Guess what - that burial box is a fake

[Br.Rich_SFO]

MaggieOH:

My interest in the subject remains the same, that of refuting those who claim that Jesus had blood brothers and sisters, including the refutation that Joseph was an elderly man who was a widower with older children.

" including the refutation that Joseph was an elderly man who was a widower with older children"

Why would you wish to “refute” this?

It is possible and is an acceptable position in the Catholic Church. It has it’s roots in the Eastern Catholic Church, and is an acceptable position today in both the Eastern and Western Catholic Church.

I do however believe that those spoken of in the Scriptures are not these children from a prior marriage. If Joseph did have other children from a prior marriage they are not mentioned at all in the Scriptures.

 

[MaggieOH]

" including the refutation that Joseph was an elderly man who was a widower with older children"

Why would you wish to “refute” this?

It is possible and is an acceptable position in the Catholic Church. It has it’s roots in the Eastern Catholic Church, and is an acceptable position today in both the Eastern and Western Catholic Church.

I do however believe that those spoken of in the Scriptures are not these children from a prior marriage. If Joseph did have other children from a prior marriage they are not mentioned at all in the Scriptures.

I had not heard of this claim that Joseph was a widower with children for more than 40 years of my life. It is something that is relatively new.

Is it really accepted? I am not sure about the accuracy of the statement, and the documents that made the claim were rejected as Scripture by the Church. I dispute it on the grounds that could be seen as a misrepresentation of the holiness of Joseph. However, I do agree with your final comments, that such children are not mentioned in the Scripture. The way I see it is that these children did not exist at all. It is mere speculation.

MaggieOH

 

[Adam_Costanzo]

The word for “brother” can also mean cousin. If Jesus had blood brothers, why weren’t they at the crucifixion comforting their mother?

 

[MaggieOH]

The word for “brother” can also mean cousin. If Jesus had blood brothers, why weren’t they at the crucifixion comforting their mother?

:yup: that also applies if they were alleged step brothers.

MaggieOH

 

[Sean_O_L]

Fr. Stenhouse’s article is a little out of date as a source of information because the Israeli authorities have made arrests, charging Golan with fraud over the ossuary of James and the other item that has caused a stir.

My interest in the subject remains the same, that of refuting those who claim that Jesus had blood brothers and sisters, including the refutation that Joseph was an elderly man who was a widower with older children.

Well, Margaret, I suggest that the information from Fr. Stenhouse on this matter is both timely and scholarly. He produces evidence for his contention that there was but ONE James. His article is ALSO concerned to refute the allegations of “other children” to the BVM.

 

[MaggieOH]

Sean O L:

Well, Margaret, I suggest that the information from Fr. Stenhouse on this matter is both timely and scholarly. He produces evidence for his contention that there was but ONE James. His article is ALSO concerned to refute the allegations of “other children” to the BVM.

Never said that Fr. Stenhouse does not write a scholarly article. I said the article was out of date because the discovery was a fake.

It does not take much to do an orderly study of the Scripture to prove that James is not the blood brother of Jesus or that there is only one man who is the Bishop of Jerusalem and “the brother of the Lord”.

My reason for bringing up the subject is simple: there are people who had been willing to use the announcement of the discovery to claim that Mary had other children. That position has once again been dealt a deadly blow.

MaggieOH

 

[Sean_O_L]

Never said that Fr. Stenhouse does not write a scholarly article. I said the article was out of date because the discovery was a fake.

It does not take much to do an orderly study of the Scripture to prove that James is not the blood brother of Jesus or that there is only one man who is the Bishop of Jerusalem and “the brother of the Lord”.

My reason for bringing up the subject is simple: there are people who had been willing to use the announcement of the discovery to claim that Mary had other children. That position has once again been dealt a deadly blow.

Well, I am certainly “as happy as a sand trout that is swimming upstream” that the hoax has been dealt another blow on the subject - but, I suggest that it will NOT be a death blow, and that the accusations will re-surface.

Accordingly, I further suggest that the scholarly article by Fr. Stenhouse is most certainly not out-of-date, and that it will be far more rational ammunition in the future.

I also suggest that the hoax was a “no-brainer” from the very start and ought not to have been entertained by any Catholic.

