-Caveat Lector-
Scholar Touts Oldest Link to Jesus
By Richard N. Ostling AP Religion Writer Monday, October 21, 2002; 5:42 PM WASHINGTON –– A burial box that was recently
discovered in Israel and dates to the first century could be the oldest
archaeological link to Jesus Christ, according to a French scholar whose
findings were published Monday.
An inscription in the Aramaic language – "James,
son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" – appears on an empty ossuary, a limestone
burial box for bones.
Andre Lemaire said it's "very probable" the writing
refers to Jesus of Nazareth. He dates the ossuary to A.D. 63, just three decades
after the crucifixion.
Lemaire, a specialist in ancient inscriptions at
France's Practical School of Higher Studies, published his findings in the
November/December issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
The Rev. Joseph Fitzmyer, a Bible professor at
Catholic University who studied photos of the box, agrees with Lemaire that the
writing style "fits perfectly" with other first century examples. The joint
appearance of these three famous names is "striking," he said.
"But the big problem is, you have to show me the
Jesus in this text is Jesus of Nazareth, and nobody can show that," Fitzmyer
said.
Lemaire writes that the distinct writing style, and
the fact that Jews practiced ossuary burials only between 20 B.C. and A.D. 70,
puts the inscription squarely in the time of Jesus and James, who led the early
church in Jerusalem.
All three names were commonplace, but Lemaire
estimates only 20 Jameses in Jerusalem during that era would have had a father
named Joseph and a brother named Jesus.
Moreover, naming the brother as well as the father
on an ossuary was "very unusual," Lemaire wrote. There's only one other known
example in Aramaic. Thus, this particular Jesus must have had some unusual role
or fame – and Jesus of Nazareth certainly qualified, Lemaire concluded.
However, Kyle McCarter, a Johns Hopkins University
archaeologist, said it's possible the brother was named because he conducted the
burial or owned the tomb.
The archaeology magazine said two Israeli
government scientists conducted a detailed microscopic examination of the
surface and the inscription, reporting last month that nothing undercuts first
century authenticity.
Lemaire's claim was attacked by Robert Eisenman of
California State University, Long Beach, who unlike most scholars thinks that
"Jesus' existence is a very shaky thing." Since Eisenman is highly skeptical
about New Testament history, he considers the new discovery "just too pat. It's
just too perfect."
Virtually all that is known about Jesus comes from
the New Testament. No physical artifact from the first century related to him
has been discovered and verified.
James is depicted as Jesus' brother in the Gospels
and head of the Jerusalem church in the Book of Acts and Paul's epistles.
The first century Jewish historian Josephus
recorded that "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, James by name," was
stoned to death as a Jewish heretic in A.D. 62. If his bones were placed in an
ossuary the inscription would have occurred the following year, around A.D. 63.
Until now, the oldest surviving artifact that
mentions Jesus is a fragment of chapter 18 in John's Gospel from a manuscript
dated around A.D. 125. It was discovered in Egypt in 1920.
There are numerous surviving manuscripts of New
Testament portions from later in that century. Jesus was mentioned by three
pagan authors in Rome in the early second century and by Josephus in the late
first century.
The ossuary's owner required Lemaire to shield his
identity, so the box's location was not revealed. Nor is anything known about
its history over the past 19 centuries, one reason for McCarter's caution.
Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks
said skepticism is to be expected. "Something so startling, so earth-shattering,
raises questions about its authenticity," he said.
Shanks said the owner bought the box about 15 years
ago from an Arab antiquities dealer in Jerusalem who said it was unearthed south
of the Mount of Olives. The owner never realized its potential importance until
Lemaire examined it last spring.
Lemaire, who was raised Roman Catholic, said his
faith did not affect his judgment, since he studies inscriptions only "as a
historian – that is, comparing them critically with other sources."
The archaeology magazine is negotiating to display
the box in Toronto during a major convention of religion scholars in late
November, and possibly in the United States.
"A nation without borders is not a nation."
--President Reagan
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