Posted on 02/18/2005 9:09:38 PM PST by wolfman
MUCH ABOUT HISTORY Vatican to announce St. Paul's tomb found Sarcophagus could contain remains of apostle Posted: February 18, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Vatican archeologists are preparing to announced they have positively identified the tomb of St. Paul the apostle.
Basilica in Rome where Vatican says it found remains of St. Paul
Giorgio Filippi, a specialist with the Vatican Museums, said a sarcophagus that might still contain the apostle's remains was identified in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, reported Catholic World News.
The independent Catholic news service said the sarcophagus was discovered during excavations in 2002 and 2003 around the basilica in south Rome.
Vatican experts soon will make a public announcement of their discovery, Catholic World News said.
"The tomb that we discovered is the one that the popes and the Emperor Theodosius [A.D. 379- 395] saved and presented to the whole world as being the tomb of the apostle," Filippi said.
The excavation was conducted after the administrator of St. Paul's basilica, Archbishop Francesco Gioia, received inquiries about the location of St. Paul's tomb from thousands of pilgrims visiting during the Jubilee Year of 2000.
An initial survey of the basilica enabled archeologists to reconstruct the 4th century building's original shape.
The Vatican team found the sarcophagus during a second excavation under the basilica's main altar.
Under the altar, a marble plaque is visible, dating to the 4th century, bearing the inscription "Apostle Paul, martyr."
Surprisingly, said Filippi, "nobody ever thought to look behind that plaque," where the Vatican team found the sarcophagus.
Filippi said the tomb should not be opened merely to satisfy curiosity as to whether Paul's remains still are there.
He has no doubt, however, Paul was buried on the site, "because this basilica was the object of pilgrimages by emperors; people from all around the world came to venerate him, having faith that he was present in this basilica."
Filippi said church officials must now decide whether to order further excavation to make the sarcophagus more visible.
The Bible does not state how Paul died. Many scholars believe he was beheaded in Rome in about the A.D. mid-60s during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero.
Real Old Stuff Ping.
"The Bible does not state how Paul died. Many scholars believe he was beheaded in Rome in about the A.D. mid-60s during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero."
That should be easy to prove or disprove.
The Vatican is usually extremely cautious about such matters. But very interesting. I look forward to more follow-up details.
Asked this on another thread with no response, so will try again. If they've found Paul, what will they do with the so called skull of Paul they claimed to have prior to this. Or is this just the latest largely unfounded claim used as distraction?
And what the point of such an exercise?
Heh, you'd have a hard time proving that one historically.
---If they've found Paul, what will they do with the so called skull of Paul they claimed to have prior to this.---
Declare a miracle?
Who's got the "skull" of Paul? The RCC?
This will spark a huge increase in tourism in Rome.
Tomorrow they'll find James buried under a toilet. And shock and amazement will set in as we find they claimed 300 years ago to have his legbone under an alter on the other side of the planet or something. Most of this stuff is just puff looking for some superficial grant of authority based on appearances. That's all it ever has been. And if they find Paul on the other side of Rome next year, we'll sweep this event aside and pretend that this never happened. In the meantime, they'll talk out of both sides of their mouth in order to take the good appearances for what they can get out of them while dancing around the obvious and letting everyone think what they will... In the meantime, they'll charge a buck a person to let people file past and kiss the legbone of some long dead slave that died in Nero's circus for all we know. Vatican Hill is, afterall, a cemetary used to bury the dead from Nero's circus - a mass grave for slaves as it were. As a result, they'ed all date to the first century. I'm so used to reading about the long history of this sort of fraud by this group, I'm understandably cynical; so, if you're offended, I really don't care. LOL. Not that I intend to be offensive; but, really.. This ranks right up there with 'an angel named moron came and delivered me a set of golden plates with never before seen or heard of writing on it that ...'
ROFL. Stop it. It would be, though, wouldn't it. I never knew of Paul being two faced.. two headed would constitute a miracle - or a hitherto unreported birthdefect that I would imagine would have wound him up in Caesar's freak collection.
I have always said I'd never trust a religion with an angel named Moron. Put 'er there.
Spoken like Luther himself! :^)
nor sit in the seat of the scoffers
That has been the claim, along with piles of others. Their long history of claiming these things is pretty bad.. embarrassing even.. But , they've mastered the art of plausible deniability. They say just enough to let the 'faithful to the clergy' get the wrong impression, abuse that for profit, for superficial claims to authority, etc, then if disproven, they carefully stand aside and say 'well, we never said...' There are whole sections of books and whole books written on the subject. One, by this rabid guy named Joseph Wheless is even web published.
> Filippi said the tomb should not be opened merely
> to satisfy curiosity as to whether Paul's remains
> still are there.
This is just a negotiating ploy. If they exhibit too much
excitement about the discovery, it will become too
expensive to hire Geraldo to host the TV special about it.
LOL. Sorry. This stuff just tends to get me riled because so many are misled with it. I'd never trust a religion with an angel named Moron either, though LOL.
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