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On some things we can all agree: 1. If authentic, the James ossuary inscription and the Jehoash inscription are immensely important. 2. If modern forgeries, we all want to know. 3. Every effort should be made to determine whether they are forgeries or authentic.
Let us be clear: The IAA committee’s decision that both inscriptions are forgeries may be correct. Both inscriptions may be forgeries.
But we at BAR believe that, for the reasons given here, final judgment on the inscriptions’ authenticity must be suspended until (1) the full text of the IAA Committee’s report is released and (2) other experts have an opportunity to review and evaluate the committee’s report and perhaps replicate its tests.
We note at the outset that the committee is not quite as unanimous as we were led to believe by the announcement of its conclusion. It appears that each member of the committee confined himself/herself to his/her expertise. Thus one member of the James ossuary inscription subcommittee noted that he found nothing wrong with the inscription paleograhically but “was convinced that the inscription is a forgery when presented with the findings of the Materials Committee.” A member of the Jehoash inscription subcommittee noted in a separate submission that he could only opine on a First Temple period inscription, not a Second Temple inscription like that on the James ossuary: “I do not see myself qualified to decide in this area of Second Temple period paleography,” he said.
It seems clear that the James ossuary inscription subcommittee was powerfully swayed, if not determined, by the scientific conclusion of the Materials Committee. None of the members of the James ossuary inscription subcommittee has any expertise in the area of the scientific committee.
Indeed, several members of the Materials Committee are not even experts in the scientific area which proved crucial for their conclusions. For example, one member of the committee was an expert in carbon-14, but as she recognizes, this is irrelevant to the James ossuary inscription.
The critical parts of the Materials Committee conclusion are really supported only by two people, Professor Yuval Goren and Dr. Avner Ayalon. We do not yet have the individual reports they submitted describing their work, only this summary. Apparently Dr. Ayalon performed the isotope tests and Professor Goren interpreted them in the light of other facts relating to the inscription.
It is interesting that at the press conference announcing the committee’s conclusions, Dr. Ayalon’s name was omitted from the list of committee members—even though he was the key participant. This has never been explained.
Moreover, the summary report admits that some of the committee members had made up their minds before they were appointed to the committee: “The most suitable experts were chosen even if they had, in the past, expressed an 033opinion on the subject.”
There are other reasons to question the soundness of the committee’s conclusions. For example, one member of the Materials Committee found that “the [ossuary] inscription cuts through the original patina.” This would certainly be an indication of a forgery, if true. But this is the first thing any researcher investigating the inscription would look for. And it is not difficult to see. The immediate question arises, why didn’t the first team of experts at the Israel Geological Survey see this? Why didn’t the team at the Royal Ontario Museum see this telltale indication of a forgery?
And if the IAA committee erred in this respect, doesn’t this undermine our confidence in the rest? Did the IAA committee address the reports of the earlier studies by the Israel Geological Survey and the Royal Ontario Museum? Perhaps they did and perhaps they will be able to explain how and why the other two teams of scientific investigators erred in failing to notice that the inscription cut through the patina. For this, we must wait for the release of the report itself, rather than this summary.
Another example: “The end of the inscription ‘brother of Jesus’ appears authentic, in some places there seem to be remains of old patina,” states the summary. At the press conference, it was announced that these words, “brother of Jesus,” “may be” authentic. But this reveals the biased mindset of the committee. If there are remains of old patina in the words “brother of Jesus,” the committee should have said that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of these words. It is not a matter of 50–50, maybe yes, maybe no. If there is old patina in these letters, they must be authentic unless there is some way we haven’t thought of or discovered that enabled the forger to fool us by putting old patina in the inscription.
If the last two words of the inscription are authentic, then the advocates of forgery have a real problem. They must assume that the forger was very stupid. He took an already inscribed ossuary and proceeded to forge the first part of the inscription, requiring him to match the writing in the second part. This makes no sense. For a few hundred dollars, he could have bought an authentic blank ossuary (they’re readily available in the antiquities market) and inscribed whatever he wanted, without trying to match the writing of an existing inscription. Moreover, it would be very strange to find an ossuary inscribed simply “brother of Jesus.” The standard form of identification on ossuaries is the name of the deceased and his father. Why would an ossuary be inscribed simply and only “brother of Jesus”?
We will have to wait until the IAA’s final report is released to see whether the committee deals with these problems.
In the end, the verdict of forgery seems to rest on a finding that fake patina was found in the incised letters of the first part of the ossuary inscription. This fake patina “was probably accomplished by crumbling and dissolving chalk (or perhaps the powder from the engraving process) in hot water and spilling the suspension on the inscription and surrounding area in order to blur the freshly carved inscription.” Apparently, this fake patina was detected by the oxygen isotopes it contained. “Patina samples from the letters of the James Ossuary…fall out of [the acceptable isotope range for patina accumulation], showing that the letters’ patina could not have formed within the Jerusalem area’s climatic conditions. ‘Patina’ of such isotope composition was probably created from a mixture of materials and water heated to a temperature that does not exist in our area.”
When the final report is released, it can then be reviewed by other independent experts to determine whether the testing protocol and resulting interpretations are sound. Still other simple questions beg to be answered. The Royal Ontario Museum found that the first part of the inscription had been cleaned with an unknown solvent and with a sharp tool. The IAA committee, too, found that the inscription had been cleaned. Is there any chance that this cleaning could account for the evidence that led the Materials Committee to conclude that the inscription is a modern forgery? As a matter of fact, a careful reading of Professor Goren’s conclusion indicates that he recognizes this as a distinct possibility and that therefore he is not one hundred percent sure that the inscription is a forgery. Professor Goren states: “The [ossuary] inscription was inscribed or cleaned in a modern period” [italics supplied].
The ossuary may have been looted in ancient times and exposed to the elements for a thousand years. Would that account for what appears to be fake patina?
The final report may address all these issues and allay all doubts. But we cannot know until it is released and reviewed by independent experts. Until then, we must suspend judgment.
On some things we can all agree: 1. If authentic, the James ossuary inscription and the Jehoash inscription are immensely important. 2. If modern forgeries, we all want to know. 3. Every effort should be made to determine whether they are forgeries or authentic.
