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It is time for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) to formally charge Oded Golan and then try him for forging the inscription that reads “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The inscription appears on a now-famous first-century C.E. bone box, or ossuary.
If they’ve got the evidence, they should produce it in court. The investigation has now gone on for more than a year-and-a-half. It’s time to put up or shut up.
Instead of trying him in court, the IAA has subjected Golan to what might be called trial by leak. For a long time, the IAA has shown favored viewers the contents of Golan’s supposed “forgery factory.” It is said to demonstrate that Golan is indeed a forger. I, too, was offered an opportunity to view the contents of the raid on Golan’s home and office, but I declined. We are not a source for this trial by leak.
But inevitably reports have been printed, and the materials are now widely known. A French journalist was among those who accepted the invitation to view the materials, and he reported on what he was shown. He described it as “damning evidence”: for example, an empty stone tablet with the same dimensions as the tablet on which the Jehoash inscription appears. The Jehoash inscription describes repairs to the Solomonic Temple of Solomon by King Jehoash. The tablet (or plaque) is widely considered a forgery (but some major scholars say the case that it is a forgery has not been made) and it passed through Golan’s hands (although he claims it belongs to an Arab dealer in the Old City).
Other “damning evidence” described by the French reporter:
“Whole bags of unfinished seals, unpolished, a brand new ossuary bearing a freshly engraved and still dusty inscription. A bric-a-brac of diamond grindstones, angle grinders and drills. Plastic boxes containing various kinds of soils coming from all parts of the country and capable of making false patinas. And, above all, a mold in broken plaster containing a blue wax statuette of the god Baal. This is the kind of mold which is used to create bronze statuettes with the ‘melted wax’ method. Clearly, all that is necessary for the perfect forger, they [the IAA and police] said.”
But that is not all. The police also raided a workshop in Jerusalem that Golan “regularly frequented.” This workshop “contained an Umdruck brand electronic pantograph, a machine capable of reproducing any kind of image on stone, that of Paleo-Hebrew [in which the Jehoash inscription is written], for example.”
The French reporter was told of “almost a dozen” other names that have turned up in the widespread police investigation, but he “cannot mention them here for legal reasons.”
Oded Golan may be guilty, but this is no way to try the man. Even alleged forgers have 062rights. He has the right to defend himself in court. And the government has the obligation to prove its case to the satisfaction of an unbiased judge—not to the satisfaction of an innuendo-wielding reporter.
What we want to know—and what the world wants to know—is whether Oded Golan forged the James ossuary inscription.
We’re not interested in whether he ran a red light or cheated on his income tax. We’re not interested in whether he illegally bought or sold antiquities. The central element in the charge against him is forgery. Whether he is a forger is, of course, very relevant. And we want to know this. But even if he is a forger, he undoubtedly has many genuine artifacts in his vast collection (he owns what is probably the largest private collection of antiquities in Israel.) What we really want to know is whether he forged the James ossuary inscription.
The IAA produced a report saying that the James ossuary inscription is a fake. But the report is deeply flawed. And even at this writing, more than a year later, the scientific report that supposedly supports the IAA finding has not been released.
It is time for the IAA to make its case in a court of law, not a court of leaks.
It is time for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) to formally charge Oded Golan and then try him for forging the inscription that reads “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The inscription appears on a now-famous first-century C.E. bone box, or ossuary.a
