Biblical Archaeology Review

See John Painter, Just James. The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1999), p. 3.

See Rahmani, Catalogue, number 9.

See Rahmani, Catalogue, numbers 9, 121, 140, 702 and 704.

See Rahmani, Catalogue, numbers 9, 12, 15, 16 (with heh) and number 573 (without heh).

See Rahmani, Catalogue, numbers 104, 396 and 678 (with waw) and numbers 290 and 865 (without waw).

The letters are generally very clear. The last letter of the name Joseph is a typical final pe. At the end of the upper stroke of the dalet is a lowering on the right. The following yod is slightly slanted and nearly as long as a waw. These two features appear from time to time in inscriptions from this period, especially on ossuaries. See Rahmani, Catalogue, number 801 for the dalet and numbers 125 and 218B for the yod.

See type 2 in Rahmani, Catalogue, p. 5.

Levi Yizhaq Rahmani, A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 1994), p. 11: “The choice of cheaper types should not be regarded as a sign of comparative poverty or of parsimony.”

Semahot 12:9. See Dov Zlotnick, The Tractate “Mourning” (Semahot): Regulations Relating to Death, Burial and Mourning (New Haven/London: Yale Univ. Press, 1966), p. 82.

See Elie Borowski, “Cherubim: God’s Throne?” BAR 21:04.