Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 160:638 (Apr 2003)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Robert D. Ibach, Jr.

BSac 160:638 (Apr 03) p. 235

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty and Library Staff of
Dallas Theological Seminary

Robert D. Ibach

Editor

“The Burial Box of James the Brother of Jesus,” André Lemaire, Biblical Archaeology Review 28 (November/December 2002): 24-33, 70.

No discovery has ignited the popular and scholarly imagination, particularly in the Christian world, more than the recently announced ossuary of James, a “bone box” that might possibly have contained the disarticulated skeletal remains of the half-brother of Jesus and bishop of the early Jerusalem church. For a number of years this surprisingly small chest (about twenty inches long, ten inches wide, and twelve inches high) had been part of a collection of artifacts belonging to an amateur archaeologist and collector who, in the late summer of 2002, shared his find with Professor André Lemaire of the Sorbonne, who happened to be in Jerusalem at the time. An internationally recognized authority in epigraphy (inscriptions), Lemaire concluded on the basis of the script that the ossuary originated in the first century A.D., a conclusion supported by scientific analysis of the limestone object itself as well as the patina (a filmy accumulation on the surface of ancient artifacts) that covered it.

The focus of interest is a brief inscription on the box in Aramaic letters that reads, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The reading is uncontested, though some scholars have suggested that the last two words may have been added later in order to provide early Christian evidence for the historical existence of Jesus and His connection to the family of Joseph. Lemaire is convinced of the integrity of the whole inscription and has argued elsewhere that the form of the letters as well as the grammar is from the same period, namely, the mid-first century.

At first glance it might seem that the combination and relationship of the names put beyond any question that the human remains once contained in the ossuary were none other than those of James, brother of Jesus of Nazareth. However, all three names—James (Hebrew, Jacob), Joseph, and Jesus (Hebrew, Joshua or Jeshua)—were among the most common male names in the first century. This opens up the possibility that the James of the ossuary is someone other than the famous one of the New Testament. On the other hand it is rare to find the names of brothers on such inscriptions, and given the significance of Jesus the Savior one can understand why those who interred James would want to associate him with his illustrious half-brother. Moreover, Lemaire has estimated that of the eighty thousand people in Jerusalem in the mid-first century only twenty could be called “James, son ...