Last October a stunning archaeological find was made known to the world—an ossuary, or bone box, thought to contain the first written reference outside the Bible to Jesus Christ. The ossuary is believed to have once held the bones of James, the brother of Jesus. Its reference to Jesus is found in an etching inscribed in Aramaic on the outside: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."
"I think that it has an enormous public educational importance," said Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). "If this refers to the Jesus, James, and Joseph in the New Testament, it's the first archeological attestations of these personages."
But it wasn't until last summer, when Shanks visited Jerusalem, that interest in the box took off. University of Sorbonne professor André Lemaire is one of the world's leading experts in epigraphy—the study that deals with deciphering ancient inscriptions. Lemaire had become aware of the ossuary when he was working in Jerusalem during the spring. The local private collector who owns the box presented Lemaire with photographs of his treasure.
