The real image from the shourd of turin.
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.
The real image from the shourd of turin.
"Jesus is just all right with me", The Doobie Brothers
I seriously doubt Jesus Christ looked at the world with such a vacuous stare. There is nothing about that expression implying love or wisdom.
This image is the result of over-educated pinhead speculation, imho.
By leaving with our sins means that we do not repent before we die. Those sins are not forgiven.
The Orthodox pray for the dead as an expression of thanks to God for having saved the souls of the departed. The particular judgment occurs immediately after physical death and that judgment is in essence the same as the final judgment -- merciful and just.
Only those who have received Christ into their hearts will make it. I'm sure we feel the same way.
Catholic or not it doesn't matter to me.
A graven image is wrong.
They cannot possibly prove it was Christ, even if it was legitimate which it is not.
"The 'graven image' in scriptures is condemned because it took the peoples' focus OFF of God, and His saving graces."
It's doing the same thing today and why it is still wrong.
Ergo, like a Wahabbi Muslim you oppose all statues, paintings of any existing object at all, photographs, drawings, even things produced by the engraved leafs of a printing press? If man engraved it or depicted it...anything at all...except for those specific cases in the Bible where God said to do it: the cherubim on the curtains and the ark, the names of the tribes graven into the stones on the ephod, the flower shapes of the candlestand, the bronze serpent of Moses, the bronze cattle with their bronze ewer...you think that is wrong?
If you are a literalist you do. For the Bible does NOT say "You shall not make any graven images, except as an artistic expression that you don't worship". It says "You shall not make any graven image." As in NONE. As in: everything in the Louvre is a violation of the 10 Commandments, and the existence of art museums is itself the erection of an idolatrous temple to graven images.
I will assume you don't go that far, but that you draw a non-Biblical line at religious versus secular "graven images". Which is all well.
However, if the Shroud of Turin is the burial shroud of Jesus, and the image was burnt into it by JESUS HIMSELF, at the instant of his Resurrection, then it is NOT a "graven image" at all, and it was not made by man, is it. It would be, rather, an image made by GOD, like Moses' stone tablets carved with the commandments by the finger of God, wouldn't it be?
Yes, it would be.
If GOD made the Shroud of Turin to have that image, then the commandment against graven images would be completely inapplicable, because it would not be a graven image, and would not have been made by man, but would rather be a sign left by God Himself.
Shalom.
"Not terribly Jewish looking - but I could be wrong about that.
Shalom."
Neither was Madeline Albright or John Kerry, but they all discovered they were Jewish when they came to prominence.
And soon, we will all find out Hillary is really Jewish, through her maternal great-grandmother, who was no doubt the daughter of a Kohanite priest.
Solidarity with fellow humans is a given, sir, I was talking about spirituality. I can stand next to a heathen and defend his mortal life. That doesn't make him my spiritual brother. When it comes to that side of things, it seems you want everyone to get along at the expense of the message. And there is no doubt that the message is the matter of import because it determines our spiritual end - something we will live with long after physical demise. If you lose perspective on that, then all is for naught to begin with.
Compromising to get along with one's neighbors is great, so long as it isn't compromise of the message. Like I said, the message is unpopular. The truth divides and enrages. And compromising the truth is apostacy - no matter what "noble" purpose you put to it.
We are told that our prayers benefit the dead, but we are not told much at all about what exactly that benefit is. There are scattered stories in the lives of the saints and in the spiritual writings of the Fathers that give some indication of the kind of help that is received, but it is all pretty circumspect, and care is taken not to try to define anything. The point to these stories (some of which are in the links I'm posting) seems not so much to be a satisfying of our desire to "know what happens" as it is to stir us to remember to pray for the departed.
Here are a couple of links to articles that talk a little more about it:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/death/prayer_dead.aspx
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/death/pray_reposed.aspx
Coming up in a couple of weeks is the Saturday before the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Meatfare Sunday). This is 9 days before the start of Great Lent proper, and is the most important day of general commemoration of the departed. It is traditional to serve a Liturgy for the departed on this day. This year at our parish we will be also serving the Vespers the evening before, on Friday night. I am currently preparing the materials for this service (one of the melodies -- "In paradise of old..." --has been preserved only in Byzantine chant, so Kolokotronis will be happy to know that I'll be warbling away in Plagal Mode 4!)
