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Preliminary Discussion Concerning The So-Called Ossuary Of Jacob From A Tel Aviv Collection |
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Epigraphy Father Émile Puech of the École Biblique (the French School of Bible and Archaeology) in Jerusalem was among the first to express his opinion on the ossuary in printed form. He has written a few preliminary contributions for French and Polish journals.(55) As an internationally acknowledged expert on the paleography of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the editor of a new official publication of the famous Copper Scroll, Father Puech, rejects the opinion that we can date the object paleographic ally to ‘the decade before Jerusalem was destroyed’. In his view limiting the date to just a single decade ‘is driven by other motives than paleography and thereby goes beyond the objective data’. As an expert in the Palestinian epigraphy of the turn of the era, he reminds us that ‘the forms of all the characters in the calligraphy and cursive are well attested from the first and second centuries A.D., including the forms of aleph, daleth and yod.’ The Aramaic expression ‘ahui di’ Father Puech translates literally as ‘his brother (that) of Jesus’ and goes to say that ‘such a terminology is well attested by literary texts and epigraphy starting from the first century B.C. (the Genesis Apocryphon [from Qumran], legal documents, ossuaries, targums and mosaics.’ Some additional comments on the paleography of the ossuary have come from Israel recently. According to the report of a participant in a special session of The Institute for Advances Studies of Hebrew University in Jerusalem ‘nobody at all cast doubt on the authenticity of the ossuary and of the inscription written on it. Ada Yardeni was there and no one challenged at all her assertion that the writing is authentic’. That may mean that the Israeli expert Ada Yardeni is convinced about the antiquity of the object. It is disappointing that she has not commented on it so far in public or in written form.(56) Writing system Out of a discussion on the Joudaios net emerged a report by Rochelle I. Altman, Ph.D., from Israel who was previously not widely known in the scholarly circles. It was quoted by internationally acknowledged scholars, such as Prof. E. M. Meyers. Her ‘preliminary report’(57) concentrated ‘solely on the evidence of the writing system’, was then slightly changed, and its extended version, dated November 6, 2002, appeared in the Israeli internet newspaper “Israelinsider.”(58) This ‘final report’ was vehemently rejected by Prof. A. Lemaire in his presentation of the ossuary at the Toronto panel. Not being an expert on writing systems I prefer to quote only Altman’s conclusion in full here: ‘If the entire inscription on the ossuary is genuine, then somebody has to explain why there are two hands; two different scripts; two different social strata, two different levels of execution, two different levels of literacy, and two different carvers. They could also explain where the frame has gone. The ossuary itself is undoubtedly genuine; the well executed and formal first part of the inscription is a holographic original by a literate (and wealthy) survivor of Jacob Ben Josef sometime during the Herodian period. The second part of the inscription bears the hallmarks of a fraudulent later addition, probably around the 3rd or 4th centuries, and is questionable to say the least.’(59) Patina At the end of the R. I. Altman’s internet article there was a brief note on the biovermiculation and patina of the ossuary. John Lupia, an ‘art historian and expert on the materials’ presented a new argument, ‘physical evidence of fraud.’ As it is the first, indirect, comment concerning the original analysis of the patina it is worthwhile to quote the main lines. Lupia explains that ‘Biovermiculation is limestone erosion and dissolution caused by bacteria over time in the form of pitting and etching. The ossuary had plenty [of it] except in and around the area of the inscription. This is not normal. The patina consisted of the appropriate minerals but it was reported to have been cleaned off the inscription.’ Lupia comments on this saying, ‘This is impossible since patina cannot be cleaned off limestone with any solvent or cleanser since it is essentially backed on glass.’ He knows that ‘it is possible to forge patina but when it is it cracks off. This appears to be what happened with [the] ossuary’. Basing on the observations quoted above, J. Lupia concluded that ‘the inscription could not be authentic regardless of what any paleographer might say in favour of it since the physical aspects are prima facie evidence of forgery.’