Peter Kirby

Nobody has claimed that the ossuary shows Jesus to be immortal.

Although there must be some who disagree, mythicists such as Wells and Doherty do not dispute that there was a man named James as mentioned in Galatians.

There is no year 0. The years go from 1 BC to 1 AD with no year inbetween.

There is no prediction in the Hebrew Bible as to the exact year that the Messiah would arrive; if there were, I would imagine that Jews today would know about it.

There is no indication in the Bible or in pre-Nicene extrabiblical texts as to the year in which James was born.

There is no reference fixing the date of the birth of Jesus at 7 BC. The Bible does say that it was during the reign of Herod, but that would only give a latest possible date of 4 BC.

Of course, I don't believe in messiahs or immortality, but the comment quoted above seems confused.

best,
Peter Kirby

Haran

That bad huh? I thought it was at least pretty entertaining.

HA! HA! HA! HA!

James is the Messiah because he was born in 0 B.C.!?!?!? and Jesus in 7 B.C.!?!?!? That's comical!!!

I'll bet ol' Denis the Short was sure mixed up then!

Vinnie

There is a threefold independent attestation to the historicity of James, the brother of Jesus. Paul who provides contemporary data on this, GMark and Josephus. We don't need an ossuary to demonstrate the histocity of James. It is already secure.

Vinnie

Answerer

Thanks Peter, for correcting my mistake. Yes, I admitted that I was sort of confused as I can't really recalled what I read then. Maybe I will go and check it out again in the future.

Sorry for the confusion caused.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Haran

Maybe it is already secure (although I'm sure there are some here who would question that statement ), but I still think that the ossuary tells us more about James. One obvious thing is that he might have been buried in an ossuary.

I guess my point is that I do think the box tells us some things, however small, and that extra independent witnesses can hardly hurt.

Perhaps it does have very minimal impact on historical Jesus studies. One thing I'm curious about though is the lack of a title with Jesus name. What would this have meant, if anything?

Vinnie

Yes it would seem to have implications for the claims that James may have been "anti-Pauline" and upheld Jewish laws more stringently. But several scholars see this as being likely from the texts that we already have. Minor impact at best in HJ studies.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Even if the inscription is proved not a modern forgery, how will you prove that the two people on the box are the two names of Christian lore?

I mean, it seems that some rather gigantic leaps over gaping abysses are being performed here, on the way from Ossuary to Proof of James.

Vorkosigan

Toto

That was one of Eisenman's reasons for calling it a fraud.

I think it means that the forgers found a sample of "James son of Joseph" and a sample of "brother of" and "Jesus" so the forger could make a plausible copy, but no ossuaries with a term for "Messiah".