Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
In 2002, an ancient limestone box called the James Ossuary was trumpeted on the world's front pages as the first material evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ. Today it is exhibit number one in a forgery trial involving millions of dollars worth of high-end, Biblical era relics, some of which literally re-wrote Near Eastern history and which could lead to the incarceration of some very wealthy men and embarrass major international institutions, including the British Museum and Sotheby's.
Set in Israel, with its 30,000 archaeological digs crammed with biblical-era artifacts, and full of colorful characters—scholars, evangelicals, detectives, and millionaire collectors—Unholy Business tells the incredibly story of what the Israeli authorities have called "the fraud of the century." It takes readers into the murky world of Holy Land relic dealing, from the back alleys of Jerusalem's Old City to New York's Fifth Avenue, and reveals biblical archaeology as it is pulled apart by religious believers on one side and scientists on the other.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Hard to get through
Customer Rating:
This book has some very interesting info about a recent spate of Biblical forgeries from the Holy Land and general information about the antiguities trade in the region. While the subject is to me very interesting it is unfortunate that the book seems to be written as a "who's who" of players, a feature which (to me) detracts from the overall story. This book could easily be edited and rewritten to a volume half its size.
Digging for facts in a reporters notebook
Customer Rating:
While you think an archeologist or a religious historian should have written this book, it wasn't. Burleigh who is a reporter wrote it. And the book reads like a compilation of her notes. The author also seemed too be trying to write two different types of books at the same time. She would have done herself a favor by breaking out the two separate subjects, performed more research and written two.
The books should have been broken into one on the theft and selling of minor antiquities in Israel and the Palestinian areas, which is a thriving business. The street vendors sell them, but you will not know if you are buying a genuine artifact, which is quite possible, or a replica that is almost prefect down to ever detail.
And the second book, the reason most people I am sure will buy it, covers the three recently exposed forgeries of the James Ossuary, the Jehoash Tablet, 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. These subjects are covered in the last part of the book.
If you are truly interested in the subject of these artifacts, this is not the book for you. But if you are a tourist or plan to be one, and think you will be able to buy an artifact as a souvenir you should read this book; for she has filled this book on tour of ancient artifacts and their black-market fraud. The book at first glance has a good layout and the title does tell you what is covered.
Though I must admit I think she is honest in her writing for she lets us readers know what she has no background what so ever in religion. Yet she has taken it upon her self to assume too understand the complex dynamics that make up a city rich in history, culture and turmoil as Jerusalem.
She is woefully ignorant on the subject she is writing about and contradicts known proven findings archeology with generalized statements. Her writing leads me to the conclusion that she has decided that religion is basically superstition. And all that she is riding is based on the basic fundamental belief.
Another reviewer stated very accurately what here on Amazon my exact feelings on this book; "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." It does not take long to reach this realization and it was a great disappointment to me. For this is a subject and area I am very interested in.
I think the two quotes at the front of her book summarize her feelings on this subject. The first is that we as civilization, civilized people deceive those who are to be deceived in order to make a living. And the other is that there are two kinds of people, "those who want to know and those who want to believe." One good thing, the book is a fast read.
Dry at Times, But Still Educational
Customer Rating:
Unholy Business is about archaeological dig sites in Jerusalem, people selling fake artifacts, and discusses the James Ossuary (the recently popular discovery of a tomb that supposedly had the lineage of Jesus carved into it). Burleigh is a great writer and brought to life a touchy subject that many people don't know much about. The only real down side to this book is the fact that it can get fairly dry at certain points, much like the dig sites Burleigh talks about. You want to skip ahead to the good stuff, but you will be lost if you don't read it all. All in all a decent book that gives you some new information on a darker side of the Holy Land, highly recommended for anyone interested in religious history.
Reviewed by Tom Rojek
Simple Crime, Complex Background
Customer Rating:
Unholy Business is the story of a simple fraud that unfortunately takes place in so complex a milieu that no book-length treatment can adequately prepare a reader to make the kinds of judgments invited by the author. Reading this book like taking a 100 mph bus tour of a foreign country with the understanding that no stops are scheduled; one is continually faced with regret over an interesting idea, theme or person into which the author simply cannot delve. That said, the book betrays the skill of an author so overwhelmed with material that she is forced to identify and then abandon the plethora of issues presented by the story of an antiquities dealer who is charged by Israeli authorities with fraud.
The defining aspect of the Holy Land is the irreducible complexity of any issues pertaining thereto. Nothing about the Holy Land is simple and any author who tries to simplify is required to make indefensible decisions. Hence, Unholy Business ends up losing much of the richness that could have accompanied the story because it focuses on the shallow, all too common motivations of a con-artist who was able to bilk knowledgeable collectors out of millions of dollars and to persuade cautious scholars to lend credence to an unsupportable thesis.
One senses that the publisher wanted to avoid "religion and politics" in favor of a simple crime story. If so, that was a bad decision. Religion and politics drive this story--the author had a chance to embrace these issues and to take a chance to demonstrate that religion continues to inform and direct the lives of everyone on this planet regardless of the level or even existence of individual belief. It is the inextricable mix of religion and politics that made the premise of the book compelling; despite a chance to discuss the deepest and most meaningful issues in today's society, we are treated to a first-rate telling of a second-rate con. Instead of "faith, greed and forgery" we simply get "greed and forgery," which are all too familiar and hardly worth the effort.
This book's reckless and summary treatment of ideas as profound as the right of Israel to exist, the meaning and purpose of religion, the value of history, the historicity of the Bible, to name but a few, is as jarring as the climactic scene in which an artifact considered sacred by some is found stuck in an old bathroom on top of a toilet. Weighed in the balance, I found it wanting.
Good reporting; interesting reading
Customer Rating:
Burleigh's 'Unholy Business' plays to her writing strengths and background as a journalist. Unlike her last book ('Mirage,' in which her skills as an historian were less impressive than her ability to report on the present), 'Unholy Business' is a less frustrating read. I don't need to discuss the storyline--enough reviewers have already covered it. What is worth mentioning is the way she makes the unfolding of this particular mystery enticing: she reveals in layers who was behind the James Ossuary and how Israeli investigators uncovered the facts of the forgery of this and other artifacts. As a work of investigative journalism with a mid-Eastern flavor 'Unholy Business' makes for solid reading.
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