 

[mark_a]

MaggieOH:

I do not even watch the majority of the programs of this nature that are presented on our ABC T.V.
MaggieOH

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks ABC out to get me.

 

[MaggieOH]

mark a:

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks ABC out to get me.

Are we talking about the same ABC? I am talking about the Australian Broadcasting Commission . I am very naughty in thinking that only a bunch of snobs watch or listen to the ABC. If my family watches it, then I avoid it.

MaggieOH

 

[mark_a]

MaggieOH:

Are we talking about the same ABC? I am talking about the Australian Broadcasting Commission . I am very naughty in thinking that only a bunch of snobs watch or listen to the ABC. If my family watches it, then I avoid it.

MaggieOH

My bad. I didn’t notice your location. I was talking about the American Broadcasting Corp.

Is the Australian Broadcasting Commission also out to get me???

 

[MaggieOH]

mark a:

My bad. I didn’t notice your location. I was talking about the American Broadcasting Corp.

Is the Australian Broadcasting Commission also out to get me???

That depends on what you might have done :whacky:

MaggieOH

 

[MaggieOH]

SPOKENWORD:

Hi Maggie,Every other women at that time was named Mary.Here a Mary ,there a Mary,there were Marys everywhere. God Bless

Yes it is true that there were a lot of women named Mary who are mentioned in the Scripture, even Moses had a sister with the name Mary (well they left it as Mariam in the Old Testament).

That is really my point when people try to tell me that the the BVM had more children. My reading of the Scripture (without the support of Catholic commentary) is that the woman who is the mother of James (the Apostle and named as brother of Jesus), Jude, Joseph and Simon is named Mary and that she is the sister (in law) of the BVM because she is the wife of Alphaeus or Clopas. There are several passages in Scripture that make this formal identification.

The clumsy attempt by Golan and his team of forgers to lay claim to the ossuary as that of James (the brother of Jesus and son of Joseph) was bound to end up with the charges of forgery. I posted some interesting links from archaeological sources regarding this and the “stone” that was the most recent of the “discoveries” involved in the fraud. Some of these scientists initially believed that these artefacts were genuine. It was a clumsy attempt at trying to prove that those who claimed that James was the blood brother of Jesus, even though it was more likely to be an attempt to prove the existence of Christ by the discovery of an ossuary with the name of James inscribed.

God works in mysterious ways and when someone tries to forge such information, then that is when the darkness has to meet the light. I do not know any “Bible-believing” Catholic who would have been taken in when we first heard about the ossuary for the simple reason that it did not add up to what is written in the Scripture.

MaggieOH

 

[Paul_W]

The revelation of the ossuary’s existance was first published in a somewhat scholarly magazine called Bible Archaeology Review (BAR). If you are interested in the story, you should buy the relevant back issues. They have many illustrations that are not in the on-line versions.

In particular, in late 2002 the ossuary was damaged while being shipped to Toronto for an exhibit. The hard-copy issue has photos showing that the box was smashed into distinct non-contiguous pieces, whereas the on-line version has only a photo of the restored ossuary. In the latter, the ossuary shows signs of hairline cracks but is apparently otherwise intact, because of the perfect restoration.

Herschel Shanks, the publisher of BAR, continues to defend the authenticity of the inscription. I suspect that at least some of his defense is politics and personality rather than objectivity. But here’s a detailed recap of several dozen articles that have been published in BAR over the past two years or so, as well as text of lectures, news reports, etc.

biblereview.org/bswbOOossuary.html

 

[MaggieOH]

Paul W:

The revelation of the ossuary’s existance was first published in a somewhat scholarly magazine called Bible Archaeology Review (BAR). If you are interested in the story, you should buy the relevant back issues. They have many illustrations that are not in the on-line versions.

biblereview.org/bswbOOossuary.html

To buy something you need to have money. If it comes from overseas the best method is by credit card. However, if work is scarce, the credit card cannot be paid off… online sources are a great substitute for the printed word.

I became interested in the subject when it was given some press and then brought up on another list. It is the kind of thing that attracts the attention of fundamentalists eager to prove that Jesus had blood brothers and sisters. The ossuary itself is not fake, because it really comes from that era. However, the inscription is a fake. I was alerted to the doubts concerning the inscription many months ago, and was quite surprised and interested to note that several people have now been arrested and charged with fraud. The experts in this case had no doubt that the ossuary was a fake as far as the inscription is concerned.

