MortalWombat

To Apikorus, or anyone else familiar with Aramaic:

Based on how the names are written on the ossuary, is there a distinction between interpreting the inscription as "James, the son of Joseph, who is also the brother of Jesus" vs. "James, the son of Joseph, with Joseph being the brother of Jesus?"

Apikorus

Sure, Layman, all that you say is possible, I suppose. Just as it is possible that the ossuary belonged to any one of some 20 Jerusalem residents named James, son of Joseph, and brother of Jesus. It might also be that "conservative burial practices" could fly out the window when the person in question was believed to be the brother of the messiah.

Incidentally, it would be appropriate to be a bit more circumspect before taking this number of 20 as gospel (ha!). For example, Hachlili found 200 of some 900 ossuaries with inscriptions. Of those, the incidence of the name yaakov/iakobos was 2%. This means that one is extrapolating the frequency of Jameses from a grand total of four inscriptions. Statistically speaking, that's pretty dicey, Layman. I suppose the 20 figure is a reasonable guess, given the extant data, but I wouldn't put too much stock in it. Indeed, virtually all of the serious scholars interviewed are appropriately circumspect on the connection of the ossuary to the NT.

Wombat, the first relation should take precedence. yaakov bar yosef akhui d'yeshua = (Jacob the son of Joseph), the brother of Jesus.

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

David Bowden

I was wondering about that limitation myself.

I don't know what the population of Jerusalem was at the time of this estimate. But if I (a non-math major - please point out any errors) reverse-estimate based on her statistics, then Jerusalem must have been home to 20,000 Jewish men:

About one in fifty men who are mentioned in surviving inscriptions was named James.
About one in eleven was named Jesus.
About one in seven was named Joseph.

As I read it then, if your name is James and you live in Jerusalem, odds are one in seven that your father's name is Joseph. So a "James-son-of-Joseph" connection would be possible once for every 250 men in Jerusalem.

If every eleventh son is named Jesus, then odds are that in a family with three sons (perhaps the average number of sons was lower or higher; I don't know), then a "Jesus" should be born to at least one in every four families.

So, if one in every 250 men in Jerusalem is "James son of Joseph" and if 1/4 of them had brothers named Jesus, then the odds are roughly one in a thousand that "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus" applies to any randomly-chosen individual male. Or, 0.1% of Jerusalem males could belong to that ossuary.

That's how I reverse-engineer the posted statistics.

If Hachlili limits the number of such individuals to twenty, it would then seem that she uses a Jerusalem population of 20,000 Jewish men from the time of Herod to the time of the destruction of the temple.

Is that roughly what other sources say about Jerusalem pre-CE70 - that during that decades-long period, only 20,000 Jewish males lived in Jerusalem? Has anyone else done a names/population study like hers?

I'm just curious about that. Two points seem relevant:

If Jerusalem had more men in it during that time, then consequently (by my estimate) for every thousand men, another James-son-of-Joseph-brother-of-Jesus grouping would be likely.

And if "brother-of-Jesus" can be applied to Joseph instead of to James, then this ossuary's inscription could refer to twice as many individuals, but of course half of them would have the wrong family structure to match the NT characters.

Just some thoughts.

-David

Layman

First, I also want to see the full article and think the key here is the statistical evidence.

Second, as I understand it Hachilli did not just look at inscriptions on ossuaries, but many different kinds of inscriptions.

And I am curious to see how this plays out over time. I don't think its a done deal. And as you have seen my previous posts have focused on the idea that this was a fake.

MortalWombat

As I read your post, something came to mind. How do we even know the thing came from Jerusalem itself, and not some other part of Judea/Israel? It was "discovered" in someone's private collection, and not found in situ, so doesn't that expand the possible number of people it could be in reference to?

Does anyone know the total population of Aramaic-speaking Jews in the first century?

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

FunkyRes

The person who sold it to the private collecter said it was from some catacombs in Jerusalem that are known to contain such artifacts.

Layman

Searching, searching.... reaching, reaching....

"...the owner bought the box about 15 years ago from an Arab antiquities dealer in Jerusalem who said it was unearthed south of the Mount of Olive"

Why not buy the issue when it comes out?

Jayhawker Soule

Or, perhaps, it indicates that the names 'James' and 'Joseph' were so common that addition information was deemed useful solely for distinguishing one particular "James, son of Joseph" from another.

Liquidrage

I am rather skeptical (of course) over this whole thing.

First, Jesus is a common name.
Even the article estimates 20 probably combinations of James, son of Joseph brother of Jesus.

The oddity of the brother mentioned is just that. And oddity.

However, because it in a collection and the dating methods are questionable at best (I don't except the method no matter the outcome unless it agrees with other methods).

Of course, the way the story was seen on Yahoo (where I first read it) one would only know that a really smart man found a box that has Jesus' name on it and dates to 63 AD.
There rest of the story was buried on a linked page. And that to me is disturbing.

MortalWombat

Well, I guess that settles it, because people who sell stuff always tell the truth.