Here are the stichera that are chanted to the melody "In paradise of old...":
O ye faithful, remembering today by name all the dead from all the ages who have lived in piety and faith, let us sing praises to the Lord and Savior, asking Him fervently to give them in the hour of judgment a good defence before our God who judges all the earth. May they receive a place at his right hand in joy; may they dwell in glory with the righteous and the saints, and be counted worthy of His heavenly Kingdom.
By Thine own Blood, O Savior, Thou hast ransomed mortal men, and by Thy death Thou hast delivered us from bitter death, granting us eternal life by Thy Resurrection. Give rest then, O Lord, to all those who have fallen asleep in godliness, whether in wilderness or city, on the sea or land, in every place, both princes, priests and bishops, monks and married people, of every age and line, and count them worthy of Thy heavenly Kingdom.
Through Thy rising from the dead, O Christ, death rules no longer over those that die in faith. Therefore we pray fervently: Give rest in Thy courts and in the bosom of Abraham to those Thy servants from Adam to this present day who have worshipped Thee in purity, our fathers and brethren, friends and kin, all who in different ways have offered faithful service to Thee in this life and now have gone to dwell with Thee, O God; and count them worthy of Thy heavenly Kingdom.
graven image
n.
An idol or fetish carved in wood or stone. Umm... the shroud ain't what you are speaking of.
In haste. There is a basically Russian thelougemmenon which posits "toll houses" between earth and heaven. As for sins being forgiven or not before death, I think you're right. Unforgiven sin at death is simply unforgiven. On the other hand, if the judgment we face is actually a measurement of how like God we have become rather than a weighing in a balance of good deeds versus sins, perhaps dying with unforgiven sins isn't really much of an issue per se.
I suppose what you have written is true at one level, about message being of greatest importance.
However, it is important to remember that the message itself, at least as Jesus and the Apostles, and Moses and the Prophets before that, handed to us is not dramatically detailed and not very specific, especially once the Mosaic Law is lifted from us.
Jesus left us two commandments and seven sacraments. One can become very detailed and devoted to all sorts of different aspects of the religion, and not be interested in other aspects of it, and still not have abandoned the message.
Example: Sts. John Chrysostom, Francis of Assisi, and Dominick were all indisputably God-driven men, blessed, holy, sainted. But the one was deeply devoted to the liturgy, and the other was deeply devoted to the poor and the sufferings of animals, while the third was deeply intellectual, scientific, and devoted to correcting error.
These three men of God would not have had a great deal to talk about were they to sit at table. Plunk down Joan of Arc, the bellicose Gideon of the French who was also indisputably touched by God at the same table, and it is likely that the four would not have gotten along! St. Francis would have been appalled at St. Joan's resort to the sword. St. Dominick would have been appalled at the woman in armor. St. John Chrysostom would have wanted everyone to shut up and pray correctly.
Even the apostles did not get along all that well. They were bickering when Christ was around.
And they were bickering afterwards. Paul and Peter's disputes are in the Bible. That Paul thought Luke was worthless for awhile is also right there.
They didn't get along. They disagreed not on the core of the message, but on the method of promulgating it. And that is a different thing.
How much difference is there, really, between the core of the message between Christians?
Do ALL Christians accept the two commandments?
That's an awful long way to fellowship.
Do they ALL accept Jesus as God?
Nearly. And those who do, and who are Trinitarians, are also an awfully long way together on the message.
What is the DIFFERENCE between the Romans and the Orthodox, really?
Filioque...but is this REALLY a different in message, or is it a PERCEIVED difference in message magnified by a difference in language and then accentuated by more politics than was good for anybody?
The authority of the Pope?
Yes, that is a real difference, at some level.
But is THAT difference enough for Catholics to say that the Orthodox are all damned, or the Orthodox to say that the Catholics are all damned, because one (or maybe both) are in a degree of error concerning church governance?
Ummmmm. No.
How is that even RELEVANT to yours or my walking according to the commandments of Christ? If we were ordained clergy, we might have more to worry about. But even then, maybe not.
As mere laymen, it's an issue, and a difference in message, and it is not something on which my or Kolokotronis' salvation depends. He's an ouzo-sipping baklava-eating three-times through-the-liturgy stander. I'm a whiskey-swilling tarte-tatin-eating short-version-service-in-English please Mackerel Snapper. And neither of us is going to fail to get to heaven because we disagree on the message concerning the precise boundaries of authority of the Roman Patriarch.
