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.
There is nothing more beautiful than our love for Jesus and the love He has for us. It is the love in our souls which sees Jesus as the most beautiful and pure man in the whole world.
You mean Jews and some Christians. Even the Gnostics though of themsleves as "Christians."
No, I mean what I said. Christians rejected the Apocrypha. There are some out there claiming christianity that have accepted it. Whether they're Christian or not is a matter of critical interest and review. As you said the Gnostics *thought* of themselves as christians. Ward Churchill thinks of himself as an indian. Whether the claim is true or not is a matter for inspection. Feelings are immaterial to the truth.
If you are looking for a charlatan, look in the mirror first.
keep repeating what's essentially a foundationless lie
The foundationless "lie" is that the Jewish canon never had more books than after Jamnia and hasn't added any since then. The foundationless "lie" is that the Torah was the first part of the canon, followed by the Prophets in time, followed by the Psalsm hundreds of years later until all the books made up a Masoretic Text (the current Jewish Bible) shortly after Jamnia.
That is an evolution and things that evolve are not finished or closed. Your lack of logic is fascinating and is only eclipsed by your ability to live in denial.
And you, I suppose, have convinced yourself that you can walk on water?
Yes. God didn't write anything. Many men have claimed to be inspired (I suppose we are to believe that women are not inspired). Which one of them is considered inspired and which one is not is a matter of faith, not proof.
Either God was responsible for assembling his Word (both the Old and New Testaments), or he wasn't
I don't recall any biblical passages that reveal that God directed us how to assemble the canon.
Exceopt Muslims, of course! They would have us believe that some pederastic bedouin was dictated, word-by-word, the "true" scripture by some moongod.
God created the world. He did not assemble any books for us; people who claimed to "work" for God have -- from time immemorial.
If you have one man inspired to say there is no purgatory and another that says their is one. Which is inspired. That isn't a matter of faith when the one saying none is in scripture. God is not divided against himself. You can have faith in whatever you choose to have faith in. Blind faith is no excuse before God and is of no authority before men. Christ said, "It is written" not "I think".
Total "Amen" to that!!!!!
What does that have to do with the price of rice..? Are you now going to plead incredulity that someone else might be right or might claim to be? This isn't a grey area we're talking about where no-one can know God because there isn't a record to go by. That, in point of fact, is the whole reason for scripture. If you don't know God, yet have access to even
just the OT, you have no excuse for not knowing God.
When I *know* my friends, I *know* them because I am familiar with their mindset on things. I can near predict their reactions and opinions. The Old testament is nothing if not a record of God's mind on any number of things. I can know what is right by checking that. It is a sure rule to gauge against. That is why you don't add in anything that is in anyway inconsistant with what went before. Christ's presence is not inconsistant. Nor is what he did.
The question you asked is wrong. Whether I can walk on water is immaterial. The question is, whether I can or cannot, why can't you and what's your excuse. It's not like I hold a corner on the market to accessing God. And if God sees fit to work in that fashion through me, what is it to you? If your contention is that no one can know the truth,
you call God a liar and injust, because he expects us to know and even said he'd write it on our hearts.
So, what's the problem? Being wrong isn't a sin. Knowing what to do about it and not doing so is.
And He used to say "Verily I say unto you.. ." as in Matthew 8:10 "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."
People did not believe Jesus because He could quote the Scrupture, but because of His miracles and His message of mercy, Grace and hope.
But since you believe in a book and do not know God in spirit, then you must also know that Paul said "it is written" that not one is righteous...
Good. Then we agree Jamnia did not define the Hebrew Canon.
"Josephus was merely listing the books of what was then considered Scripture"
Perhaps you could list the books you think he was including.
"But does he list them as canon?"
If he didn't, his list is irrelevent to our discussion.
"Or else there would be no debate to retain what some accepted or reject as some wanted."
Many Christians, including Catholics, debated books of the New and Old Testaments long after you say they were Canonized around 350 AD. Otherwise, why would the Catholic Church feel the need to define them at Trent? You cannot argue with any consistancy that there was no Hebrew Canon until after Jamnia because some Jews were debating the books of their Canon, but also argue the Christian Canon was finalized in 350, despite centuries of debate by some Christians after that date.
"it was not Scripture -- not until it was made canon"
Then what was Christ refering to when He specifically refers to "scripture"?
"Are you saying they were Jewish "Mormons?""
