'The James Ossuary' and its Authenticity

Now that the extended 'trial' over "the James Ossuary" or "James Bone Box" in Israel is nearing its conclusion and all that remains to be announced is the verdict -- which in the present writer's mind is a foregone conclusion, no evaluation of data having had to take this long without basically a verdict of "unproven" as regards forgery being the outcome -- it is time to take stock of where we stand with regard to this "Box"; so that such a 'verdict' will not come as too much of a shock to those convinced of some suspiciousness connected with it and its sudden seemingly almost miraculous appearance or willy-nilly 'surfacing,' just when one might have expected it to.

I have always insisted that the appearance of this "Box" in 2002 was intimately connected with the publication of my 1,000-page blockbuster, James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Viking/Penguin/ Faber & Faber, 1997-98). That book put this "James the Brother of Jesus" 'on the map,' so to speak -- meaning the fact of his existence and his importance, as his 'brother's successor and closest living relative, to the question of "the Historical Jesus" (the last sentence of the Book being: "Who and whatever James was, so was 'Jesus'); not to mention his leadership of the "Early Church in Palestine" ("the Bishop of Bishops," as it were or, in the language of the Dead Sea Scrolls, "the Mebakker" or "Overseer") and the real "Leader" of so-called "Christianity" everywhere not "Peter."

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