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.
First of all, for people who are not supposed to tell others what to think they write more Gospel interpreting books than any other Christian group. What is a book but telling people someone's opinion, and trying to gain their approval?
Second, they don't just read the Bible. They INTERPRET it. What they call a "church" (and I am talking about non-liturgical Protestants), is basically a sermon -- and a show. The preacher gets on the stage and starts telling you what is what and who is who. he doesn't say "The Lord says 'Be therefore perfect...'", they interpret what that means for the audience -- and sometimes it's thousands of people in an auditorium or even a football stadium. No one is talking to himself and interpreting; all they do is wave their hands and say "Amen." Talk about brainwashing!, while saying that each man is a pope. What a joke.
Third, how did the illiterate masses "read" the Bible of Luther's day? They didn't. It didn't matter if it was in Latin or in German. The Germans couldn't read, save for the noble and small middle class.
So sola scriptura was shoved down everyone's throat at the pleasure of the minister who held the key to God's words by being the literate among the illiterate.
Protestant message is "I don't need anyone; I just need a Bible." Yet they are the ones who make the largest congregations!
Also, it strikes me as rather self-contradicting to tell another man, "don't let others tell you what to think." I mean, really
Of course, but they don't see their own folly.
Well said.
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Some anthropologists ARE fixated on Neanderthals. I think another reason for this is an incredible desire on the part of secular scientists to remove Christianity from public consciousness. Hence, "scientists" recreate Jesus as a rather dim looking guy with a vacant expression.
I agree. However, it is not verifyable, it is a waste of time at best, and something that can lead both believers as well as unbelievers away from God at worst.
Well, actually, the Catholic reading in the Novus Ordo English language liturgy concludes a reading "This is the Word of the Lord." To which the assembled people respond "Thanks be to God."
But what Catholics say or do is not relavent. The 'tu quoque' fails here. We've already established that I'm a Mackerel Snapper. Not only that, but a relatively profane one (I used the word "Hell" in a previous post to establish irritation.) The state of my soul and what I believe is not at issue. My question was about what YOU believe. That I think the saints are latter day prophets who perform miracles and talk to God or angels sometimes, or that Mary actually made an appearance at Lourdes in the mid-1800s doesn't affect my question. After all, I believe that the Bible is Holy because it is part of the Sacred Tradition of the Church, which is all Holy.
You're the Sola Scriptura guy. So, it matters a great deal to your argument what the Bible actually says. It matters little to mine, since I'm a follower of the Whore of Babylon and all of that.
As to Jesus and Moses' writings, I would well expect a Jew to call the TORAH the word of God, the Law. And actually, at Mark 7:10-13, Jesus calls the Law God's word, but he doesn't explicity refer to the text. That is rather important to our discussion, actually, because your argument is predicated on reading the implicit word "written" into that text before Jesus' comment about "the word of God". The word of God is God's will and Law. It is not perforce what is written in the Bible. What is written in the Bible are words that contain within them the word of God, but to see it, you have to interpret it.
I do sacrifice sheep every Sunday. Or rather, the priest does, and I partake of that sheep. When the priest holds up the eucharist and proclaims "This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, happy are we who are called to partake..." etc., we are sacrificing a lamb right there. The lamb of God. Of course, Jesus was the Lamb of God too. Christian language is full of metaphor.
Anyway, I participate in the ritual sacrifice of a holy lamb every Sunday, and then I drink His blood and gnaw on His flesh, just like He said to do.
But even if I miss Mass and don't sacrifice a lamb this Sunday, or any Sunday, my being a disobedient, sinful Catholic does not relieve you of your Sola Scriptura burden.
Are all 10 Commandments still operant?
Or is the commandment to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy superseded? I can think of the passages from the epistles that might make you say that it has been. But in that case, The Law has changed, and there are really only 9 commandments, or perhaps less.
I gather that you would believe, then, that the jots and tittles HAVE changed, because with Jesus' death and resurrection all has been "fulfilled", per his words?
Or has the fulfillment not yet come?
I think it is high time the Eastern and Western Churches unified. We are all brothers in Christ.
Do you have a passport? A drivers liscense? Must be there are graven images of yourself out there - photographs. What evil Eastman Kodak has foisted upon us all! A pox on them! And we just accept it.
Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. John 14:8-9
A graven image...?
