The box with the inscription "James, son of Jacob, brother of Jesus" is scheduled to be at the Royal Ontario Museum soon:

ROM to display the James Ossuary,
1st century C.E.

November 16 to December 29, 2002 only

Important archaeological artifact may be earliest non-biblical reference to Jesus.

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) announces that the recently-discovered James
Ossuary, 1st century C.E., will be coming to the Museum. It is expected that
the ossuary will be placed on exhibit in the Mediterranean World Feature
Exhibition Gallery by Saturday, November 16, 2002 and remain until Sunday,
December 29, 2002.

"The ROM is honoured to receive the James Ossuary such a short time after its discovery,"
stated William Thorsell, Director and CEO of the ROM. "We are delighted to be the
first museum to display it and bring forward the various expert theories regarding its religious significance and archaeological history."

The discovery of what some experts believe to be the ossuary (a box made to hold
the bones of the deceased) of James, the brother of Jesus, was announced on
October 21, 2002 in a Washington press conference. The limestone ossuary dates
from 50 to 70 C. E. (Common Era, or A.D.) and has a carved inscription in the
Aramaic language: "Yakov (James), son of Yosef (Joseph), brother of Yeshua
(Jesus)". Some scholars believe it may be the most important find in the
history of New Testament archaeology, perhaps the earliest known non-biblical
reference to Jesus.

James' exact relationship with Jesus is interpreted in
different ways by different religious doctrines. Many Protestant scholars view
James as the full blood brother of Jesus. Catholics and other Christians who
believe in the virginity of Mary consider the word "brother" to be used in an
extended sense to include stepbrothers (if Joseph had other children from a
previous marriage) or cousins.

In November 2002, Toronto will host up to 8,000 registrants at three related
scholarly conferences: the conventions of the Biblical Archaeology Society
(November 22-24), the Society of Biblical Literature (November 23-26) and the
American Schools of Oriental Research (November 20-24).

Admisssion to the James Ossuary is included with general ROM admission: adults
$16.50; seniors/students (with ID) $12.00; children $10.00. On ROM Friday
Nights reduced-price tickets to special exhibitions (including the James Ossuary and
Elite Elegance: Couture Fashion in the 1950s-- Nov. 23/02 to May 4/03) are available
for $10 adults, $5 students/seniors/children. For group rates call: 416-586-5859.

Will you be going to the ROM to view the James Ossuary? If you do you must tell us about it. I'd love to be able to visit the museum but distance is against that decision. I've read that no one knows for sure if this James is the brother of Jesus as the names James, Joseph, and Jesus were quite common at that time period.

Faith

I'd love to go there again. I was at the museum last Christmas. It was the place my wife and I went on our first date.

The latest news is that the box was was cracked from its journey from Israel to Toronto. It apparently doesn't travel well. The Royal Ontario Museum people are going to repair the breach. Let's see if it can get back to Israel or end up having to stay longer in Canada.

I saw the "James Ossuary" on TV this morning. A CBC news show had a story on it and an interview with a professor from the University of Chicago. His name escapes me but I taped the interview but haven't had time to look at it again. He spoke of the ossuary's significance historically and biblically. He said that the fact the inscription included "brother of Jesus" indicates that the brother was someone important. Usually an inscription only included "James son of Joseph" and did not include other family members. He said this is a good indication that the "James" on the inscription is of the family of Jesus Christ. (This is assuming that the ossuary is from the 1st Century and from the Jerusalem area.) It was an interesting story and interview but was quite short. I'd like to have seen more of the box.

Faith

The latest news is that it was damaged from transit from Israel to Canada, however, they seem to think the Insurance Adjusters will allow them to restore the damage that was done to the apparently fragile box.

There seems to be a question about its authenticity. What do you think?

There is no question about its authenticity. It was found to be 2000 years old and the inscriptions are not later-year forgeries. Carful measurements of the age and condition of the box by Hebrew scientists lead to this conclusion.

