The James Ossuary and Pantera (Again!)
I wanted here to offer a few notes and observations in response to Jack Poirier’s on-line review of my book, The Jesus Dynasty on the Jerusalem Perspectives Web site. I would not attempt to respond here to the underlying theological differences between us, and how Mr. Poirier’s assumptions differ from my own as a “liberal scholar,” nor to the tone and attitude Mr. Poirier adopts in his review. I will leave that to readers of my book and of his review to judge. I do want, however, to get some facts straight in the hope of bringing some clarity to a number of points he raises.
1. Regarding the tombs and ossuaries that I discuss in the “Introduction” of my book, it is not the case that the “vast majority of scholars” have concluded that the James ossuary is a forgery, as Mr. Poirier states. First there is no dispute about the authenticity of the ossuary itself. Second, even the Israel Antiquities Authority committee did not claim the entire inscription was forged, but only that the words “brother of Jesus” were added by the owner Oded Golan. So minimally, we have an ossuary that reads “James son of Joseph.” Finally, the results of the patina tests, upon which the forgery conclusion was based, have been questioned by a number of other competent experts, most recently Prof. Wolgang Krumbein, and it remains a fact that no qualified epigrapher has yet taken the position that the inscription is forged. In fact, Ada Yardeni, one of the best in the business, has said if the ossuary inscription is a forgery she will quit her job! All of the relevant materials, pro and con, are nicely archived at the Biblical Archaeology Review Web site. If anyone cares to spend a bit of time browsing those hundreds of pages of documents it will be abundantly clear that the James ossuary and its authenticity and provenance are far from settled.
Mr. Poirier mentions a number of other points regarding the ossuary in an effort to imply that my discussion is flawed and uninformed—that I have the dimensions wrong, that the missing Talpiot ossuary is described as “plain,” so it could not have been inscribed, and that I ignore the worn rosettes on the reverse side of the ossuary. Unfortunately, Mr. Poirier, in taking me to task, seems to have not kept up with some of the most basic parameters of the discussion, whether the Krumbein report, the re-measuring of the James ossuary, or the details of when and how the missing 10th ossuary was catalogued and described and by whom. I have examined all the ossuaries I discuss, have copies of the original excavation notes of the late Joseph Gath, the excavator, and I have consulted extensively with Dr. Gibson, who was part of the original team. As far as I know what I present in my “Introduction” is accurate and if I find that I am mistaken I will gladly revise it in future editions.
It is the case that I do not attempt to adjudicate between the two tombs I discuss and their possible links to the James ossuary. I present the evidence for each to the best of my knowledge at the time I wrote and I left things open, pending further tests, whether DNA or patina. I fail to see how or why Mr. Poirier would find my presentation in any way strange or slight of hand. Unfortunately, in the world of the antiquities markets it is often the case that we simply cannot be sure of the provenance of certain items, though we can often present what appears to be best evidence. This is even true for the provenance of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were turned in by Bedouin in the early days of their discovery.
2. With regard to the Pantera tradition, and the dating of the birth of Jesus, Mr. Poirier has misunderstood a number of important points. I do not base my discussion of the Pantera evidence on a number of “anti-Christian” writers. To the contrary, the earliest references to Jesus as “son of Pantera” come from Jewish sources, where the name is mentioned for identification purposes, not in an effort to besmirch his reputation. Further, it is the case that early Christian writers, in responding to the anti-Christian claims, never deny the validity of the name, or that it is indeed part of the Jesus family lineage, but just that Pantera was not Jesus’ father—but his grandfather. In fact, the idea that Pantera is a play on the Greek word for virgin (parthenos), which Mr. Poirier thinks is the best explanation for the origin of the name, is a modern apologetic invention dating to the 17th century. Apparently our ancient sources took the name as a real person from the Jesus family, and now that an ossuary from a Jewish tomb in Jerusalem has been found with that name, the “pun for virgin” explanation seems rather moot. Mr. Poirier tells us that the name Pantera was popular in the Roman army, and somewhat equivalent to calling an American soldier “Joe.” I have looked at all the extant occurrences of “Pantera” in its various spelling of which I am am aware and the evidence seems to show that it is relatively uncommon, certainly under 1% in terms of standard onomastic statistics for Greco-Roman Greek and Latin names.
My date for the birth of Jesus is 5 B.C. so I am not clear as to why Mr. Poirier thinks that I challenge “the gospel’s dating of the birth narratives.” I have no idea of the details of any potential union between Mary and someone named Pantera, nor how or when he might have become a Roman soldier, and I do not connect her pregnancy with presence of the Roman legions from Syria following the death of Herod. My assumption, given the character of Mary, was that the pregnancy was honorable (see my Blog of September 29, 2006 “Joining the Slanderers”), at least in the eyes of those that mattered. My entire point on this matter is that the name should be taken seriously as a real name, referring to a person who existed, and not as a pun. Jesus’ father is unknown, but I do think he had a human father, and I felt obligated, as an historian, to lay out for readers what does survive in this regard from our ancient sources. Mr. Poirier does not tell us what he thinks in this regard, or whether he thinks that Jesus had no father at all, so it may well be that we are really pursuing very different agendas here.