Several readers have sent me links to stories announcing the indictment of Oded Golan, et al., for antiquities fraud.
Golan, you may remember, was the (initially anonyous) guy in Israel who claimed to own an ossuary of St. James that mentioned Jesus. Golan is also charged with being involved in a conspiracy that falsified artifacts of interest to the Jewish faith as well (e.g., an ivory pommegranate and a tablet linked to the Temple).
It very well be true that Golan has been involved in a conspiracy to commit fraud, and I would be quite happy to see the ossuary inscription and those on the other items proved to be forgeries (nobody doubts that they are ancient; the question is whether the inscriptions, or parts of them, are).
But I know something about the politics of antiquities in Israel, and I would not take the indictment, or even the conviction, of people in an Israeli court as proof positive of forgery. (I’d look more to the scholarly community to settle that matter.) The Israeli government has been known to manipulate situations involving antiquities to its own advantage, and the following is a real possibility:
Golan said in a statement Wednesday that "there is not one grain of
truth in the fantastic allegations related to me," and that the
investigation was aimed at "destroying collecting and trade in
antiquities in Israel."
Archaeology is a highly politicized field in Israel, and the officials in charge of the Israeli antiquities authority are so untrustworthy that some archaeologists are leaving some holy sites deliberately unexplored archaeologically lest, if they were opened up to that, the Israeli officials drop an ancient Jewish artifact on the ground and then use it as a pretext for seizing control of the whole site. Owners of sites of historical interest to Christians (inlcuding one of the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem) have been unable to get Israeli courts to defend their property rights when they have been forcibly taken over by Israeli citizens. It would not be beyond the realm of possibility that the Israeli government would choose to use a fraud case to destroy the reputation of an archaeological link to Jesus.
So the point is, I don’t know who is lying here.
Maybe both parties are.
I’m skeptical both of the box and of the Israeli officials’ charges against it.
Because of how highly political the situation is, though, I should note that my skepticism on this matter does not mean that I am "against Israel" or "on the side of the Palestinians" or anything like that. I’m not on anybody’s side over there. Being skeptical of the Israeli antiquities officials does not mean one is anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian. It’s just a recognition of the situation.
That being said, if Golan and his associates are guilty of fraud, I want them locked up for a long time as a warning to others. Messing with the world’s knowledge of its archaeological patrimony is a horrible crime against history and, in the case of biblical archaeology (Jewish or Christian), it’s a crime against religion.
I actually spent something like $12 (Canadian, which at the time was like $0.50 US 🙂 to see that bone box when it came to T.O. shortly after the big brew-ha-ha of its “discovery”.
I was reading the newspaper today and apparently some artifact from Solomon’s Temple that was being shown at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa as part of an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls was just found out to be a forgery. It is actually much older than the temple, but had an inscription forged on it to make it look like it was from Solomon’s era. Not sure if it’s the same suspects.