JERUSALEM, July 22, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Israeli police have put under house arrest, Oded Golan, the owner of the so-called “James Ossuary”, the fake ossuary that attempted to promote the idea that Jesus Christ had brothers. The trial has begun. The next session, will be held in Jerusalem, September 4, 2005.
A 27-page indictment in a Jerusalem court was based on a two-year investigation involving the Jerusalem police and the Israel Antiquities Authority. Golan was among the five charged with 17 counts of antiquities forgery and fraud in January 2005.
If they are found guilty they face the possibility of seven years in jail on each count. 100 witnesses are listed in the indictment. Hundreds of other artifacts are named in the indictment; some were in private collections and others exhibited in museums around the world.
Israeli antiquity experts were headlined in The Toronto Star of June 19, 2003 about the “James Ossuary”: `It is better to stop this… than to let it travel through the great museums of the world”. It took great intestinal fortitude for the Israel experts to admit that they were hoodwinked.
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, was the only museum to be caught up in this forgery and fraud when they displayed the “James Ossuary” in 2002. 95,000 visitors to the ROM were misled into believing that the ossuary inscription was genuine. To date, the ROM made no attempt to apologize for the massive error in judgement.
Meg Beckel, Board Secretary of the ROM, said in a letter dated February 24, 2005: “We are all waiting to see definitive evidence regarding the authenticity on the inscription on the James Ossuary. The ROM curators have yet to see any evidence that would change their view.”
Beckel insists that curators still have the same point of view and that they have not received information about the `James Ossuary’ from what they consider reliable sources. It does not appear that ROM has plans to have their curators go to Jerusalem in September when the court case resumes to “see any evidence that would change their view”.
The five suspects, including Golan, alleged that the ossuary was linked to a brother of Jesus. The inscription reads: “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”. They were suspected of running a sophisticated forgery ring that operated in various configurations for more than 20 years, according to Shuka Dorfman, the Director-General of the Israel Antiquities Authority
“We have discovered only the tip of the ice berg,” said Dorfman, “This spans the globe and has generated millions of dollars. Normally the Authority does not get involved in forgery investigations, but when officials realized these forgeries were an “attempt to change the history of Jewish and Christian people by making forgeries that had significance in the Jewish and Christian world,” the Authority felt it had no choices but to investigate.
“We draw the line at the changing of history.” Dorfman said.
Golan, an antiquities dealer, denied all charges and said that the charges were an attempt by the Authority to “destroy the local antiquities trade”. However, detailed findings by materials and historical experts demonstrate definitively that, while the ossuary is authentic, the inscription was a forgery.
See the report of the Final Report of the Israeli Antiquities Authority Investigation:
https://www.antiquities.org.il/article_Item_eng.asp?module_id=&sec_id=17&subj_id=175&id=266
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