Religion, Theology, and all that good stuff

[limitdeditionlayla]

docdrum said:

Has the DNA of Jesus Christ been found?

Has the DNA of Jesus Christ been found?

That tantalizing question underpins The Lost Tomb of Jesus — a new book and feature documentary film with potentially profound implications for Christianity.

tinyurl.com/274t7n

Very interesting and I’m struck by the complete lack of sensationalism with which this is presented, e.g. - "None of us are gleefully presenting this as though we've trumped Christianity."

wow, cheers for posting that Drum.

I wonder what we'd find if we could test what we knew for sure to be Christ's remains:

1. only Mary's DNA present (ie accounting for foetal development in virgin womb) [note: I say 'Mary' to refer to mitochondrial DNA, which is maternally inherited]

2. only Jesus' DNA present (accounting for immaculate conception, probably would be alien DNA as perhaps created by God purely for this birth. JC would have to have XY chromosomes as any other male though)

3. both DNA of Mary & Jesus (does this account for immaculate conception, or refute it? )

4. full DNA sequences (like the rest of us), indicating human conception & a father (ie blows Son of God theory out of the water) <-- this is what my money would be on. The word used to describe Mary in the original Hebrew was along the lines of "maid/maiden", and when translated into Greek the word for "virgin" was used instead. She wasn't a virgin.

Anyhow, if there are remains of Christ, and it is highly unlikely they are not the remains of another Jesus bearing all the same family names of the Jesus of the Bible, doesn't that pretty much suggest there was no resurrection (as the article mentions)?

[kmc]

God, this would surely be the end of the world. The societal ramifications of this, particularly in America, would be complete insanity. President Bush would disavow science altogether.

[Adam]

Saw this on Jerusalem Post website:

New film claims Jesus buried in Talpiot
David Horovitz, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 25, 2007

The Israeli-born, Canadian-based filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici is reigniting claims, first made over a decade ago, that a burial cave uncovered 27 years ago in Talpiot, Jerusalem, is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

At a press conference in New York on Monday, the two-time Emmy winner Jacobovici and his team - including Hollywood director James Cameron - will detail claims that of 10 ossuaries found in the cave when it was discovered in 1980, six bear inscriptions identifying them as those of Jesus, his mother Mary, a second Mary (possibly Mary Magdalene), and relatives Matthew, Josa and Judah (possibly Jesus's son).

Their documentary will be screened this week in the US, UK, on Channel 8 in Israel and around the world. The producers are said to have worked on the project with world-renowned archeologists, statisticians and DNA specialists.

But Bar-Ilan University Prof. Amos Kloner, the Jerusalem District archeologist who officially oversaw the work at the tomb in 1980 and has published detailed findings on its contents, on Saturday night dismissed the claims. "It makes a great story for a TV film," he told The Jerusalem Post. "But it's impossible. It's nonsense."

Kloner, who said he was interviewed for the new film but has not seen it, said the names found on the ossuaries were common, and the fact that such apparently resonant names had been found together was of no significance. He added that "Jesus son of Joseph" inscriptions had been found on several other ossuaries over the years.

"There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb," Kloner said. "They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE."

A spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority had no comment herself on the documentary and referred inquiries to Kloner, who no longer works for the IAA.

The spokeswoman did say, however, that the IAA has loaned out two of the ossuaries that were found in the Talpiot tomb for display by the filmmakers at Monday's New York press conference. She said it was a routine procedure to lend out such artifacts provided the borrowers complied with the necessary handling, transport and insurance requirements and that it did not signal any IAA authentication of claims made in the documentary.

Kloner said the IAA had been "very foolish" to agree to the loan. "The left hand there doesn't know what the right hand is doing," he said.

The Daily Telegraph reported this weekend that the 10 ossuaries removed from the tomb when it was first excavated "were taken initially to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Nine were catalogued and stored but the tenth was left outside in a courtyard. That ossuary has subsequently gone missing."

But Kloner said the IAA routinely left ossuaries in the courtyard if they were not inscribed and were unremarkable, since it had no room for them all "under our roofs." He added: "Nothing has disappeared."

