Jesus' Family Tomb
Just when Oded Golan appeared to be winning his case, the authors of a new book have dropped him right in it!
At his trial on forgery charges, Oded Golan, the Israeli collector who discovered the James Ossuary, rolled out an impressive list of specialists to testify that the disputed inscription is genuine. According to the prosecution, the first part - "James the son of Joseph" - is genuine but the other words - "brother of Joshua (Jesus)" - were added by Oded himself in order to enhance the value of the discovery.
Now the defence have managed to extract from one of the prosecution witnesses, Yuval Goren of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, the admission that when he tested the the patina using oxygen isotope analysis, the only part that failed the test was the 'ayin in "Joshua" - in other words, whatever else may be false, the disputed words are genuine!
Meanwhile electron microscope tests in both Canada and Israeli support the genuineness of the whole inscription; Professor Frank Moore Cross, a renowned epigrapher at Harvard University, has declared in favour of the writing; and long wave ultra-violet examination by Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum likewise supported the whole inscription. Professor Wolfgang Krumbein of Oldenburg University in Germany, the world's leading authority on stone patinas, declared that the patina in the whole inscription was genuine and old.
So with all this testimony, what is the new information that could cause trouble for Oded Golan?
Jews in Israel tend to go all misty-eyed and emotional when they talk about "the land" - ha erets - and claim an almost mystic relationship with the land of their forefathers. This, they allege, is the greatest reason why they should be allowed to own the land and the Palestinians should be driven out. One would give this claim greater credence if only they were treating "the land" with a bit more respect.
Instead ancient landscapes are being bulldozed, buried beneath tidal waves of housing and industry, pollution is rampant and the environment is being destroyed by human activity. A case in point was an ancient hilltop in the Talpiot district of Jerusalem which the government handed over to developers in 1980. These gentlemen, with the sensitivity so characteristic of their breed, planted dynamite all over the hill and blew it up in order to make a level area on which they could build houses.
When the smoke and dust had cleared away there was indeed a nice level area and peeking out of one side was the facade of a first century tomb. No doubt Efraim Shochat, of the Solel Boneh Construction Company, cursed under his breath and regretted that they had not used even more dynamite, because as an Orthodox Jew he was forbidden to disturb Jewish graves. He had to leave a two-acre clear space around the tomb.
Alas, not all his compatriots were so punctilious, for that evening a group of kids got into part of the tomb and found a couple of skulls, which they took outside and used as footballs until the relics of their ancient ancestors shattered under repeated kicks.
Fortunately Shochat had alerted the authorities and the following day a team from the Israeli Antiquities Authority arrived, comprising Joseph Gat, Amos Kloner and Shimon Gibson. They entered the tomb and found three skulls placed on the floor to form an isosceles triangle. Not knowing that the tomb had already been entered, they concluded that this was the work of some ancient burial crew. According to their report, the triangle pointed roughly in the direction of the temple.
Opening off the tomb chamber were six kokhim - coffin-sized tunnels into which the dead bodies were placed until they had decayed away to a skeleton, after which the bones were collected and placed in a stone box called an ossuary. There were ten ossuaries in the tomb and when the archaeologists examined them, they discovered that some of them bore roughly scratched inscriptions.
It was as the archaeologists deciphered these inscriptions that their jaws dropped, for the names were familiar: Yeshua bar Yosef, Maria, Yose, Matthew, Mariamne and Yehuda bar Yeshua. It was the first - Jesus, son of Joseph - which caused the men to exchange grins, but on reflection they decided that the discovery was not as significant as it had seemed.
"These words - these names - are not statisically improbable at all. Why, a quarter of the women in Jerusalem were named 'Mary'," Amos Kloner remarked.
The ossuaries were removed to safety in the Israel Museum and the announcement of their discovery - purposely or otherwise - was made on April 1, 1980, which led most people to dismiss it as a joke.
There can be no doubt that Kloner's reaction was the right one, but following the success of Dan Brown's nonsensical thriller where claims that Jesus had a child by Mary Magdalene netted the author a fortune, two men have jumped on the conspiracy theory bandwaggon in the hopes of striking it rich.
Their book, "The Jesus Family Tomb" follows the story of the ossuaries, brings in the Templars - you can't have a good conspiracy theory without them, you know - hints at cover-ups involving the Catholic Church (and no doubt the Masons, Opus Dei and the CIA) and generally spreads misinformation, suspicion and a vast amount of supposition dressed up as fact.
So where does Oded Golan come into this farrago of nonsense?
