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Raising the Titanic, Sinking Christianity?

jfuh

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This is very interesting - source
If this is true will it make any impact on christianity? What am I driving at? Does it matter whether or not Jesus was or wasn't the son of god? To me it has always been that his teachings were far more important than the superstitions revolving around him.
I think that the fundies such as those in Jesus camp would have a hard time, but the true christians won't have much issue, or will they?
 
I think you're probably right. Fundamentalists seem to be less interested in the teachings of Jesus, living as he lived, and more interested in the control over society that their brand of faith gives them.

Even as a godless, damned to hell atheist, I find the writings in the New Testament to be very interesting and I always tune in to the History Channel when they are broadcasting a show on Jesus or any other biblical figures.
 
Actually this is pretty fascinating especially if it proves that the character of Jesus was a man who really lived. Will be interesting to see what all comes of this.
 
When I was religious, one of my favorite shows was one that aired on the Discovery channel that portrayed Jesus as a political dissident and social rebel. It made him very human and far more interesting to me.

Literalists will take issue as it fundamentally challenges their assumptions while those more interested in the ethics and metaphor of the Bible will likely view this as an interesting, albeit not that important find.
 
In the article it said that he and Mary had a son, I wonder why it is that French lore states it was a daughter named Sarah.

Oh well, the whole article is of no consequence. Whether or not he is the son of god gives no validity to the claims. And as literature, I feel the NT is still highly valuable, not only for the Sermon on the Mount moral teachings, but for the lessons on the golden rule as well.
 
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Lachean said:
In the article it said that he and Mary had a son, I wonder why it is that French lore states it was a daughter named Sarah.
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French like their women? Lost in translation? Who knows, this is very interesting stuff though, Mary of Magdalen and Jesus intriguing.
 
It will prove somehting to some people and something else to others. Some will believe it and some will not. Christianity will remain fixed in its traditions and superstitions no matter what.

Christianity's saving grace is the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The life example set by Jesus Christ is what should matter. Not the non-earthly super natural aspects probably embellished upon by man's ability to create.
 
This reminds me of the stunt Geraldo pulled when he televised the opening of Al Capone's safe. :lol: James Cameron always finds unique ways to generate interest in his films. This is Public Relations, nothing more.
 
To follow up:

Crypt Held Bodies of Jesus and Family, Film Says

Source

This is a forensics' wet dream come true. This may be the greatest detective story ever including the greatest coverup ever. Why do I say cover up? This could be Jesus christ and his whole family, how in the world did his tomb get "lost" in the first place?
 
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CurrentAffairs said:
This reminds me of the stunt Geraldo pulled when he televised the opening of Al Capone's safe. :lol: James Cameron always finds unique ways to generate interest in his films. This is Public Relations, nothing more.
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Actually Cameron would need to do very little to generate any public interest. All need be done in this instance is the claim that Jeusus' body has been found in itself is generating interest.
As I asked in the OP, so what if it were true? would it really be that big a deal?
 
jfuh said:
This is a forensics' wet dream come true.
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As far as I know, there aren't any viles of Jesus' blood or that of any of his relatives sitting around in a lab somewhere. So, how do you identify who the bones belonged to without any DNA for comparrison? The answer is: You don't. He's a John Doe. Just because they found a bunch of bones in a tomb in the Middle East doesn't mean that they belonged to Jesus.
 
The only difference between Christianity and other religions is that they claim their Messiah is the song of god. If Jesus was proven to not be the son of god the foundations of Christianity would be lost. What will this do in today's world? Nothing substantial. Christians, proven wrong or not, will still be Christians and hold faith in their belief no matter what is proven or not proven.

Here is my favorite part of the article
For 2,000 years people of faith along and countless scholars have pored over the Scriptures, confirming their veracity.
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People of faith and scholars "pore" over stories collected and edited by the Catholic church to prove that what the Catholic church's says about Jesus's divinity is true.
 
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Bones contain DNA. As do dead skin cells and so on. The thing about DNA is that it's incredibly stable - hence I don't think the problem is with extraction of DNA.
 
As if the divinity of christ is so important that if he were not divine his words would have no merit? I don't understand that part about some ppl of faith.
But obviously you hit on some key points.
1. The stories were collected by the church
2. the stories were edited by the church
3. the stories were translated by the church.
4. the stories were then interpreted by the church
5. the stories were then distributed further by the church.

6. This is the most important point; though undoubtedly it became about control, but the greater message is that one of good. Somehow along the way the message got lost into becoming one of supernatural powers and so on, but Jesus is about good and doing good and christianity is by far the most compassionate and selfless religion that I know of out there.

7. I think that if this archaeological find proves to be true, perhaps then ppl will focus more on the teachings of christ than on the supernatural aspects of the religion and instead become a philosophy rather than a supernatural belief.
What's even more amazing is that if the lineage portion is true, then there could be descendents of christ amongst us today, how cool is that?
 
jfuh said:
Bones contain DNA. As do dead skin cells and so on. The thing about DNA is that it's incredibly stable - hence I don't think the problem is with extraction of DNA.
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Yeah, but what do you compare that DNA to?
 
GySgt said:
Yeah, but what do you compare that DNA to?
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Exactly. We can take all the DNA out of these bones that we want. There will still be nothing to compare it to. What will it prove?
 
