The ossuary, the panel, the questions.

A cold, dreary afternoon spent in a grand ballroom of the Royal York Hotel listening to cold, dreary afternoon spent in a grand ball discus-a panel sion about an old stone box may not be everyone's formula for an electrifying experience but such it was in Toronto on November 24, 2002.

The ballroom was filled with a thousand scholars of religious studies and archaeology, a fraction of the 8000 who had converged on the city that weekend for annual conferences in their fields. The box in question was the now notorious James ossuary, a bone casket recently brought to light and on exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Is the box the ossuary for the bones of James, "brother of the Lord," who is mentioned several times in the New Testament, whom Christians identify as the first head of the Church in Jerusalem? Hoping for answers, I attended two panel discussions on the subject held in sequence that weekend and came away skeptical, amused and relieved.

Many experts point out that the box is untraceable to a known archaeological site. The owner, Oded Golan, came to Toronto to defend himself against charges of fraud and misrepresentation. He is a youngish looking 51-year-old engineer with a largely, but not entirely, disingenuous manner who says he has been collecting antiquities since he was eight years old. A self-proclaimed expert, he nonetheless failed to clarify when and from whom he purchased the box, why for 25 years he never bothered to find out the exact translation of its inscription, nor why he let his parents safe-keep it for ten years, and allowed "someone" to wash it.

Nor did he state, or deny, as was charged, that he is being investigated by his government for possible illegal acquisition of an antiquity. (The graduate student beside me kept whispering "stolen" whenever he and his chief defender referred to it as "purchased"). I could not help wondering if there was an agenda for the box, especially when Golan said (at the ROM panel on Nov. 23/02) that DNA analysis was going to be done on the bone fragments found in the box, and which he had left in Israel. These latter statements provoked audible gasps in the audience.

Much of the discussions centred on the box's inscription. At least four of the nine scholars I heard raised the possibility that two different inscribers were involved, based on what seemed to them differences in lettering styles. Some suggested that the possible second inscriber could have lived even 200 years later than the first; perhaps, one suggested, someone was making the box into a reliquary after the fact.

Defenders of the one-hand theory were equally adamant, and they included Andre Lemaire, a prestigious expert from the Sorbonne, who is undoubtedly qualified to defend the claims he made. But even he fell back on the "very cautious" claim of "very probable" when asserting that the conjunction of the three names (James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus) referred to the New Testament figures.

As impressive as Lemaire is, other equally qualified experts seemed just as convinced of opposing views. Eric Meyer of Duke University was exceptionally blunt in denouncing the promotion of the box by the Biblical Archaeological Review (BAR). He expressed doubts about anyone being able to date the box precisely, Perhaps his most sensational charge was to the effect that the phrase "brother of Jesus" was "suspect in the extreme". All in all, a "healthy skepticism is needed" about the box, he said.

John Painter, an Australian academic whose speciality is the James of the New Testament, was also dubious about the dating and attribution of names. He pointed out that the ossuary lacked links to the traditions about James which include historical references and objects in Jerusalem.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the speech by Hershel Shanks, editor of the BAR. Mr. Shanks was the image of urbanity: tall, well dressed, and a highly skilled rhetorician, he did an awfully good job of managing to be both restrained and intense in front of an audience whose scientific instincts incline them to abhor emotion. Taking issue with Prof. Meyer, he defended the right of scholars to publish articles about objects whose provenance is unsure. Was Golan a "bad man", he asked, or merely a "modest" one who had been outed from his preferred anonymity by the Israeli press? The rumour that the box, broken in transit, had been poorly packaged so that Golan could collect on the insurance was unpleasant and untrue. He compared the finding of the ossuary to the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls; no one had vilified the Bedouins who had gone into the Qumram caves. As for the theory of a second hand: "This doesn't have meaning for me."

Shanks tried to downplay the possibility of forgery; only a "stupid" person would have added "brother of Jesus". Patina (the shine brought on by age) cannot be created, he said, contradicting Meyers. And this was not forgery for money, because neither the buyer nor seller had profited; he thus ignored the idea that people forge for political and ideological motives as well as monetary ones.

I left the discussion feeling relieved. The cloud of skepticism that filled the ballroom showed that the vexed issue of James' precise relationship to Jesus was still unresolved. Catholics can continue to believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary with the calm confidence appropriate to a faith community which has endured for 2000 years. Professor Ben Witherington, a professor at a Kentucky Protestant seminary who participated in the ROM panel on November 23, said that neither the box nor the New Testament tells us that Jesus had any younger brothers and sisters.

The very eminent Jesuit scholar Joseph Fitzmyer has discussed the ossuary in a late November issue of America magazine, concluding that nothing has been proven or clarified about James' relation to Jesus. Those who look for information and opinion on the Internet will find a wealth of references there.

Brigid Elson Ph.D., A former teacher and lecturer, she resides in Toronto, ON.