The Trial of Oded Golan

053

This is the imaginary trial of Oded Golan, the Tel Aviv antiquities collector who owns the ossuary, or bone box, inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” He is charged with forging the inscription. You be the judge (there are no juries in Israel): Don’t assume that the Judge’s courtroom rulings on objections and the like are all correct or all incorrect.

CLERK OF COURT: The State of Israel vs. Oded Golan, Criminal Case Number aleph, beth, gimmel, dalet.

PROSECUTOR: Call Professor Frank M. Cross to the stand.

PROSECUTOR: Professor Cross, please state your affiliation.

CROSS: I am professor emeritus at Harvard University.

PROSECUTOR: Is one of your specialties paleography?

DEFENSE COUNSEL (D.C.): Your Honor, we will stipulate that the witness is one of the two or three most eminent paleographers in the world.

COURT: Perhaps you ought to tell us what paleography is, Professor Cross.

CROSS: It is the study of the shape and form of letters, which change over time. This often enables us to date an inscription. It often also enables us to detect forgeries because each of the letters must be accurately drawn and correctly cohere for the appropriate time period. Each letter must also be appropriate for the dialect of the inscription, such as Aramaic, Moabite or Edomite. The forger often unmasks himself by paleographic errors.

PROSECUTOR: Professor Cross, in your expert judgment, is the inscription on this ossuary, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” a forgery?

CROSS: It is.

PROSECUTOR: No further questions.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Are there any paleographic flaws in this inscription, such as those you mentioned?

CROSS: No, there are not.

D.C.: As a matter fact, you have characterized this inscription as paleographically “flawless,” have you not?¹

CROSS: I have.

D.C.: And you have stated on internationally broadcast television that if this is a forgery, the forger must be a genius?²

CROSS: I did, but I didn’t realize this would be on TV and seen by millions of people. And I do think the forger was a genius.

D.C.: Why then do you think the inscription is a forgery?

CROSS: At the time I made that statement on television I had not really noticed that on the back of the ossuary (that is, assuming the inscription is the front) two rosettes are faintly engraved. They are very hard to see, just faintly visible. This of course is not their original condition. They are very badly weathered. On the other side of the ossuary, the inscription is crisp and clearly visible. This difference in weathering tells me that the rosettes must be much, much older than the inscription.

D.C.: Professor Cross, do you consider yourself an expert in the differential weathering of limestone ossuaries?

PROSECUTOR: I object. He stipulated to Professor Cross’s qualifications.

D.C.: I only stipulated to his qualifications as a paleographer, not as an expert in limestone weathering.

COURT: I think your stipulation was broader than that, counsel. I will sustain 054the objection.

D.C.: I have no further questions for this witness, your Honor.

PROSECUTOR: Call Professor Eric Meyers to the stand.

State your profession and affiliation, please.

MEYERS: I am a professor at Duke University, I am an archaeologist who has excavated many sites in Israel from what scholars call the late Second Temple period, I have served as president of the American Schools of Oriental Research and editor of the Biblical Archaeologist and I have written Biblical commentaries together with my wife, Carol Meyers.

D.C.: Your Honor, I would like to ask a question of the witness before he is “qualified” to testify.

JUDGE: You will get your chance, counsel. He is qualified. Please sit down.

PROSECUTOR: Is the James ossuary inscription a modern forgery?

MEYERS: Yes, it is.

PROSECUTOR: Why?

MEYERS: Because it is impossible that it is authentic.³

PROSECUTOR: No further questions.

D.C.: Professor Meyers, would you say that you are an expert paleographer?

MEYERS: No, I am not.

D.C.: No further questions.

JUDGE: You may step down, Professor Meyers.

PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, I would like to call a young scholar who is indeed an expert paleographer, Professor Andrew Vaughn of Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Professor Vaughn, as an expert paleographer, do you have an opinion as to whether the James Ossuary inscription is a forgery?

VAUGHN: Yes, I do.

PROSECUTOR: What is it?

VAUGHN: It is a forgery.

PROSECUTOR: Why?

VAUGHN: Because it is too good to be true.⁴

PROSECUTOR: No further questions.