The only question is whether the people's names "James, Joseph and Jesus" were the exact ones we meet in the Bible.

Andre Lemaire, the French scholar that brought the box to the world's attention seems to put the odds at 90% that this is the Biblical trio. Normally siblings other than the father are not mentioned on ossuaries (as in the box of High Priest Caiaphas that they found in 1990). This means that the brother must have been very important. (cf. The New Testament mentions Pricilla and Aquilla in that order. Usually the man's name preceeded the woman's but in this case the woman, Pricilla, was more the more important of the two...)

In the years after Christ ascended, historians say that members of Jesus' family met around Mount Zion and controlled the affairs of the early Chrisitan church. Mary, Salome (the wife of Zebedee, Cleopas and later his son Simeon who took over from James as the head of the church when he was martyred in 63ad) were probably frequently joined there by Jesus' other cousins James and John (sons of Zebedee and Salome).

What makes this discovery interesting is that there might be a cave that contains the boxes of some more of Jesus' relatives. Families usually shared burial places. The ossuary was stolen from somewhere in the 1970's. If the thief can locate the cave, hello Mary, Cleopas, etc.!!! Jesus' family was fairly well off since they could afford spices to annoint Christ's body with and Zebedee's fish business in Galilee could afford to hire servants that took the places of James and John when they left to follow their cousin Jesus.

The problem that would arise from the possibility of finding more of Jesus' relatives is how it would mess up tradition. An Eastern Orthodox believer said that Mary's bones would never be found because the church believes that she was bodily taken up to heaven before she died. I believe that the Roman chruch believes the same. It would really cause havoc if a box that says "Mary, the mother of our Lord" turns up.

There is already mild controversy with tradition in the case of James being called the "brother" of Jesus. Mary was supposed to be a perpetual virgin and Joseph's only role was to be an old man who married her to protect her reputation. With James' martyrdom in 63ad it looks more likely that, as the Bible says plainly in Matthew 1:25 "But she remained a virgin until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus."

Now Adventist will have a lot of thinking to do about this one too. In the Desire of Ages, Ellen White says that Jesus had older brothers. She didn't metion younger ones. Most Christian books that she would read also had the "older man" view of Joseph. Recently, however, many have come to believe that Mary did have children (including girls) whose father was Joseph.

I am willing to open my mind to the possiblity that James, Simon, Judas and Joe Jr. were younger brothers of Jesus. I spoke with an Adventist teacher in this and he said that Ellen White wrote what was willing to accept "new light" that came from research into historical maters. For instance, in the Great Controversy she writes that the change from Sabbath to Sunday essentially took place in quite abruptly in 312ad. It took later study by folks like Sam Bacchiocchi and C. Mervyn Maxwell to prove that it happened much earlier than that. While not disagreeing with Mrs. White, they were able to flesh out details that were historically interesting and enlightening but didn't compromise (change) faith or theology.

[ November 07, 2002, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Andrew Marttinen ]

I find this to be most interesting!

What more can we dig up? Pardon the pun.

Here's some stuff I dug up from an Oklahoma newspaper about James and Jesus written before the box was found:

Some say Jesus was opposed by his brother James, but this scholar disagrees
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
AP Religion Writer
During his ministry, Jesus was opposed not only by Pharisees and bureaucrats in Jerusalem, but by his own sisters and brothers, including the best-known among them, James.

Or so it's often said. But one scholar disputes this claimed sibling rivalry.

Everyone agrees that James was a believer later on. The New Testament depicts him as the first leader of the church in Jerusalem. James became an early martyr who was unjustly executed under the high priest Ananus, according to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus.

John Painter of Australia's Charles Stuart University presents his view of the biblical brothers in an anthology, "The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission" (Westminster John Knox), edited by Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner.

A preliminary problem: In what sense was James Jesus' "brother"? Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches teach Mary's "perpetual virginity." This ancient tradition, not found in the New Testament, says Joseph and Mary never engaged in normal marital relations and produced no children together.

