Update: Finds or Fakes?

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Was Cleanser Used to Clean the James Ossuary Inscription?

The Israel Antiquities Authority’s conclusion that the James ossuary inscription is a forgery is based on the results of an oxygen isotope study of a coating covering the inscription area. This inscription coating produced oxygen isotope readings indicating that it was created in modern times, not as the result of a cave environment over thousands of years. The IAA noted that this inscription coating could be the result of a paste made to cover the inscription in order to conceal the forgery or the inscription coating could be a result of cleaning the inscription area.

The IAA never bothered to consider the second possibility—a result of cleaning—that its own report had suggested as an alternative possibility to explain the oxygen isotope reading.

BAR, with its limited resources, has made some attempt to explore this. To understand the issue, some background regarding oxygen isotopes is needed. Oxygen isotope studies express their results as a function of the ratio of two oxygen isotopes—0–16 and 0–18. This ratio is expressed as delta 0–18.

The geologist who took the isotopic readings for the IAA, Avner Ayalon, examined seven samples of the inscription coating from the inscription. Six of them had delta 0–18 readings between -7.5 to -10.2. This contrasted with the delta 0–18 readings on the patina elsewhere on the ossuary, which varied between -4.07 and -6.68. (A seventh sample from the inscription coating, from the word for “Jesus,” had a curious reading of only -5.8, within the expectable range. In other words, the inscription coating inside the word “Jesus” matches the isotope readings from the ossuary coating, indicating that, even according to the IAA, at least that one word may be authentic.)¹

The more negative the reading, the hotter the substance used to make it. The IAA team assumes that the inscription must have been made (for the purpose of concealing the forgery) with a hot acid containing dissolved calcium carbonate (the same material as the limestone ossuary) that somehow left no trace. It made no effort to test its own alternative hypothesis that the high negative isotopic readings resulted from cleaning the ossuary inscription.

It is well known that antiquities dealers clean inscriptions to make them “show” better. In this case, the ossuary’s owner claims that his mother also cleaned the ossuary. Could the high negative delta O-18 readings of oxygen isotopes of the inscription coating be the result of cleaning?

To consider this possibility, we obtained several Israeli cleansers and had them tested. They were all cleansers that are currently on the market. We were unable to obtain cleansers from 25 years or so ago, when the ossuary’s owner claims he purchased the ossuary.

Nevertheless, three of the four cleansers we had tested had delta 0–18 readings outside the range the IAA found for the natural patina on the ossuary. In other words, if they had been used to clean the ossuary inscription, they would have produced results outside the range of the natural patina on the ossuary. (And the IAA would have claimed that these readings were evidence of forgery.)

One of the cleansers, Sano-Javel, a very popular brand in Israel, had a delta 0–18 of nearly -9 (to be exact, -8.51)!

This goes a long way toward explaining the excessively negative oxygen isotope readings found by the IAA committee (between -7.5 and -10.2).

Whether Israeli cleansers 25 years ago had even higher negative readings we cannot tell.

The Israeli cleansers were tested by the University of Georgia’s Center for Applied Isotope Studies. If the IAA would like a copy of its report, we would be happy to supply one. Just please let us know.

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Comic Relief

We have a winner in our cartoon caption-writing contest—three, actually. We received 235 entries, with one or two still trickling in every week. The decision was very difficult, but after much weighty deliberation we settled on the three entries shown here. Three other entries, worthy of Honorable Mentions, appear on our Web site (www.bib-arch.org). Our first-place winner will receive five gift subscriptions to BAR; the runners-up will each get three, and the Honorable Mentions will receive one each. To everyone who entered: Thank you!

Winner

Runner-up

Runner-up

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IAA Scientists Called Biased and Inept

In the brief report of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) concluding that both the James ossuary inscription (“James son of Joseph brother of Jesus”) and the Jehoash inscription memorializing repairs to the Solomonic Temple, the two scientists who determined the result acknowledged that their short disquisition was a not a real scientific account and promised that one would be published in the future in a scientific journal.

The two IAA scientists, Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University and Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel, have now published journal articles that purport to be their scientific report.

The Jehoash article was published in the journal Tel Aviv.² We understand that a highly critical response to this article is being submitted to that journal.

The article on the James ossuary inscription was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science (JAS).³ Inasmuch as JAS does not publish discussions of its articles, James A. Harrell of the University of Toledo and an officer of ASMOSIA (Association for the Study of Marble and Other Stones in Antiquity) has allowed us to post his response to the JAS article on our Web site.

Professor Harrell there responds to each of the arguments put forth by the IAA scientists in their published paper on the James ossuary inscription. He writes that there is no basis for concluding it is a forgery.

Harrell emphasizes that he has “not yet come to a decision on the authenticity of the inscription … but so far [the IAA scientists] have not provided convincing arguments for this view.”

Harrell accuses the IAA scientists of mounting a “crusade against the authenticity of the James inscription.”

Harrell calls for a re-analysis of the ossuary and its inscription “by a group of open-minded, unbiased scholars who have the requisite expertise to do all the necessary analytical work.” “True scholars,” Harrell continues, “will consider all reasonable alternative explanations, weighing the evidence for each one against the other, and so arrive at a well-reasoned conclusion. This, however, was not the approach that [the IAA scientists] followed.”

Harrell found the IAA scholars guilty of bias, “ineptness,” “closed mindedness” and “unprofessional behavior.” Their report also “contradict[s]” itself, uses “miraculous chemistry,” and includes “intellectual sloppiness [that] cannot give the reader much confidence” in their conclusions.

In his own conclusion, Harrell states: “The authors may well be right that the inscription on the James ossuary is a modern forgery, but they have done a poor job of making their case.”

Regarding the so-called inscription coating that the IAA scientists say the forger used to cover his forged inscription, using their own data, Harrell asks, “If a modern forger wanted to disguise his freshly cut inscription, why would he cover it with something that does not even remotely look or feel like the ancient patina?”

Harrell presents several other penetrating questions for the IAA scientists and concludes that unless they have good answers to these questions, “discerning readers of their JAS paper will not take their views seriously.”

BAR will publish any responses to Harrell’s analysis that we receive from the IAA scientists.

Professor Harrell’s critique can be found on our Web site (www.bib-arch.org), under the “Finds or Fakes?” heading.

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Sign the Petition!

Help Get the James Ossuary Retested

More than 600 people have signed a petition asking the Israel Antiquities Authority to allow an independent examination of the James ossuary (inscribed “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus”) to determine whether or not the inscription is a modern forgery.

Most of these people are from the United States and Canada, but other countries are also represented, including Spain, Ukraine, South Africa, Finland, Hungary, Russia, Hong Kong, South Korea, England, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, France, Scotland, Netherlands, Zimbabwe and Bolivia.

These signatories have a wide variety of affiliations. Among them are Harvard Divinity School, Near East Archaeological Society, CJWW radio station, University of London, U.S. Geological Survey, Claremont Graduate University, Brown University, Kingwood Medical Center, Eastgate Baptist Church, Brit Hadasha Synagogue, Michigan Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Utrecht University, University of London, McGill University, Asbury Theological Seminary and many others.

The people who signed the petition vary from college professors, rabbis, pastors, ministers and authors to ordinary concerned people.

If you would like to sign the petition, go to our Web site, www.bib-arch.org. and click on the “Finds or Fakes?” section.

Our Web site has many other items of interest to those following the debate over the James ossuary and the Jehoash tablet, including discussions of the scientific testing conducted on the two controversial objects.

Was Cleanser Used to Clean the James Ossuary Inscription?