D.C.: I have no further questions of this witness, your Honor.

JUDGE: Next witness.

PROSECUTOR: Call Professor Yuval Goren to the stand.

PROSECUTOR: What is your institution and profession, Professor Goren?

GOREN: I am head of the department of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, the finest archaeology department in the country. I am an archaeologist with a specialty in petrology [the study of rocks]. I served in that capacity on the committee of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) that unanimously found the James Ossuary inscription to be a forgery.

PROSECUTOR: Please explain to her Honor what the geological basis of that finding was.

GOREN: I’d be glad to. We found that there were two coatings on the ossuary itself: The lowest is what we call rock varnish; above that was a patina that forms over hundreds of years. On the inscription and the area around it, however, there was a third kind of coating, which was the key to our conclusion that the inscription was a forgery.⁵ This coating was soft and could be removed with a toothpick, unlike the other coatings, which adhere very strongly to the surface. We analyzed this third coating and found that it contained a proportion of an oxygen isotope that proved this coating had been made with water hotter than can be found in the Jerusalem hills. Therefore we concluded that this coating had to be modern and that the inscription under it was a forgery.

PROSECUTOR (smiling and addressing Defense Counsel): Your witness.

D.C.: Professor Goren, I believe in your report written for the IAA committee you said that either the inscription had to be engraved in modern times or the inscription had been cleaned in modern times.

GOREN: That is correct.

D.C.: But in your report you never went on to consider the possibility that it had been cleaned in modern times, did you?

GOREN: Not in the report.

D.C.: Well, did you consider it elsewhere?

GOREN: We hope to.

D.C.: Do you know whether the inscription has been cleaned?

GOREN: It appears that it was.

D.C.: Yet you didn’t consider the possibility further that this coating made of hot water was caused by cleaning, did you?

GOREN: It is very unlikely that it was caused by cleaning. It’s only a theoretical possibility.

D.C.: You do know that antiquities dealers customarily clean inscriptions to bring them out to look more attractive and to fetch a better price?

PROSECUTOR: Objection.

JUDGE: Sustained.

D.C.: Have you heard that the owner of the ossuary says that his mother also cleaned the ossuary?

PROSECUTOR: Same objection.

JUDGE: Sustained.

D.C.: Professor Goren, if there were original antique patina in the inscription under this modern coating, the inscription would be authentic even if it lay under a modern coating, isn’t that correct?

GOREN: Yes, unless the underlying patina had also been forged.

D.C.: Did you find any evidence that the underlying patina had been forged?

GOREN: We didn’t see any in the inscription.

D.C.: How about elsewhere on the ossuary?

GOREN: It wasn’t forged.

D.C.: But you say you didn’t see any antique patina in the inscription itself?

GOREN: No.

D.C.: But one of your co-committee members did see a yellowish patina in the inscription similar to the patina on the ossuary surface?

GOREN: Yes, but only in the last part of the inscription.

D.C.: And what was the last part?

055

GOREN: “Brother of Jesus.” But she also said that on the whole and considered in its entirety the inscription was a forgery.

D.C.: Who was that?

GOREN: Orna Cohen.

D.C.: How do you put the two parts of that judgment together—that the last part of the inscription may be authentic and that in its entirety it is a forgery?

PROSECUTOR: Objection. He can’t be expected to read Orna Cohen’s mind.

JUDGE: Sustained.

D.C.: Another member of your committee found that the first part of the inscription may possibly be authentic, isn’t that right?

GOREN: Yes.⁶ But she too found that the inscription was a forgery.

D.C.: How do you suppose this forged coating was made? I know you say it was made using hot water, but how was it done?

GOREN: Well, at first we thought that it was made by scraping the limestone off the ossuary, which is a genuine ossuary, and mixing it with hot water to make a paste and rubbing the paste in the area of the inscription. But then an article in BAR by James Harrell pointed out that this wouldn’t produce the isotope content that we found.⁷ So we also considered that the coating was made with ordinary water of ordinary temperature but then the ossuary was baked in an oven. But Harrell pointed out in the same article that this wouldn’t explain the presence of this oxygen isotope in such quantity. So we’re not sure how the forged coating was made. Perhaps you’ll have to ask the forger.

