WAS "THE BROTHER OF JESUS" added to the "James Ossuary" in the 1990s? Eric Meyers reports in "Well-known Israeli Archeologist Casts More Doubt on Authenticity of James Ossuary" (at the Bible and Interpretation website) that a "prominent Israeli archaeologist" who wishes to remain anonymous saw the ossuary in an antiquities shop in Jerusalem in the mid-1990s and that last bit of the inscription wasn't there yet. Someone reported this at the Sunday morning SBL session I blogged on in November, but I didn't mention it because I didn't want to pass on a rumor from an unverified source. It's interesting, and I believe Meyers is reporting what he heard from his source, but I'm not going to put much stock in it until the anonymous archaeologist goes public and gives us a firsthand account I can evaluate for myself.

UPDATE (22 January): Stephen C. Carlson comments on the article.