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T h e A p o l o g i s t ’ s E y e
Burial Box of St. James Found?
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 10
 December 2002 
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In October it was announced in Biblical Archaeology Review that a first-century stone ossuary had been discovered that is believed to have held the bones of St. James, the brother of Jesus, also known as James the Just. Ossuaries, stone boxes used to hold the bones of a dead person, were used widely by Palestinian Jews between 20 B.C. and A.D. 70.
The ossuary bears the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." It was bought years ago by a Jewish collector who did not realize its potential significance until he asked Andre Lemaire of the Sorbonne, a paleographer (an expert in ancient writing), to translate its Aramaic inscription.
James, Joseph, and Jesus were common names in first-century Palestine, and Lemaire estimates that there may have been as many as twenty men in Jerusalem named James who had fathers named Joseph and brothers named Jesus. Nevertheless, Lemaire and other experts believe it probable that the James whose bones this ossuary contained was the one referred to in the New Testament as "the brother of the Lord" (Gal. 1:19).
It is rare for brothers to be named in ossuary inscriptions. (Of the hundreds of such ossuaries that have been found, only two name a brother as well as the father.) It is unlikely that there were other men named James with a father named Joseph and a brother named Jesus who was important enough to warrant mention on an ossuary.
If authentic, the discovery provides the earliest known inscriptional evidence for the historical reality of Jesus and confirms two of his family relationships. The only first-century data on Jesus and his family comes from literary sources such as the New Testament and—with important qualifications—from the Jewish historian Josephus.
Some non-Catholics touted the box as evidence against the perpetual virginity of Mary, but this does not follow. The ossuary identifies its James as the son of Joseph and the brother of Jesus; it does not identify him as the son—much less the biological son—of Mary.
The only point that Catholic doctrine holds regarding the "brethren of the Lord" (Matt. 12:46, 13:55; Mark 3:31–34; Luke 8:19–20; John 2:12, 7:3, et al) is that they are not biological children of Mary. They may have been Jesus’ adoptive brothers, stepbrothers through Joseph, or—according to one popular theory—cousins. As has often been pointed out, Aramaic had no word for cousin, and so the word for brother was used in its place. This inscription is in Aramaic, and so there would be little surprise if it were being used in that way.
While the inscription does not establish the "brethren of the Lord" as biological children of Mary, it does have an impact on which theory may best explain the relationship of the "brethren" to Jesus. If James, the "brother" of the Lord, had been Jesus’ cousin, it would be unlikely for him also to have had a father named Joseph. This diminishes the probability of the cousin theory and makes it more likely that this James was a stepbrother or an adoptive brother of Jesus.
The stepbrother hypothesis is, in fact, the earliest one on record. It is endorsed by a document known as the Protoevangelium of James, which dates to the year A.D. 120 (James died in A.D. 62). According to the Protoevangelium, Joseph was an elderly widower at the time he was betrothed to Mary. He had a family already and thus was willing to become the guardian of a virgin consecrated to God.
After the discovery of the box was announced, some paleographers argued that "brother of Jesus" was a later addition to the original inscription. All agree, though, that the box is first-century and that both parts of the inscription are ancient.
Bottom line: If the ossuary of James bar-Joseph is that of James the brother of the Lord, it sheds light on which of the theories Catholics are permitted to hold is most likely the correct one. It does nothing to refute Catholic doctrine. If authentic—as seems probable—it should be welcomed as further archaeological confirmation of the life of our Lord.
Legal Battle Erupts over ‘Morning After’ Pill
A religious-discrimination complaint has been filed against the Louisiana Health Department on behalf of a health-care worker who claims she’s being discriminated against because of her refusal to dispense the "morning after" pill.
Cynthia Day, a nurse at a clinic in New Orleans, said she has repeatedly told her supervisors that she can’t dispense the pill because she believes life is sacred and begins at fertilization. Day claimed she has been criticized for her religious beliefs and that her employer has threatened to fire her because of her refusal to dispense the pregnancy-ending medication.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a public-interest law firm representing Day, maintains that her employer, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, is discriminating against the nurse because of her religious beliefs. It filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Louisiana Commission on Human Rights.
"There is no question that the health department could have another employee dispense the medication instead of our client," said the ACLJ’s Stuart Roth. "But health department officials have not only rejected our request to accommodate our client’s religious beliefs, they continue to threaten and intimidate her in a manner that is both unprofessional and unlawful."