I would agree -- I really think those TV evangelists do tarnish the image of Christianity. Again, it's not a blanket condemnation of all Protestants. It is as you have put forth -- if a group keeps saying that one should not follow Church elders and yet follows 'preachers' what can one think? I've known people jump from 'house church' to 'house church' as they didn't like the pastor or had a minor tiff or something. Their organisations are person dependent. Tomorrow, if I go to a Catholic mass in Flanders or in England or in Italy I know I will receive the same gift, join in the same celebration etc. If I go to an Orthodox or a Catholic-Eastern church I can sense the same majesty and the traditional ceremonies seem strangely familiar. These are NOT person dependent, not dependent on the parish priest, this is the Church as a whole
Oh, good grief. Are people really so bored that this becomes noteworthy? The shroud is under doubt all by its lonesome. And adding more groundless speculation does what for the story - less than nothing. As a christian, my faith is where it belongs - in God. And traditionally, this kind of chicken scratching is done to beg faith in men instead. These guys really should find something useful to do, IMO. As for me, I think I'll go out on the web and review a collection of snake-oil labels to remind me why I fight to keep some sense of common sense perspective. LOL
Cronos We've been moving closer -- had a number of lively debates with Kosta and Kolokotronis
No doubt the good will of the Pope and the close relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarch have made strides. What is most remarkable is that, despitre our differences, we now realize and treat each other as part of the same family, and that is significant and profitable.
"... (btw tronis -- why bullet in the ***)?"
The story is that one of the anscestors of Theodoros Kolokotronis was shot there in some sort of battle and of course he bled. He was embarassed and so sat on a rock to hide the fact from his men! They found out anyway and gave him this name. It stuck.
"What is most remarkable is that, despitre our differences, we now realize and treat each other as part of the same family, and that is significant and profitable."
It most certainly is and to the extent that Orthodox and Roman Christians talk about the Faith together, as we often do both here on these public threads and more privately on the back channels and in our daily lives, we come to understand that in most matters spiritual and sacramental we are of one mind. I've noticed that the discussions we have had of the Fathers have been particularly enlightening since by our study of these holy men, we are in fact looking at a time when the overwhelming bulk of the theology of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church was formed in a Church which had not as yet suffered the Great Schism. Kosta and I have often spoken of an Orthodox phronema, or mindset, which, I'll propose, has allowed Orthodoxy to maintain the Faith of the 7 Ecumenical Councils without a Roman style ecclesiology or Roman concepts and methods of infallibility of how one "does" theology. The Western Roman phronema has always been a mystery to me, and yet its origins have been right under my nose. Some months back Vicomte gave us all a lesson in history in such a way that at least I was able to come to understand how the Roman Church developed as it has. Cronos, the English deacon Tantumergo and people like Sitetest have shown me how much of what I thought was just plain wrong theology in the Roman Church is often simply and at base a different way of talking about the same things. Converts to Orthodoxy like Agrarian and Marmema and Monkfan and The Reader David have so impressed me with the depth not only of their knowledge of the Faith which my family has held for 1800 years, but by how the depth of that knowledge has changed their lives. (By the way, always remember when you read something from the likes of Kosta, Formerlib and me that really we're just rather dangerous old Balkan Bandits who are frankly more at home in our mountains with our "pistoles" than wearing a suit and tie and acting civilized and polite) The very conservative Romans on these threads frankly encourage me that there are Romans who take very seriously what we Orthodox believe is our duty, and that is to speak out loudly, to proclaim ANAXIOS, in the face of what would appear to be innovation and heresy. I always thought the Roman laity was just supposed to pay, pray and obey. Other Romans, and even some Protestants, are so very Orthodox in their thinking and increasingly Orthodox in their phronema. That word phronema is so important and within it lies the major difference between the West and the East. NYer is an example of a Roman Westerner who is making a spiritual journey to the East, to the Maronite Church and who among the Romans will understand what I am saying.
It is unfair to ourselves, and even more so to lurkers, to pretend there are no differences and that Communion is just around the corner. Orthodoxy can take centuries to move and Roman has problems which need to be cleaned up. Our conversations here, though, are a part of both of those processes and can bear fruit, even if they are little fruits, if we remember this isn't a zero sum game and the one with the most points at the end wins. The Holy Spirit should be our guide in these conversations and we should all pray for each other at every Mass, Divine Liturgy and Lenten devotion we participate in. This is a particularly good year for that since between the West and the East, we've nearly three months of "Lents" to do that in.
Asked if the Orthodox have a certain ritual practiced by Roman Catholics, I simply said "that custom did not develop in the East," knowing that people who make the sign of the cross the Catholic way invoke the same symbolism as those who cross the Orthodox way. In either case it is a "motion icon" -- a sign that makes us think of Him.
However, as Kolo says, our theological differences remain. Until they are clarified or resolved the Orthodox cannot be in communion with the Patriarch of Rome, not because he is not the first among the Patriarchs, but because one church cannot be in communion with another church if the two churches do not teach one and the same theology.