MaggieOH

 

[John_Colean]

MaggieOH, I have read through many of these threads and found them to be most interesting and have caused me to re-read some of the Scriptures that refer to the brothers of Christ. For myself, I have always used the passage in John 19:25-27 where Christ designates the Apostle John to be His Mother’s caretaker. If there were other blood brothers, it does not make sense that Christ would have made such a designation. Bottom line - this was a most informative discussion and I appreciate your bring up the subject.

Blessings,

John

 

[Paul_W]

The on-line editions of BAR are a “good” substitute, but as a subscriber myself, I was simply pointing out there is a definite added value in a hard-copy issue. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and there are dozens of color photos, maps, and drawings in each issue. The on-line editions don’t indicate that these illustrations are missing, and I thought that someone with a serious interest would want to know that the back issue is more than just a print-out of what’s on the screen. If money is an issue, it’s worth the effort to try to find a library that has the back issues.

The Israel Antiquities Authority has proclaimed the inscription to be a fake, (at least the appended “brother of Jesus”) and criminal charges have been filed against the alleged forger, but Herschel Shanks has found experts who still insist it is authentic. I suspect the controversy won’t go away any time soon.

BAR covers archeology related to areas mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. They are frequently the source of stories that are condensed or misinterpreted in the wider media. As an example, BAR also originated the story about the cave that some people allege was used by John the Baptist. The original article debated the evidence for and against this hypothesis, but most news accounts sensationalized the possibility and completely ignored the contradictory parts.

BAR is primarily an archeological magazine, and this frequently infuriates fundamentalists who read their bible strictly, and who don’t want any evidence that there might be any other interpretation. Each issue contains letters to the editor from angry readers who have cancelled their subscriptions because an article, for example, said that the earth was more than 30,000 years old, and “this clearly contradicts the Bible.” These cancellation letters are sometimes so amusing that the best ones have actually been compiled in a book!

BAR’s publisher, Herschel Shanks, is no stranger to controversy. Until the 1960’s, the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls were known to only a mere handful of carefully-selected scholars, who released certain translations ever-so-slowly. Two scholars who had been shut out of the process figured out a way to recreate the exact contents of each scroll using information in a computer database. Shanks published their findings and was sued for copyright infringement. He lost in court, but the end result was that the contents of the scrolls are now available to tens of thousands of scholars. Our knowledge of the meaning of the scrolls is light years ahead of where it would have been, if not for Shanks.

 

[MaggieOH]

Paul W:

The on-line editions of BAR are a “good” substitute, but as a subscriber myself, I was simply pointing out there is a definite added value in a hard-copy issue. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and there are dozens of color photos, maps, and drawings in each issue. The on-line editions don’t indicate that these illustrations are missing, and I thought that someone with a serious interest would want to know that the back issue is more than just a print-out of what’s on the screen. If money is an issue, it’s worth the effort to try to find a library that has the back issues.

The Israel Antiquities Authority has proclaimed the inscription to be a fake, (at least the appended “brother of Jesus”) and criminal charges have been filed against the alleged forger, but Herschel Shanks has found experts who still insist it is authentic. I suspect the controversy won’t go away any time soon.

BAR covers archeology related to areas mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. They are frequently the source of stories that are condensed or misinterpreted in the wider media. As an example, BAR also originated the story about the cave that some people allege was used by John the Baptist. The original article debated the evidence for and against this hypothesis, but most news accounts sensationalized the possibility and completely ignored the contradictory parts.

BAR is primarily an archeological magazine, and this frequently infuriates fundamentalists who read their bible strictly, and who don’t want any evidence that there might be any other interpretation. Each issue contains letters to the editor from angry readers who have cancelled their subscriptions because an article, for example, said that the earth was more than 30,000 years old, and “this clearly contradicts the Bible.” These cancellation letters are sometimes so amusing that the best ones have actually been compiled in a book!

BAR’s publisher, Herschel Shanks, is no stranger to controversy. Until the 1960’s, the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls were known to only a mere handful of carefully-selected scholars, who released certain translations ever-so-slowly. Two scholars who had been shut out of the process figured out a way to recreate the exact contents of each scroll using information in a computer database. Shanks published their findings and was sued for copyright infringement. He lost in court, but the end result was that the contents of the scrolls are now available to tens of thousands of scholars. Our knowledge of the meaning of the scrolls is light years ahead of where it would have been, if not for Shanks.