If so, three explanations are offered about Jesus' biblical "brothers and sisters": They were step-siblings, born to Joseph's first wife who had died before he married Mary; cousins born to Mary's sister; or cousins on Joseph's side of the family.

Modern skeptics, including some Christian liberals, say Joseph simply sired Jesus, agreeing with ancient heretics that there was no miraculous virgin birth.

Finally, traditional Protestants -- who resist adding anything to what the Bible says -- maintain that the "brothers and sisters" were just that, children born naturally to Joseph and Mary following Jesus' miraculous virgin birth to Mary.

Protestants say that fits Jewish culture and is clearly implied in Matthew 1:25, where Joseph "knew her (Mary) not until she had borne" Jesus. ("Know" is a biblical euphemism for "have sexual relations with.")

Painter, who backs the Protestant stance, treats passages that others assume portray James as originally opposed to his brother:

--Mark 3:20-35 describes Jesus' return to his hometown, Nazareth. Verse 21 is commonly translated as saying Jesus' "friends" (presumably disciples) tried to seize him, thinking he was "beside himself." Painter agrees with that wording, though some translations, including the U.S. Catholic Bible, say Jesus' "relatives."

Either way, Jesus' brothers are specifically mentioned only when they turn up in Verse 31. To Painter, that means they weren't part of the earlier incident.

When Jesus discovers their presence, he says his true brother is "whoever does the will of God." Painter thinks Jesus is speaking of building a new community, not that his family opposed him.

--Mark 6:1-6. Here again, Jesus scandalizes his hometown. Neighbors ask: Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James and others, and aren't his sisters with us? There's no assertion the sisters joined the doubters, Painter notes.

--John 7:3-5 appears to assert family opposition: "For even his brethren did not believe in him." But Painter says there's no suggestion they denied Jesus' miracle-working, only that, like others, they didn't fully realize his relationship to God the Father.

Painter says this very passage confirms that the brothers traveled with Jesus so they must have been his followers, however muddled their belief at that early stage.

--1 Corinthians 15:7 has Paul writing that the risen Jesus appeared bodily to James. Commentators often see this as an account of James' conversion from unbelief, but Painter says that's reading into this verse the mistaken notions drawn from Mark and John.

Moreover, Painter argues, Acts 1:14 reports that first meeting in the upper room after Jesus' resurrection involved the Twelve Apostles (minus Judas), Mary and other women, and Jesus' brothers, whose presence is "stated as a matter of course with no suggestion that this constituted a remarkable change."

The Royal Ontario Museum recently made a discovery about the James Ossuary. It is recorded on their website:

New Discovery by ROM

Breaking News !!!
Ed Keall, ROM curator
November 13, 2002

Circle decoration on the James ossuary.
In presenting the James ossuary, I chose to compare it with the three Herodian-period ossuaries currently on display in the ROM. While some of their features vary considerably – especially the shape of their lids and the way they close – one consistent trait is the fact that the decoration almost always occurs only on one long side. This side we may call the front, because it was clearly the only one intended to be seen. The coarse paring marks of the stone-mason, indicating how it was hewn from a solid block of stone, are often quite visible on the back and sides, and under the lid. No attempt was made to smooth the marks away.

Two of the ROM ossuaries have decoration incised through an overall red-paint coating so that the design shows up very strongly. (The third one is decorated but without the paint.) A common feature in the decoration of all three is the presentation of incised circles containing six-pointed stars. An Ottawa Citizen reporter told me the unpainted design reminded her of a sand-dollar. Academics have no convincing explanation for what symbolism is represented in a star-circle (though many suggestions have been proposed). Yet it is one of the most persistent of the features that can be observed in the nearly 900 Herodian ossuaries from Jerusalem.