(60) Probably these observations were taken seriously, as I have heard that an independent geological laboratory will resume research on the ossuary. It would be good to know more about the contents of the so far unpublished report of the conservator of the ossuary prepared during repairs to the object at the Royal Ontario Museum laboratory before the exhibition in Toronto. Linguistics observations As far as I know, at least several scholars besides Prof. A. Lemaire have been working on the text of the inscription on the ossuary. One of them is the Rev. Prof. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, who was the first consultant of the “Biblical Archaeology Review”. His position was briefly described above. In one word, he confirmed the geniuses of the Aramaic text. Also the comment of the Harvard professor emeritus F. M. Cross is worth reminding again: ‘if the inscription was forged, the forger was a genius’. Previously H. Shanks stated emphatically: ‘Either a putative forger had to know first-century Aramaic better than Father Fitzmyer or the inscription is authentic.’(61) However, there is a scholar who decided to check the text of the inscription against a broader linguistic context. He is Professor Paul Flesher of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, USA.(62) Flesher was the first to put the question ‘in what Aramaic dialect is the inscription written?’ and another question, ‘is that dialect appropriate for first-century Jerusalem?’ Even in such a short, twenty-letter inscription Prof. Flesher found two indications that might change the generally accepted view. He reads the Aramaic text as ‘yaqwv br ywsf achwy dyshwa’. First, Flesher finds important ‘the use of the possessive suffix on the word “brother” in “brother of Jesus.”’ He points out that the ossuary inscription spells it, in Aramaic, as -uy. In texts and inscriptions of first century AD and BC Judea, it is nearly always spelled -uhy.’ The only example of the shorter spelling can be found in the well-known Qumran text called the Genesis Apocryphon, in the passage XXI,34.(63) Some time ago, in his publication of 1Q GenAp, Father Fitzmyer assumed it was a spelling error.(64) ‘In all known Jerusalem Aramaic inscriptions’ the possessive suffix is spelled -uhy. Instead, ‘in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of Galilee in the late second century and beyond, the -uy spelling is the main one in both inscriptions and texts.’ The second indication changing the common opinion on the inscription ‘comes from the way it indicates the “of” found in “brother of Jesus”. Aramaic often indicates “of” simply by putting two words together and changing the last letter of the first word. The James’ inscription actually spells out the “of” using the Aramaic letter for “d”. This frequently happens in the Aramaic translation texts (i.e., the Palestinian Targums) and the inscriptions of the latter dialect of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.In the Aramaic inscriptions found in Jerusalem, however, this form never appears. Instead, the writers repeatedly chose the first way of indicating “of.”’ According to Lemaire and many other scholars, the inscription on the ossuary fits into the first century Jerusalem. But, according to Flesher, ‘an analysis based on the earliest available evidence from the press suggests that the ossuary may fit as well or even better into Galilee of the second or third century A D’ [Underline mine, ZJK].(65) An interesting linguistic remark concerning the text of the inscription was offered recently by Father M. Wróbel, now studying at the École biblique. ‘[The] linguistic analysis points to the presence of the definitive article before the noun “brother”, which would suggest that Jacob was “the only” brother of Jesus, which contradicts the New Testament tradition, where we are told about Jesus’ many “brothers.”’(66) Dating and historical identification Several scholars involved in the study of the contemporary ancient texts have already expressed their opinions concerning the ossuary. One of them is Florentino Garcia Martinez of the Qumran Institute at the Groningen University, an eminent expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He commented on the find for “Le Monde de la Bible”. As a point of detail, he hesitates about the shape of the daleth in the text. This character could be of the second century. However, he confirms A. Lemaire’s datation of the inscription to the second part of the first century A.D. Concerning the identification the deceased itself, he is much less convinced. In his opinion the inscription is ‘unique in its genre’. He says that he would rather expect the surnames ‘James the Just’, ‘Lord’s Brother’, or - for Joshua - ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. Not having a chance to compare the text of Jacob’s inscription with other contemporary inscriptions or texts Garcia Martinez finds it possible to say only that ‘it might be James the Just but probably not’ THE James.