Posted on 11/09/2013 9:58:23 PM PST by NKP_Vet
With all due respect, let’s have the DNA sequencing and interpretation as well.
The Scavi Tour is fantastic. There’s a slim chance I could be in Rome at the right time to see these artifacts. That would be exciting.
My thoughts exactly! Whatever "material" they have, there is NO way that it can be proven to be from Peter. That his dead body was thrown into a pile of garbage - including the bones of other people and animals - is a known fact. As is true with most "relics", the myth and the legend that supposedly go with it are the money makers. Authenticity is that last thing on the minds of pious, superstitious peasants clamoring for a look see.
Lots of butthurt in this thread already, and we’re only 4 posts in.
Many cultures have engaged in ritual abuse of corpses in exemplary cases, and the Romans weren't above doing it on occasion, but Peter presumably would not have been that important in their eyes. Did the Romans generally turn bodies over to the next of kin? The Roman ruling classes executed each other with great abandon. Surely we must know what happened to the bodies of many of these victims.
Proven? No. But I’m not sure where you are getting this “known fact” that his dead body was deposited with other people and animals. During the *excavations* they found the bodies of other people and animals—but as you are skeptical that his body was even interred there, then it’s not quite as certain as all that.
And anyway your premise is wrong. What is more natural than assuming that the Roman church gathered the body of their beloved Apostle and kept it in a special place?
And the Constantinian basilica in the 300s was positioned *just so* that the main altar sat on top of this strange decorative monument from the 2nd century that seems to mesh well with the “tropaion” of Gaius and an obscure grave site from the first century.
To be emperor is good. Constantine could have put his church anywhere. He chose to locate it next to the circus, atop the roadside tombs, rather than on the circus site itself, which was the place of martyrdom for so many. He chose the necropolis, not the blood-soaked sands, which would have been a perfectly obvious choice as well. That suggests that he was honoring a definitive identification of the site in the early Roman church, only recently emerged from the underground itself, as opposed to manufacturing a pious fraud.
Exactly. And it required quite a feat of engineering to build the basilica there: he had to level part of the Vatican Hill.
Isn’t the Scavi Tour claustaphobic??
You must be a Baptist!!! LOL!!
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
“With all due respect, let’s have the DNA sequencing and interpretation as well.”
Without any respect, it’s not any of your business.
Those who believe in Peter's bones (and flesh?) will find out whether or not they have a misplaced affection for the philosophy of their intermediary magistrate(s). In the public phase of His Descent to the Earth, every eye will then see Him, including those who pierced Him fleshly, or who persecuted His saints, thus piercing Him spiritually. That includes religionists who have attacked Christ's Own for faithfulness to clear, written, simple, failure-proof salvation doctrines given by Christ and those Apostles chosen personally by Him, not by lots or by other unScriptural, unauthorized delegation.
My belief is in the Word, works, and Faith of Jesus Christ alone, not the bones of a bodily dead human, or a seemingly "miraculous" image painted on a burlap sack.
For you and I, Absolute Eternal Life is in The Spirit; with post-natal works directed under His control, propelled by the Word-regenerated-one's will obedient to Him, His Will written in our flesh, and credited to The Author and Master, Jesus Christ.
From Edward Mote, verses 1 and 4 of his hymn, "The Solid Rock":
My hope (faith)* is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' *Blood and *Righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame (Peter's bones?), but wholly lean on Jesus' *Name
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh!* may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His *Righteousness alone,
Faultless (not only blameless)* to stand before His Throne.
On Christ, The Solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
Many are sadly sinking --
(My capitalizations and additions noted with * above)
(written on Sunday AM, November 10, 2913; the Birthday Anniversary of the United States Marine Corps; may God bless them and keep their honor safely through this time of treachery)
vladimir998: Without any respect, it’s not any of your business
Under the topics "History," "Religion & Culture," and "Religion & Science," why is it not my business? I am a retired senior scientist of two major corporations and two highly respected universities.
I have also studied some Christian history, including Kenneth Latourette's well-known volume of some 1200 pages, and a few textbooks on Roman, Greek, and Byzantine culture.
What's your problem that you think the article is none of my business? Do you think my non-Catholic set of beliefs are going to warp the physical and historical facts if the Roman Church makes them known?
“Under the topics “History,” “Religion & Culture,” and “Religion & Science,” why is it not my business?”
You have every right to read an article online. You have zero right to impose your will on the Church: “...let’s have the DNA sequencing and interpretation as well.”
“I am a retired senior scientist of two major corporations and two highly respected universities.”
I don’t care if you’re the King of Siam.
“I have also studied some Christian history, including Kenneth Latourette’s well-known volume of some 1200 pages, and a few textbooks on Roman, Greek, and Byzantine culture.”
I read Latourette 20 or more years ago. So what? Want to read something better and more in depth?
Start with this: http://www.amazon.com/History-Church-Hubert-Jedin/dp/081640447X That first volume is only 523 pages. The other 7 or so volumes are longer. Knock yourself out.
Then, just to add color to your reading, read this: http://www.amazon.com/Founding-Christendom-History-vol/dp/0931888212/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384119528&sr=1-2 The first volume is ONLY 605 pages. The other five volumes vary in length. Volume 6, for instance, is 920 pages. This is the most lively, well written detailed Church History series you will ever read. It makes Latourette look like an amateur - and a boring one at that. Let me know when you finish.
“What’s your problem that you think the article is none of my business?”
What’s your problem with understanding what I wrote. I never said the article wasn’t your business.
“Do you think my non-Catholic set of beliefs are going to warp the physical and historical facts if the Roman Church makes them known?”
Nope, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you treated them less like facts in your retelling of them.
I appreciate your candid dismissal of the issue of DNA sequencing and interpretation of the data, since it is the definable facts, which are in the field of science, a subdivision of the philosophy of the knowable; and from which your deposition flees like a scalded cat.
As well, I'm not going to address your attempt to broaden the field of argument to find some strategic height from which you can mount a further perch to throw out ad hominem denunciations or other petty distractions. The listing of my previous experiences are only to justify being included in the discussion from the vantage of entry on topics other than Catholicism.
I trust in God, but others need to bring facts; especially in the extrabiblical area of proving that the relics under consideration all of which are really those of a (1) human and (2) male, let alone of being Simon Peter's (Shemitic DNA profile, as compared to those of Ham or Japheth, for starters).
“I appreciate your candid dismissal of the issue of DNA sequencing and interpretation of the data,”
I didn’t dismiss them. I dismissed you. There’s a difference.
In this case, there is no difference, because you cannot produce the truth demanded by science. You cannot answer with facts.
If "relics" means more than one bone item, can you prove that at least, they are all of one individual?
Digging up bones and displaying them is down right creepy. Even the Egyptian mummies on display seem to me to disrespect the earthly resting place.
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