Ronin

These people are nucking futs!

~ I have nothing more to offer.

butlerk

"I bring you these 15... (tablet falls and breaks)... 10 commandments"

Steven Carr

That should be 30 (being 15 times 2)

David Bowden

Just a thought: if the stone is so fragile that shipping could crack it this way, wouldn't it just about guarantee that a recent forged chisel-job (say, adding "Jesus" to an authentic "James son of Joseph", or creating the whole inscription on an authentic but uninscribed bone-box) has to be ruled out?

Not that this box points to that James any more than the next bone-box discovery would. Just that the entire inscription would seem to have been created long enough ago that the stone was significantly more sturdy.

Anyway, any thoughts on whether the current fragile state of the ossuary rules out recent forgery?

Or is anyone even seriously proposing that all or part of the inscription was forged? I'm really not following the details of this melodrama all that closely...

-David

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: David Bowden ]</p>

Toto

A forgery expert named Rochelle Altman is arguing that the phrase "brother of Jesus" was added in a different style of writing from the phrase "James son of Joseph", and is presumably a forgery. The matter is being hotly contested.

There are a number of possibilities if the phrase was added - it could be genuine, added as an afterthought for some reason. It could be an early forgery from the 4th century. Or it could be an especially clever later forgery, which would involve faking the patina on the box, among other marvels.

Clarice O'C

Hey there, Toto. I've read so many articles on the bone box that I can't remember where I read this but some scholar is saying that the later addition, "brother of Jesus" was not something that was written on ossuaries until much later than 63 CE--"Son of Joseph" was enough to clarify who was in the box. When they wrote, e.g., "James son of Joseph" instead of just "James," the "son of Joseph" was like a last name. If I find the link again, I'll post it here.

Cheerio,
Clarice

Toto

Clarice - are you thinking of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-eisenman29oct29.story" target="_blank">Eisenman's LA Times op ed piece</a>?

He seems to be of the opinion that James was so famous in the first c. that he would not have been identified as anyone's brother, and also that he was buried on the Temple grounds where he fell after being stoned, and presumably would not have been dug up and had his bones placed in an ossuary.

It is getting hard to tell the players without a program. I notice that Peter Kirby set up a <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/james-bone-box.html" target="_blank">web page</a> devoted to the ossuary, but it looks like even he hasn't been able to keep up with the news.

Kosh

OF course, I know nothing about how the inscriptions were made, but if you were going to chisel on something fragile, you could always make sure the side was well supported (ie, insert a precisely cut block of wood inside it) during the chiseling.

I would think this would be an easy thing to deal with compared the shipping dangers when bubble wrapped in a cardboard box (ie, not correctly packed).

I once sat on a plane and watched them load my guitar onto the plane. The gentleman took the case, held it about 3 feet above the conveyor belt, and dropped it. I'm sure small packages are met with similar, er, care.

Clarice O'C

Yes, that's one of the places that I read it but another article or so said more.

Anyway, one of the things that has bothered me since this whole thing began is the modern-day intrusion on the box in the inscription. I've learned that there were no commas in Aramaic and I'll bet no capitalization, which I can live with. But in all of the media coverage and writings by everyone commas are inserted which, to me, changes the meaning.

The inscription on the bone box reads:

"james son of joseph brother of jesus"

This from the media, as we've been drilled:

"James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

Since there are no commas in the inscription on the bone box it could be read that Joseph and Jesus were brothers. No? We need an English professor. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be.

As we know, Aramaic is read from right to left, as such:

"jesus of brother joseph of son james"

Better? Now it says that Jesus and Joseph were brothers, reading from left to right. Another modern-day intrusion?

Best,
Clarice

Baidarka

A friend of mine told me an interesting anecdote about museum packing.
A master packer wanted to impress my friend who had a summer job in a museum with the effectiveness of his packing technique. So he built a box for a small Cezanne, placed the painting inside with the necessary padding, nailed the box shut and then tossed it across the room allowing it to crash and bounce. He then opened the box revealing a perfect unscathed painting and demonstrating his expertise in his High Art of packing precious fragile objects. If only this master packer had packed the ossuary.