Posted on 10/15/2001 9:43:54 PM PDT by gcruse
October 16, 2001
'Body of St. Luke' Gains Credibility
By NICHOLAS WADE
new DNA analysis gives tentative
support to the belief that the remains
in an ancient lead coffin are those of St.
Luke, traditionally considered the author of
the third Gospel and the Acts of the
Apostles.
Dr. Guido Barbujani, a population geneticist
at the University of Ferrara, Italy, has
extracted DNA from a tooth in the coffin.
He concluded that the DNA was
characteristic of people living near the region of Antioch, on the eastern
Mediterranean, where Luke is said to have been born. Radiocarbon dating
of the tooth indicates that it belonged to someone who died between 72
A.D. and 416 A.D.
A report by Dr. Barbujani and colleagues appears today in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
The Evangelist, according to ancient sources, was a physician who was born
in Antioch and died at 84 in about 150 A.D. in the Greek city of Thebes.
The coffin with his remains was taken to Constantinople, the capitol of the
Byzantine empire, in 338 A.D. and later moved to Padua, Italy.
Dr. Barbujani and his colleagues speculate that the coffin may have been sent
out of Constantinople for safekeeping, either during the reign of the Emperor
Julian, who tried to restore paganism, or during the iconoclast period of the
eighth century, when many religious images and objects were destroyed.
The coffin is known to have been in Padua at least since 1177 A.D. It was
placed in a marble sarcophagus and kept in the Basilica of Santa Giustina. It
was last opened in 1562 A.D. and seems to have been somewhat ignored
until October 1992. At that time the bishop of Padua, Antonio Mattiazzo,
received a letter from Hieronymos, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Thebes,
asking that part of the relics to be donated to the site of Luke's tomb in
Thebes.
Bishop Mattiazzo, according to an article in November 2000 in Traces, a
Catholic journal, decided to investigate the relics under the leadership of Dr.
Vito Terribile Viel Marin, a pathologist at the University of Padua. In 1998
the 400-year-old seals were removed from the lead coffin, and the study
began.
The dimensions of the coffin exactly fit the tomb in Thebes considered to be
Luke's. In the coffin was a skeleton, but not the skull.
Dr. Barbujani and his colleagues say the body appears to have decomposed
in the coffin because of matching insect marks on the lead and the pelvis,
which has fused to the lead.
The spread in the radiocarbon dating indicates at least two possibilities. One
is that the body is that of Luke or a man who died at the same time, the other
is that for some reason, a new body was put in the coffin in Constantinople
around 300 A.D.
To help distinguish between the two, Dr. Barbujani, an expert on the genetics
of European populations, analyzed fragments of DNA from the tooth, a
canine, found on the floor of the coffin, and sought to compare them with
likely living representatives of the ancient populations of Antioch and of
Constantinople. An Antioch match would suggest the body could be Luke's.
Since the present population of Antioch includes many Kurds, Dr. Barbujani
sampled the DNA of Syrians from nearby Aleppo. In place of the inhabitants
of ancient Constantinople, now Istanbul, he tested Greeks from Attica and
Crete.
The DNA from the Padua tooth, a type inherited only through the mother's
line, turned out to resemble Syrian DNA more than Greek DNA.
"Our data tell us the body is absolutely compatible with a Syrian origin," he
said. "But I am aware of the limitations of the DNA data, and though a broad
spectrum of ages is possible, the most likely is 300 A.D." Hence both
possibilities should remain open, he said.
The body, if indeed it is Luke's, has experienced a simpler voyage through
history than the head, which was removed by the Emperor Charles IV in
1354 and taken from Padua to Prague, where it rests in the Cathedral of St.
Vitus, in the Prague Castle.
"There were officially two heads of St. Luke, one at Prague and one in
Rome," Dr. Barbujani said. At Bishop Mattiazzo's request, the Prague skull
was brought to Padua and found to fit perfectly to the topmost neck bone.
The tooth, found on the floor of the coffin, also fit into the right socket in the
jawbone.
Though many relics turn out to be forgeries, executed in modern or medieval
times as demand arose, the Padua body seems more likely than most to be
what it is claimed to be, although exact proof is lacking.
"I think we should accept that there is no way to tell if it was the Evangelist
Luke, but the genetic evidence does not contradict the idea," Dr. Barbujani
said.
Last October, according to the Traces article, at least part of the body
completed the circle to its original resting place. Bishop Mattiazzo sent a rib
from the skeleton for Metropolitan Hieronymus to place in the empty Theban
tomb.
That can't be right. He'd 've been born in AD 64 by that reckoning, 2 years after he wrote his Gospel and the Book of Acts in AD 62. I'll wager they are off at least 30 years in their date of his death.
The curved spine was from an afflication in St Luke"s old age. I believe the Jesuits found documentation that St Luke had it and that the match of the skeleton made it likely it was St Luke. I will see if I can find this article. Some of the medical studied have been going on for some time.
From the article:
The research has shown that the bones belonged to a Syrian. This conclusion was reached by the geneticist Guido Barbujani after an analysis of the DNA. The skeleton belongs to a man who died in old age, presumably between 70 and 85 (which is perfectly in line with the information in the two Prologues), about 5 feet 4 inches tall, and of a stocky build. Dr. Terribile Wiel Marin has found in the bones a serious form of osteoporosis, arthrosis of the spine, and considerable wearing down of the teeth.
From the article:
The research has shown that the bones belonged to a Syrian. This conclusion was reached by the geneticist Guido Barbujani after an analysis of the DNA. The skeleton belongs to a man who died in old age, presumably between 70 and 85 (which is perfectly in line with the information in the two Prologues), about 5 feet 4 inches tall, and of a stocky build. Dr. Terribile Wiel Marin has found in the bones a serious form of osteoporosis, arthrosis of the spine, and considerable wearing down of the teeth.
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