I thought people might be interested in a little update to James brother of Jesus Ossuary story:
Rough overview from my point of view:
Lots of people without the appropriate skill sets but with the appropriate biases decided to claim that the Ossuary was not a fake or was probably not a fake.
The IAA (Israel Antiquities Authority) has determined that it is a fake.
The alleged forger (Oded Golan) has been arrested for forging the inscription.
A shop owned by Golan with tools useful for forging antiquities was discovered.
Ancient text experts have suggested that just based on the text that the inscription is suspect because of unusual spelling. These unusual spellings are known on only one other artifact, and Golan had access to that artifact and that artifact might have served as source material for creating a fake inscription.
Other items that have passed through Golan's hands have been declared to be fakes by the IAA.
The Biblical Archeology Review that first published stories about it continues to push the idea that it might not be fake going so far as to publish a form where you can petition to reexamine the Ossuary for authenticity. The IAA has refused.
good overview article
http://www.davidrowan.com/2005/05/is-oded-golan-behind-biblical.html
esoteric scholarly criticism of IAA conclusion
http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbOOossuary_HarrellrespondstoJAS.pdf
bbc article on Golan and his fakes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/solomon_prog_summary.shtml
Archeology article on the Ossuary and Golan
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/ossuary/
IAA final report
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Committees_report.htm
BAR petition
http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbPetition.asp
One thing that I couldn't find was an update on Golan and the status of the charges against him. As late as April 2004 he was still out and about claiming that he was the victim of a great injustice at the hands of the IAA that was out to prove that only artifacts discovered at authorized dig sites are reliable and that artifacts without provenance are fakes.
My conclusion:
What a bunch of non-sense. This is a straightforward forgery case. Wishful and probably religiously biased views by pseudo-experts coupled with some potentially financially incentivized views by other experts allowed a routine hoax to be wildly misrepresented in the media.