(67) Father Émile Puech of the École Biblique, whom we have mentioned above, similarly rejects not only the dating of the ossuary, but also the identification of THE James. Concerning the first question he says that A. Lemaire is too categorical in the year 70 (the destruction of the Temple) as marking a brutal interruption of the custom of reburial. In fact Jewish presence in the Jerusalem area was reduced but the custom was kept. Continued use of ossuaries is certain in the second century A.D., or perhaps even longer. ‘To understand the terminology concerning family relationships in the Palestinian Greek, it is necessary to realize the fact that we have here Greek translated in a bilingual population, where words preserve their meaning in colloquial language. In Aramaic the term “brother” can have the meaning “sibling brother, foster brother, spouse, uncle, cousin, friend, companion.” It is similar with the term “sister.” Only from the context are we able to conclude precisely who is meant.’(68) In the present case, the family context is unknown. Identifications are conjectural. So, Father Puech disagrees with A. Lemaire and states that ‘the inscription names some Jacob, son of Joseph, who had a brother named Jesus. Anything we say beyond that transgresses objective and scholarly analysis.’ Father Mirosław Wróbel, who wrote an introduction to the Polish translation of Father Puech’s article, holds a similar view. In his opinion, the mention of James without the nickname ‘the Just’ and of Jesus without an additional description as ‘Messiah, of Nazareth, or the Son of God’ excludes the identification proposed by A. Lemaire.(69) Last but not least, we should mention one more scholar in connection with the historical identification of THE James by A. Lemaire. He is Robert Eisenman, the author of the voluminous monograph on ‘James the Brother of Jesus’ published in 1997. He rejected the identification of the ossuary on the day its discovery was announced by H. Shanks. He was and, after studying the ossuary at the Toronto exhibition, still remains very suspicious about its authenticity. The reason is ‘the nature of the inscription itself’, whose are directed at the ‘modern audience, schooled in the Gospels.’ For Robert Eisenman, naming the dead ‘the brother of Jesus’ is an ‘ascription’, because ‘almost no ancient source calls James this. That is what we moderns call him!’ He adds that ‘the inscription is pointed, as if purposefully to what modern ears would expect or want to hear, not ancient ones.’ In his opinion, ‘perhaps a later pilgrim from the fourth or fifth century might have described James in this way, but this is not what our paleographers are saying. They are trying to insist it is a first-century inscription ...’ R. Eisenman additionally uses an argumentum ex silentio. As he analyzed all patristic sources concerning James very carefully in his book, he recalls a fundamental point about the fourth and fifth century descriptions of the tomb of James. Jerome and Epiphanius, ‘both of whom knew Palestine, say that ‘the burial site and marker designating it were there until their own time.’ However, Eisenman adds, ‘a burial is not an ossuary nor does it require one.’ None of the known sources ‘ever mention an ossuary!’ According to Jerome and Epiphanius, ‘James was buried in the normal manner and he remained buried at the location they specify until their own time.’(70) STATISTICAL OBJECTIONS As Professor A. Lemaire himself says, it was not him who first discovered or read the inscription on the ossuary from the Tel Aviv collection. He does feel responsible and firmly defends his identification of the three names mentioned in the New Testament context. One of his main arguments is statistical analysis of the use of the names Jacob, Joseph and Joshua in first century A.D. Palestinian inscriptions. I am unable to report on every step of his search for historical identification, but I will list its most important points. The basis of Lemaire’s search is the most extensive catalogue of Palestinian ossuaries prepared by L. Y. Rahmani.(71) The latter established that the names Jacob, Joseph and Joshua were among the most popular Palestinian names. In the 233 published ossuaries Rahmani found 19 Josephs, 10 Joshuas and 5 Jacobs, Rachel Hachlili, who studied all registered names, came up with Joseph in 14 per cent, Jesus in 9 per cent and Jacob in 2 per cent of the cases. Searching further, Lemaire established that only 0,28 per cent of the male population of Jerusalem could be described as ‘Jacob son of Joseph’ or ‘Joseph son of Jacob’. Only 0,14 per cent of males could bear the name ‘Jacob son of Joseph.’ The next question for Lemaire was ‘how many of these people [of Jacobs], would also have a brother called Jesus? Assuming that each male had approximately two brothers, this would mean that about 18 percent of the men named “James/Jacob, son of Joseph” had a brother named Jesus. Accordingly, over two generations, 0.05 percent of the population would likely be called “Jacob son of Joseph brother of Jesus.”’ Following Magen Broshi(72) Lemaire accepts that the population of Jerusalem in the period of interest to us was about 80,000, that means about 40,000 men. His final conclusion is: ‘In Jerusalem during the two generations before 70 C.E., there were therefore probably 20 people who could be called’ in the same way as on the ossuary in question. He adds, ‘It is, however, impossible to estimate how many of these 20 people were buried in ossuaries and how many of these ossuaries were inscribed.’ Taking into consideration that possibly Jacob son of Joseph and brother of Jesus had a brother whose person was known well enough for this family relation to be marked and also that this Jacob played a special role in the Jerusalem early Church, ‘it seems very probable, that this is the ossuary of the James of the New Testament.’ A. Lemaire’s final conclusion is: ‘If so, this would also mean that we have here the first epigraphic mention from about 63 C.E. - of Jesus of Nazareth.’(73) This statistical search with a view to identifying the three persons mentioned on the ossuary at once attracted the interest of a Jerusalem statistician, Dr. Fuks. According to some press reports, he has promised to send an essay reevaluating Prof. Lemaire’s counts to a scholarly journal. Dr Fuks’s final conclusion was not only that Lemaire was right, but that the number of possible Jacobs in one generation could be reduced to three, i.e. that the verisimilitude of A. Lemaire’s proposal was fully supported by new counts. So far, nobody has confirmed this information, known only from the Canadian press, but it would be interesting to know more details about it.(74) Prof. A. Lemaire’s idea about the identification of the people mentioned on the ossuary is in my opinion premature and is not supported well enough. It is based on several assumptions which we may accept or not. First of all, the number of people living in Jerusalem in the middle of the first century assumed by Lemaire is too low. However, the problem might be the subject of a special study and I should not like to develop this point.(75) Let us accept Lemaire’s proposal for discussion’s sake. The proportions have to be reconsidered. We now have a fairly complete corpus of the Palestinian names of the times of Jesus prepared by an Israeli scholar, Tal Ilan. In the period 330 B.C. and 200 A.D. she found 231 Josephs, 103 Joshuas and only 45 Jacobs.(76) Now, when we divide Ilan’s numbers by 17.66 generations we receive the following percentages of the three names: Joseph 13,08 ; Joshua 5.83 ; Jacob 2.54. Of course those are average proportions. It is not excluded that the real proportions were different. To find the proper one we would have to know the exact dates for the people from the period of the two generations from about 0 to 60 A.D. For this period, Lemaire assumed the ratios 19:10:5. It is obvious that our percentages, counted from the more extensive period of 430 years, are very different. It is evident, however, that evident that if the frequency of the father’s name is about two-third of what Lemaire thinks, then the chances of its concurrence with the other two names decrease correspondingly. That the proportions taken into consideration by Lemaire are unconvincing is also evident from other research which was overlooked by the French scholar. Claude Cohen-Matlofsky, who specializes in the social history of early Roman Palestine established a prosopographic list of people living in Palestine between 63 B.C. and 138 A.D. In a sample of 715 names he calculated the ratios of the three names in question against the most common names; they turned out to be 4, 8 and 7 per cent, respectively.(77) That looks like a major change to Lemaire’s count. Thus Lemaire’s final identification is far from being highly probable, let alone proved. My statistical objections are also raised, in a different way, by Father Puech. Dealing with the statistics he stresses the fact that not all ossuaries are inscribed to identify the deceased. ‘The practice of ossuaries is limited to a part of the population (without a doubt [concerning] the Pharisees of the school of Shammai)’. And he adds, ‘it is risky to say the least, to use statistical projections based on the names listed by L. Y. Rahmani’. It seems that this aspect of the problem has escaped A. Lemaire’s attention, yet it cannot be neglected. If the percentage counted by A. Lemaire concerns only a part of the Jerusalem population, the chance of identification must be much lower. It is not only Father Puech and myself who question the statistical side of A. Lemaire’s proposal. The same has been done by Jean Bertoin, ‘directeur du Laboratoire du probabilités et modeles aléatoires du CNRS’ in Paris. He comments on A. Lemaire’s counts in these words: ‘His calculation is reasonable, but it cannot deal with one generation of men; there were 20 Jacobs, sons of Joseph and brothers of some Jesus, in 62 [A.D.], when James the Just died. But it is necessary to multiply [the number] to make into consideration the preceding period’. Now, if ossuaries were used, as A. Lemaire assumes between 20 B.C. and 70 A.D., there were almost four different generations in that period. This make eighty possibilities instead of the twenty proposed by A. Lemaire. As that is the first comment by a mathematician not involved in the recent quarrel, also his additional remark concerning the rarity of epitaphs mentioning the name of a brother of the deceased should be taken into account. J. Bertoin considers that the rarity of such epitaphs cannot be used to support the probability [of identification], as we cannot be sure of the reason why a brother was mentioned; he points out that there is ‘one chance in eighty that we have to do here with brother of THE Jesus; the statistics are rather discouraging’.