The case won’t mark the first time makes an appearance in court because of the "morning after" pill. Last May, the ACLJ convinced a California jury that Riverside County had violated the constitutional rights of a former nurse when it fired her for refusing to dispense the same medication. The jury found the county violated the woman’s First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of religion. It also ruled the county failed to reasonably accommodate her religious beliefs. Damages in that case totaled $100,000.
Anglican Priests Gay-Friendly
Vicars across Britain are defying the Church of England’s strict ban on blessings for gay couples by presiding over hundreds of such ceremonies every year.
During an October investigation by The Sunday Telegraph, in the space of less than a week, reporters posing as gay couples were offered blessings by 14 different vicars. The clergy, chosen at random, were happy to help the couples even though they were strangers who had no connection with the local church or the parish.
Blessing gay couples, either in church or in private, is forbidden by Anglican canon law. But Richard Kirker, the general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said he knew of about 70 priests who together blessed around 450 homosexual couples a year. "They believe in all good conscience that it is more important to care for people and offer God’s grace and blessing than obey rules that they have no respect for and which they do not feel are justified and are pastorally very damaging," he said.
While all the vicars approached by the Telegraph were aware that their actions were contrary to the rules of the Church of England, many felt that they had to be true to their conscience, even if that meant defying their bishop. One vicar in the diocese of Southwark said, "I don’t ask my bishop for permission to bless the sick, bless shrines or bless animals, so why should I go to him when I want to bless a committed and loving gay couple?"
Observers in England said the vicars’ actions would place further pressure on Rowan Williams, the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, to enforce his church’s teachings on the issue or face a damaging split. Williams recently refused calls by traditionalists to condemn homosexuality, reiterating his belief that he could find nothing in the Bible to support the idea of homosexuality as sinful.
Skittish about Abstinence
In October Miss America pageant officials ordered Erika Harold, Miss America 2003, not to talk publicly about sexual abstinence, a cause she has advocated to teenage girls in her home state of Illinois.
A friend of Harold’s told The Washington Times that George Bauer, interim chief executive officer of the Miss America organization, and other pageant officials had directed her to talk only about the issue of youth-violence prevention and to say nothing about sexual abstinence. Harold, a 22-year-old from Urbana, Illinois, advocated premarital chastity through the years she traveled Illinois on behalf of Project Reality, a Chicago-based nonprofit that has been a pioneer in the field of abstinence education. By the time she won the Miss Illinois crown in June, Miss Harold had presented that message to more than 14,000 young people.
Since 1990, Miss America and affiliated state pageants have required contestants to adopt an official "platform" issue. Miss Harold won the Miss Illinois contest with her platform of "Teenage Sexual Abstinence: Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself." But state pageant officials instead selected "teen violence prevention" as her Miss America contest platform because they deemed it more "pertinent," her father told an Illinois newspaper.
After press reports of the flap, Bauer removed the restriction after "intense discussions," according to Harold.
"I don’t think the pageant organizers really understood how much I am identified with the abstinence message," Miss Harold told reporters at a ceremony in Oak Brook Terrace to crown her successor as Miss Illinois. "If I don’t speak about it now as Miss America, I will be disappointing the thousands of young people throughout Illinois who need assurance that waiting until marriage for sex is the right thing to do."
Young-Adults Catechism Is in the Works
Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Education, hopes that a new catechism aimed at young adults will be ready for Vatican review by November 2003.
While in Rome marking the tenth anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the bishop spoke bluntly about the need for catechesis in the United States. "Our American culture is aggressively secular, to such an extent that the environment can be actually hostile to Christian faith," he said. "In fact, the heavy emphasis on the individual and his or her rights has greatly eroded the concept of the common good and its ability to call people to something beyond themselves."
Yet, "on the brighter side, there is a sense among many of our young people that the secular, material world does not provide them sufficient answers for their lives," Bishop Wuerl said. "Over and over, the phenomena of youth gatherings from as large as World Youth Day to as modest as small parish programs speak of the searching for value and direction that characterizes a growing number of our faithful. There is a hunger for God and the things of the Spirit but it needs to be encouraged, informed, and directed."
Bishop Wuerl anticipates that by November 2003 the new catechism "will be ready for final approval by the Conference of Bishops. Following this, it will be sent to the Holy See for recognitio."
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