember it, despite a white-hot market for apostolic artifacts.

I'd love to be referred to an argument for "early forgery" over "legitimate inscription, wrongly associated by Lemaire with the famous NT James". To me it seems the latter is still most likely.

I recreate the story like this: the box belonged to an anonymous (to us) James and was inscribed twice, the second inscription being innocent (if only semi-literate) clarification, perhaps even by the relative named Jesus. This box was never a Christian relic, faked or genuine, because it was never in the possession of Christians; indeed, Christianity had nothing to do with this James.

I agree. However it is suspicious that the dealer won't give his sources.

Is it possible to date both half of the inscriptions? Has this already been done?

IF this passes, I am inclined to think it is authentic -- although prepared by two different hands (including later dates).

Until then, I don't have enough information for an informed opinion -- one way or the other.

Sojourner

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]

Toto · 11-10-2002, 12:32 PM

<a href="http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021109/UOSSUN1/national/national/national_temp/6/6/19/" target="_blank">more news and details</a>

Quote:

All over Silwan this week, people were claiming to know where the now-celebrated bone box had been found. Some indicated the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Onuphrius, its interior walls lined with funereal caves containing dusty piles of human femurs, pelvises and skulls. But a nun who did not want to give her name demurred; the ossuary came from "over there," she insisted, pointing to the opposite face of the valley.

"No, no, no," said the box's owner, Tel Aviv engineer Oded Golan. "The dealer who sold it to me never said anything as specific as that."

But murky origins and dubious provenance are only a few of the issues surrounding the so-called Jesus box, with its tantalizing Aramaic inscription: "Ya'akov [James], son of Yosef [Joseph], brother of Yeshua [Jesus]."

As conservers at the ROM begin the restoration process, all sorts of questions are now being raised about the ossuary. And some of them seem as contentious as the ultimate question -- did the bones of Jesus's elder brother once lie within?

Precisely when, for example, did Mr. Golan acquire the relic and who did he get it from? Under what circumstances did the box's existence first come to light in the pages of this month's Biblical Archaeology Review? How was the agreement to exhibit the ossuary at the Royal Ontario Museum struck? (A little too quickly for some) Who approved the packing regimen for the box's shipment, and its curious itinerary, two separate flights -- from Tel Aviv to New York and then to Toronto?

Inevitably, perhaps, these questions have given rise to a small chorus of skeptics who now think that the "original Jack-in-the-box," as Penn State University Middle Eastern expert Baruch Halpern calls it, may be a forgery.

Doubt has also been cast on the Aramaic inscription, which some experts claim shows clear evidence of having been crafted by two separate hands -- the first half is in a formal script, the second in informal cursive -- as well as on the authenticity of the patina, the chemical sheen of calcium carbonate that would naturally form on the surface of a box sealed in a damp cave for 2,000 years.

Perhaps most puzzling of all is why Mr. Golan, who claims to have bought the piece for a few hundred dollars in the mid-70s, and is said to be one of Israel's savviest collectors, failed to recognize its significance.

But even those prepared to acknowledge the possibility of fraud do not think that Mr. Golan is involved.

"Unless he deserves an Academy Award for acting, I believe him, regardless of when he acquired it," said Simcha Jacobovici, the Toronto filmmaker who is shooting a television documentary of the box saga and talks to Mr. Golan almost daily. "I see a man who is a true collector, a man with a genuine passion not for fancy furniture or cars but for bronze metal daggers [and other relics]. He never once has spoken to me about money or what it's worth."

Even so, others aren't convinced of its authenticity. "I think it's a forgery myself," said Dr. Halpern, a professor of Ancient History and Religious Studies. "This is a very carefully executed inscription. It's the kind of script you'd get if you were copying out of a handbook. Real scribes don't necessarily execute as well."

. . .

Robert Deutsch, one of Israel's leading antiquities dealers, told The Globe and Mail this week that he remembers seeing the box in Mr. Golan's collection over many, many years. He said he believed Mr. Golan's story that he never made much of the Jesus inscription because Jesus was a common Jewish name in the first century AD and he had personally sold ossuaries with similar engravings without exciting comment.

Last spring, Mr. Golan invited Sorbonne scholar Andr� Lemaire to examine another ossuary in his collection. At the same time, he showed him the James box. Dr. Lemaire, a former priest and a world-recognized expert in Hebrew and Aramaic philology and epigraphy, immediately twigged to the implications. Over dinner in Jerusalem, he mentioned it to Hershel Shanks, editor of the Biblical Archaeological Review, who then organized a two-stage verification process.

