Dr. James Tabor and Hershel Shanks viewing the James Ossuary
The annual conference of the Society of Biblical Literature held in Toronto 2002
Hershel Shanks, the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, next came to the podium. He began by making a point about how the significance of the ossuary and its inscription kept being over looked. Not only did Golan not recognize its importance for several decades, but others failed as well. Golan had the item in storage and only showed Andre Lemaire a photograph of it; Lemaire had actually visited him to study "more important" objects. Lemaire's first announcement of the discovery to fellow scholars had no lasting impact. According to Shanks, Lemaire had dinner in Jerusalem with Robert Deutsch, Dr. Porton, and Shanks shortly after discovering the inscription. Although Lemaire announced the find and they talked about it, neither Deutsch nor Porton remember doing so. Similarly, Oded Golan gave Israel's export authority complete information about the ossuary and its inscription, but they failed to understand its significance.
According to Shanks, the ossuary's importance to people, especially Christians, is that it is tactile evidence of real life, of James' real life, from the actual time.
Next up was Professor Peter Richardson of the University of Toronto. A scholar of first-century Judaism, his most recent claim to fame is his excellent book on King Herod the Great. He made two important observations.
First, he talked about the historical changes in James' titles. In the first century and the second century, James was called the "Brother of Jesus," as can be seen in Josephus and John. But by the fourth century, he was being called the "Brother of the Lord," a respectful terminology already seen as early as Paul. So if the inscription were a Byzantine-period forgery, we would expect him to be called the latter title. The use of the former title argues in favor of authenticity. Also, a reference to Mary would be expected if the inscription was fourth century or later.
Kyle McCarter of Johns Hopkins University, an internationally respected paleographer, spoke next. His main point was that the inscription was made by two hands. He observed that the first half of the inscription ("Yaakov son of Yosef") was done in a formal script and included kerns (=wedges) on the beths, the resh, and the samekh. The script is similar to that found on the Qumran Copper Scroll, which is dated to the 60s CE.
According to McCarter's analysis, the inscription's second half ("brother of Yeshua") was predominantly written in cursive letters. The dalet and the aleph in particular are proper cursive forms, similar to those found in the second-century Wadi Murabbaat finds. (McCarter later said that he wanted to emphasize the distinction of formal vs. cursive, not the first-century vs. the second-century distinction. He would not say that the script was impossible for the first century.) He also observed that the shin was not made in a cursive style but had a more formal look. He concluded that the inscription was written by two different hands but emphasized that this was probably done in antiquity; he was not saying that the second hand was modern.
Benjamin Witherington was the final speaker, who will be co-authoring the book on the ossuary, and he focused more on the ossuary in its historical context. Witherington went on to discuss the theology of ossuary burial, arguing that it was indicative of belief in a bodily resurrection--i.e., it was in keeping with Pharisaic beliefs about life after death.
Finally, Witherington tackled the theological question of James' identification head-on. He began by saying that the word translated "brother of" means "brother" and not "cousin."
https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/artic...
James Tabor:
In October 2002 a first century stone burial box, or ossuary, inscribed “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” came to public attention with a cover story in Biblical Archaeology Review. The artifact understandably drew worldwide attention and stirred sharp controversy. If this ossuary, in fact, once held the bones of the James who is called the “brother of Jesus” in the New Testament, then we would have the first direct archaeological evidence ever found that was directly connected to Jesus of Nazareth (Galatians 1:18).
Two critical issues immediately took center stage. Was the inscription authentic or was it perhaps a forgery? What was the provenance of the ossuary–where did it come from? Early on it was suggested it might have belonged with another set of six ossuaries found in 1980 that had names associated with “Jesus son of Joseph” and his family–opening the possibility that the tomb belonged to the Jesus of Nazareth clan.
https://jamestabor.com/new-evidence-o...