Ossuary Burial Box Discovered in 2002

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Ossuary (Burial Box) Discovered in 2002
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Close-up photo of inscription

• Light and black background with transliteration
  underneath (Aramaic, like Hebrew is read
  right-to-left)

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James, Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus
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TIME magazine, Nov. 4, 2004

• Geological Survey of Israel scientists
  determined that it was made of a limestone
  quarried intensively from the Mount Scopus ridge
  (which includes the Bible's Mount of Olives) in
  the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. and that the
  cauliflower-shaped structure of its patina--a
  mineral sheen that develops with age--indicated
  that it had spent centuries in a cave. Citing the
  absence of any modern chemicals or telltale
  disruptions in the patina and any marks in the
  stone by modern tools, they confirmed its
  antiquity and ruled out forgery. Independent
  scholars have almost unanimously accepted their
  judgment

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TIME magazine, Nov. 4, 2004

• Jews in Jerusalem used ossuaries only from
  roughly 20 B.C. to A.D. 70. The style of the
  inscription conforms to the same period.
  Moreover, Lemaire, one of whose specialties is
  Aramaic writing, contends that three characters
  written in cursive, a script developed only
  around A.D. 25, date the box to within 40 years
  of James' death in A.D. 62. With the exception of
  his countryman Emile Puech other epigraphers,
  working from photographs, have agreed
• he points out that any mention of a brother on
  an ossuary was extremely rare and speculates that
  when it occurred it may have been because that
  brother was "known" in his own right

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Update from just last month (4-1-2009)

• Since 2003, prosecutors in Israel have been
  trying to argue in court that the inscription is
  a modern forgery (thus far unsuccessfully).
  Robert Deutch, one of the worlds leading experts
  on Semitic inscriptions, while on trial produced
  evidence that refuted several of the
  prosecutions charges against him, as well as
  evidence that the artifacts in question are
  indeed genuine. The case against Deutch and Golan
  has been steadily unraveling since last October
  2008, when the presiding judge advised the
  prosecution to consider dropping the case,
  pointing out that they have thus far failed to
  prove that the artifacts in question are fakes.
  Matthew Kalman reports on the latest development
  in the forgery trial for the Jerusalem Post.
  Ben Witherington

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Update from just last month (4-1-2009)

• Wikipedia article a proof of forgery is not
  given by the experts nominated by the IAA The
  Israeli Antiquities Authority has never offered
  any report explaining why it concluded the
  ossuary is a forgery. Therefore, a number of
  international experts refuse to agree that it is
  a forgery until the IAA allows scholars to review
  its findings. For example, Ed Keall, the Senior
  Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, Near Eastern
  Asian Civilizations Department, continues to
  argue for the ossuarys authenticity, saying the
  ROM has always been open to questioning the
  ossuary's authenticity, but so far no definitive
  proof of forgery has yet been presented, in spite
  of the current claims being made." Meanwhile
  Biblical Archaeology Review also continued to
  defend the ossuary. In articles in the February
  2005 issues, several paleographic experts argue
  that the James Ossuary is authentic and should be
  examined by specialists outside of Israel.