Well, the authors claim that there were ten ossuaries in the tomb, but only nine made it into the museum storerooms. The tenth, they allege, was spirited away and sold to Oded Golan!
In support of their allegation they claim that the patina on the James Ossuary is remarkably similar to the patina on the Talpiot ossuaries. That seems to be the only fact they can find; for the rest their case depends on the claim that the Talpiot ossuaries do indeed belong to the family of Jesus (though where Matthew comes in I am not sure) and therefore James must have figured among them.
Until we can find more tombs in the Talpiot area and rule out the possibility that the whole area has this particular type of patina, the most that their research can prove is that the James Ossuary may have come from somewhere in or around Talpiot. Thanks to the Solel Boneh Construction Company and its dynamite, however, the chances of finding another intact tomb appear slim.
Meanwhile Oded Golan may find himself facing different charges if the prosecution decides to drop the increasingly untenable accusation of forgery in favour of a more likely one of illegally handling stolen antiquities.
© Kendall K. Down 2007
According to a recent book, "The Jesus Tomb", Dr Amos Bien, director of the Israel Geological Survey, has finally admitted that the inscription on the James Ossuary is not a fake.
When the Israeli authorities examined the ossuary for the second time - the first time they endorsed its authenticity - they claimed that the patina in the letters was different from the patina that covered the rest of the ossuary. This, they averred, proved that the inscription had been made in modern times.
Bob Genna of the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory in New York conducted further tests and determined that at some time the stonework had been scrubbed with a detergent based on chlorine and phosphate. In fact, he was able to determine that the phosphate was of a form consistent with that used during the 1970s and early 1980s in household detergents. As this bore out Oded Golan's admission that he had used soap to try and clean the ossuary, there were no surprises there.
Genna then set to work to remove the contamination and when that was done, the patina inside the letters was identical in every respect to the patina that covered the rest of the ossuary. Not only that, but it was also identical to the patina on the other ossuaries from the so-called "Jesus Tomb".
While Biblical scholars welcome this endorsement of the James Ossuary it is not clear that Golan will be as appreciative. Although it exonorates him from the charge of forgery, it leaves him exposed as a purchaser of illegally excavated antiques - and there is not much to choose between the punishments for the two offences.
The same book makes another astounding claim. One of the places where the general public can see ossuaries is in the grounds of the little church of Dominus Flevit (Jesus Wept) on the slopes of the Mount of Olives a little above the Garden of Gethsemane. There, in a shallow cave, lie a dozen or so ossuaries, neatly arranged in rows. These were discovered, either in the cave or in the grounds of the church, by Franciscan Bellarmino Bagatti.
The Franciscans have a fine reputation as "Guardians of the Holy Land" and have conducted some valuable excavations, but if "The Jesus Tomb" is correct, they are guilty of some sharp practice with regards to these ossuaries.
According to the book, there should be one more: another ossuary containing bones was discovered by Bagatti and this one had a name scratched into its side, just like the James Ossuary. The trouble was that the name was "Simon bar Jonah" - the Hebrew name of Peter, one of Jesus' disciples.
To you or me that might seem like yet more evidence demonstrating the historicity of the Biblical account, but to the good friar the ossuary was a shocking find. According to Catholic belief, St Peter was not only the chief disciple but also the first bishop of Rome and it was almost an article of faith with Bagatti that the great basilica in the Vatican is built over the tomb of Peter. In fact, archaeological excavations in the early 1900s found something beneath the high altar which, it was claimed, was the actual tomb of the apostle.
An ossuary full of bones and bearing the name of Simon bar Jonah was clearly contrary to Catholic dogma, so instead of being put on public display with the other ossuaries found in the same place, this particular one was hidden away in Bagatti's small museum in the Church of the Flagellation, where it remains. The bones it contained have disappeared along with the lid and two of its sides have been broken.
Frankly, I don't know what to make of this claim by the authors, Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. I have not previously heard of this "Simon bar Jonah" ossuary and though the excavations conducted under the auspices of the Catholic church frequently lack that openness and transparency that characterises other excavations, yet I find it hard to believe in plain dishonesty.
I think it more likely that this is merely a coincidence of names, because whereas there are historical records attesting to the fact that James lived and was killed in Jerusalem, all the literary records agree that Peter was killed in Rome and there is no evidence to suggest that his remains were later transported from Rome to Palestine. One could wish that Bagatti had given his find more publicity, but I don't see anything here to undermine the foundations of the Catholic church, let alone the Bible.
© Kendall K. Down 2008