Apparentely you are unaware of who/what "inspired" the Book of Mormon. Rather then describe them here, it may be an interesting study for you to compare Joseph Smith to the Apostles. There is NO comparison.
"I don't flatter myself that I know God."
Again, after reading many of your posts now, I believe you are being very accurate and truthful when you say that.
Sigh. I thought we had established Jamnia was not a council.
"It all rests on faith."
Careful here. You will draw down upon your head the wrath of many Catholics for saying a statement like that in any context. ;)
I am not sure of what religious persuasion you are, but the Catholic Church, the orthodox Christian line carried by Irenaeus, was one and undivided Church theologically with two distinct rites -- the Greek or "Eastern" and the Latin or "Western." The Ecumenical Councils (seven of them) met to reject heresies and excommunicate heretics based on the faith and not to argue over the cano.
When the Church split at the very top, the Latin side of the Church invented new theology that was circulated in various places in the West prior, but were never recognized by the undivided Church until the Franks carried the day in Rome at the brink of Schism. These theological innovations (the "original sin," the Purgatory, "Limbo," Immaculate Conception, imperial Pope and infallibility of the Pontiff ex cathedra, indulgences, etc.), in addition to the Filioque, are the reason the East and the West are not in communion.
It is indeed a miracle that the Church, for the most part, managed to survive as a whole for one thousand years, given that the phronema or the mindset of the East and the West are completely opposite. The West was influenced to some degree by Greek pagan humanism (and deification of human reason), as well as with Pharisaical legalism (in the West, the sin is synonymous with breaking of the law, and is something for which one must be punished as retribution for the wrongdoing). The two sides of the Church see everything from Genesis onward in a different light. Undoubtedly, St Augustine played a major part in this Western mindset. The East didn't get his works until the 15th century, and then rejected most of them precisely because they were unknown to the Chruch of the Seven Councils did not know such theology. So, frankly, I must say that you have no idea what you are talking about. The Christian canon was closed in 390 AD. It was reopened by the Protestant heresy and again at Trent.
Canon means Bible. Unless all the books of the Bible are agreed upon the Bible as a whole does not exist. The Jewish canon was evolving over a period of early 600 BC (around 670 or so), when the Torah was written, grew with the addition of the Prophets in the 400's, and with a partial addition of the Psalms in the last century BC (around 60 or so BC), and was finalized in the form of the Masoretic Text that all the Jews (with the exception of Ethiopians) use, consisting of 24 books. That final form was established at or shortly after the meeting, college, "council" whatever you wish to call the gathering of the rabbis, at Jamnia at the end of the first century AD.
As long as the books were being added or debated for inclusion the canon was not set. If the canon existed in a finalized form, why was there a need to write the Masoretic Text as the Jewish canon at the beginning of the 2nd century AD?
What is it exactly that you are arguing about? That the canon was not evolving? Or that the MT dos not represent the last and the final (closed) version of the Jewish canon? Or that the last of the books to be included (Ecclesiastes) was debated for or against at Jamnia?
Who is comparing Joseph Smith to the Apostles? You have drawn the analogy between Mormons and Christians -- the former being to the Christians what the latter are to the Jews. That is pathetic.
As for God you claim you know, can you recognize Him? Have you seen Him? What is He like? Can you describe Him? What are His habits?
Sacred writings, holy books, holy documents, but not the "Bible." A Bible is a collection of sacred writings. Gospels were Scripture to the Christians before the Christian canon was closed, i.e. before the Christian Bible (OT+NT) was completed.
He was refering to the torah and talmud... The Bible... Not the Christian bible....
John 1:1 "and the Word was God."
John 1:14 "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"
John 10:30-31 "I and my Father are one"
John 20:28 [Thomas] "said unto Him my Lord and my God"
Col 2:8-9 "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"
Tit 2:13 "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ"
Rev 1:17 "I am the first and the last" Rev 22:13 "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last"
Oh, let me guess -- this is not your scripture, right?
Talmud was created after Christ. The Torah is not the Bible -- it is a book in the Jewish and Christian bibles. The Jewish Bible, the Masoretic Text (the only Bible used today) was completed in the 2nd century of the Christian Era. It consists of 24 books of Torah, the Neviim or Prophets and the Pslams. The Talmud followed the formation of the MT and was intended to record in writing the Jewish oral tradition lest it be lost after the destruction of the second temple and the Jews living mostly in Disapora.
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