Archaeological Evidence of Jesus’ Existence?

“EVIDENCE of Jesus Written in Stone.” So proclaimed the cover of Biblical Archaeology Review (November/December 2002). That cover featured a limestone bone box, an ossuary, that was found in Israel. Ossuaries were widely used among the Jews during the brief period between the first century B.C.E. and 70 C.E. What made this one especially significant was an Aramaic inscription on one side. Scholars acknowledged its reading: “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”

According to the Bible, Jesus of Nazareth had a brother named James who was considered a son of Joseph, the husband of Mary. When Jesus Christ taught in his hometown, the astounded audience asked: “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?”​—Matthew 13:54-56; Luke 4:22; John 6:42.

Yes, the inscription on the ossuary fits the description of Jesus the Nazarene. If the James mentioned in the inscription was the half brother of Jesus Christ, then it would be “the oldest extrabiblical archaeological evidence of Jesus,” asserts André Lemaire, an authority on ancient inscriptions and the writer of the aforementioned article in Biblical Archaeology Review. Hershel Shanks, editor of the magazine, notes that the ossuary “is something tactile and visible reaching back to the single most important personage ever to walk the earth.”

However, all three names readable on the inscribed ossuary were common in the first century. So it is possible that a family whose members included a James, a Joseph, and a Jesus existed apart from the family of Jesus Christ. Lemaire estimates: “In Jerusalem during the two generations before 70 C.E., there were . . . probably about 20 people who could be called ‘James/Jacob son of Joseph brother of Jesus.’” Nevertheless, he feels that there is a 90-percent chance that the James on the ossuary was the half brother of Jesus Christ.

There is another factor that makes some believe that the James in the inscription was Jesus Christ’s half brother. Although it was common to mention the father of the deceased in such inscriptions, it was very rare to name a brother. Therefore, some scholars believe that this Jesus must have been somebody important, causing them  to think that he was Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity.

Is the Ossuary Authentic?

What is an ossuary? It is a box, or chest, into which the bones of a deceased person were put after the body had decayed in a burial cave. Many ossuaries were looted from burial places around Jerusalem. The box with the James inscription emerged from the antiquities market, not from an official excavation site. The owner of the artifact is said to have bought it for a few hundred dollars in the 1970’s. Thus, the origin of the ossuary is shrouded in mystery. “If you cannot say where an artifact was found and where it has been for nearly 2,000 years, you cannot pretend to draw the lines of connection between the object and the people it might mention,” says Professor Bruce Chilton of Bard College, New York.

To offset the lack of archaeological background, André Lemaire sent the box to the Geological Survey of Israel. The researchers there verified that the ossuary was made of limestone from the first or second century C.E. They reported that “no sign of the use of a modern tool or instrument was found.” Still, Bible scholars interviewed by The New York Times expressed the opinion that “the circumstantial evidence supporting a link to Jesus was possibly strong, but circumstantial nonetheless.”

Time magazine commented that “almost no educated person these days doubts that Jesus lived.” Still, many feel that there ought to be evidence in addition to the Bible of Jesus’ existence. Should archaeology be the basis for one’s belief in Jesus Christ? What evidence do we have of the historicity of “the single most important personage ever to walk the earth”?

[Picture Credit Lines on page 3]

Left, James Ossuary: AFP PHOTO/J.P. Moczulski; right, inscription: AFP PHOTO/HO