A 2,000-year-old box believed to contain the bones of Jesus' brother James is on display in Atlanta, United States. It was discovered in Israel and is currently part of a display at Pullman Yards that includes 350 artefacts from Jesus' period, according to the Daily Mail. The exhibit describes the ossuary, a limestone burial box, as "the most significant item from the time of Christ."?
The inscription reads "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" in Aramaic.?
The names' association with Jesus of Nazareth's family members suggests that the box may have carried the remains of James the Just, who led Jerusalem's Christian community following the crucifixion.
The ossuary was discovered in 1976 and revealed to the public in 2002. Oded Golan bought it while studying in Israel. "I didn't recognise its importance at all," Golan remarked. Since its discovery, the inscription's legitimacy has been questioned. Golan was charged with forgery in 2003, but acquitted in 2013.
Responding to the fake allegations, Golan told Crosswalk Headlines last week, "We ran various chemical tests, particularly on the inscription itself, which is the most crucial feature of the ossuary...We demonstrated that the entire inscription is genuine; it was carved several thousand years ago."?
Thus, if authentic, it would represent the earliest tangible evidence of Jesus. Following first burial in caves, first-century Jewish burial rituals included depositing bones in ossuaries. However, the James Ossuary is currently empty because the bones are said to have been lost a long time ago.
A 2015 investigation looked into a possible link between the ossuary and the Talpiot tomb in Jerusalem, which some believe to be Jesus' family tomb. Chemical investigation indicated parallels between the ossuary and the boxes discovered in the Talpiot tomb.?
A heretical manuscript titled "First Apocalypse of James," discovered in 2017, likewise refers to James as Jesus' brother, albeit "not materially." This work is from the Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of Gnostic texts. James is thought to have been martyred, either by stoning in 62 AD or by being thrown from the Temple and battered in 69 AD.
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