When I visited the laboratory of ROM conservator Ewa Dziadowiec (where the ossuary was recently re-assembled but held together with clamps and a strap), I was astonished to see two faintly incised concentric circles at the right side of the back. Closer examination (now that the clamps are removed) allows one to see a matching circle to the left, and traces of star points in both circles. Ewa also reported to me that she had seen minute traces of red paint in some places.

It was very exciting to make this discovery when the ossuary had already received such intense scrutiny because of the inscription. As an archaeologist I was delighted to find that simply using one’s eyes to look at all sides of the question, and not focusing on what was directly in the lime-light, could be so illuminating. I would like to point out that this has not been a definitive study on my part. I have now seen the ossuary on four occasions for a total viewing time of less than ten minutes. I have no doubt that careful examination of all the production marks, the traces of paint, the encrustation, and the obvious cleaning of the right half of the inscription has the potential for contributing a fuller documentation of the ossuary’s significance.

The implications of the discovery are obvious. There are three possibilities, each of which compound a person’s interpretation of the ossuary, if their mind is already made up. Either the inscription was incised on the back of the original ossuary (of which a few examples are known from the Jerusalem catalogue). Or the inscription was incised on an ossuary that had already been used once before, perhaps from the century earlier (the old crack is a very ancient one, and the principle in some instance of recycling old ossuaries is believed to have occurred). Or the inscription is a fabrication inserted on an antique ossuary (either in medieval or modern times).

Are they displaying it, and, if so, did you get a chance to see it?

I'll be going to the ROM on Monday, December 23rd. I always enjoy going to that museum. I'll let you know how it is displayed and if there are any new details about the find--developments seem to happen daily.

I wrote this in the BAR forum about my visit to the ROM:

Last week my family went to the Royal Ontario Museum. The James Ossuary display lets you get quite close to the box.

I observed it from several different locations and distances.

The 3-D view that I had first of all allowed me to see that the box itself isn't quite straight in its lines. The lid is much thicker in some portions than others. The writing (carving of the words) seems to be utilitarian through and through. Whoever did the chiseling began ambitiously with deep grooves for the first couple of letter but then seemed to be eager to finish the job. The letters consistently get lighter and even though they're the same size, the rest of it seemes to be done in haste. If the side of the Ossuary was a Christmas card envelope (and we wrote right to left) the inscription starts at a place I would chose for best asthetics. The "brother of Jesus" part looks like it belongs there. If it wasn't the inscriber would look as foolish as someone who addressed a letter near the top and left a huge amount of space at the bottom.

On the opposite side (actually the front, which was meant to be seen) there can plainly be seen a circle with some sort of pattern in the middle. It, again was placed at the "start the envelope graphics/writing here" place (if you're thinking right to left).

Three other ossuaries from the same time period were on display. They were more colourful but they shared the same circle-like design.

From what I know about the man James and his epistle, I could see him being placed in the box that is now on display. James called himself a "slave of God and of Jesus Christ" and he wasn't too keen on ostentation.

The "inconsistensies" in the writing that some have seen are probably the best proof that it is genuine. Someone trying to manufacture a forgery would have found a better box and done a more consistent job.

I heard that this artifact is a fake.

Does anybody know anything about this?

The Israeli team recently declared it a fake, but many archeologists say that their conclusions were wrong.

I looked at the BAR website and saw a long list of arguments why the box is genuine. I can't list all of the reasons here, but they are still enough for me to side with the Royal Ontario Museum (which compared the box to some others that it already has) and say that the same person who wrote the first half of the inscription wrote the whole thing and the writer is a contemporary of James and Jesus.

What concerned the Israeli team was that the box "suddenly appeared" out of no-where and its collector has other peices that are obvious fakes. This could be counteracted by the obvious--the collecter himself doesn't have a clue what he has because he said the box was in a toolshed for many years while he kept "prettier" ossuaries inside his home for display!

I tend to be naturally sceptical about things at first, but after much investigation I have been satisfied that the odds of the box being genuine are better that for it being a fake.