Posted on 02/12/2005 11:59:27 AM PST by NYer
Rome, Feb. 11, 2005 (CNA) - Forensic scientists in Italy are working on a different kind of investigation—one that dates back 2000 years.
In an astounding announcement, the scientists think they may have re-created an image of Jesus Christ when He was a 12-year old boy.
Using the Shroud of Turin, a centuries-old linen cloth, which many believe bears the face of the crucified Christ, the investigators first created a computer-modeled, composite picture of the Christ’s face.
Dr. Carlo Bui, one of the scientists said that, “the face of the man on the shroud is the face of a suffering man. He has a deeply ruined nose. It was certainly struck."
Then, using techniques usually reserved for investigating missing persons, they back dated the image to create the closest thing many will ever see to a photograph of the young Christ.
“Without a doubt, the eyes... That is, the deepness of the eyes, the central part of the face in its complexity”, said forensic scientist Andrea Amore, one of the chief investigators who made the discovery.
The shroud itself, a 14-foot long by 3.5-foot wide woven cloth believed by many to be the burial shroud of Jesus, is receiving renewed attention lately.
A Los Alamos, New Mexico scientist has recently cast grave doubt that the carbon dating originally used to date the shroud was valid. This would suggest that the shroud may in fact be 2000 years old after all, placing it precisely in the period of Christ’s crucifixion.
Actually the torah is the first five books... genesis, exodus, leviticus, duet and numbers
Apples and oranges. Look at what he's taling about, 'Truly I say to you, I have not found so great faith..' He's commenting on their faith in God - not where they got it from.. not the message that provoked such faith in God. That leads you right back to what you are trying to avoid, As Paul noted Romans 10:17 "So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. That would be scripture.
Come now, you can't answer that yourself at this point?! The Jewish canon is true without doubt. The NT scriptures are true. The apocrypha is pretense hoping to be believed but with only an element of truth. As I'm fond of noting, you don't give pure poison to a rat. You feed it 95 Percent real food and 5 percent poison so that in tasting and finding the real food to be good, they will devour the poison without notice. That was the approach with the apocrypha - an attempt to get the congregations to devour the poison without notice. Christians rejected it - sensing the poison. The problem isn't whose is the true one. The question is why people accept the untrue knowing they are wrong in the doing and fighting to keep false doctrine based upon that untrue message. The answer is comfort over self-deception. It's easier for the inmate to sit in jail and scream that his lawyer screwed him than to admit he's there because he broke the law. It's human nature. Human nature, though, is precisely what we're supposed to be working to defeat.. not excuse.
This question has been answered for you earlier - it apparently never sunk in. Talmud is the word used today. Whether a different word was used prior is irrelevant. It refers to the same collection of works beginning with Genesis and ending in Chronicles. You've offered no facts that establish other than that. And in absence, you continue to beg a claim you cannot defend. ARA is right.
And your reason, your words, your work are not manifestations of you? Separate but nonetheless you?
What you're missing is that scripture does not teach a doctrine that Jesus and God are two persons of the same being
They are not Persons in the humanistic, pagan hellenistic concept! God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit are intertwined creative energies through which God manifests Himself to us.
But the Torah is considered one unit, not the entire Bible regardless if it is the Jewish Bible or Christian Bible.
There are many other examples where He tells the people without quoting Scriputres what is really at stake and what they should know (and believe) by that same phrase. He is telling them that which He is thinking, not necessarily that which is written
You and I can answer that because we believe that. A Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist will disagree. Faith in God is not a choice, but which faith in God is. How we choose which faith is ours is a mystery -- but I am sure the devil has a lot to do with it. As Thomas Merlton says, regarding what the devil teaches us, is that it is "important to be absolutely right and prove that everyone else is absolutely wrong." So, once we choose which faith in God is right, we go on proving everyone else wrong.
The apocrypha is pretense hoping to be believed but with only an element of truth
You seem to have this conspiracy theory about the apocryphal books -- but you don't explain just who was feeding the poison? And why? Of course, nothing like that took place. The plain truth is: the Greek-speaking Christians (Jews and Gentiles) simply found support for their beliefs in these books because of what they already believed. They predate Christianity.
That was the approach with the apocrypha - an attempt to get the congregations to devour the poison without notice
Havoc, the Church did not have a canon for more than three hundred years after Jesus died. It had Gospels, as witness accounts of what Jesus Christ taught, and it had the Septuagint as the Torah. Christianity was in a state of flux, unregulated. Not everyone who claimed to be a Christian taught what Jesus taught. That much is clear just from reading the 1st century Epistles. There was no secret plot to "feed the congregations" any poison! The Church Fathers were devout Christians, many of whom died for the faith. If they agreed that there was something in the Apocrypha that was inspired, they had their reasons that were neither sinister nor frivolous.
It's human nature. Human nature, though, is precisely what we're supposed to be working to defeat.. not excuse
Well, I'll be...finally on that we agree!
