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First Person: Trial by Leak

Even alleged forgers have rights

By Hershel Shanks

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

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Footnotes

1.

See André Lemaire, “Burial Box of James the Brother of Jesus,” BAR, November/December 2002.

2.

See Hershel Shanks, “Is It or Isn’t It?” BAR, March/April 2003.

3.

David Noel Freedman, “Don’t Rush to Judgment,” BAR, March/April 2004

4.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste, “La fraude du siècle,” Sciences et Avenir, April 2004.

5.

André Lemaire, “Ossuary Update—Israel Antiquities Authority’s Report Deeply Flawed,” BAR, November/December 2003; James A. Harrell, “Final Blow to IAA Report—Flawed Geochemistry Used to Condemn James Inscription,” BAR, November/December 2003; and “Unanswered Questions,” BAR, July/August 2004.

6.

The geologist on the team, Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University, stated that the report of his findings released by the IAA was “not a scientific article.” A scientific article, he wrote in the statement released by the IAA, “is slated for future publication in the usual scientific format.” It has not yet appeared.