"Brother of Jesus" bone-box plot thickens -- is it a fraud?
An ancient burial box, thought to belong to James, the brother of Jesus, was cracked during shipment; experts say the inscription on it is a fraud.
An ancient burial box believed to have belonged to James, the Biblical brother of Jesus, was damaged while being sent for display at a Toronto museum. The museum is awaiting word from the ossuary's owner before attempting to repair the box, but the owner is being questioned by police as the burial box may actually belong to the State of Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli scholars insist that the inscription on the box is a fraud.
Staff at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto discovered numerous cracks Friday in the 2,000-year-old limestone burial box. The cracks appear under an Aramaic inscription which states: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Herschel Shanks, the Jewish publisher of the respected Biblical Archaeology Review, announced the discovery of the box last month as the "first archaeological attestation of Jesus."
"We sent out a conservation proposal to the owner on the weekend and...
To be fair, I read the whole article(s), and if the scripts and language really do differ as greatly as these scholars believe, it is possible that the box is a fraud.
This would not be a complete surprise; there are enough fragments of the "true cross," for example, to practically rebuild Noah's Ark. The medieval passion for "relics" led to many things being called such that were not.
On the other hand, I found it interesting that they were arguing the text without reproducing a copy of the actual text in their article. As "Anon" states, there are powerful incentives to lying on both sides of the issue.
Why would the Jews want to admit that the box is what it says it obviously is, therfore referring to Jesus (wasn't the time of Christ the WORST time in Isreal's history, seeing as how they crucified their Messiah)?
1. Since we can't prove beyond a doubt that the "y'shua" referred to on this box is our Savior, not a huge issue.
2. On the other hand, the writing analyists who have come up with "this is a fraud" need to come up with a hypothesis as to why someone would bother James' ossuary to do this. Granted, Rome was (and is yet) a big fan of "relics," but....?
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11/15/02 11:48 AM
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