Abnormal Interests

Some of you may recall that I alluded to the possibility that the "James Ossuary" inscription might be an ancient forgery as apposed to a modern one. Marness argues that it just doesn't matter. The bones of James the brother of Jesus were never in that ossuary because they were never in any ossuary.

She begins with a review of Jewish burial practices in the late Second Temple period. This epoch ended in 70 CE with the fall of Jerusalem. I won't go through the details. She uses the discussion to introduce the reader to the architecture of late Second Temple period rock-cut tombs and the idea of secondary gathering and placement of the bones of the longer deceased in pits, repositories or charnel houses, to make room for the more recent dead. It was only wealthy families that had rock-cut tombs. Poor people were buried in trench graves.

Magness then moves to the general question of ossuaries. They first appear in Jerusalem rock-cut tombs around 20-15 BCE (the middle of Herod's reign). After a little review of the scholarly debate, she joins others in attributing "the appearance of ossuaries to Roman influence on Jerusalem's elite." Ossuaries provided an individual resting place for the bones of the deceased. They, therefore, took the place of the more "communal" (my word) pits, repositories or charnel houses.

The appearance of ossuaries and other aspects of Romanization of Jerusalem should be understood in the context of the close contacts and interactions between Augustus and his family, on the one hand, and Herod and his family, on the other. (p. 140)

She notes that ossuaries disappear from Jerusalem tombs after 70 CE. There are no longer Jewish elite in Jerusalem. Ossuaries were not used in trench graves.

From here, Magness turns to Jesus' burial. After a very interesting discourse on Jesus' execution in which she, in my view, correctly argues that he was executed under Roman law rather than Jewish law, she turns to his burial. Because Jesus came from a poor family, he would have been buried like a poor person rather than a wealthy person. He clearly was not part of the Jerusalem elite.

Had Joseph not offered Jesus a spot in his tomb (according to the Gospel accounts), Jesus likely would have been disposed of in the manner of the poorer classes: in an individual trench grave dug into the ground. (p. 145)

For the Biblically illiterate, Joseph here is Joseph of Arimathea, an elite person, not the father of Jesus and James. The author of Mark (15:43) feels a need to make it clear exactly who this Joseph was and to indicate his position in society. Magness notes that the fact that Joseph offered the use of his tomb supports the hypothesis that Jesus'' did not have one of this own. You'll have to go to the library to read her explanation of the "new tomb" mentioned in Mathew (27:60). Her explanation seems correct. She bases it on a feature of rock-cut tomb architecture that I did not rehearse.

Now comes the fun part: the death and burial of James sans ossuary. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, using material from Hegesippus gives an account of James the Just's stoning, death and burial. After stoning him for a while:

Then one of them, a fuller, took the club which he used to beat the clothes and struck the Just on the head. Such was his martyrdom. He was buried on the spot, by the Sanctuary, and his stone (stēlē) is still there by the Sanctuary." (Hegesippus, apud Eusebius, [Hist. Eccl 2:23.15-18, I use Magness' translation but link to the New Advent translation]

She notes Ben Witherington's suggestion that the "James Ossuary" should be understood as the stēlē mentioned in Eusebius. The idea is dismissed for absolute lack of evidence that "stēlē" was ever used to mean "ossuary." In fact, there is strong evidence that they clearly meant different things. A stēlē, she notes, is exactly what would mark a trench grave.

She dismisses other suggestions concerning James' burial and concludes that he was placed in a trench grave like any other poor person. Not only was he poor, he also had a negative opinion of the rich elites who were buried in a rock-cut grave.

I found this paper well argued and supported by the evidence. What weakness there is can not be attributed to Magness. She herself notes,

Because trench graves are poor in finds and are much less conspicuous and more susceptible to destruction than rock-cut tombs, relatively few examples are recorded. (p. 146)

The scarcity of trench graves does not weaken her argument, but, if they were abundant, it might be strengthened. I do worry that the scarcity of evidence (although not total lack of evidence) will be used as a point of attack.

What does all this say about the "James Ossuary" inscription should it turn out not to be a modern forgery? Working on the very debatable hypothesis that the complete inscription is ancient, then it must be an ancient forgery. I can think of several reasons why there might be such a forgery: One such reason might be to make James and, by way of him, Jesus, more acceptable to the elite. But this only makes since if it was forged before 70 CE. After that it would be meaningless or worse.

I was interested to see if Magness had come to the study of late Second Temple period burials after the announcement of the "James Ossuary." The answer is no. While burial practices are not her main interest, her CV should an interest going back to at lease 1994 when she gave a lecture on the Late Roman Cemetery at Beth Guvrin; a little beyond the second temple period but a start. In 2000, nearly two years before the announcement of the "James Ossuary" she gave a presentation entitled, "Jewish Tombs and Burial Customs."

Professor Magness' paper is no doubt of considerable importance. I will leave to the future of scholarship to decide if it becomes the consensus opinion. I do know that no competent scholar can address the James Ossuary problem without referencing her paper. Both her evidence and argument must be tackled. She has moved the burden of proof substantially more in the direction of those of those who would claim that the "James Ossuary" inscription is authentic.

Postscript:
For a lively discussion of the "James Ossuary," go to the Society of Biblical Literature Forum.

Reference:
Magness, Jodi, Ossuaries and the Burials of Jesus and James, JBL, 124, Spring 2005, 121-154