Lying Scholars?

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Intense scholarly disagreements are common in archaeology. Cases of deliberate lying, however, are rare. Is this such a case? If so, what is the motive? When I returned from the Annual Meetings^a in Atlanta last November, I penned my customary report for publication in the March/April issue.^b (I have been doing this in the March/ April issue for 22 years.)

For this year’s report, I described a conversation with two scholars who told me that they had seen the controversial James ossuary, now inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” in the shop of a Jerusalem antiquities dealer named Mahmoud in the mid-1990s or earlier. But 049when they saw it, on separate occasions, it bore only the inscription “James, son of Joseph.” No reference to Jesus!

One of the scholars was Joe Zias, a physical anthropologist and archaeologist who formerly worked for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) but was let go during a budget squeeze in 1997. He has been without a full-time job since that time. I will not name the other scholar because he asked me not to.

In late January 2004, after my report on the annual meetings was written but before it was published in the March/April issue, Eric Meyers, a well-known Duke University archaeologist who had been president of ASOR and editor of its semi-popular magazine, Biblical Archaeologist,^c published an article on the Internet describing a conversation he had with Zias and the other scholar.^d Apparently they were telling this same story to a number of people assembled in Atlanta. They told Meyers the same thing they told me, down to the same details, except that Meyers declined to name either Zias or the other scholar. In addition, Meyers noted that in August 2003, Zias (unnamed) had given a sworn deposition to the Israeli police swearing to having seen the ossuary in the antiquities shop—without “brother of Jesus” on it.

Apparently relying on his article, Meyers’s colleague Paul Flesher, of the University of Wyoming, told an Associated Press reporter that an Israeli archaeologist [the unnamed Zias] had “told Israeli police he saw the ossuary in an antiquities shop in Jerusalem with only part of the inscription in the early 1990s.” Thus the story was beamed around the world in an Associated Press (AP) story, datelined Laramie, Wyoming. “New evidence,” the story began, “by a prominent archaeologist [Zias, unnamed] should settle questions about the authenticity of a burial box 050purported to have been that of Jesus’ brother.”

If the ossuary inscription was seen in the mid-1990s without the words “brother of Jesus,” this was indeed damning evidence. If true, the words “brother of Jesus” must be a forgery added at a later time. There simply is no other explanation.

And, as Flesher told the AP reporter, this statement to the Israeli police “also debunks the ossuary owner’s claim he bought the box in the 1970s.”

Are the two scholars who reported the sighting in the antiquities shop telling the truth?

Though Meyers did not name either Zias or the other scholar, he gave us a hint as to the other scholar’s identity. Meyers tells us (accurately) that the other scholar is a “noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher in Jerusalem.” In my description of him in my Annual Meeting report, I mention that he speaks in “accented English.”

The evidence that this Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher seems to be lying comes from his own mouth. He has published rather widely on the ossuary. His principal point in these publications is that the inscription’s reference to Jesus cannot be to the New Testament Jesus, to Jesus of Nazareth.¹ After all, Jesus was a common name during the first century, and there could well be other people named Jesus who had a brother James and a father named Joseph.

Yet in none of these writings does the “noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher” question the authenticity of the inscription—which is strange indeed! After all, the best evidence that the inscription does not refer to Jesus of Nazareth would be the fact that when the scholar (supposedly) first saw the ossuary, the inscription did not include the reference to Jesus!

But the situation is even worse for this unnamed Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher. Not only does he fail to mention what would be the most compelling reason why the inscription could not refer to Jesus (because it was supposedly only recently added), but he also affirmatively subscribes to the authenticity of the inscription as we now have it!

We have recently received references to several writings by this unnamed Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher regarding the ossuary inscription. We quote from them in English translation even though some of them were not originally written in English. In asking yourself how the scholar could say these things if he knew that the words “brother of Jesus” were recently added (because he saw the inscription in the antiquities shop without these words), remember that Meyers rightly describes this scholar as a Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher; in other words, he is an expert in scripts; he specializes in dating and deciphering them (including the Dead Sea Scrolls)—and in spotting forgeries! Yet the scholar seems to regard the James ossuary inscription in its entirety as authentic. Here are two quotations from this Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher’s writings:

Even if [the ossuary’s] owner contradicted himself several times about the time and the place of purchase, a priori there is no sufficient proof to doubt its authenticity, or then the forger would have to be an excellent paleographer, a specialist of cursive writing from the first century before Christ and the following centuries, much better than most of the decipherers of the Dead Sea manuscripts from my experience.

