It hardly seems possible that it was seven years ago that Hershel Shanks and I wrote the book The Brother of Jesus (Harper) about the James ossuary. It is also hard to believe that the trial of the owner of the James ossuary, Oded Golan, has gone on now for four long years, and hopefully will reach its conclusion this year.
We are now in the phase of the trial where the defense is presenting its case for exoneration, and the case appears to be impressive. Most recently (see the BAR website article posted June 15th at www.bib-arch.org) the defense has been presenting new scientific evidence from further testing of the patina (ancient residue deposits in the letters of the inscription reading 'Jacov son of Joseph, his brother is Yeshua') that the inscription could not have been produced in the last century, thus exonerating Golan of the charge of forgery of an inscription. The evidence for ancient patina in at least some of the letters of the inscription (in particular in the word Jesus) was admitted by Yuval Goran speaking on behalf of the prosecution, And of course that is the one word in the inscription most likely to have been added by a later forger, but in fact it is genuine.
Now what are the implications of both Golan's exoneration (one matter) and the ossuary having a genuine inscription on it (a separate matter)? Well for one thing the IAA is going to have a lot of egg on its face, and will have wasted a lot of money and time in a fruitless and vindictive law suit. But more importantly for historical reasons, the James ossuary will once again provide us with vital extra-Biblical evidence about the holy family, its social status and inter-relationships, and of course the historical existence of James, Joseph, and Jesus. So much for the 'God who doesn't exist' documentary. History and archaeological evidence has a way of making liars of the more extreme skeptics eventually.
Of course if the James ossuary is indeed genuine and genuinely a relic of the Holy family, it provides us with an inconvenient truth for some Catholics and Orthodox Christians who believe Jesus had no blood brothers and Mary had no other children than Jesus. But there will be time enough to discuss that more down the road. For now it is sufficient to stress that rumors of the forgery of the inscription on the James ossuary appear to be greatly exaggerated, and the attempts to rebury the ossuary and its important historical information have failed. This is only what we might expect since the occupant of the James box was a firm believer in resurrection, his brother's and in due course, his own. :) As for me, I stand by all that was said in the Brother of Jesus and look forward to further revelations about and testing of the James box.
For those interested in the sort of skullduggery (and I do mean skull duggery, since skulls are being dug up) involved in matters archaeological in the Holy Land, you might well enjoyed my historical novel The Lazarus Effect, which now has a sequel entitled Roman Numerals about more such dastardly deeds.
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That was a very instructive and persuasive overview, Phil W. It makes a sold case, at least from the Protestant point of view.
I can imagine a Catholic response which would claim that a growing understanding of Mary's divine and immaculate nature over the centuries, attested to by many Saints and miracles, would trump even a plain-sense inference from scripture and the opinions of the Fathers. They would have a harder time with such a claim if there were statments in the gosples specifically asserting conjugal relations between Mary and Joseph after the birth of Jesus and saying something like, "And Mary gave birth to James when Jesus was four years old." That's much harder to evade than the question of whether 'adelphoi' can = 'cousins'.
To some extent, though, all churches (even those who most adamantly affirm "sola scriptura") cannot help but to see the scriptures through the lens of a lengthy communal experience of living in Christ. It is the experience of seeing the fruits of faith which help to make the gospel credible at the deepest level (or not, if what we have seen is injustice, bigotry and trauma).
Among Orthodox Jews, Talmud trumps Torah, even though Torah is more sacred, because Torah is more a mystical manifestation of the presence of God than a mere book; its letters are the DNA of the cosmos. The "plain sense" of the books of Moses are potentially a snare for the naive, and only the accumulated wisdom of the sages can reveal the true meaning.
Again, all churches do the same sort of thing to some extent, because words on a page alone can never translate directly to life in the Spirit. But Protestantism tries to make the connection between text and faith as direct as humanly possible, in order to bring the believer as close to God as possible, without intermediary. (A Catholic would scoff and say that nothing can bring us closer to Christ than taking him physically into our bodies in the mass.) Protestant churches thrive to the extent that they can make the vine which grows from text to a living faith verdant and flowering in works and love.
Thank you, Phil W
Fr. Terry Donahue,
Dr. Svendsen has conducted a survey of "heos hou" (which is what needs to be looked at, not just "heos" by itself) throughout the New Testament and contemporary ANE literature:
"This construction [heos hou] is used in Matt. 1:25 and so is of special interest here. It occurs only seventeen times in the NT, and all are temporal. Two of these have the meaning 'while' (Matt. 14:22; 26:36), whereas the other fifteen occurrences are instances in which the action of the main clause is limited by the action of the subordinate clause and require the meaning 'until a specified time (but not after)'" (Who Is My Mother? [Calvary Press, 2001] p. 52).
His survey is extensive, covering many pages, and lists examples such as Matthew 17:9, Luke 22:18, Acts 21:26 and 2 Peter 1:19. The evidence strongly suggests that Matthew did not view Mary as a perpetual virgin.
I'm familiar with Dr. Svensen's survey and his claim "that heõs hou in all the literature of the two centuries surrounding the birth of Christ, when it means 'until,' always terminates the action of the main clause. That is an irrefutable fact".
This claim is demonstrably false. I'd suggest the following rebuttals by John Pacheco and David Palm
Heõs Hou and the Protestant Polemic http://www.catholic-legate.com/articles/heoshou.html
The Non-Rule of Mr. Svendsen http://www.catholic-legate.com/articles/heoserrors11.html
Fr. Terry Donahue, CC:
Thanks for the links.
While the articles you linked to seem to demonstrate that some of what Dr. Svensen claims about the meaning of heôs hou may be incorrect (since I have not read his paper(s), I don't know exactly what he says or claims other than the short quotes the articles excerpted), I don't think they prove that the meaning of Matthew 1:25 is that Joseph kept Mary a virgin after Jesus' birth.
Note that I'm not saying that's what the critics of Dr. Svensen were attempting to do. Rather, it seems to me that debunking Dr. Svensen's claim leaves us with Matthew 1:25 not clearly saying anything one way or the other re: Mary's postpartum virginity. (And I think that's what the authors of the linked articles say, too.)
I think, though, that if Matthew had wanted to make the point that Mary remained a virgin after Jesus' birth, he would have written something other than (or more than) what he did.
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