James Ossuary - Scholarly Analysis

Scholarly Analysis

An ossuary is a depository for storing bones of the dead. They were used by Jews primarily in the first century as a space-saving way to deal with remains of the dead. This "second-burial" system first interred the deceased in sepulchers to decompose for a couple of years. Then the bones that remained were gathered and put into the ossuaries.

The James ossuary came from the Silwan area in the Kidron Valley, southeast of the Temple Mount. The bones originally inside the ossuary had been discarded, which is the case in nearly all ossuaries not discovered by archaeologists. The first-century origin of the ossuary is not in question, since the only time Jews buried in that fashion was from approximately 20 BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The dispute centres on the date of origin of the inscription.

According to Dr. Andre Lemaire, the Parisian epigrapher initially invited by antiquities dealer, Oded Golan, to view the ossuary in Golan's apartment, the cursive Aramaic script is consistent with first-century lettering. He determined that the inscription was not incised with modern tools, as it contains no elements not available in the ancient world. The first part of the inscription, "James son of Joseph," seems more deeply incised than the latter "brother of Jesus." This may be due to the inscription being made at a different time, or due to differences in the hardness of the limestone.

The fragile condition of the ossuary attests to its antiquity. The Israel Geological Survey submitted the ossuary to a variety of scientific tests, which determined that the limestone of the ossuary had a patina or sheen consistent with being in a cave for many centuries. The same type of patina covers the incised lettering of the inscription as the rest of the surface. It is claimed that if the inscription were recent, this would not be the case.

On June 18, 2003 the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) published a report concluding that the inscription is a modern forgery based on their analysis of the patina. Specifically, it claimed that the inscription was added in modern times and made to look old by addition of a chalk solution. In 2006, Dr. Wolfgang E. Krumbein, (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), having analyzed the ossuary, concluded that the Israeli Antiquities Authority's conclusion "...originate from a series of errors, biases, mistaken premises, use of inappropriate methodology, mistaken geochemistry, defective error control, reliance on unconfirmed data, disregard of information (such as the cleaning and preservation actions performed, and the use of a comparative isotope methodology despite the fact that the inscription fail to meet the cumulative prerequisite conditions for such tests and comparisons."

The Discovery Channel's 2004 documentary James, Brother of Jesus shows the examination of the inscription's patina by the Royal Ontario Museum using longwave ultraviolet light, and they concluded there was "nothing suspicious" about the engraving.

In 2007 Matti Myllykoski summarised the current position thus: "The authenticity and significance of the ossuary has been defended by Shanks (2003), while some scholars—relying on convincing evidence, to say the least—strongly suspect that it is a modern forgery."