venerdì 19 ottobre 2007
![The following paper by Joseph A. Fitzmyer was published on Theology Today (52:4):
One can never be 100% sure about the authenticity of any ancient object or text. Consequently, one has to be content with a high degree of probability, and that is what I think we have in this case. Having said that, however, I think it is important to add that many, many of the Dead Sea Scrolls were acquired from Kando, an antiquities-dealer in Bethlehem, who was the go-between for the Bedouin discoveries of the scrolls of Qumran Caves 1, 4, and 11, and the scholars who pieced together the giant jigsaw puzzle produced by the 15,000 fragments of Qumran Cave 4. Hence some things coming from antiquities dealers have proved, indeed, to be authentic, and this inscribed ossuary may be too, even if one can never be 100% certain about it.
Having written the above paragraphs, I was surprised to read reports in newspapers on June 19, 2003, that the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) had issued a public statement after an investigation of the ossuary that the inscription was a “modern-day forgery.”15 The Deputy Director of the IAA, Uzi Dahari, was quoted as saying that
microscopic and chemical analyses showed that a forger had cut through two layers of ancient varnish and patina to write the inscription, then had covered the letters with a recently applied mixture of water and ground chalk.16
The question now is, does that IAA report settle the matter once and for all?
That public statement, issued in June 2003, was based on a report of two committees set up by the IAA in March 2003, which were given three months to file their verdict. The committees met on June 18, 2003, and an oral report was issued. A written Summary Report, addressed to Dr. Shuka Dorfman, Director General of the IAA, was dated June 20, 2003, and was released on July 16; it is reproduced in the September/October 2003 issue of BARev.17 That issue also announces that the “‘Final Report’ [has been] released,” but it then observes that
there is no final report—no document subscribed to by all committee members explaining that ... the James ossuary ... [is a] modern forger[y]. Instead, the “final report” consists only of individual statements by committee members commenting on the inscription from the viewpoint of their expertise.
Those comments, however, promise a “scientific article or report” that two committee members are still to write “in the usual scientific format” (p. 29). That article has now been published.18
The so-called Final Report comes from 14 Israeli scholars, with no contributions from non-Israeli experts and, strikingly, with no mention or recognition of the competence of either Professor Lemaire or the Israeli scientists of the Geological Survey of Israel. Their work is simply ignored. Moreover, the Summary Report claims that
the most suitable experts were chosen even if they had, in the past, expressed an opinion on the subject, as well as top scholars who had never been involved with the authenticity question.19
As far as can be ascertained, those who had expressed an opinion “in the past” had uttered a negative opinion; so this may be a question of a a priori prejudice.
Eight members of the team, called the “Writing and Content Committee,” were to study the script, paleography, and the content of the ossuary inscription, and six members of the other team, the “Materials and Patina Committee,” were to submit the ossuary inscription to petrographic analysis, carbon 14 examination, and patina investigation. The conclusion of the two committees runs: “to the best of our scientific judgment ... the James Ossuary inscription is a forgery” and “the patina ... is forged and significantly varies from the original patina ...”20
Some reasons for such a conclusion are supplied in the individual statements of the Final Report. The conclusion just quoted sounds like a unanimous decision of the 14 members, but when one reads the individual comments of the members whose judgments are cited—only five of the eight on the Writing and Content committee are quoted, and only four of the six of the Materials and Patina Committee—one finds that several of the statements are strikingly nuanced, despite the negative conclusion. Moreover, the judgment expressed sometimes depends on reasons other than the individuals’ “own expertise,” which was part of the original mandate of the IAA when it set up the committees.
For instance, Writing Committee member Professor S. Ahituv, “expert on Ancient Hebrew inscriptions,” frankly admits, “On palaeographic grounds alone the authenticity or otherwise of the ossuary inscription cannot be proved. But I do not see myself qualified to decide in this area of Second Temple period palaeography.”21 In other words, although he has disqualified himself, his vote has somehow been part of the “scientific judgment” of the Final Report.