Is it important?
Yeah.
But not important enough that anybody is going to go to Hell over it.
Which means, in my scale of the Real Message, it's not all that important. It gives us men something to strive for, to untangle what we have tangled. That we eventually succeed in this life is not required for either of us to make it to heaven, where Kolokotronis will discover that I was right all along...well...if I make it out of Purgatory while he still remembers who I am...
Now, see, what you have written here seems about right.
The Orthodox have a sense that praying for the dead is the right thing to do, and a sense that God somehow makes these things work out. Think of the good Orthodox folks who confess regularly but who happened to have had some really nasty covetous and adulterous thoughts on the beach in Thailand just before the tsunami hit. They died unshriven, in a wave sent by God. To Hell with them?
I just can't believe that is the way God really works.
Nor do I think that's really what the Bible says is the way God really works.
There is some sort of "saving catchment", something at work.
As is characteristic of the rational West, which cannot take any issue without flaying it out and counting all its bones, even when they are too small to see with an electron microscope, the doctrine of "Purgatory" has lots of insubstantial meat on those insubstantial bones.
Too much meat, methinks, at least in the old and high forms of the excessive articulation. Sort of like the statues of the Shoulder Wound of Jesus (where he carried the cross) in Old St. Mary's, with the little coin slot and the prayer "Oh shoulder wound of Jesus! Remind us of..." It is meaningful to those to whom it is meaningful. To me it is embarassing, over the top, too much. I am not going to pray before a statue of the shoulder wound of Jesus. First, I don't know that he had a shoulder wound, but then, I would not pray before a blown-up articulation of the lance wound of Jesus either. Yes, that wound had significance. I don't dispute that those who want to place a lot of freight on it and flesh out 75 prayers of articulation in meditation on that are devout and serious. But that's not my thing, and I don't think I need to try to make it my thing in order to please God.
I think the same thing is true about the excessive articulation of the mystery encapsulated in the word "Purgatory".
The Orthodox don't use the word, and don't like the word.
But what they actually think and pray, well, that is pretty much what I believe, and what I think "Purgatory" really means.
I just don't believe that Jesus sent those Orthodox folks caught on the beach before they could be shriven to Hell. That is not the way that the God I worship behaves in MY reading of Him.
And it is not the way I would expect the God I trust behaves. Indeed, if I believed He DID really behave that way, then I would not trust Him or love Him half as much as I do. I would fear him much, much more, and love Him much, much less.
So, what you wrote, Agrarian, sounds like "proto-Purgatory", before the Western doctors dissected the patient. The dissection is an interesting exercise. Dante's "Purgatorio" made ME think, anyway. But what I actually BELIEVE "Purgatory" IS, is whatever that mysterious, not well-defined or understandable thing that the Orthodox and Catholics suspect MUST go on in some sense or other, such that our prayers for the dead mean something, and the unfortunates on the beach aren't roasting in Hell for being unlucky.
Every person will have to pay for their sins to "the very last penny" (Luke 12:59).
What the Catechism of the Catholic Church says on "Purgatory:"
1031. "The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. [Cf. Council of Florence (1439): DS 1304; Council of Trent (1563): DS 1820; (1547): 1580; see also Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336): DS 1000.] The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire. [Cf. 1 Cor 3:15; 1 Pet 1:7.] As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come. [St. Gregory the Great, Dial. 4, 39: PL 77, 396; cf. Mt 12:32-36.]"
1472. "To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the 'eternal punishment' of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the 'temporal punishment' of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain. [Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1712-1713; (1563): 1820.]"
I would disagree profoundly with your summation of the events. But that illustrates the point I was making earlier. Banding together for the sake of one's physical presence is one thing. Banding together for the sake of unity despite message is Apostacy. The message invariably is tainted and the outcome is teaching a lie for the sake of harmony. If we're gonna resort to that, then why pretend at Christianity or that Christ has any efficacy. When the message is turned into assent for a lie, you've nullified Christ's worth and the covenant with it. In the doing, you've said the enemy was right all along. These are natural consequences that cannot be avoided, skirted or danced around with semantics. Many try endlessly. And shining the light of truth in on the semantics generally tends to divide, not unite. Which is why many of these groups are not unified to begin with.
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