D.C.: But as you stand here, you do not know how this coating was made?

JUDGE: He already answered that. Ask another question.

D.C.: No further questions, your Honor.

PROSECUTOR: The government rests, your Honor.

JUDGE (addressing Defense Counsel): OK, it’s your turn.

D.C.: Thank you, your Honor. I think at this point the government’s case would be subject to a motion to dismiss. Perhaps there is enough evidence to allow you to conclude that the James ossuary inscription is a forgery, but the government has not even attempted to show that this defendant produced the forgery or had any part in it—if it is a forgery.

JUDGE: That’s true, counsel, but I’m going to conduct a bifurcated trial, in which we will first try the question as to whether the inscription is a forgery. Then we will try the question of whether this defendant was involved in producing the forgery.

D.C.: Very well. Then I will limit my witnesses at this point to whether or not the inscription is a forgery.

JUDGE: Very well.

D.C.: I call Professor André Lemaire of the Sorbonne.

PROSECUTOR: We will stipulate that he is a famous paleographer.

D.C.: Thank you. (Addressing the witness:) Professor Lemaire, is this inscription authentic or a forgery?

LEMAIRE: Well, one can never be 100 percent sure that an inscription is authentic. For it is never 100 percent possible to prove that it is not a forgery. You cannot prove a negative conclusively. There is always some possibility that there is some test you have not performed, some indication that you have not noticed that would prove it to be a forgery. This is true even of an inscription that has been excavated by a professional archaeologist. You never know for an absolute certainty that the archaeologist is not lying, that the inscription was not “salted.” So I cannot say for sure that it is authentic. But I can say there that there is no reason that I know of to suspect that this inscription is a forgery.

JUDGE: Professor Lemaire, could you please speak more slowly. I am having difficulty understanding your heavy French accent.

LEMAIRE: I’m sorry, your Honor. I shall try to speak more slowly and more plainly.

D.C.: I think we are finished with this witness, unless the prosecutor has some cross-examination.

PROSECUTOR: Yes, I do. Professor Lemaire, are you a geologist?

LEMAIRE: No, I am not.

PROSECUTOR: So you would not be in a position to address the geological concerns raised by Professor Goren.

LEMAIRE: No, I can only speak from the paleographical point of view.

PROSECUTOR: So I take it that if there were a geological indication that this was a forgery, you wouldn’t be able to take notice of it.

LEMAIRE: That’s correct.

PROSECUTOR: So with all your paleographical expertise, you are not in a position to detect a forgery that is revealed by geological matters.

JUDGE: You’ve asked the same question twice already, counsel. I don’t think we need it a third time. I get your point.

PROSECUTOR: I have no further questions, your Honor.

D.C.: My next witness is Dr. Ada Yardeni, but in order to save the court’s time, my learned brother [the prosecutor] and I have agreed to stipulate that Dr. Yardeni is a leading Israeli paleographer and the author of The Book of Hebrew Script⁸ and that her testimony would be identical to Professor Lemaire’s.

JUDGE: The court thanks both of you. Dr. Yardeni’s testimony will be considered as if she had so testified in open court. Next witness.

D.C.: Your Honor, our next witness is a noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher in Jerusalem who is fearful of the effect of disclosing his name, so we request leave of court to refer to him as Dr. Jacques Doe.

JUDGE: Request granted.

D.C.: Dr. Doe, are you a noted Hebrew/Aramaic epigrapher?

DOE: Oui. Peut-être.

D.C.: Dr. Doe, you are quoted in an article by Professor Eric Meyers,⁹ who has already testified in this case, as having seen the James ossuary in the mid-1990s in the shop of an antiquities dealer in Jerusalem, but without the reference to Jesus; that is, when you saw it at that time, it read only “James, son of Joseph.” An article in BAR 056claims that you told its editor the same thing.¹⁰ Did you in fact tell this to Professor Meyers and to the editor of BAR?

DOE: Well, at the time of these conversations, I …

D.C.: I think my question can be answered with a simple yes or no, Dr. Doe. If you want to explain, you can do so after you answer my question.

DOE: Well, there were many …

D.C.: Please answer the question, Dr. Doe.