Dr. Tal Ilan, another member of the Writing Committee, said to be a “historian, expert on the Hebrew and Aramaic names in the Second Temple period,”22 admits that she is not “an expert on ... carved inscriptions or palaeography” and that she has relied on what “experts have determined,” without mentioning who such experts might be. She notes, however, that “Joseph” is the second most popular name, “Jesus” the sixth most popular, and “James” the eleventh; in all, 379 men bear these names. Moreover, she admits that she studied the ossuary in the summer of 2002, before Lemaire’s article was published, and noted that “the letters were clear and their context did not raise in me any special interest. The names were plausible.” That would seem to mean that she, an Israel Jewish scholar, considered the ossuary inscription to be genuine. In the Summary Report, however, she is quoted as saying, “Even if the ossuary is authentic, there is no reason to assume that the deceased was actually the brother of Jesus. But I am of the opinion that the inscription is a forgery.”23 However, she has given no reason why she opines that the inscription is a forgery. In effect, that is an unsubstantiated negative judgment that has become part of the “scientific judgment.”
Again, Professor Roni Reich, another member of the same committee, an “archaeologist, expert on First and Second Temple periods,” filed two reports about the ossuary. In the first (April 27, 2003), he explains that he examined the inscription “only by naked eye”: “all the letters are clear and easily legible;” with no “difference in engraving between parts of the inscription,” which was “written in one continuum.” Its writing is “first century CE ‘Jewish Script’” and he concluded that the ossuary bore “an authentic late Second Temple period (mainly first century CE) inscription,” because it “does not show any mixture of morphological or textual aspects from different periods that could indicate forgery ...” In a later report (June 16, 2003) he still assumed that the inscription was authentic, “unless I will be convinced by my own observations, or by those of other scholars,” and then he added, “My committee colleagues did not convince me,” i.e., other members of the Writing Committee.24 When however, the results of the investigation of the patina inside the letters of the inscription conducted by Drs. Ayalon and Goren, members of the other committee, were presented, Reich admitted, “I am now convinced that the patina ... could not have been produced in nature in ancient times ... As a result, I am forced to change my opinion on the matter.” In other words, when consulting his own expertise, as he was commissioned by the IAA, he considered the inscription authentic, but when he listened to others in an area where he could not judge, he considered it “a modern forgery,” along with others of the Writing Committee, who yielded to the verdict of two scholars of the second committee. Yet, again, both Ilan’s and Reich’s unsubstantiated negative judgments are counted as negative in the “scientific judgment” of the Final Report.
I could quote still other statements of members of the Writing Committee (E. Eshel, A. Kloner) which raise issues that are not always wholly convincing. Although most of the negative statements of the Materials and Patina Committee sound impressive, I am not competent to assess them. Even here, however, one has to be careful, for one member of that committee, E. Boarettto, a radiocarbon expert, admitted that there was nothing organic in the inscription that could be tested. That should be recorded at least as an abstention, and not a negative vote. Still another member, Professor Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University, maintains that the ossuary inscription “was inscribed or cleaned in a modern period.”25 That it was “cleaned in a modern period” would mean something quite different from being “inscribed in a modern period.” Perhaps the cleaning process has left modern traces that have influenced this committee’s judgment; and it is known independently that the ossuary has been cleaned in modern times. Since however, cleaning is not the same thing as inscribing, would traces so produced be sufficient to declare the inscription itself a modern forgery?
