“Brother of Jesus” Inscription Is Authentic! - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > BAR > July/August 2012

“Brother of Jesus” Inscription Is Authentic!

By Hershel Shanks

In all the hubbub and flurry of the verdict last March in the “forgery case of the century,” one question—the central question—seems to have gotten lost: Is the ossuary inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” genuine or not? And if it is, does it refer to Jesus of Nazareth? After all, “Jesus” was a common name at the time. These are enormously important questions to the world of Christianity, as well as to anyone else interested in the material world as it existed at the time Jesus walked this earth. As to the authenticity of the inscription, […]

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Footnotes

1.

See Hershel Shanks, “Fudging with Forgeries,” BAR 37:06.

2.

Hershel Shanks, “Lying Scholars?” BAR 30:03.

3.

See Strata: “Joe Zias: ‘Hershel Has No Sense of Humor,’” BAR 38:03.

Endnotes

1.

Eric Meyers, “Eric Meyers’ Reaction to the Verdict in the Forgery Trial in Israel,” ASOR Blog, March 14, 2012, http://asorblog.org/?p=1966.

2.

A segment on 60 Minutes attempted to show that Marco was involved with another artifact that Oded Golan was also accused of forging, the 15-line Yehoash inscription. We questioned whether 60 Minutes accurately reported what Marco said in Arabic, but 60 Minutes refused to give us the transcript of its interview with Marco. See Hershel Shanks, First Person: “The Lion and the Flea,” BAR 37:03 and “60 Minutes Replies to BAR’s Charges of Unethical Conduct,” sidebar to Queries and Comments, BAR 37:04. In any event, 60 Minutes did not state or imply that Marco was involved with the forgery of the James Ossuary.

3.

Camil Fuchs, “Demography, Literacy, and Names Distribution in Ancient Jerusalem—How Many James/Jacob Son of Joseph Brother of Jesus Were There?” Polish Journal of Biblical Research 4, no. 1 (December 2005), pp. 3–30.

4.

L.Y. Rahmani, A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collection of the State of Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 1994).