MORE ON THE "JAMES OSSUARY":

Scholars say Jesus box may be genuine (CNN)

Tuesday, November 25, 2003 Posted: 1526 GMT (11:26 PM HKT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A purported first-century inscription naming Jesus may or may not be the real thing, but Israel's labeling of the find as a fake is premature, scientists and scholars said at a panel discussion.

[...]

Panelists, speaking in Atlanta at the annual joint conference of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature on Sunday, said authorities should examine the box more closely before passing judgment.

"I don't know for sure whether this is a forged inscription, and I'm sort of cast as a defender of the inscription. I'm not," said moderator Hershel Shanks, editor of the Biblical Archeology Review, which published the initial findings. "What I do know is, Israeli authorities have badly managed the affair."

[...]

The hard, brown patina that covers the box could not be found on the inscription, where a soft, grayish chalk-and-water paste had been applied instead to imitate weathering, the [antiquities] authority said.

James Harrell, a geologist at the University of Toledo and member of the Association for the Study of Marble and Other Stones in Antiquity, said his analysis of the inscription suggests the missing patina could simply be the result of overcleaning -- not forgery.

Shanks said experts from the antiquities authority declined to speak at the forum.

[...]

This panel was "at" the AAR/SBL convention in the sense that it was held at the same hotel (and anyone is free to rent a venue there) but it was not part of the official program. It was held at the same time as the archaeology section I blogged on below, the one with McCane's paper in it. Now why is it that journalists covered this privately arranged panel while ignoring McCane's paper, which was part of the official conference program and which went through the normal peer-review process to get into it?

UPDATE: USA Today (via Archaeology Magazine News) has coverage of discussion of the ossuary in last week's (before the AAR/SBL convention) meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Excerpts:

Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Amir Ganor said the James ossuary investigation has expanded to encompass Bible-era archaeological artifacts collected over the past 15 years by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

[...]

In a presentation at the conference, [archaeologist Yuval] Goren described the "Jerusalem Syndrome" of forged relics, a reference to a similarly named psychological ailment afflicting tourists who visit Jerusalem and then become convinced they are characters from the Bible. Focusing on four cases of dubious artifacts, including the James ossuary, he listed common characteristics of fakes from the last decade:

� Publication or planned publication of the relic in Biblical Archaeology Review.

� Authentication of the relic's age by Geological Survey of Israel scientists and the inscription by paleographer Andr� Lemaire of Paris' Sorbonne University.

� Comments by outside experts that it's too good to be true.

"Our discipline may be contaminated to some extent by more such fakes," Goren warned. Past forgeries accepted as real suggest the science of paleography is "a fool's paradise," he said, useless for authenticating any inscriptions.

Ouch!