A clue to Jesus

A CLUE TO JESUS? -

An ancient stone box may offer historical proof of his existence - and his family ties.

Although Jesus of Nazareth is a universally recognised figurę, no one has ever found any

evidence for his existence apart from texts. 1................The bones are gone but in large Aramaic

letters the inscription JAMES, SON OF JOSEPH, BROTHER OF JESUS. The names and relationships fit the New Testaments, which identifies Jesus as the son of Joseph and James as one of Jesus¹ brothers. James is historically important as the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem during the middle decades of the first century, after the departure of the Apostle Peter for Romę. 2.

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The find announced last week in an article in Biblical Archeology Review, immediately stirred excitement among scholars. In the article, French epigraphist Andre Lemaire argues that the evidence, while circumstantial, strongly favours the assumption that the Jesus inscribed on the box is Christ. 3.

Even so, the discovery has raised again centuries-old debates about who the brothers of Jesus were and whether they supported his reform movement.

One major problem with the ossuary is that it appears to be stolen property. 4...C......

Since it contains no bones - Armenian Christians claim to have them in their cathedral in old Jerusalem - dating by carbon testing is impossible. “If you cannot say where the artifact was found and where it has been for nearly 2,000 years”, contends Bruce Chilton, a professor of religious studies at Bard College in New York, “you cannot pretend to draw the lines of connection between the object and the people it might mention.”.

There are problems with the inscription, too. In first century Galilee and Judea, relatively few names were in circulation and Joseph, James and Jesus were among the most common. The name James appears 24 times in the New Testament alone. Nonetheless, Lemaire concludes that the chance

of finding all three names in a single inscription is less than 1 percent. 5...............But

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Australian professor John Painter, a highly regarded expert on James, believes that a first century inscription referencing Jesus as kin would have identified him - as the New Testament does - as brother of Jesus the Lord.”

But who exactly was this James? According to the Gospel of Mark, he is one of Jesus’ four

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brothers” and two “sisters”. 6.................W............But on the question of what is meant by

“brothers and sisters”, scholarly opinion differs.

The earliest tradition dates from the second century and holds that Jesus ‘ brothers ands sisters were not siblings bom to Mary but are children of Joseph by a previous marriage. This view prevails

in Eastem Orthodox theology. 7...............i).............. Like the first view, this interpretation

preserves the belief that Mary remained a virgin all her life, and is held by most Roman Catholics today. Since the Reformation, which found the perpetual virginity of Mary suspect, Protestant scholars have generally taken the position that she gave birth to other children by Joseph after Jesus. 8. ..................

Scholars also disagree on whether the family of Jesus (his mother excepted) were followers of Jesus during his lifetime. John’s Gospel says flatly, “his brothers did not believe in him,” and Mark reports his relatives as thinking that Jesus “ is out of his mind”. “These verses make elear that Jesus is disgracing his family”, says Father Jerome Murphy- 0’Connor, a scholar at the Ecole Biblique at Archeologique in Jerusalem. But in his recent book, “Just James”, Painter argues that “ if James had not already been an established figurę among the followers of Jesus he would not so quickly have

become the leader of the Jerusalem church.” 9.............J....................

With Peter, and against Paul, he argued that Christians should uphold the Torah. He is thought to be the author of the “Epistle of James”, which, says Patrick Hartin, a James scholar at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., “places a very Jewish emphasis on the necessity of exhibiting faith through good works”. At his death James was replaced as leader of the Jerusalem community by his

cousin, Symeon. 10.........C?................But it is also a timely reminder of the often-overlooked man

called James.