The so-called James ossuary is an ossuary with an Aramaic inscription that reads, “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus." Whereas there is little doubt that the ossuary is authentic and ancient, the inscription is the subject of an ongoing controversy. The problem is that the ossuary was not discovered by archaeologists, but surfaced in 2002 in the hands of an antiquities collector
11.9 The "James ossuary." Courtesy of Zev Radovan/BibleLandPictures. com.
In Israel. Put into "CSI" terms, this means that there is no chain of custody. The ossuary presumably was looted (illegally excavated) and was purchased by the collector on the antiquities market. Without scientific documentation describing the ossuary's original appearance and context, it is impossible to determine whether the inscription is authentic and ancient, or whether all or part of the inscription is a modern forgery — added to enhance the value of the ossuary after its discovery or purchase.
The evidence that James was buried in a pit grave or trench grave renders moot the controversy surrounding the James ossuary. Even if the inscription is authentic, it could not refer to James the Just, the brother of Jesus. Ossuaries were introduced into rock-cut tombs to collect the remains removed from loculi. Ossuaries are not associated with pit graves or trench graves, as there was no reason to exhume the remains and place them in an ossuary in order to make space for new burials. Instead, new graves were dug as the need arose. In other words, if the inscription on the James ossuary is authentic and ancient, it must refer to another individual, not James the Just, the brother of Jesus. This is certainly possible, as the names James (Hebrew Yaakov/Jacob), Jesus (Hebrew Yeshua/Joshua), and Joseph (Hebrew Yosef or Yose) were common among the Jewish population of the late Second Temple period. In fact, it has been estimated that at least twenty different individuals in first-century C. E. Jerusalem could have had this combination of names.
The Archaeology of the Holy Land Sidebar: Beth Shearim
The ancient Jewish town of Beth Shearim in lower Galilee is known for its extensive necropolis of rock-cut catacombs, which were excavated by the Israeli archaeologists Benjamin Mazar (in the 1930s) and Nahman Avigad (in the 1950s). Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the editor of the Mishnah (the corpus of Jewish oral law), resided at Beth Shearim (where the Sanhedrin met) for much of his life, and was brought to Beth Shearim for burial after he died at Seppho-ris. to Judah ha-Nasi's presence (and the fact that Aelia Capitolina was off-limits to Jews; see Chapter 13), during the third and fourth centuries Beth Shearim became the largest and most prestigious Jewish cemetery in Palestine. Inscriptions found in the catacombs indicate that wealthy Jews were brought to Beth Shearim for burial from as far away as Mesopotamia and Syria. Some ofthe individuals mentioned in the inscriptions have titles such as “rabbi," “priest," and “leader of the synagogue," indicating their high status.
The necropolis of Beth Shearim includes dozens of catacombs (large burial caves), which were hewn into the slopes of the nearby hills. The catacombs contain numerous halls that held hundreds of burials. Many of the catacombs at Beth Shearim belonged to individual families, but some contained burials of different elite families. The use of loculi and the custom of collecting bones in ossuaries are still attested in the burial halls, although on a limited basis. The prevailing burial rite consists of individual inhumation in large stone sarcophagi placed on the floors of the burial halls or in troughs cut into the walls and floors of the caves. Most of the sarcophagi are made of local limestone, with a few imports of marble. Some of the sarcophagi are decorated with crude figured reliefs, including depictions of bulls, lions, birds, fish, and winged Victories. Jewish symbols and ritual objects such as menorahs are also carved on some of the sarcophagi and on the walls of the burial halls.
An extensive necropolis consisting of catacombs that is similar to and contemporary with Beth Shearim was recently excavated at Beth Guvrin (near Marisa) in southern Judea. Around 200 C. E., Beth Guvrin was refounded as a Roman city called Eleutheropolis. Although by this time most of the Jewish population of Palestine lived in Galilee and the Golan, there was a significant concentration of Jews in the towns and villages of southern Judea — a region they called the Darom (“south"). The burial customs at Beth Shearim and Beth Guvrin parallel contemporary developments in Rome and the provinces during the second and third centuries, when inhumation in large stone sarcophagi in catacombs supplanted cremation as the preferred burial rite. In other words, just as Jewish tombs and burial customs before 70 C. E. reflect foreign influence on the wealthy Jews of Jerusalem, after the Bar-Kokhba Revolt the Jewish elites of Galilee and southern Judea adopted prevailing Roman rites and fashions.
Recommended Reading
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1992).
Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah from Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, Vols. 1-2 (New York: Doubleday, 1994).
David Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion (Tiibingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).
Craig A. Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries: What Jewish Burial Practices Reveal about the Beginning of Christianity (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2003).
Amos Kloner and Boaz Zissu, The Necropolis of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period (Leuven, the Netherlands: Peeters, 2007).
Jodi Magness, Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011).
Byron McCane, Roll Back the Stone: Death and Burial in the World of Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003).
World History