Moreover, it is far from being proven that the second 051part of the inscription was added by another hand as some have recently claimed … A priori again, the same scribe engraved the entire inscription.

Yet the unnamed epigrapher now tells us that only recently were the words “brother of Jesus” added to the inscription.

In an English venue this noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher denies in the strongest possible terms that the inscription refers to Jesus of Nazareth. It is “absolutely impossible,” he says, to pinpoint the date of the inscription to the “decade preceding the fall of Jerusalem.” Moreover, if this were the New Testament James, it would be “expected” to be inscribed “James the Just” or “the brother of the Lord/Messiah,” not simply “brother of Jesus.” Our noted epigrapher then claims that “the specific relationship of James and Jesus in our ossuary is quite simply indeterminable … The term ‘brother’ actually concurrently meant blood brother, half-brother, husband, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, and companion.” As for the Biblical text, he says, “It was only popular hearsay that he [James] was thought to be the ‘son of Joseph.’” For these and other reasons, the inscription, in his view, cannot possibly refer to Jesus of Nazareth. But the one argument that he—this great epigrapher—does not make is that the inscription is a modern forgery. Yet he now claims to have seen the ossuary inscription without the reference to Jesus!

More recently this noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher published another article in English taking the 052same position as in his earlier English publications. Again, he fails to make any mention of having seen the ossuary at a time when the inscription did not include the key words “brother of Jesus.”

Elsewhere, to demonstrate this inscription cannot refer to Jesus of the New Testament, the epigrapher notes that in John 19:25–27, Jesus entrusts his mother to the Beloved Disciple. “If Jesus had had brothers, it would have been difficult to entrust her to someone other than her genetic brothers for whom (since Joseph must have died before Jesus’ active public life) it would have been a duty of filial loyalty.” In short, Jesus of Nazareth had no brothers. So this ossuary inscription cannot refer to him. But why not just say, “I saw this ossuary years ago without the reference to Jesus”?

The noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher provides what he calls a “simpler explanation” of the inscription: “A brother by the name of Jesus, not a son of James if he was married, had deposited the bones in the ossuary, hence the mention of his name.” Is this the statement of a person who had seen the ossuary without the mention of “brother of Jesus”?

Nor is there any doubt that the noted epigrapher claims to have seen the ossuary without the reference to Jesus, for he told the same story to both Meyers and me.

It is time for this “noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher” to identify himself and explain how it is possible that he could make these statements after having seen the ossuary inscription years earlier without the words “brother of Jesus.” If he is not disposed to come out of the shadows, his institution should urge him to. His identity is widely known in the academic community. This is not a matter that will easily go away.

But what about Zias? Is there reason to suspect his veracity? Though he has not written about the ossuary and its inscription, an obvious question arises: Why has he waited so long to come out with this clear “evidence” of forgery, especially as he is “certain,” according to Meyers’s account, that the ossuary he saw in the mid-1990s, without the reference to Jesus, is the same as the ossuary that now has that reference. (Moreover, at the time, Zias was an employee of the Israel Antiquities Authority, which would have had an interest in the ossuary inscription even without the reference to the “brother of Jesus.”)

The original article on the ossuary inscription, by Sorbonne epigrapher André Lemaire, appeared in the 061November/December 2002 BAR.^e One would have thought that Zias would immediately have called this damning evidence of forgery to someone’s attention. The matter was controversial almost from the start. Through it all, however, Zias apparently chose to remain silent—until late 2003. Why? He, too, should explain himself.

Something else seems strange: The antiquities dealer supposedly told Zias that the ossuary was his “retirement pension,” an apparent reference to the extraordinary price it would fetch on the market. (Zias told both Meyers and me of the antiquities dealer’s reference to his pension, as we each reported.) But simply inscribed “James, son of Joseph” it would not be worth such a large amount. Both names—James and Joseph—were common at the time. Thus inscribed, the ossuary would hardly represent a retirement fund. Was the antiquities dealer telling Zias that the ossuary inscription would be changed—forged—to add something that would vastly increase its value? It would seem strange indeed that the antiquities dealer would tell Zias, then an employee of the Israel Antiquities Authority, that the ossuary inscription was about to be forged. But what else could the antiquities dealer have meant? Or did he not say it?

