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 investigationone 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 Christs 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 Christs crucifixion.
Anthropologists often like to think of folks as cave people, don't they (smile).
I know what you meant. I just wanted to clarify that we hold the Pope to be the first among other patriarchs in the way he was before the unfortunate schism. No need to apologize. I just wanted to clarify to those Protestant readers that this is not the issue. The issue is theological and doctrinal, and we are working on them, but the point you make is that both expression of the Church, east or West, gat their authority from Apostolic Succession, valid priesthood and sacraments. And I think the Catholics have been moving back to orthodoxy of late.
I hope that the Roman rite is moving back towards Orthodoxy as well.
Whatever that is customary that is a stumbling block to unity, I am willing to part with, or to leave as an option.
Orthodoxy and Rome are both the Catholic Church. The labor for us to make it a unified Catholic Church, which will not be a Roman one, but rather, a constellation of rites, including the (large, Western) Roman Rite which all share the Lord's Table and the Sacraments again.
With Orthodoxy and Roman and Eastern Rite Catholicism, this is possible. To the extent that we or they have erred, neither has erred so far as to commit heresy. We are in schism, which with whom is an old debate. But schism is not heresy. We are not anathema to each other, and we are not heretics. We are for the most part not even squabbling any more. Our disunion is a birth defect left to us by our ancestors which we and our offspring are working with love to heal.
And of course we will one day, because both churches are the Catholic Church and always have been.
With the Protestants, such as our fellow Mathemagician, it is otherwise.
I remain curious as to which particular Protestant sect he belongs.
I don't see any indication from Jesus that Christianity may be practiced alone, but see, rather, that it is to be practiced communally.
Communities have their own dogmas, their approved translations of the Bible, etc. Thus far, there has been no willingness on his part to identify his spiritual community. I find this odd. Freelance Christianity: an interesting concept...just not one that seems to have occurred to Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or Luke, or John, or James...
I refuse to watch these "true Jesus" stories because they've always got some professor of theology trying to explain away the Bible. The History Channel picks out history that suits them, I think. Mxxx
You Amish guys make really good raisin bread. I need to take a trip up to Lancaster to get some more.
I bought a beautiful picture of St. John as a child in a second hand store I used to frequent. It's the most beautiful picture I've ever seen. It's almost supernaturally so. He had dark hair and holding a cross, I think. I love that picture but I don't worship it. The artist was amazing.
but I believe he was muscular. After all, he was a carpenter and had to lug around large pieces of lumber for his projects. He wasn't a wimp.
I gather, therefore, that you are using the full "Catholic/Orthodox" Bible, so that you have the complete Old Testament such as it was understood to be in the time of Jesus.
So, at least we are potentially working from the same, complete Scripture if we are going to be "Sola Scripturans".
Then our dispute is limited (thus far) to a narrow pair of issues:
(1) that the Catholic Church fell into apostasy and failed to follow the text of the Scriptures. What you said about the Scriptures that followed Isaiah has a basic truth to it: if some later tradition overtly refutes or attacks scripture, the later tradition is void according to Scripture. (This puts us in a pickle concerning Jesus' overturning of the explicit language of the Torah on the point of divorce, but we will let that pass for the moment).
Catholics (of the Roman, Eastern Rite or Orthodox variety), will of course tell you that the Catholic Church has not instituted traditions that contradict Scripture, and therefore the condemnations of Isaiah or Paul are not applicable. So our disagreement would repose on the content of the Catholic traditions, Eastern and Western, and not on the fact that they are traditions. Tradition is not bad unless it is bad tradition. Our dispute, then, is not over Scripture (in this case), but over Catholic practice.
Our other dispute would be over the adherence in a Sola Scriptura of your little church of students to the Scriptures itself. Have you ordained your bishops and presbyters by the laying on of hands (per Paul's letter to Timothy)? Do you baptize? Who does your baptisms? Do you share the bread and wine of the eucharist, per Jesus' admonitions? Do you permit your divorced members to remarry? Do you permit your little ones to approach the Lord and forbid them not? Do you confess your sins? Do you impart the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands (what the Romans call "Confirmation", and I believe our Orthodox brothers and sisters call "Chrismation")?
What is your holy day?
And why?
Right! We aren't going to care what He looks like! We'll be on bended knee or prostrate before Him.
"Contradicting scripture is a sufficient reason for rejecting any prophet, teacher or preacher."
Except when Jesus directly contradicted the written text of Deuteronomy, in the Torah itself, by stating that Moses allowed divorce, but that divorce was contrary to the law of God?
Are they democrats too?
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