'JESUS' INSCRIPTION ON STONE MAY BE EARLIEST EVER FOUND
By John Noble Wilford
An inscription in stone, found in or near Jerusalem and written in a language and script of 2,000 years ago, bears the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."
That could well be the earliest artifact ever found relating to the historical Jesus, a French scholar has concluded in an analysis of the inscription being published this week in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review. If the inscription is authentic and indeed refers to Jesus of Nazareth, it would be the earliest known documentation of Jesus outside the Bible. The magazine, which announced the find yesterday, is promoting it as "the first-ever archaeological discovery to corroborate Biblical references to Jesus."
Other scholars are reacting with caution, calling the find important and tantalizing but saying it will probably be impossible to confirm a definite link between the inscription and any of the central figures in the founding of Christianity. Fraud cannot be ruled out, they said, though the cursive style of the script and a microscopic examination of the etched surface seemed to diminish suspicions. An investigation by the Geological Survey of Israel found no evidence of modern pigments, scratches by modern cutting tools or other signs of tampering.
A lack of organic remains associated with the inscription rendered radiocarbon dating impossible. But the words were carved on a 20-inch-long limestone burial box, similar to ones the Jews used only in the first centuries BC and AD. More specifically, the French scholar said, the style of the script and the forms of certain words placed the date of the inscription to the last decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Biblical scholars said in interviews that the circumstantial evidence supporting a link to Jesus was possibly strong, but circumstantial nonetheless.
Although James (Jacob or Ya'akov), Joseph (Yosef) and Jesus (Yeshua) were common names of that time and place, several scholars noted, it would have been highly unusual to have them appear in the combination and kinship order found in the inscription. The words, in Aramaic, "Ya'akov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua" were carved on a burial box, known as an ossuary, which presumably once held the bones of a man named James who died in the 1st century AD.
Several times the New Testament mentions that Jesus had a brother named James, who became leader of the nascent Christian community in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. And the new article noted that the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus recorded that James was executed by stoning around 63 AD. The James whose name is on the stone could have been one of many Jameses. But the rest of the inscription significantly narrows the possibilities. First, in the common practice, his father is identified, in this case as a "Joseph."
Rarely, though, would a brother of the deceased have been added to the inscription, unless the brother was prominent. James the apostle might have wanted to proclaim one last time his kinship with Jesus.
Dr. André Lemaire, a researcher at the Sorbonne in Paris and a respected specialist on inscriptions of the Biblical period, calculated the statistical probability of the three names' occurring in such a combination as extremely slim. Probably over two generations in 1st-century Jerusalem, no more than 20 people could have been called "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," and few of them might have been buried in inscribed ossuaries. Other calculations yield an even lower probability.
"It seems very probable that this is the ossuary of the James in the New Testament," Dr. Lemaire wrote in the magazine article. "If so, this would also mean that we have here the first epigraphic mention — from about 63 AD — of Jesus of Nazareth." But elsewhere in his article, he acknowledged that "nothing in this ossuary inscription clearly confirms the identification" of this James as the one known in Christian tradition.
Christians have three different interpretations regarding the kinship of James to Jesus, Dr. Lemaire noted.
By John Noble Wilford
An inscription in stone, found in or near Jerusalem and written in a language and script of 2,000 years ago, bears the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."
That could well be the earliest artifact ever found relating to the historical Jesus, a French scholar has concluded in an analysis of the inscription being published this week in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review. If the inscription is authentic and indeed refers to Jesus of Nazareth, it would be the earliest known documentation of Jesus outside the Bible. The magazine, which announced the find yesterday, is promoting it as "the first-ever archaeological discovery to corroborate Biblical references to Jesus."
Other scholars are reacting with caution, calling the find important and tantalizing but saying it will probably be impossible to confirm a definite link between the inscription and any of the central figures in the founding of Christianity. Fraud cannot be ruled out, they said, though the cursive style of the script and a microscopic examination of the etched surface seemed to diminish suspicions. An investigation by the Geological Survey of Israel found no evidence of modern pigments, scratches by modern cutting tools or other signs of tampering.
A lack of organic remains associated with the inscription rendered radiocarbon dating impossible. But the words were carved on a 20-inch-long limestone burial box, similar to ones the Jews used only in the first centuries BC and AD. More specifically, the French scholar said, the style of the script and the forms of certain words placed the date of the inscription to the last decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Biblical scholars said in interviews that the circumstantial evidence supporting a link to Jesus was possibly strong, but circumstantial nonetheless.
Although James (Jacob or Ya'akov), Joseph (Yosef) and Jesus (Yeshua) were common names of that time and place, several scholars noted, it would have been highly unusual to have them appear in the combination and kinship order found in the inscription. The words, in Aramaic, "Ya'akov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua" were carved on a burial box, known as an ossuary, which presumably once held the bones of a man named James who died in the 1st century AD.
Several times the New Testament mentions that Jesus had a brother named James, who became leader of the nascent Christian community in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. And the new article noted that the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus recorded that James was executed by stoning around 63 AD. The James whose name is on the stone could have been one of many Jameses. But the rest of the inscription significantly narrows the possibilities. First, in the common practice, his father is identified, in this case as a "Joseph."
Rarely, though, would a brother of the deceased have been added to the inscription, unless the brother was prominent. James the apostle might have wanted to proclaim one last time his kinship with Jesus.
Dr. André Lemaire, a researcher at the Sorbonne in Paris and a respected specialist on inscriptions of the Biblical period, calculated the statistical probability of the three names' occurring in such a combination as extremely slim. Probably over two generations in 1st-century Jerusalem, no more than 20 people could have been called "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," and few of them might have been buried in inscribed ossuaries. Other calculations yield an even lower probability.
"It seems very probable that this is the ossuary of the James in the New Testament," Dr. Lemaire wrote in the magazine article. "If so, this would also mean that we have here the first epigraphic mention — from about 63 AD — of Jesus of Nazareth." But elsewhere in his article, he acknowledged that "nothing in this ossuary inscription clearly confirms the identification" of this James as the one known in Christian tradition.
Christians have three different interpretations regarding the kinship of James to Jesus, Dr. Lemaire noted.