July (Web-only) 2003

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Israeli police arrest owner of the James ossuary and Joash tablet
After a six-month investigation, Israeli police on Monday arrested antiques collector Oded Golan on charges of fraud, forgery, using forged documents, and perverting the course of justice. In recent days, investigators searched Golan's home and storerooms, including a workroom on his roof where they say he forged antiquities. "A number of other 'antiques' in various stages of production were uncovered," reports the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha'aretz.

Also on Golan's Tel Aviv roof, "without any security or protection from the elements," was Golan's most famous possession—an ossuary that apparently once held the bones of "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

Is this treatment of the ossuary another indication that the ossuary is a fraud, or that Golan is merely careless? After all, when he shipped the ossuary for display and testing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, he packed it so poorly that it cracked—right in the middle of the inscription.

Now even the ROM's Ed Keall, who has been one of the main scholars saying the ossuary is authentic, says Golan might have intentionally damaged the bone box to make testing harder. "I'm afraid at this stage I can't discount anything," he told The Ottawa Citizen. "The story's so bizarre."

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But Keall said he still hopes that the ossuary can be proved to be authentic. So do several other scholars, including Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks and Asbury Seminary New Testament professor Ben Witherington III, coauthors of a book about the ossuary. On his magazine's website, Shanks lays out several problems he has with a report from the Israel Antiquities Authority calling the ossuary a fake.

But even Shanks has ...