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While Biblical Archaeology Review has defended the James Ossuary, it has been more antagonistic to the Jehoash (Joash) Tablet, calling it a fake months before the IAA's assessment. Now the magazine has changed its position, publishing an article suggesting that the inscription may be authentic after all.

"What do we really know about the Hebrew of official royal inscriptions of Judah in the ninth to eighth centuries B.C.E.? The answer is rather simple: not much," writes University of California at, San Diego historian David Noel Freedman. "To say, therefore, that the language of the Jehoash inscription is inconsistent with what we would expect of such a royal inscription from the time of Jehoash is to assert an authority that is not merely audacious, but imaginative. … for the moment, we must conclude with a Scottish verdict: not proven. The verdict at this time is in effect a non-verdict. We simply don't know with any reasonable certainty whether it is a fake or authentic."

"Four leading scientists" agree, and are calling for a new examination of the tablet, according to the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha'aretz.

"Scholars who expressed the clear opinion that the inscription was a forgery were invited to the committee, while those who believed otherwise, such as the two scientists from the Geological Institute, were disqualified," complains Haim Cohen of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "There is nothing philological in the inscription that attests to its being a forgery. I can categorically refute all the evidence that my colleagues have brought up in concluding that it is a forgery. I can explain everything written there from a linguistic point of view as suited to the biblical period, to the period of Jehoash, the ninth century BCE. And I am not the only philologist who thinks so."

Cohen and the three other scholars also allege that "professional errors were made in dealing with the issue, which led to hasty conclusions." (So far, the IAA isn't responding.)

Cohen still isn't a fan of the tablet's owner. "Golan has a lot of explaining to do," he said. "There are a lot of questions about his behavior. He needs to answer to the police on these matters, and if necessary in court, but our task is to fully examine his claims that the inscription is authentic, and this has not been done. I personally find it difficult to believe that Golan has the expertise to carry out such a high level forgery. We are dealing with one of two things. Either the inscription is authentic, or the forger is a genius, and I find it difficult to believe that Golan is a genius."

Meanwhile, Golan is defending himself against charges that he's part of a massive forgery ring. "The number of times that I have sold or mediated in a sale of antiquities in my entire life is smaller than the number of fingers on my hands, and this in itself is much smaller than the number of sales or exchanges performed by any serious antiquities collector I know in the world," Golan said in an article responding to a recent Israel television documentary. "In all my 42 years of collecting antiquities, I have never sold a single item to any individual or institution outside Israel."

Christian attacked in India:

• Christians attacked at prayer meet | Nine people including three children who had gathered for prayers at a house in Koparkhairane, Navi Mumbai, last Friday, were assaulted by a large group of men (Mid Day, Mumbai, India)
  
  

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March (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48