. . .

Mr. Golan personally watched as at least 10 layers of bubble wrap were draped around the 20-kilogram ossuary. It was placed in a small box of hard, but flexible cardboard, which was then inserted in a larger cardboard container. "As far as I looked at it, it seemed pretty good," he said.

The most direct route for the precious cargo would have been a flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto, via either El Al or Air Canada. Oddly, the box -- insured with Lloyds of London for $1-million (U.S.) -- was flown first to JFK Airport in New York and then to Hamilton, Ont., from where it was trucked to the ROM. Mr. Golan says Brinks arranged the itinerary.

. . .

"Something hit the back [of the box]," concluded one ROM staffer. "It could have happened in a million places, just by moving four or five millimetres. I'm totally puzzled by how it was packed. There was no rigid packing."

Apikorus · 11-10-2002, 01:03 PM

Halpern is a heavyweight. If he thinks it is a forgery, that may be a sign that all this is beginning to unravel. The story just gets more and more odd. It would be delicious if Shanks has been hoaxed.

Vorkosigan · 11-10-2002, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Apikorus:
Halpern is a heavyweight. If he thinks it is a forgery, that may be a sign that all this is beginning to unravel. The story just gets more and more odd. It would be delicious if Shanks has been hoaxed.

It will be delicious, period, after all the abuse for "jumping the gun" and "irrationality" and "creationism" for concluding from the get-go that it was a forgery.

Jayhawker Soule · 11-10-2002, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Apikorus:
Halpern is a heavyweight. If he thinks it is a forgery, that may be a sign that all this is beginning to unravel. The story just gets more and more odd. It would be delicious if Shanks has been hoaxed.

Delicious, indeed! At the same time, I was under the impression that Halpern's expertise is in the fields of Syro-Palestinian Archaeology and History rather than paleography/epigraphy, and I doubt that he could be considered a neutral observer when it comes to anything related to Shanks and BAR. If the ossuary proves to be a hoax, folks like Halpern, Herzog and Finkelstein will be grinning for a long time.

Jayhawker Soule · 11-10-2002, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
..., after all the abuse for "jumping the gun" and "irrationality" and "creationism" for concluding from the get-go that it was a forgery.

I think for many of us, wholly unskilled in the fields of paleography and epigraphy and with no basis for challenging or dismissing the credentials and/or integrity of scholars such as Lemaire, "concluding from the get-go that it was a forgery" seems more characteristic of faith-based bias. That is precisely why I am more than willing to heap abuse on Shanks "for "jumping the gun" ... for concluding from the get-go that it was" the ossuary of James the Just.

Apikorus · 11-10-2002, 03:20 PM

RD, you're right in that Halpern's expertise is focussed more on the Iron and Bronze ages. But he's got phenomenal general knowledge, and for him to publically opine that the inscription may be fraudulent is big news.

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11-09-2002, 01:20 PM	#31
joedad Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: PA USA Posts: 5,039	<a href="http://www.dreamwater.org/bccox/ossuary.html" target="_blank">http://www.dreamwater.org/bccox/ossuary.html</a> What is very clear to me after viewing the first two images in the above link provided by David Bowden, is the difference in surface textures of the limestone which makes up the "background" of the inscriptions. Can anyone else see this? Like DB and Altman, there is a definite difference between the two halves of the writing in the inscription. If indeed an addition were made, as Altman proposes, these differing backgrounds would seem to support that claim. I'm not saying someone need be "blind as a bat" to miss the differences in the backgrounds, but the differences are obvious and clear to me, perhaps because I make a living looking for imperfections in machined and polished finishes. Those two "finishes" are not the same. It would be nice to see a larger part of the inscription area, such as where the frame may have once been, to see if the texture of the stone in the "brother of Jesus" area corresponds to an area around the original inscription. That would pretty much answer any question about whether the original inscription was once framed. joe

11-10-2002, 03:48 AM	#33
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Jack Kilmon over on XTALK mentioned briefly a report that the soil on the ossuary had come from the Mt. Scopus area.

11-10-2002, 01:03 PM	#36
Apikorus Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,396	Halpern is a heavyweight. If he thinks it is a forgery, that may be a sign that all this is beginning to unravel. The story just gets more and more odd. It would be delicious if Shanks has been hoaxed.

11-10-2002, 03:20 PM	#40
Apikorus Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,396	RD, you're right in that Halpern's expertise is focussed more on the Iron and Bronze ages. But he's got phenomenal general knowledge, and for him to publically opine that the inscription may be fraudulent is big news.

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