Something else: The whole theory that a forger added the words “brother of Jesus” to an authentic inscription with the words “James, son of Joseph” is not believable. For a few hundred dollars, a forger could buy a readily available uninscribed ossuary on which he could engrave whatever he wanted. There would be no need to start with a relatively expensive ossuary inscribed “James, son of Joseph.” Even more important, a forger who started with an authentic inscription would have to try to imitate the style of the inscription that was already there—not an easy thing to do. Why undertake such a difficult project? Simply start with an uninscribed ossuary and avoid the problem.

So the whole theory that the forger started with an authentic inscription that read “James, son of Joseph” is suspect, unrealistic and unconvincing.

In his Internet article, Meyers also writes that Zias (unnamed) told him that a lawyer for the owner of the ossuary offered it for $2 million to the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem in 2001. Oded Golan, the ossuary’s owner, has long claimed that he didn’t understand the significance of the inscription until Lemaire made him aware of it in April 2002. If Golan had offered the ossuary to the Christian Embassy in 2001, he is a bare-faced liar because he knew of its significance earlier. Again, on its face, the evidence is damning. One would think that before going on the Internet with such damning evidence, especially from an unnamed source, Meyers would check it out. After all, it would be simple enough to call the International Christian Embassy.

But he didn’t, so I did. Malcolm Hedding, the executive director of the International Christian Embassy, told me that his records showed that at 11:00 a.m. on November 28, 2002 (not 2001), he was visited by a certain Uri Ovnat, who showed Hedding Lemaire’s article in BAR (which had come out in late October 2002, a month earlier, and had created a storm of publicity) and urged Hedding to buy it. Ovnat is not a lawyer and, Oded Golan, the owner of the ossuary, says, Ovnat was not authorized by him to offer it to anyone, let alone to the International Christian Embassy. Ovnat’s card, which he left with Hedding, says he is the head of a marketing business called International Marketing Development Enterprises, Ltd.

I called Ovnat to get his side of the story. He said he knows Golan and had worked with him on a proposed Internet project three years earlier. Nothing came of it, however. When the publicity came out following the publication of Lemaire’s article in BAR, he called Golan and asked Golan “if I could 062help.” Golan claims that Ovnat visited the International Christian Embassy on his own. Hedding immediately told Ovnat that they had no interest in this kind of thing, and that was the end of it. Ovnat says he never spoke to anyone else about the ossuary.

What this episode demonstrates, I’m not sure—except the kinds of unsubstantiated rumors that are swirling around the ossuary.

Both Zias and the unnamed Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher in Meyers’s Internet article have a lot of explaining to do. Let’s hear from them.

Postscript: Mahmoud Found

As we go to press, after weeks of trying I finally located and talked to Mahmoud, the owner of the antiquities shop where Zias and “the noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher” said they had seen the ossuary in the mid-1990s without the reference to Jesus.

Mahmoud’s full name is Mahmoud Abushakra. He has closed his shop on the Via Dolorosa, married a German woman and moved to a small village of 1,200 people in Saxony, Germany. When I reached him by phone he was absolutely clear that this ossuary had never been in his shop. He said he did not know and had never heard of either Joe Zias or the “noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher” (whom I named for him).

Moreover, if he had had the ossuary in his shop, it would be impossible for the Israel Antiquities Authority not to know about it. Antiquities dealers in Israel must keep an inventory of everything in their shop, he said, and it is checked by the Antiquities Authority every year.

Mahmoud said that some time ago he had been called by Amir Ganor, chief of the IAA robbery unit, who said he must ask Mahmoud about the possibility of his having had the ossuary even though he knew that he did not, but that they were checking with all the antiquities dealers in Jerusalem. In telephone calls and e-mails with Ganor, Mahmoud confirmed that the ossuary had never been in his shop.

I then telephoned Ganor in Jerusalem, who confirmed that Mahmoud had told him that he never had the ossuary in his shop. I asked Ganor, “Do you believe him?” “Yes,” he said. “He is a very good dealer.”

Intense scholarly disagreements are common in archaeology. Cases of deliberate lying, however, are rare. Is this such a case? If so, what is the motive? When I returned from the Annual Meetingsa in Atlanta last November, I penned my customary report for publication in the March/April issue.b (I have been doing this in the March/ April issue for 22 years.) For this year’s report, I described a conversation with two scholars who told me that they had seen the controversial James ossuary, now inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” in the shop of a Jerusalem antiquities […]