In October 2002 Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) announced that a first-century stone ossuary had been discovered that is believed to have held the bones of St. James, the brother of Jesus, also known as “James the Just.” The ossuary carries an inscription that says, in Aramaic, James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.
The announcement set off of a flurry of media stories speculating whether the ossuary is genuine and what implications it has for our understanding of Jesus and his family. It wasn’t long before some Evangelicals were trumpeting the artifact as a disproof of the Catholic doctrine that Mary was ever-virgin, and Jesus had no brothers or sisters. It wasn’t long after that before some scholars began to raise questions about the box.
What an Ossuary Is
An ossuary is a container used to hold the bones of a dead person. Since they require much less space than a grave of the familiar kind, they tend to be used in areas with high populations and little burial space. After death the body was reposed in a tomb until it decayed (not long in the absence of modern embalming). Afterwards, the family disinterred the bones, cleaned them, and re-interred them in an ossuary for long-term burial.
Though use of ossuaries was at variance with traditional Jewish burial customs, cemetery space was at such a premium around first-century Jerusalem that stone, box-like ossuaries were widely used there between 20 B.C. and A.D. 70, when the Romans sacked the city and substantially reduced the population.
The James bar-Joseph Ossuary
The announced ossuary in question was in the possession of a private collector in Israel who did not wish to be identified. But by early November his identity had become public: He is a 51-year-old engineer from Tel Aviv named Oded Golan. According to him, Though he claimed his desire for anonymity was because he is a private person, some have speculated that there was another reason: He may not legally own the box.
In 1978 Israel passed a law that made new archaeological discoveries the property of the state. Depending on when and how Golan came into possession of the box, he might not be its legal owner. According to him, he acquired the box sometime before 1976, though the Israeli Antiquities Authority has questioned several antiquities dealers in the Old City to determine whether the box was purchased more recently.
According to Golan, he did not realize the significance of the box until recently, when it was examined by Andre Lemaire of the Sorbonne, a paleographer, or expert in ancient writing, who recognized the potential connection to the family of Christ.
James, Joseph, and Jesus were common names in first-century Palestine. Lemaire estimates there may have been as many as 20 individuals in Jerusalem named James who had fathers named Joseph and brothers names Jesus. Nevertheless, Lemaire and other experts concluded that it is probable the James to whose bones this ossuary held was the one referred to in the New Testament as “the brother of the Lord” (Gal. 1:19).
It was rare for brothers to be named in ossuary inscriptions. Of the hundreds of such ossuaries that have been found, only two name a brother as well as the father. The fact that this one does suggests that the brother was quite important. It is unlikely that there were other men named James who had fathers named Joseph and brothers named Jesus who were important enough to warrant mention on an ossuary.
One Box, Two Inscriptions?
If there is at present some question as to how Golan got the ossuary, experts agree that the box is a first-century Palestinian ossuary. It is also agreed that the inscription on the box is ancient.
According to BAR’s web site (www.bib-arch.org), “Laboratory tests performed by the Geological Survey of Israel confirm that the box’s limestone comes from the Jerusalem area. The patina—a thin sheen or covering that forms on stone and other materials over time—has the cauliflower-type shape known to develop in a cave environment; more importantly, it shows no trace of modern elements.” The patina covers the inscription on the box as well, indicating its ancient origin.
What is not agreed is whether the entire inscription dates to the first century. Rochelle Altman, another paleographer, argued that while the first part of the inscription (James son of Joseph) dates to the first century, the second part (brother of Jesus) shows signs of being written by a different hand at a later date, which she estimated to be the third or fourth century (“Final Report on the James Ossuary” at web.israelinsider.com).
If Altman is right that the second part of the inscription was carved later, it reveals something about the second part’s carver: He was identifying the box’s occupant as James the Just, since it is highly unlikely that any other first-century Jesus would be remembered so much later and warrant a new inscription. This is especially the case after the flowering of Christianity, when any first-century Jesus would be assumed to be Jesus of Nazareth unless identified otherwise. In the third or fourth century, when the area was Christian, to carve brother of Jesus on the ossuary of a first-century James was to identify him as James the Just.
Why the Addition?
This leaves the question of why the carving would be made. Archaeology didn’t exist, so archaeological fraud would not have been a motive. Relics were venerated, and so relic fraud could have been a motive. In fact, that’s the only reasonable immoral motive.
The alternative is to say that the second inscriptionist’s motives were moral: He believed that the box belonged to James the Just. In that case, the question would be whether or not his belief was warranted. If he simply found an ossuary that read James son of Joseph, given how common these two names were, it would be unlikely—though by no means impossible—that it held James the Just.
However, it is not unreasonable to think that in Jerusalem Christians retained a knowledge of where James was buried through veneration at the site. Indeed, St. Jerome, who moved to Bethlehem in the late fourth century, recorded that substantial knowledge of his gravesite was preserved:
“[James] was buried near the temple from which he had been cast down. His tombstone with its inscription was well known until the siege of Titus [A.D. 70] and the end of Hadrian’s reign [A.D. 138]. Some of our writers think he was buried in Mount Olivet, but they are mistaken” (On Illustrious Men 2).
It well could be that in the third or fourth century a Christian added the second part of the inscription in order to clarify for future pilgrims that this was indeed the ossuary of that James as had been preserved in local knowledge.
We can’t know whether or not the inscription is correct. From what is known about the box we don’t have alternative means of establishing its accuracy. But given what is publicly known about the ossuary at this point, there is a substantial chance that it is the ossuary of James the Just, even if this could never be proven.
(Non-)Implications for Doctrine
Though some non-Catholics were quick to tout the box as evidence against the perpetual virginity of Mary, it does not follow. The ossuary identifies its James as the son of Joseph and the brother of Jesus; it does not identify him as the son—much less the biological son—of Mary. The only point that Catholic doctrine has defined regarding the “brethren of the Lord” is that they are not biological children of Mary.
What relationship they did have with her is a matter of speculation. They may have been Jesus’ adoptive brothers, stepbrothers through Joseph, or—according to one popular theory—cousins.
As has often been pointed out, Aramaic had no word for cousin, so the word for brother was used in its place. This inscription is in Aramaic, and so there would be little surprise if it were being used in that way. In fact, that’s what you’d expect.
While the inscription does not establish the brethren of the Lord as biological children of Mary, it does have an impact on which theory may best explain the relationship of the brethren to Jesus. If James “the brother of the Lord” were Jesus’ cousin, it would be unlikely for him also to have a father named Joseph. This would diminish the probability of the cousin theory in favor of the idea that this James was a stepbrother or an adoptive brother of Jesus.
The stepbrother hypothesis is the earliest one on record. It is endorsed by a document known as the Protoevangelium of James, which dates to the year 120, within 60 years of James’ death (A.D. 62). According to the Protoevangelium, Joseph was an elderly widower at the time he was betrothed to Mary. He already had a family and thus was willing to become the guardian of a virgin consecrated to God. The stepbrother hypothesis was the most common explanation of the brethren of the Lord until Jerome popularized the cousin hypothesis just before the year 400.
The stepbrother hypothesis is also supported by the apparent fact that Joseph was significantly older than Mary—he appears to have died before our Lord’s public ministry began.
Our conclusion is that if the ossuary of James bar-Joseph is that of James the brother of the Lord, it sheds light on which of the theories Catholics are permitted to hold is most likely the correct one. It does nothing to refute Catholic doctrine.