Resurrecting the Brother of Jesus: The James Ossuary Controversy and the Quest for Religious Relics

Archaeological Context and Controversy: The Bones of James Unpacked

19| byron r. mccane Archaeological Context and Controversy The Bones of James Unpacked The October 2002 issue of the popular magazine Biblical Archaeology Review featured a cover story on the James Ossuary, in which epigrapher André Lemaire asserted: ‘‘It seems very probable that this is the ossuary of the James in the New Testament. If so, this would also mean that we have here the first epigraphic mention—from about 63 ce—of Jesus of Nazareth .’’∞ This highly extraordinary claim was immediately met with skeptical responses from many archaeologists, who considered the so-called James Ossuary interesting and potentially significant but expressed concern that it had come to light from the antiquities market and a private collection rather than through a controlled archaeological excavation. Since its context and provenance were unknown, these archaeologists warned, the authenticity of the ossuary and its inscription could never be conclusively established. In subsequent news reports during early November 2002, further questions came to light regarding the circumstances under which the artifact had been brought to public attention. The time, place, and method of its acquisition all became matters of uncertainty and suspicion, prompting one leading archaeologist to remark, ‘‘To say the least, I have a very bad feeling about the matter.’’≤ Despite these concerns, however, the general excitement about the James Ossuary and its inscription seemed to prevail. An exhibition was scheduled for the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, at the time of the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature (sbl) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (asor) in Toronto during mid- byron r. mccane 20 November 2002. Arrangements for the exhibition were made by the Royal Ontario Museum in conjunction with Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, but without input from the Israel Antiquities Authority (iaa), the governing body for all archaeological activity in the nation of Israel. At the exhibition and the annual meetings, in other words, an artifact with no known archaeological context or provenance was presented to the sbl and to asor by persons with no scholarly credentials or academic a≈liations. These persons, who stood to profit substantially by displaying the artifact at the sbl, were not cooperating with governmental authorities of the nation in which the artifact had originated. These facts of the situation were enough to give pause. Dazzled, however, by the possibility of an archaeological connection to Jesus of Nazareth, and titillated by the glare of mass media attention, the guild of biblical scholars largely ignored the warnings of experienced archaeologists. The result was an event that, it is now clear, was certainly not biblical scholarship’s finest hour. There is much to be learned, however, from the events that surrounded the appearance, promotion, and exposure of the James Ossuary, for the public phenomenon of this artifact encompassed a broad range of historical , financial, scientific, religious, and cultural factors. To that end, the remarks that follow will seek to establish an archaeological foundation for the larger task of understanding and evaluating the public excitement about the James Ossuary. Since the ossuary was an archaeological artifact, the starting point for thoughtful reflection on it must be archaeology, and more specifically, the archaeological fact that the inscription ‘‘Ya¿acob bar Yosef ahui diYeshua’’ is a modern forgery. Whatever else it might turn out to have been, the James Ossuary was surely not ‘‘the earliest known documentation of Jesus outside the Bible.’’ A Jewish ossuary from the Early Roman period is a chest or box, usually made of stone but occasionally of clay or wood, used for secondary burial —that is, the reburial of human bones after the flesh of a corpse has decayed. Early Roman Jewish ossuaries were usually made by hollowing out blocks of the soft limestone that is so common in the geology of SyroPalestine . In keeping with their function as containers for human bones, ossuaries are typically proportional in size to the large and long bones of the body (skull and femur, for example). Thus the average size for an adult’s ossuary is approximately 60 by 35 by 30 centimeters, with smaller measurements for the ossuaries of children. Ossuaries have removable The Bones of James Unpacked 21 lids, most of which are flat, although some are domed or gabled. The majority of ossuaries are plain and undecorated, but many are ornamented with decorations typical of artistic motifs in Early Roman Jewish art...