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To: JoeProBono
OK, I'm not big on the whole "relic" thing, not being Catholic, but there are numerous problems with the assumptions, here.

Hinnom Valley? Nice dodge of calling it something more piquant ... Gehenna. This was not a well liked man.

Diseased with two of the primary scourges of the time? Not a wealthy man, or a rather intemperate one, perhaps both.

Sealed burial chamber? Sealed? There was more than disease, that those who buried him didn't want getting out.

Simpler cloth, that is supposed to somehow undermine authenticity of the Shroud of Turin? Given all the above, I'd say he was lucky to have been wrapped in any sort of cloth at all, and not dumped in Gehenna and burned with the rest of the rubbish and animal carcasses.

13 posted on 12/16/2009 7:22:43 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

In the Old Testament, the Hinnom Valley or Gehenna was a place of abominable pagan rites, including infant sacrifice. It was there that the apostate kings Ahaz and Manasseh made their children “pass through the fire” to the god Molech. The rites were specifically celebrated in Tophet, the “place of abhorrence,” one of the chief groves in the valley

King Josiah of ancient Judah finally put an end to these abominations. He defiled the valley, rendering it ceremonially unclean (II Kings 23:10). Later the valley became the cesspool and city dump of Jerusalem - a repository for sewage, refuse and animal carcasses. The bodies of despised criminals were also burned there along with the rubbish. Fires burned continuously, feeding on a constant supply of garbage and refuse.

Aceldama, the “field of blood”, purchased with the money Judas received for the betrayal of Christ (Matt. 27:8) was also in part of the valley of Hinnom.


22 posted on 12/16/2009 9:46:33 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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