Good point Gunny, there is nothing to compare it to. And DNA does disintegrate, they may possibly be able to get some mitochondrial DNA from the inside of the bones or the teeth but it will be very difficult. And all it will prove is whether or not the people inside are related. They have done some tests and bones from the Jesus and Mary boxes were not related. That however is not enough to prove that they are the Jesus and Mary, or that the two people in the boxes were married.
There is blood on the Shroud of Turin but it's disintegrated to the point that beyond proving that's it's human they can't do anything else with it until better technology comes along. And even if they could as with all religious relics, it's had a long time and has been handled by so many people, the blood could have come from anywhere at anytime.
I actually know both James C. well and I've met Simcha and I'm not terribly impressed with how they went about this, they didn't' get proper permits, they didn't follow any archaeological guidelines in looking at the tombs, it was a very unscientific approach.
Besides that with the James ossuary fraud, (it was a real ossuary but the inscription wasn't) I have my doubts. The inscription "Jesus ~ son of Joseph" would be fine for a child but if this is an adult male it should read "Jesus of Nazareth" (my brother is an archaeologist, he's been talking nonstop about this) As with the James ossuary, the ossuary itself is real, it's the inscription that is in dobut.

But whether it's the Jesus himself, I can't see why it would have any effect on Christianity. There are literally thousands of religious relics and people even in the churches they are housed in, pay little attention to them. People will fuss for a bit, then forget all about it.
 
jfuh said:
Bones contain DNA. As do dead skin cells and so on. The thing about DNA is that it's incredibly stable - hence I don't think the problem is with extraction of DNA.
Click to expand...

Like I said, any DNA which could be extracted from the bones would be useless because we have nothing to compare it to for identification.
 
Maybe this guy is just cashing in on the "Da Vinci Code" phenomenon.
 
GySgt said:
Yeah, but what do you compare that DNA to?
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They can compare the DNA of the supposed two brothers to the supposed mother to see if they are indeed sons to the one mother. Then they can compare the child's DNA to the father and the other mother to see if they were indeed the parents of this child.

What they can't do is tell us without speculation WHO these bones belong to. There is no way to prove they are the bones of THE Jesus. So this is nothing more then data that will be put on the back burner until that can ever be proven. As of now it's a great money maker for those involved!
 
jfuh said:
As if the divinity of christ is so important that if he were not divine his words would have no merit? I don't understand that part about some ppl of faith.
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Have you ever read the "The Templar Legacy" or "The Expected One"? Not the greatest of books but they tell the story of a more realistic Jesus. His teachings are definitely not lost in anyway with a lack of divinity.

Christianity as we know it was created to bring peace to the Rome. Jesus needed to be divine to compete with the Gods of the Pagan religions who were dominating the religions of Rome at the time. The claim in his divinity does not validate his teachings in anyway to anyone who is not ignorant of the religion.
 
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GySgt said:
Yeah, but what do you compare that DNA to?
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There's nothing that I know of which you can compare the DNA to. Which is where the writings within the tomb itself would come into play. As with Egyptian mummies, how did we know that tut was tut, or that Ramses was ramsies, not from the DNA, but from the hieroglyphs. As the site had been cataloged and documented by a professional archaeological team to begin with there is no doubt of the authenticity of the inscriptions with this tomb.
As had been shown by the preliminary translations so far there is a good reason to believe that this is indeed the tomb. The DNA would server as merely a linker between the family and for the enthusiasts to see if there are any decedents.
 
Napoleon's Nightingale said:
Like I said, any DNA which could be extracted from the bones would be useless because we have nothing to compare it to for identification.
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that wouldn't be what the DNA would be used for anyway. The DNA would be used to see of the relationship between the "member"s within the tomb itself. It is the inscriptions that would be used to identify the members as well as other archaeological finds, ie radioactive carbon dating and so on.
There will be the skeptics there will be the fans there will be the facts and there will be the spins. What I'm interested is in this documentary itself, to judge on my own of how they did this bringing to question after I've seen it.
Like I stated in the beginning, this is all just an IF right now. Admit tingly I would hope that this is true simply because of who it is we are documenting here.
 
Gibberish said:
Have you ever read the "The Templar Legacy" or "The Expected One"? Not the greatest of books but they tell the story of a more realistic Jesus. His teachings are definitely not lost in anyway with a lack of divinity.
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No I haven't. Religion is not one of the subject I dwell too much into. But since you say this I'm curious, in what way do you mean it was not lost? From the standpoint of today it seems much of his teachings have been lost. 1. there are only 4 gospels that the bible cites and even those are incomplete with lost in translation and edits from the early church.


I'm uncertain at what you're trying to say here because from how I'm reading this, if what you say is true, then Jesus' divinity is the creation of man alone for the purpose of control?
 
GySgt said:
Maybe this guy is just cashing in on the "Da Vinci Code" phenomenon.
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Perhaps so, but then the question of Jesus has always been a question that historians and archaeologists have always wanted an answer to. Recall back in 02 of the reconstruction of what was believed based on historical facts how Jesus would've more likely looked?
source

in contrast to the popularist depiction

To even up the playing field here, here are two additional sources on this very topic.
source
source 2

Note the dates of these articles.
 
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