Such statements in the Final Report are sufficient to show that the last word has not yet been uttered on this new ossuary inscription. Not only has Professor Lemaire severely criticized this report,26 but a noted American geologist, J. A. Harrell, has analyzed in detail the work of the Israeli scientists, Y. Goren and A. Ayalon, and found serious flaws in their analysis. They had maintained that the patina within the letters of the inscription had been produced either by grinding calcite from the box and dissolving it in hot water or heating the applied calcite in an oven. But Harrell has shown that calcite will not dissolve in hot water, and that heating applied to calcite in an oven would not change the value of the oxygen isotope so that it would agree with that of the calcite of the box itself. Harrell concluded his analysis, “Like Lemaire, I too find the evidence relied on does not support the conclusion that the inscription is a forgery.”27
Lastly, three aspects of this problem have to be recalled: (a) The ossuary had been examined by scientists of the Geological Survey of Israel and also by expert curators at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; neither of these teams concluded that the ossuary or its inscription was fake. In fact, the scientists of GSI went out of their way to stress that “the patina does not contain any modern elements (such as modern pigments) and it adheres firmly to the surface. No signs of the use of a modern tool or instrument was [sic] found.”28 (b) The reaction of the IAA is simply the same as the attitude of most archaeologists about artifacts obtained from antiquities-dealers, as already mentioned. Only now, it has become a matter of politicized archaeology, advocated by the highest authority on antiquities in the State of Israel.
15 See G. Gugliotta, “Agency: Inscription Citing Jesus is Fake,” The Washington Post, (June 19, 2003), p. A6; G. Myre, “Israelis say Burial Box of Jesus’ Brother is Fake,” The New York Times, June 19, 2003, p. A11.
16 The Washington Post, p. A6, col. 1.
17 See H. S[hanks], “The Storm over the Bone Box: Ossuary Update,” BARev 29:5 (2003), 26-38, which incorporates the text of the Summary Report on pp. 27-31.
18 See A. Ayalon, M. Bar-Matthews, and Y. Goren, “Authenticity Examination of the Inscription on the Ossuary Attributed to James, Brother of Jesus,” Journal of Archae-Science 31:8 (204), 1185-89. See note 27 below for a criticism of this article.
19 See BARev 29:5 (2003), 28. —In this regard, one should note that some Israeli scholars have charged the IAA with bias in setting up committees to examine ancient inscriptions; this is reported in BARev 30:3 (2004) 51.
20 “The Summary Report,” BARev 29:5 (2003), 31.
21 The text of the individual statements of the Final Report can be found at www.bib-arch.org.
22 See her book, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity I, Palestine 330 B.C.E.—200 C.E. (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) which lists 3,193 names.
23 See BARev 29:5 (2003), 30. I pass over the bad-taste “joke” that reveals a certain anti-Christian attitude; see a reaction to it in BARev 30:2 (2004), 8-10.
24 See BARev 30:4 (2004), 47, where that admission is repeated.
25 This ambiguity has also been noticed by H. Shanks and others.
26 See A. Lemaire, “Critical Evaluation of the IAA Committee Reports Regarding the Ossuary Inscription,” Polish Journal of Biblical Research 2:2 (2003), 29-60; and in briefer form, “Israel Antiquities Authority’s Report on the James Ossuary Deeply Flawed,” BARev 29:6 (2003), 50-59, 67, 70.
27 See J.A. Harrell, “Final Blow to IAA Report: Flawed Geochemistry Used to Condemn James Inscription,” BARev 30:1 (2004), 38-41, esp., 39. Harrell has also found fault with the article of Ayalon et al., mentioned in n. 18 above. His criticism of it can be read on the Web site of BARev at www.bib-arch.org. In sum, he says, “Ayalon et al. could well be correct that it is a modern forgery, but so far they have not provided convincing arguments for this view.” Moreover, he argues that “a reanalysis of the James ossuary needs to be done by a group of open-minded, unbiased scholars who have the requisite expertise to do all the necessary analytical work.” See further BARev 31:3 (2005), 56.
28 And yet Ms. O. Cohen, another member of the Materials and Patina Committee, asserts that “the first part of the inscription is new, cuts through the original patina and is coated with a granular patina that appears to have been produced from chalk dust mixed with water ...” (p. 30). It is strange that Ms. Cohen has not even mentioned the earlier Geological Survey report.
This excerpt was recently published also on BAR website.](5C52FFDA-DFA1-4541-AC96-70F308BADB7E_files/shapeimage_4.png)
