 The
existence of an ossuary bearing the Aramaic inscription transliterated as
Ya'aqob bar Yosef ahwi dYeshua' and translated into English as "James
son Joseph brother of Jesus" has recently come to light. The limestone
burial box, thirty-five cm. high and fifty cm. long, has been dated to the
first century, before the destruction of the Temple. The ossuary is said
to have been unearthed in Silwan on the West Bank, a village near Jerusalem.
The Israeli Antiquities Authority, however, has pronounced the inscription
as fraudulent. The ossuary itself is authentic, but it is alleged that someone
carved the inscription into it and then covered the inscription with an
imitation patina made from water and ground chalk to produce the illusion
of antiquity. Moreover, some have questioned the authenticity of the second
half of the inscription—"brother of Jesus"—concluding
that it is from another, much later hand. Nevertheless, it is possible that
the inscription is genuine and the ossuary once held the bones of the author
of the Letter of James. |