JUDGE: Can you answer the question with a yes or no?

DOE: Oui, but I did not know that I would be quoted, that I would be taken serieusment. I am not sure, but I surely thought that I had seen it.

D.C.: But you are not sure?

DOE: Non.

D.C.: Isn’t it a fact, Dr. Doe, that you have written about the ossuary inscription in several venues?

DOE: Oui.

D.C.: And these were all later than the mid-1990s?

DOE: Oui.

D.C.: And when you wrote about the ossuary inscription, you took the position that this inscription could not refer to Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of the New Testament, that it must refer to another person named Jesus?

DOE: Oui.

D.C.: And you wrote that there was no a priori reason to doubt the authenticity of the inscription and that the entire inscription was written by one hand. You wrote that, didn’t you?

DOE: Oui.

D.C.: And you didn’t mention in any of these sources that you had previously seen the ossuary in an antiquities shop without the reference to Jesus?

DOE: Non.

D.C.: No further questions.

PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, I fail to see the relevance of any of Dr. Doe’s testimony. We did not rely on him to prove that the inscription was a forgery. I move that his entire testimony be stricken.

JUDGE: Motion granted. (Addressing defense counsel:) Next witness, counsel.

D.C.: Please call Dr. L.Y. Rahmani. You are the author of the standard catalog of decorated and inscribed ossuaries, are you not?¹¹

RAHMANI: It is limited to the ossuaries in the state collection.

D.C.: How many are in your catalog?

RAHMANI: Eight hundred and ninety-five.

D.C.: Would you please direct your attention to number 62 in your catalog and, looking at the pictures, tell her Honor whether one side has weathered much more than the other side.

RAHMANI: Yes, it has.

D.C.: Is the inscribed side much clearer than the decorated side?

RAHMANI: Yes.

D.C.: Is this common?

RAHMANI: I don’t know.

D.C.: Are there other examples in your catalog?

RAHMANI: Yes.

D.C. (to Prosecutor): Your witness.

PROSECUTOR: Dr. Rahmani, if a forger newly engraved an inscription on a badly weathered ossuary, the inscription would be crystal clear and the decoration on the ossuary would be badly weathered, would it not?

D.C.: Objection. That is a hypothetical question.

JUDGE: Let him answer.

RAHMANI: Yes.

PROSECUTOR (to D.C.): Your witness.

D.C.: Would a forger leave such a telltale indication of a forgery?

PROSECUTOR: Objection.

JUDGE: I let him answer your question [the prosecutor’s], so I suppose I should let him answer yours [defense counsel’s]. Go ahead.

RAHMANI: It would have to be a pretty dumb forger who would leave the inscription looking fresh and new like that. Normally, he would just sandblast it with an airbrush to make it look old.

D.C.: No further questions.

PROSECUTOR: No questions, your Honor.

D.C.: Your Honor, I call the owner of the ossuary, Mr. Oded Golan. Mr. Golan, is any part of the inscription on the ossuary a forgery?

GOLAN: No, it is not.

D.C.: How can you be so sure? You just heard Professor Lemaire testify that you can never be 100 percent sure, didn’t you?

GOLAN: I purchased the ossuary decades ago. A forger forges to make money. But even if he forges as a joke or to get even with his teacher, he does not leave his forgery around for 20–25 years without doing something with it. I bought it about 25 years ago for a few hundred dollars, so nobody made much money from it. And if it was a joke, whoever it was to be a joke on never knew about it. It has been with me all this time.

D.C.: When you bought the ossuary, was the entire inscription, as you see it today, on it?

GOLAN: Absolutely.

D.C. (with a smirk on his face): It’s your turn, Mr. Prosecutor.

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Golan, at various times you estimated that you owned the ossuary for various periods of time—15 years, 20 years, 25 years.

GOLAN: I may have. I know it would be before 1978.

PROSECUTOR: That’s 25 years ago.

GOLAN: Today it is. But I was speaking several years ago.

PROSECUTOR: When did you make these estimates?

GOLAN: Oh, two, three years ago.

PROSECUTOR: So that to get you before 1978, you would have had to have purchased the ossuary 25 years ago?