Paul,

thanks. I will have to rely upon the online information on this matter. I am interested in the fact that Shanks seems to think that the inscription is real. Why would he be so interested in wanting to prove that the inscription is not a fake? Is that a result of his fundamentalist bias?

Even though the scholarship about the Dead Sea Scrolls has improved, it has also brought about discredited scholarship. I point the finger at the Australian, Barbara Thiering who has written at least three books that contain false information about Jesus, and she has allegedly claimed that her information comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The books are a travesty because they have resulted in a lot of people leaving Christianity in order to follow the Gnostic gospels that she promotes in those books.

I will have to go and have another look at the BAR site and see what else I can find there.

MaggieOH

 

[MaggieOH]

John Colean:

MaggieOH, I have read through many of these threads and found them to be most interesting and have caused me to re-read some of the Scriptures that refer to the brothers of Christ. For myself, I have always used the passage in John 19:25-27 where Christ designates the Apostle John to be His Mother’s caretaker. If there were other blood brothers, it does not make sense that Christ would have made such a designation. Bottom line - this was a most informative discussion and I appreciate your bring up the subject.

Blessings,

John

Hi John,

thank you for the kind words. You are right about the passage from John’s Gospel. It is one of many that point to the fact that Jesus did not have blood brothers, neither did he have step brothers.

There are several other passages in Scripture that point to this fact:

Matthew 10:2-4 - the list of the apostles “James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus”

Matthew 27: 55-56 - “And many of the women were there, watching him from a distance, the same women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”

Mark 3:13 -19 - “James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus.” the following might be of interest in this discussion:
catholic-forum.com/saints/saintj03.htm

stjude-shrine.org/aboutstjude.htm

Mark 15:40 “…Mary the mother of James the younger (Less) and Joseph; and Salome”

Mark 16:1 “When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James; and Salome…”

Luke 24:9 " The women were Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the Mother of James"

John 19:25 “Near the cross stood his mother, and his mother’s sister Mary the wife of Clopas; and Mary of Magdala.”

The Hebrew name for Clopas is Alphaeus.

These are the passages that refute any suggestion that Mary had other children or that Joseph was a widower with older sons.

MaggieOH

 

[Paul_W]

Shanks is actually Jewish, so he has no religious-based reasons for wanting the inscription to be true. It appears, on its face, to be simply an issue of archeological proof.

However, the Israel Antiquities Authority may have reasons to want to discredit him, and he may have reasons to want to discredit them. It may be a feud beyond the ossuary issue, just because they don’t see eye to eye on general issues of archeology. For example, the IAA may harbor a grudge because he exposed the Dead Sea Scrolls. More recently, the IAA proposed a law to ban personal ownership of antiquities in Israel; Shanks has called the board members hypocrites because they personally own such antiquities, and could keep them under the proposed law. The law would only prevent new acquisitions.

So it’s possible that the inscription is authentic, and that the IAA just wants to embarrass Shanks. It’s possible that he knows he’s wrong, but can’t admit the IAA is right.

Also, the original article said that there was a 1 in 20 chance that the inscription referred to James, the brother of Jesus, as mentioned in the New Testament. The author estimated the number of people named James, Joseph and Jesus, who lived in Jerusalem in the relevant time period, and who might have been related in the described manner. He also pointed out the ambiguity of the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” He noted that it could be interpreted to mean that Joseph was the brother of Jesus, (and James therefore his nephew) and therefore it would have been a different Jesus than the ‘brother of James’ mentioned in the New Testament.

This disclaimer was omitted from most press accounts.

 

[Linda_H]

There was a feature story late last year on either Dateline or 60 Minutes about the ossuarys’ inscription being a forgery. When the home of the owner was searched they found many items that cast doubts on the credability on many of the items if not all of them that he has sold world wide. He claimed that they were for restoring damaged antiquities, I am refering to the bags and other containers of dirt and soil from the time peroids that the items supposedly came from.

I am sure that there will be many claims of false accusations on both sides for many years to come from this, I for one take all claims that something of this nature is true or real with a huge grain of salt until there is absolute proof.
Linda H.