[livius drusus]

I can't even believe a major metropolitan newspaper like the Los Angeles Times would publish such an astonishingly bullshit-filled article. Every single word in this first paragraph is flat-out wrong or so deceptive it borders on malpractice:

A limestone box bearing the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" in Aramaic appears to be genuine, the prestigious Biblical Archaeology Review said Wednesday in a long story written by editor Hershel Shanks. The ossuary, dating from AD 63, has been highly controversial, with Israeli authorities claiming it is a forgery and prosecuting antiquities dealer Oded Golan, who originally sold it. That trial ended in March when a judge dismissed the charges, saying that the prosecutor had not proved claims that the ossuary was a fake.

Let's break it down.

A limestone box bearing the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" in Aramaic appears to be genuine

The box is widely acknowledged to be genuine. Nobody that I know of contests the age of the ossuary itself.

the prestigious Biblical Archaeology Review said Wednesday

The BAR has a very strong pro-Biblical accuracy agenda. To call it "prestigious" suggests that it is a reputable unbiased scholarly journal. It's not. BAR made the announcement of the "find" at the first press conference.

in a long story written by editor Hershel Shanks.

Who has been pimping the inscription since the first day Oded took it off the back of the shitter on his roof and thrust it into the media spotlight.

The ossuary, dating from AD 63, has been highly controversial, with Israeli authorities claiming it is a forgery

The Israeli Antiquities Authority does not claim the ossuary is a forgery. It claims the inscription is a forgery.

and prosecuting antiquities dealer Oded Golan

The IAA is not an arm of the judiciary. Golan was prosecuted by a state prosecutor in a Jerusalem District Court.

who originally sold it.

He originally bought it under nebulous context-less circumstances. He still owns it.

That trial ended in March when a judge dismissed the charges

Uh no. See the title of this thread.

saying that the prosecutor had not proved claims that the ossuary was a fake.

Inscription. He said there was too much conflicting expert testimony for the court to determine whether the inscription was fake.

It doesn't get any better. The rest of the article is an uncritical repetition of Shanks' argument, complete with the constant conflation of ossuary and inscription. Then there's this absurd falsehood:

The controversial box was discovered in a private collection by paleographer Andre Lemaire of the Sorbonne University in Paris, but it has never been clear where the box was originally found.

Andre Lemaire was invited by Oden Golan to examine the ossuary at his apartment, the same apartment where shortly thereafter cops found a workshop filled with half-finished "antiquities."

Lemaire declared the inscription authentic and published it in, wait for it, the Biblical Archaeology Review. He discovered nothing. There was no "private collection" and it has never been clear where the box was originally found because Golan, like all so-called antiquities dealers who daily traffic in looted artifacts, is intentionally vague about where he got it and what he knows about its existence before then.

I don't even know what kind of retraction the LA Times could possibly print to make up for all the out-and-out lies in this article. It's appalling.