Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land (Hardcover)

by Nina Burleigh (Author)
Key Phrases: james ossuary, fake patina, ivory pomegranate, Oded Golan, Tel Aviv, Holy Land (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In November 2002, the public display of an ossuary (an ancient burial vessel) inscribed James, the brother of Jesus, sent ripples of excitement, doubt and consternation through both the religious and scholarly worlds. But when scholars took a close look, they declared the inscription a forgery based on the lack of provenance and a tremendous disparity between the physical writing of the word James and the rest of the inscription. In her captivating chronicle, veteran journalist Burleigh (Mirage) enters a dark world full of shady dealings, illicit collectors and monomaniacal archeologists. Along the way we meet an improbable cast of characters, including Oded Golan, the ossuary's owner; André Lemaire, an epigraphist who early on testified to the authenticity of the ossuary's inscription; Shlomo Moussaieff, a billionaire collector with a warehouse full of artifacts of uncertain value; and Israel Finkelstein, a maverick Israeli archeologist who questions the historicity of many biblical events. Burleigh draws readers in from page one and brilliantly captures the compelling debates about archeology's relationship to narratives of faith. (Nov.)
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From Booklist
Shrewd and piquant journalist Burleigh, whose last book, Mirage (2007), offers fresh insights into the discovery of the Rosetta stone, tells the full story behind one of the “greatest hoaxes of all times,” the ancient stone box that was presented to the world in 2002 as the ossuary that held the bones of Jesus’ brother, James. With brio and acumen, Burleigh follows the trail of antiquities fraud in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, visiting collectors’ lairs, biblical sites, and archaeological digs. She wryly profiles Oded Golan, the man responsible for the fraudulent ossuary, and Amir Ganor, the Israel Antiquities Authority investigator who broke the case, as well as a motley crew of scholars, tomb looters, dealers, true believers, and antiquities forgers. But Burleigh is most intrigued with the mix of science and wishful thinking that characterizes biblical archaeology as Israel struggles to preserve evidence of this bloodied land’s Jewish heritage, and Christians seek Holy Land artifacts that allegedly offer “physical proof of biblical stories.” In all, a provocative inquiry into the age-old pairing of faith and folly. --Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian (October 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061458457
• ISBN-13: 978-0061458453
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #508,524 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excavating the Gold From This Pile of Dust, July 30, 2008

By	Daniel Bay Gibbons (Salt Lake City, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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(Review is based upon Uncorrected Proof)

While reading this book I felt at times like a field archaeologist, sifting through piles of rubble and dirt to find a few precious artifacts of gold. The gold is there, to be sure, in small nuggets. You just have to be willing to dig for it.

Part travelogue, part human interest story, part crime report, part reporter's notepad, the genre of this book is difficult to pin down. It reminded me in many ways of Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses (P.S.) (without the religious insight) or Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy(without the recipes). My initial annoyance and disappointment with "Unholy Business" was ultimately tempered when I realized that I was not reading a scholarly work on archaeology, history, linguistics or even criminal forensics, but a kind of breezy and highly personalized travelogue. In hindsight this is not surprising, as Nina Burleigh is listed as a staff writer for "People" magazine, which I dip into briefly during almost every visit to my doctor. The writing of "Unholy Business" fits precisely within the human-interest story found in "People." As a history, I would give the book a single star. As human-interest story cum travelogue, it deserves two stars, possibly the three awarded here.

Three supposed archeological artifacts figure prominently in this book: The James Ossuary (supposedly the repository for the bones of James, the brother of Jesus), the Joash Tablet (supposedly bearing an inscription which proved the existence of the First Temple) and a carved ivory pomegranate (supposedly an ornament for a small priest's scepter used in the First Temple). These are--or ought to be--the heart of the book. The problem is that Burleigh spends most of the book talking about background issues--the teeming and corrupt antiquities market in Jerusalem, the 30,000 archaeological sites in Israel, the tension between Orthodox Jews and American Evangelical Christians, and so forth--and only really gets to the crux of the matter in the latter half of the book. Hence, I feel like a digger on an archeological grid, sifting through sand, hoping to ultimately uncover the precious artifacts.