Oh, now really! I tell you truly, this Whiskey, I mean proven cureall, will do everything from curing the common cold to removing stains from your favorite blue dress... Now, what makes that more or less authoritative than Christ?
Right, you don't know. You can't know because your argument tries to beg off the requirement of authority in trying to sell anything you wish. What utter nonsesnse. Here's a phrase for you "Study to show yourself approved". Jesus established His authority by doing just that - studying scripture to show himself approved - to show that he knew of which he spoke.. that he knew the nature of God. I would submit that you don't know the nature of God because you haven't bothered to study and show yourself approved. And your hole digging is evidence of it. You just keep digging deeper and deeper with no idea where you're going.
Excuse me?
How we choose which faith is ours is a mystery -- but I am sure the devil has a lot to do with it. As Thomas Merlton says, regarding what the devil teaches us, is that it is "important to be absolutely right and prove that everyone else is absolutely wrong." So, once we choose which faith in God is right, we go on proving everyone else wrong.
Now you sound like a cultist trying to convince people that there is no such thing as absolute truth.
You seem to have this conspiracy theory about the apocryphal books -- but you don't explain just who was feeding the poison? And why? Of course, nothing like that took place. The plain truth is: the Greek-speaking Christians (Jews and Gentiles) simply found support for their beliefs in these books because of what they already believed. They predate Christianity.
Whether they predate Christianity or not is worthless. Whether they were believed or not is worthless. Whether they stand up to scrutiny and have value is the issue. You can believe that the daylight sky is purple instead of blue if you want to. It would make you demonstrably a troubled fool; but, you can believe it. The issue isn't a matter of whether you believe something or not. The issue is whether what you believe is true or not. And you don't seem to have any inkling of the difference.
Havoc, the Church did not have a canon for more than three hundred years after Jesus died.
Bunk. They didn't have a collection of books with some group's stamp of approval on it. They knew what scripture was and duplicated all of it save for I believe 6 verses within the 1st century by quoting it. They had a 'canon'. They just hadn't formalized it.
There was no secret plot to "feed the congregations" any poison!
Uh, yes, there was actually. And the Apostles commented on it. You admit that much but have no apparent capacity for more than mouthing the words. What they mean escapes you. Christianity was being hijacked and false doctrine came in to lead people astray. Authority derived from scripture and from saying "Jesus said thus". If you could write something presuming to state "Jesus said thus" as a recorded matter, then the unknowing could be led off astray. The temple priests of many religions were losing money and needed to find some. And the Devil was happy to give them ideas to pervert the New covenant in much the same way he'd helped to pervert the old. But, of course, as long as you believe what the devil whispers, it must be true, right. If you can point to something really old and say 'people way back when' believed it, it must be true right. Think, Kosta.
Well, I'll be...finally on that we agree!
You say it; but, based on your approach, I can't say that you even know what that means.
I appreciate your concise summary of church history. I've said previously that I admire the Orthodox church for its careful preservation of the facts of church history. But despite your obvious familiarity with history, your final conclusion makes no sense. You do an excellent job of describing the divisions between the Eastern and Western church. You even say, "The two sides of the Church see everything from Genesis onward in a different light." But then you accuse me of having no idea of what I'm talking about before you state the ridiculous conclusion that the Christian canon was closed in 390 AD. Kosta, the largest Christian church on Earth doesn't even share the same canon as the Orthodox church today. Neither does the Protestant Bible, the Syrian Bible, or the Ethiopian Bible. What do all these churches have in common? They are Christian! 23 years before you claim the Canon was closed, Athanasius says this about the Apocryphal books that the Orthodox church added to its canon.."As the heretics are quoting apocryphal writings, an evil which was rife even as early as when St. Luke wrote his gospel, therefore I have thought good to set forth clearly what books have been received by us through tradition as belonging to the Canon, and which we believe to be divine." In 397AD, the Third Council of Carthage reaffirmed Athanasius' canon. Eight years later, Jerome had to be ordered to include the Apocryphal books in his Vulgate translation despite the fact that he did not consider them canonical. The Codex Alexandrinus was prepared in the 5th Century and includes I and II Clement as part of its "Canon". I just can't understand how someone with a grasp of historical fact can keep making statements that are not supported by fact. I may not know as much about Biblical Canon as I would like to know, but I know enough to know when you are pulling things out of a dark hole and trying to pass them off as indisputable fact. Give it a rest.
"That final form was established at or shortly after the meeting, college, "council" whatever you wish to call the gathering of the rabbis, at Jamnia at the end of the first century AD."
Yet you are unable to provide a shred of evidence that the Hebrew Bible after Jamnia was any different than the Hebrew Bible before Jamnia, or even before it was translated into Greek several centuries before.
"What is it exactly that you are arguing about?"
I am telling you that you are doing exactly what the Orthodox church has avoided doing for well over 1000 years. You are revising history to support your opinion. I am telling you that there is no evidence Hebrew Canon was changed as a result of anything that happened at Jamnia. None. I am telling you that your claims that the Christian Canon was closed in 390 AD are false. I am asking you to just stick to historic fact. If you would simply do that, there would be nothing to argue about.
