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Lori L. Woodall

REAL OR FAKE? The famous limestone bone box with the Aramaic inscription reading “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” was unveiled to the world in an exhibit at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum in 2002. BAR editor Hershel Shanks (on the left) examines the bone box on display with eminent scholars Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer of the Catholic University of America (center) and the late Frank M. Cross of Harvard (right). The debate on the authenticity of the so-called James Ossuary has continued for over a decade, slashing through a seven-year “Forgery Trial of the Century.”