The Jacobovici documentary comes more than 10 years after similar speculation about the so-called Jesus family tomb made world headlines, prompting a London Sunday Times feature entitled "The Tomb that Dare Not Speak Its Name" and a BBC documentary.

The assertion that the ossuaries found in the Talpiot tomb were those of Jesus of Nazareth and family members was branded by The Sunday Times at the time as an archeological discovery "that challenges the very basis of Christianity."

The makers of the documentary are refusing to discuss its content prior to their New York press conference.

[Thorngrub]

www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/15/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-where-is-it-heading/

[Rit]

God must be poet/artist, because everything worth chatting about is poetic to some degree. and He seems to have been topic #1 throughout the centuries amongst the cognoscenti, the low brow, the middlebrow, the white and blue collars, and plowmen.

the concept of God animates even the humdrum, infusing it with a pathos and empathy that few other concepts can rival, and It handles this with a broad energy that seems undiminished no matter how deeply you tap, or how inward you journey. I mean in the sense that faith keeps so many ordinary folks happy, functioning, and alive...... despite all their amputations and corruptions and rationalizations. Respec'.

That said, i still think God is a pretty idea more than a real being. But who's to say that prettiness isn't worth thinking about? Hot bitches make rods pop, and holy angels make minds hop. There is a motto i can live by.

[Thorngrub]

God is a race.

[Rit]

that's not possible.

[Thorngrub]

In the realm of possibility, our having been engineered/cloned by a race from another part of our galaxy is certainly not out of the question, rit.

[Thorngrub]

IF this were the case (that we were engineered by a master race), the fact that it begs the question "Then who created the engineer -race?" does not, in and of itself, disqualify the possibility that they might exist. The answer to that question would simply be a matter of putting it on hold, temporarily. Whilst we examined this new 'evidence' of our 'master race' dwelling outside our solar system. Such ultimate questions - "Who created the 'creators'" -- must be put on the back burner then, so to speak. I'm just sayin'.

[Thorngrub]

Now; would you care to explain just why you believe that "it is not possible" God might be, in fact, a race of people ["Jehovah" = plural] ? I would be most interested in your justification for such a bold claim.

[Rit]

the possibility that a master race created us is not in dispute. but why call that god? god would necessarily have to be the First Principle, as Aquinas said. a master race just sounds like a further link in a chain.

[Rit]

but on personal grounds, i find it hard to believe in methodical creation within nature. It's all accident, evolution, and conservation.

i might ask you, in fact, what justification is there to believe that a master race created us?

[Thorngrub]

ritalinpants said:

the possibility that a master race created us is not in dispute. but why call that god? god would necessarily have to be the First Principle, as Aquinas said. a master race just sounds like a further link in a chain.

Aha, well put. Yes, the "First Principle", as I alluded to in my previous post. But see, that's just it - - that "further link in the chain" may very well be quite necessary to understand in order for us to gain the platform from which we might begin asking the correct questions necessary to ascertain the true nature of this "God" concept. Dig what I'm saying -?

[Thorngrub]

ritalinpants said:

but on personal grounds, i find it hard to believe in methodical creation within nature. It's all accident, evolution, and conservation.

i might ask you, in fact, what justification is there to believe that a master race created us?

Good question. I do not necessarily believe that a master race created us - I just happen to think that it fits our 'genetic profile' much more reasonably than this "Creation Mythos" that the bible teaches. Or should I say, the interpretation of the Bible which we have been force-fed since grade school.

i.e, For all I know, the Bible's parables - - i.e, alleghory -- are spot-on w/the Truth. But the *interp* handed down has knocked us off that track . . . (Which is to say, I accede to the possibility that "the holy truth" may very well be cryptically contained within the original text from which our current "Bible" has been handed down over the generations. If such were the case, well obviously we would need a cryptographer to wade into it and ascertain its true and intended meaning).

[Thorngrub]

i.e, I am a firm believer in actuality -- that there is a concrete reality which these parables and creation mythos refer to, in simplified terms. I mean, its enough to make one wish they had just come out and stated it directly, if you know what I mean. I think that's part of the problem: these explanations having been couched in alleghory have resulted in the unfortunate debacle of generations of people having taken it all literally, when you have to admit the possibility they (the writers of these holy texts, the bible) were just using alleghory to get their point across is very likely.