The James Ossuary is an artifact that I had heard of before this class – but I did not realize it had been debunked as a pseudo archaeological. The James Ossuary is a box that is made out of limestone. An ossuary is traditionally a box or a place that contains human remains. Experts have dated it back to around the fist century BCE to 70 BC . The box itself is not the problem. This box came into the public eye in the 70’s when it was acquired by a collector from someone selling it. The problem lies within the inscription on the outside of the box . This inscription is in Aramaic and translates to “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”. This text obviously refers to the biblical figure of Jesus Christ of Nazareth from Christianity. The inscription itself is believed to be the name of the person whose  remains are within the box. Most christian religions are skeptical of Jesus having siblings, which is why the support behind this surprised me a lot. 

So what makes this pseudo archaeological? Well, there are skeptics that think that boxes containing multiple biblical figures remains could have existed in a tomb in Israel somewhere. The inscription on the side of the James Ossuary however, is believed to be fake. Experts from the University of Jerusalem took a look at the inscription and in their opinion, it is indeed fake. There was a giant trial that went on between academics, and they came to the conclusion that no one was guilty in forging the inscription. We are still not sure what the actual truth of the box is – this is just what a jury decided. I think that someone could have motive to fake something like this to further their own religious beliefs. If their religion believed in Jesus’ brother, maybe they wanted to plant this evidence to get others to believe in this narrative as well. Especially with the context in which this artifact was found. It was bought from an antiquities dealer. Even though we can accurately date it, we do not know what it has gone through with different owners, and who could have put that inscription there

This fits into class because we discussed that certain people have motivations related to religion . Whether this is intended to support a religion or disprove one – is still unsure. 

https://www.livescience.com/50444-james-ossuary-talpiot-tomb-gallery.html