(78) AN OBJECTION TO USE JOSEPHUS’ EXPRESSION ‘BROTHER OF JESUS’ Last but not least, I should like to note that one of Prof. Lemaire’s main arguments is taken from the texts of Josephus Flavius. It is true that we have in the text of the Antiquities the following statement concerning James the Just: ‘[Ananus] assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James...’(XX, 9, 1 [200]). But we should not forget that these words have been disputed for many decades, not to say centuries. It is enough to quote M. - J. Langrange in the 1920s, who says that this passage is ‘plus que suspecte d’etre une interpolation chrétienne’.(79) If so, the words ‘the brother of Jesus’ should not be used as a fundamental element of the construction as Prof. Lemaire uses them. If we take out this cornerstone, the whole construction might be ruined. SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Rather than summing up the whole discussion, I should like to made a few remarks concerning the so-called James ossuary: 1. The object from the Tel Aviv private collection does look to be ancient. Its typology is not questionable, but I am not sure if the cover is from the same object. This observation is based only on photographs, so I might be wrong here. 2. Very suspicious to me is the fact that the inscription is on the wall of the object opposite to that bearing the recently discovered traces of rosettes. This is something exceptional compared with the thousands of known objects. 3. The inscription has provoked many questions from specialists, starting with its contents and ending with its lettering. Serious comparative paleographical research is a must. 4. We cannot exclude that the second part of the inscription was added later (possibly still in antiquity?). Preliminary linguistic analyses also point in this direction. 5. The historical identification of the deceased is statistically doubtful. The probabilities have to be counted anew by professional mathematicians. 6. The only reliable, geological argument for the authenticity of the ossuary should be verified in an independent laboratory. (As we have noticed above, such a step is already being considered). The surprising microbiological observation of Mr. Lupia concerning the patina of the ossuary must be evaluated by other specialists in the field. My impression is that in presenting his identification to the general audience Prof. A. Lemaire forgot to answer a few questions: 1. We know from the Gospels that the Joseph family did not have a family tomb in Jerusalem. If they had had one, there would have been a necessity to collect James’s bones after a year and to inscribe the ossuary (assuming that there were many bodies in the tomb). However, the Church Fathers explicitly say that James’s tomb was on the Temple slope and that it was never opened (it was marked by a stone and sealed at the time of Eusebius and Hegesippos). As we are dealing with the tomb of a venerated person I do not see that there would have been a need to open it, to collect the bones in an ossuary and to inscribe the ossuary with so suspicious a text. Secondly, according to Rabbinic law, a dead man’s bones had to be collected by his son.(80) We do not know from the sources of any son that James might have had. 2. The problem of the removal of James’s bones requires further study. For one thing, why should we assume that James’s family, or his brethren in faith, followed a practice accepted mainly by the Pharisees?(81) The relationship of the early Christians with the Pharisees were not very good and we know that sectarians like to distinguish themselves from the rest of the community. The early Christians probably viewed themselves, and were certainly viewed by others, as a Jewish sect. 3. If James’s bones were in the ossuary after 63 A.D., why didn’t the Judeo-Christians take the ossuary and the bones with them when they left Jerusalem at the time of the first anti-Roman revolt? How could they forget about the bones of the brother of Christ? To sum up: the object, if authentic, raises more problems than it solves.(82) A serious and in depth discussion is needed before we can really accept the historical interpretation offered and before we decide to call the discovery the most important one in the history of Biblical archaeology
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