The bulk of our differences is post-Schism, except the filioque, which remains a stumbling stone, although much has been done to show that the Catholic view does not imply dual origin and dual cause, nor does it diminish the Holy Ghost, as it may appear to the Orthodox mindset. I believe that the Church will eventually drop the Filioque, for the sake of unity and because the church in Rome doesn't use it, as well as because the Catholics can use it or not. For the Orthodox, the hands are tied on this issue.
As for the issues of imperial papacy, purgatory, Immaculate Conception and infallibility of the Pope (in matters ex-cathedra only), I am less optimistic.
But good will has done a lot of good to all of us. So, in all our exchanges, we should keep good will and brotherly love as our guides. We can only learn more from each other.
Out of curiousity, how often does that happen?
My point is that relying on every Tom, Dick and Harry to interpret the Bible is a recipe for disaster. If you wanted someone to explain a principle of Jewish theology, would you go to a Rabbi with 30 years of learning under his belt or to the guy who owns the local Jewish deli? The principle remains the same when discussing the New Testament.
There's something to be said for the approach of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches (as well as certain Protestant denominations) to Bible interpretation.
It occurs to me, in light of the original subject of this thread, that another one of those gestures that ought to be made is that the Shroud of Turin, which I certainly believe to by the burial shroud of Christ, bearing his blood - the "Sangraal", the TRUE "Holy Grail", taken by the Crusaders from Constantinople in the sack of 1204, should be returned by the Pope to the Ecumenical Patriarch at Constantinople.
I have come to be convinced that the Shroud, called "of Turin", is the burial shroud of Christ, and bears his blood, and that the Oviedo cloth in Spain was the cloth that covered his head while preparing him for burial. I believe that these were the actual burial cloths that John spoke of in his Gospel, and that the powerful image of Jesus burnt into the tissue was left by God to his immediate followers, so that their consternation and horror at finding the empty turn would be instantly transformed into joy, wonder, and an urgent desire to run forth and proclaim to the world "Christ is risen!"
After all, how would they know that the body was not stolen?
By Jesus' appearance, of course.
But since I believe that God left that Shroud, they knew - those who went to the tomb and found it empty - even BEFORE they saw Jesus. For Jesus left THAT for them.
Indeed, since I believe that the Shroud is authentic, I think it is the only actual DOCUMENT left by Jesus of Nazareth. He didn't write a word, but he DID imprint that cloth with that miraculous image, and God DID preserve it for 20 centuries, even through a fire, and countless wars.
Why?
The Almighty has its purposes.
I believe that the Shroud of Turin is the Holy Grail, the most sacred relic on earth, because Christ INTENDED to leave it to us.
It was stolen from Constantinople in the terrible sack that embittered East and West, and that the Greek Orthodox still remember.
We cannot revive the ancient dead or rebuild the ancient walls. But we CAN atone for the sin of the sack, and make a powerful statement about the IMPORTANCE to Catholicism of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the NEED to understand, to resolve all of our issues from history, to forgive, and to reunify, by giving the Holy Grail BACK to Constantinople, where it lawfully belongs.
It is the right thing to do.
And if done after an exhaustive new scientific study of the Grail that demonstrated its age and mystery, and put it on the front pages of the world, the SIGNIFICANCE of Rome's return of the Grail to the Ecumenical Patriarch would be seen and understood. "This is the holiest relic in Christendom, the Holy Grail containing the actual Blood of Christ, the one document that Jesus intended to leave us. It was yours, and our knights wrongly took it from you long ago in another time and age. This was wrong, and by returning to you the holiest relic in Christendom, for your safekeeping, we are making such atonement for that wrong as can be made these 800 years later. But we do not believe that in rendering this holy burial Shroud of Our Lord, containing His blood, to your care that this is passing out of the Catholic Church. No indeed. By this we recognize that you too are the Catholic Church, and we look forward with hope and joy to the day when our disputes and differences can be full and truly resolved, and we are all fully aware that whether the Shroud reposes in Torino or in Constantinople, it reposes within the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded by Christ to endure for all time, unto the end of the world. Amen.'
Obviously I should not be the Pope's speechwriter.
But that would be the right thing to do.
It would be the healing thing to do.
It would be the next step on a long path that must eventually lead to an Ecumenical Council of the Church, Eastern and Western, out of which comes a united Church in full communion.
A mere piece of cloth, though it be the Holy Grail itself, is a small downpayment for such a rich reward.
That's what I think.
I have many friends that look at "Christians" flocking to "mary aparitions" as proof that Christianity is pure superstition.
I have to explain that all belief systems have their share of mixed nuts and what these people are doing is no more Biblical than the KKK.
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