Insurers of a damaged artifact that some believe once contained the bones of the brother of Jesus have yet to arrive in Toronto to approve repairs, causing concern that its public display may have to be postponed.

Meanwhile, critics continue to claim that the contested artifact -- a 2,000-year-old trapezoid-shaped limestone ossuary from Israel with the inscription "Ya'akov [James], son of Yosef [Joseph], brother of Yeshua [Jesus]" on one side -- deserves much more skeptical consideration or is, in fact, an outright fraud.

The ossuary, which is owned by Oded Golan, a Tel Aviv engineer and businessman, but which some have argued belongs by law to the state of Israel, was shipped to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum from Tel Aviv last week. A seven-week exhibition of it had been planned to start Nov. 16, to coincide with a series of meetings in Toronto Nov. 20-26 by an estimated 8,000 scholars from the Biblical Archaeological Society, the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Schools of Oriental Research.

When ROM officials opened the ossuary's travelling container, they discovered its exterior was cracked. Mr. Golan told the ROM earlier this week that he was in favour of repairs but that his London-based insurance company needed to inspect the damage before giving the go-ahead.

Dan Rahimi, the ROM's director of collections management, said yesterday his institution "really, really has to start repair work by Monday," Nov. 11, if the artifact is to be displayed as planned. As of yesterday evening, the ROM had not heard from the insurers.

"If we don't hear . . . by this weekend, it does place the 16th in jeopardy," said Francisco Alvarez, the ROM's director of media relations.

"And we'd have to schedule, then announce a new date."

The ossuary has been at the centre of an international controversy since Oct. 21. That's when the well-respected Biblical Archaeology Review announced at a press conference in Washington that it was publishing an article, by a French expert in Hebrew and Aramaic, claiming the ossuary offered the earliest authenticated archeological evidence of the existence of Jesus.

Supporters of the claim, including some of the most distinguished scholars of Judaica in the Greco-Roman world, place emphasis on an analysis of the physical properties of the limestone conducted by the Geological Survey of Israel.

However, John Lupia, editor of the Roman Catholic News and a scholar with degrees in art history, biblical studies and archeology, told The Globe and Mail yesterday that he "immediately knew the inscription was a fake without giving a paleographic analysis [inscription interpretation] for two reasons: biovermiculation and patina."

Biovermiculation refers to the erosion and dissolution of limestone over the years by bacteria, and the resultant pitting and etching of its surface. "The ossuary had plenty," Dr. Lupia observed, "except in and around the area of the inscription. This is not normal."

Examining digital photos of the ossuary, Dr. Lupia acknowledged its patina consists of "the appropriate minerals."

But he disputes the Geological Survey study's observation that, because the inscription was cleaned at some point, "the patina is therefore absent from some letters."