Some additional comments and observations:

1. My chief problem with this book was Burleigh herself and her decision to write this book. I kept asking myself, "What qualifies this person to write a book about the world surrounding the cradle of Judaism, Islam and Christianity?" I never found a satisfying answer. To be sure Burleigh is a fine reporter. Indeed, much of the book reads like a verbatim transcript of a reporter's notebook. But what really qualifies her to write this story? To her credit, Burleigh admits that she has virtually no background in the world of religion. "My own religious training was nonexistent," she says on page 19. Her only admitted contact with "believers" from any religious tradition came from Mennonite missionaries who visited her childhood home in the 1960's and 1970's. "From them I learned that there are some very decent people who live every waking minute in a state of unshakeable faith in an otherworldly power," she wrote. I question whether this fleeting contact with Mennonite missionaries in the United States qualifies her to get into the heads of any "believer" of any tradition. Her true bias against "believers" is revealed by her description of Jerusalem, as the location of "the death match between reason and superstition--monitored by laughing commerce." To her, belief is tantamount to "superstition." I am suspicious of any writer, reporter or otherwise, who presumes to understand a subject as complex as Jerusalem from that smug, self-satisfied height of self-delusional "reason."

2. I also question her understanding of the historical background of her subject. She exhibits a shallow understanding only--a reporter's understanding--of archaeology, of linguistics, of the Dead Sea Scrolls, of politics. For example she says innocently, "No one had ever found an archaeological object linked to the First Temple." (Page 17). My slack-jawed reaction was, "Uhhhh.. you mean, other than THE TEMPLE MOUNT ITSELF!!" Later she says of the Temple, "the remains of the platform that once supported this temple are known as the Wailing Wall or the Western Wall." (Pg. 16). This is ridiculously false and simplistic. The Temple Mount covers many acres. The western wall is only the smallest of the remains of a retaining wall--mostly Herodian--some distance removed from the actual foundation marks of the First Temple, plainly visible under the Dome of the Rock. Later she makes the wide-eyed claim that the purpose of the Temple was solely house the Ark of the Covenant. This is all very Indiana Jones-like in its simplicity, but it fails to do justice to the richness, the depth, the complexity and the profound significance of the First Temple, its environs, its service, its priesthood and everything that flowed out from it culturally, historically and spiritually.

3. On its face, the book appears well-organized. The chapters have appropriate titles, and even insightful and inviting quotations leading into the prose. The chapters are divided into distinct sections, usually focusing on personalities involved in the antiquities trade, scholars, archaeologists, police, etc. But the Prologue and Epilogue are rather jarring and disjointed. The Epilogue ought in some ways to be a satisfying culimination of the Prologue, or its mirror image. The Epilogue ought to bring us full circle, perhaps returning even slightly to the not unsympathetic portrait of Ada, the idiosyncratic epigrapher toiling in her fascinating home. But here Burleigh's epilogue seems unrelated stylistically or thematically with the strong Prologue. This Epilogue is more of a Joe Friday, Dragnet-style denouement: "In 2004 the Jerusalem District Attorney submitted Criminal File 482/04 with the District Court of Jerusalem..." (Page 243). We almost await Joe Friday's laconic voice intoning, "In a moment, the results of that trial."

4. Overall, her multitude of character sketches are beautifully done, but there is also much by way of very lazy description. Particularly annoying were the many character descriptions related to popular culture. When Burleigh gets lazy and can't come up with her own description, she uses the shorthand of popular movies and culture. Some examples of weak personal descriptions: "Her gap-toothed smile and sleepy eyes suggest the sultry actress Ellen Barkin" (Pg.1); "[A]n impish face reminiscent of Joel Grey in the movie Cabaret..." (Pg. 12); "an odd duck--lawyer, crank, P.T. Barnum, and Indiana Jones all rolled into one man" and comparable to "a Saul Bellow character" (Pg. 33); "Seeking a real-life Indiana Jones, one could do worse than visit Seymour Gitin...." (Pg. 91); and "A tanned, jocular man, he greeted us in the standard uniform of the dirt archaeologist--Indiana Jones hat, sweat-stained T-shirt, shorts and sandals" (Pg. 95). If Burleigh mentioned Indiana Jones one more time in her book, I was ready to jump off of the top of the Wailing Wall.