"Who is comparing Joseph Smith to the Apostles? You have drawn the analogy between Mormons and Christians -- the former being to the Christians what the latter are to the Jews. That is pathetic."
You might have some success revising ancient history. But you will have no success revising history that exists entirely in the confines of this thread. I am going to quote below the only two comments I have made on this thread concerning Mormons.
"1. But Hellenic Jews adding books to a Hebrew Canon does not necessarily imply the Hebrew Canon wasn't closed. The fact that the Mormon Church has added books to the Bible does not imply the New Testament Canon is open.
2. Apparently you are unaware of who/what "inspired" the Book of Mormon. Rather then describe them here, it may be an interesting study for you to compare Joseph Smith to the Apostles. There is NO comparison."
Now tell me again what analogy I've drawn? You are better than this.
"As for God you claim you know, can you recognize Him? Have you seen Him? What is He like? Can you describe Him? What are His habits?"
Yes, yes, awesome, and amazing patience, eternal consistency, and genuine love. Someday, I hope you meet Him as well.
What exactley is the point you are attempting to make...
Tha authority comes from acceptance. Obviously the whole world does not accept Biblical authority. Obviously the Jews don't accept the authority of Christ. Obviously, the Orthodox do not acccept the authority of the Pope. Obviosuly the world is not made accoridng to Havoc! Obviously you live in a make-believe world. Wakup call!
Well, the cultist is the guy you see when you look in the mirror. There is absolute truth -- it doesn't mean that you or I know it.
The issue is whether what you believe is true or not. And you don't seem to have any inkling of the difference
Neither do you have any proof that what you believe is true. Wait, I know, it's true because you believe in it. Little narcissistic, don't you think?
They knew what scripture was and duplicated all of it save for I believe 6 verses within the 1st century by quoting it
Ignorance is bliss and you are basking in it! For three hundred years the Fathers debated what is inspired and what not. You obviously know nothing of the Church history. Yes, the Fathers knew scripture when they saw it, but there were numerous false "Gospels" and manuscripts floating around that had to be separated, and even those that some thought were genuine others thought not -- while others thought of false as acceptable. You really need to learn some facts for a change.
Christianity was being hijacked and false doctrine came in to lead people astray
There are 33,000 or more Protestant 'denominations' -- what makes you think we know what Christianity is today? We all believe with imperfect knowledge, including you. Believing does not make you right or righteous -- even the demons believe in God.
My point is that jesus could not have used Talmud, as you said, becuase Talmud did not exist at that time. Nor could He have used the Jewish Bible because there wasn't a Jewish Bible at that time -- there were only sacred writings called Scriptures which were not organized into a single book. That complete Jewis Bible came into being in the 2nd century AD.
Yes,,,, eyes of compassion.
You are shooting from the hip. The largest Christian church on earth (Roman Catholic) did not exist as a separate Church for 1,000 years of Christianity. There was one, undivided Church of five patriarchs. For the first four centuries Greek was the language of the Church. Jerome was ordered to add Apocrypha because the Church Bible, canonized in Carthage, contained it, and the entire Church accepted it. It was Jerome who personally found disagreement with the Septuagint, but not to the extent that Protestants claim.
Which books did Athanasius call apocryphal? Please list the books of the Bible of 397 AD. The debate what is canon and what is not stretched for three hundred years plus -- in 200 AD Rome considered the Revelation of Peter to be canon. The undivided Church set the Canon in Carthage. That same canon was actually reiterated in 360-something and in 393 (at Hippo I believe). The Athanasian canon contained the "Apocryphal" books -- Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and the Psalms of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, and two books of Maccabees, to name just some.
Codex Alexandrinus was discovered in the fifth century (after Carthage), and it contains 3 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees, the OT and the NT, and Psalm 151, all the books still currently in the Orthodox Bible. The scribe considered 1 and 2 Clement canonical and appended them to the NT.
Yet you are unable to provide a shred of evidence that the Hebrew Bible after Jamnia was any different than the Hebrew Bible before Jamnia, or even before it was translated into Greek several centuries before
The Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Samaritan text all differ as much as they have much in common. If there was some mystical Jewish canon accepted by all Jews, then why did rabbis feel there was a need for the Masoretic Text?
You have seen God? So, God is visible? Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live." 1 John 4:12 ""No man hath seen God at any time." 1 Tim 6:16 "Whom no man hath seen nor can see." 1 Tim 1:17 ""Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever." John 1:18 ""No man hath seen God at any time." So, you must be special.
So far you have presented nothing but fluff and very poor understanding of Church history, drawing from out-of-context Google searches without proper understanding and making naive and erroneous conclusions. And, to top it off, you claim you have seen God, know Him, and can describe Him. Special, indeed.
Money,, as in coins have a graven image on them.
I guess those people are willing to give up their money because it has a graven image ? Hmmmmmmm ???
Such hypocrites.
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