GOLAN: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: 1978 is the applicable date of an Israeli law that says that anything illegally excavated after that date belongs to the State, isn’t that right?

GOLAN: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: And you know about that law?

GOLAN: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: So if it was purchased after 0571978, the ossuary would belong to the State, not to you.

GOLAN: That argument could be made.

PROSECUTOR: No further questions.

D.C.: Your Honor, that concludes our case with respect to whether the inscription is a forgery. We move to dismiss the case on the ground that the State has failed to prove that the inscription is a forgery.

JUDGE: Counsel, I am going to take that motion under advisement. In the meantime, we will proceed to try the second half of the case: Assuming the inscription is a forgery, was the defendant involved in the forgery? Mr. Prosecutor, proceed.

PROSECUTOR: Call Dr. Uzi Dahari to the stand. What is your affiliation, Dr. Dahari?

DAHARI: I am deputy director of the Israel Antiquities Authority and chairman of the IAA committee that found the inscription to be a fake.

PROSECUTOR: Do you believe that Oded Golan forged the inscription or some part of it?

DAHARI: No.

PROSECUTOR (surprised): No? Can you explain that?

DAHARI: He isn’t smart enough. And it takes many different skills. It was a conspiracy; a whole group worked on it together.

PROSECUTOR: Was Mr. Golan a member of the conspiracy?

DAHARI: Definitely.

PROSECUTOR: Can you explain your conclusion?

DAHARI: When we searched his apartment, we found a forgery lab. In addition, we found in his possession another inscription, commonly called the Yehoash inscription by Israelis and the Jehoash inscription by Americans who do not know Hebrew, which describes repairs made to the Solomonic Temple in almost the same words as these repairs are described in the Bible. Almost all scholars believe the Yehoash inscription is a forgery—both on paleographic and linguistic grounds.

PROSECUTOR: Anything else?

DAHARI: Well, like most forgers, Golan showed no respect for an inscription that referred to the most revered figure of Christianity. He stored the ossuary sitting on a toilet. A true believer in the authenticity of this inscription would not treat it this way.

PROSECUTOR (to Defense Counsel): Your witness.

D.C.: Dr. Dahari, what did the defendant’s forgery lab consist of?

DAHARI: Oh, some dental tools and an old dental drill. He also had some plaster of paris. And some drawings. I assume that future forgeries …

D.C. (interrupting): Don’t assume anything, Dr. Dahari.

JUDGE: Just the facts, Dr. Dahari.

D.C.: You mentioned in your direct examination that the forgery was accomplished by a conspiracy. I understand you have told various people that it included an “honored Israeli archaeologist.”¹² Did you say that?

DAHARI: Yes.

D.C.: Who is that honored Israeli archaeologist?

DAHARI: That is still part of an ongoing investigation, so I cannot disclose it.

PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, this information is entirely irrelevant to this case. That someone else may have been in the conspiracy doesn’t suggest that Mr. Golan was not in the conspiracy.

D.C.: Your Honor, his identity might lead to evidence that Mr. Golan was not part of the conspiracy or that there was no conspiracy.

JUDGE: Well, this case was not brought on the basis of a conspiracy. The government failed to allege a conspiracy in the indictment. So I think I will not order the witness to disclose the identity of the “honored Israeli archaeologist.” Besides, I do want to protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation.

D.C.: Your Honor, in light of your ruling I move to strike all references to the existence of a conspiracy to forge the inscription.

JUDGE: Motion granted. Proceed with the questioning.

D.C.: Dr. Dahari, would the tools you say you found in the defendant’s forgery lab be capable of engraving this inscription?

DAHARI: The old dental drill might.

D.C.: But that’s pure speculation, isn’t it?

DAHARI: It’s a pretty good guess.

JUDGE: No guessing, Dr. Dahari.

D.C.: I notice you did not say that Mr. Golan owned the Yehoash inscription, only that it was in his possession. Is there a difference?

DAHARI: Yes. Mr. Golan told us that it was owned by a dealer in the Old City and it was given to him to help the dealer dispose of it. Mr. Golan said it should be in the Israel Museum. And he said he told the owner that he would try to get it for the museum. But we didn’t believe him because we think he is a liar.