5. Really, this book reads much like the unredacted notepad of a newspaper reporter. We get too much here. There is too much Nina Burleigh here, and not enough James Ossuary. Her prejudices and quirks and likes and dislikes, continually obtrude themselves into the narrative. Examples: "In an interview over rugelach and black coffee at Morty's Deli in Washington..." (Pg. 54); He was "barely into his first cup of Nescafe when he received a call..." (Pg. 64). This is way too much information for my taste.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Story about Archaeological Fraud, August 3, 2008

By	Sires (It's a Toss Up Right Now) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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I read this book because I wanted a journalist's eyeview of the trade in looted and forged artifacts as well as the full story of the James ossuary that disappeared from the press after making such a splash in the early part of this century. In my opinion Nina Burleigh does a very good job of introducing the reader to the characters of the drama-- the scholars, the dealers, the buyers and the agents who are supposed to police them all. Far from finding them distracting, I thought the details she provided about the various people are entertaining and give good visual references. If this doesn't become a documentary then I will be very surprised.

She clearly showed the interests that individuals had in the various sites and the finds that might (or might not) connect them to the Bible-- monetary, reputation, political and religious. And then she brings her story back around to the detective work that led to the discovery of the hidden items, the scientific investigation of the various items that led to the prosecution.

She isn't terribly unkind to anyone, not even Hershel Shanks-- who I first read about when a misguided friend gave me a subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review-- a publication that is indeed quite shiny. Mr. Shanks at the time was being sued by Elisha Qimron, a scholar working on the Dead Sea Scrolls, for publication of his copyrighted work without permission. Mr. Qimron won, I later learned.

Anyway, I found this book informative and entertaining without sliding into the shrillness that can be found in a lot of discussions about religious claims on the Near East and its history. I can safely predict a few hackles will be raised anyway.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Two Books Merged, Willy-Nilly, into One, July 22, 2008

By	Michael W. Perry "Michael W. Perry, author of... (Author of Untangling Tolkien, Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Since I once worked on the City of David archaeological dig in Jerusalem and spent the better part of a year living in Israel, I was looking forward to reading this tale about recent, high-profile forgeries of historical relics from the Holy Land. Unfortunately, I can only hope that the uncorrected proof I read bears little resemblance to the version you'll purchase. The problem isn't the text itself. I'm sure the editors at HarperCollins will streamline the prose, which looks like a typical first draft. The real problem is that two different books have been merged, willy-nilly, into one.

One book describes the theft and grey market in minor antiquities in Israel and the Palestinian areas. It's a serious problem and one that little is being done about. Street vendors openly sell artifacts, real and bogus, on the streets of the Old City. I bought some allegedly old coins that way. A friend who bought a small vase took it to an archaeologist on the dig. Unperturbed by the theft, he told her that the vase was probably genuine, but showed her indications that it was made from broken pieces glued together, an intact vase being much more valuable than fragments. I found that part of the book interesting only because I'd experienced what it describes first hand. Most people are likely to find it boring. The material in it might have been better used as background for a murder mystery situated in the crowded streets of the Old City.

The other book discusses three recently exposed fakes: the James Ossuary (with an inscription claiming it contained the bones of James, the brother of Jesus), the Jehoash Tablet (with an inscription confirming the existence of the Solomon's Temple), and an ornamental pomegranate thought to come from that same temple. In each case, the forgery technique was the same. Legitimate but unimportant artifacts from the proper era had inscriptions added that made them historically significant and those inscriptions were then altered to look ancient. Scholarly texts were consulted to make the inscriptions appear as genuine as possible.

Muddled together, the irrelevancies of the first book distract the reader from the more important events in the second book. And the events in the latter are so long in coming, that quite a few readers are likely to give up and toss the book aside. The space taken up by the first might have been better taken up giving more background for the second, with graphics showing what these contested objects look like.

One final note. Journalists, and this author is one, often have trouble getting inside the heads of people whose perspective on life is different from their own. They compensate in the oddest of ways. Rather than admit this failing, they become more dogmatic, giving a portrait so shallow and one-dimensional it's entirely unconvincing. In this book that is true, not just of religious believers, Jewish and Christian, but of the typical Israeli "sabras," a term for native-born Israelis, with their distinctive personalities. Her cops seem more like Manhattan than Israel.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II