D.C.: Please just answer the question, Mr. Dahari.

DAHARI: I just did.

D.C.: You mentioned that almost all scholars believe the Yehoash inscription is a forgery. There are a number of prominent scholars who feel that the case has not been made that it is a forgery. Isn’t that true?

DAHARI: Not to my knowledge.

D.C.: Have you ever heard of David Noel Freedman?

DAHARI: Yes.

D.C.: He is one of the most prominent and respected Biblical scholars in the world, isn’t he?

DAHARI: Yes.

D.C.: Professor Freedman doesn’t accept that the Yehoash inscription is a forgery.

DAHARI: I am not aware of that.

D.C. (showing the witness Freedman’s article in the March/April 2004 issue of BAR)¹³: Have you read this article in BAR?

DAHARI: I don’t read BAR anymore. It 062is yellow journalism.

D.C.: Are you aware that Professor Chaim Cohen of Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva also believes the Yehoash inscription has not been shown to be a forgery?¹⁴

PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, this is getting pretty far afield. This case is about the James ossuary inscription, not about the Yehoash inscription.

JUDGE: You opened it up in your direct examination, Mr. Prosecutor. Objection overruled. Proceed, counsel.

D.C.: And that a group of Israeli scholars, including geologists from the Geological Survey of Israel, have petitioned for a restudy of the Yehoash inscription because they do not feel the case for a forgery has been proven?

DAHARI: In answer to both your questions, I don’t think they are the leaders in the field, like the scholars who regard the Yehoash inscription as a forgery.

D.C.: I thought you agreed with me that Professor David Noel Freedman is one of the most prominent and respected Biblical scholars in the world.

DAHARI: Well, on this matter I think he’s wrong.

D.C.: No further questions.

JUDGE: Do you have any more witnesses, Mr. Prosecutor?

PROSECUTOR: No, your Honor. The government rests.

D.C.: The defense recalls Mr. Oded Golan.

D.C.: Mr. Golan, you heard Dr. Dahari describe what he called your forgery lab. Did you have a forgery lab?

GOLAN: No, I did not. I had only the tools that any serious collector has to repair and reconstruct pottery. Everything Dr. Dahari describes was for that purpose. I specialize in ancient pottery. It is not the most sexy thing to collect, but I find it fascinating. I have the largest and most important private collection of ancient pottery in Israel.

D.C.: What about that toilet seat you heard about in Dr. Dahari’s testimony?

GOLAN: The ossuary was initially confiscated from me so that the IAA committee could study it. The law allows them three months to do this. When they returned it, it was famous—and I was too. I was fearful that it might be robbed from my Tel Aviv apartment. So I carefully packed it up and stored it in what I considered to be the safest place in the apartment house in which I live: On the roof is an old small room that hadn’t been used in years, as is so often the case in Israel—an illegal room. Inside was an old toilet without even a seat. I carefully placed the precious package, well wrapped, on it and locked the door so that it would be safe.

Months later, the police came to arrest me in the middle of the night. They asked me where the ossuary was, so I took them up to the little room on the roof. They proceeded to unwrap the carefully wrapped package. They then placed the ossuary back on the toilet, took a picture of it, then released the picture to the newspapers to show how disrespectful I was of the ossuary. In the picture you can still see the bubble wrap on the floor, which was the innermost of several wrappings in which I had stored the ossuary.

Incidentally, they kept me in jail for four days without charging me. Then they released me, again without charging me. People think I was released on bail, but that’s not true. I was simply released, and my passport has since been returned.

But that is typical of how the police have treated me …

PROSECUTOR (interrupting): I object, you Honor. This testimony is entirely irrelevant.

JUDGE: Well, I’ll let it in for what it’s worth.

GOLAN (continuing): They handcuffed me in front of my parents, they team-interrogated me for hours and they have made my life miserable for years. Only now have they dared come into court.

D.C.: No further questions. The defense rests.

PROSECUTOR: I have no further questions, your Honor. The government also rests.

JUDGE: Thank you, gentlemen. The case is submitted. I will take it under advisement and let you know. This court stands adjourned.