Documentary Claims Jesus Was Married

[accordn2me]

As I said, all you have to do is LOOK at the shroud and you can tell it is a fake.

In the Lost Tomb docudrama, when they put the camera down the tube and it went around the bend and they all saw the ossuaries, they were ooooing and ahing and one of the men said, "What does it mean?" The other two simultaneously answered, "It's the wrong tomb." Like duh!

So, maybe all you have to do is LOOK at the shroud and you can tell it is a fake. I'm like the man that didn't even know they were in the wrong tomb. What do you see when you look at the shroud, Cypros?

 

[Dark Knight]

In the Lost Tomb docudrama, when they put the camera down the tube and it went around the bend and they all saw the ossuaries, they were ooooing and ahing and one of the men said, "What does it mean?" The other two simultaneously answered, "It's the wrong tomb." Like duh!

So, maybe all you have to do is LOOK at the shroud and you can tell it is a fake. I'm like the man that didn't even know they were in the wrong tomb. What do you see when you look at the shroud, Cypros?

I remember when some dude told Biblical Archaology Review he had created a PERFECT rendition of the image on the Shroud, but when you looked at them side by side, it wasn't even CLOSE! Anyone could see it wasn't a perfect recreation of it, it looked NOTHING like it! What a joke.

 

[Cypros]

In the Lost Tomb docudrama, when they put the camera down the tube and it went around the bend and they all saw the ossuaries, they were ooooing and ahing and one of the men said, "What does it mean?" The other two simultaneously answered, "It's the wrong tomb." Like duh!

So, maybe all you have to do is LOOK at the shroud and you can tell it is a fake. I'm like the man that didn't even know they were in the wrong tomb. What do you see when you look at the shroud, Cypros?

First of all, you have to look at the COMPLETE shroud. It is very long at the "images" of the font and rear of the body are head-to-head. Most of the photos you see are cropped so that you just see just the face, or just the frontal view of the body or just the rear view (not shown so often). This cropping allows the viewer to miss a key element -- the point where the tops of the heads (front and back) meet! If the "image" is from a real, 3-dimensional person wrapped inside it, you would expect an elongated swatch of cloth showing the TOP of the head connecting the face and the rear of the head. It doesn't exist on the shroud of Turin. Take two FLAT paper doll and lay them head-to-head. The sides of the body are also missing. It is a beautiful work of art.

 

[Cypros]

From yest another critique of the so-called "Jesus ossuary.

Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, expressed irritation that the claims were made at a news conference rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific article. By going directly to the media, she said, the filmmakers "have set it up as if it's a legitimate academic debate, when the vast majority of scholars who specialize in archaeology of this period have flatly rejected this," she said.

Magness noted that at the time of Jesus, wealthy families buried their dead in tombs cut by hand from solid rock, putting the bones in niches in the walls and then, later, transferring them to ossuaries.

She said Jesus came from a poor family that, like most Jews of the time, probably buried their dead in ordinary graves. "If Jesus' family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem," she said.

Magness also said the names on the Talpiyot ossuaries indicate that the tomb belonged to a family from Judea, the area around Jerusalem, where people were known by their first name and father's name. As Galileans, Jesus and his family members would have used their first name and home town, she said.

"This whole case [for the tomb of Jesus] is flawed from beginning to end," she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022600442.html

The point about the names is a good one. According to the NT, Jesus came from Nazareth. He was a visitor to Jerusalem. If, due to his death there, his family decided to bury him in Jerusalem, they would have most likely have specified that he was "Jesus of Nazareth", the practice of the time. Other family members later buried in the tomb would have most likely done the same thing.

 

[magicalfae]

I saw Andrew Greeley on Today show this morning.
He has written a book about Jesus and women.
He stated plainly this morning that Jesus and Mary Magdalene
WERE NOT married.

I do not believe Jesus was ever married.
I didn't read the Da Vinci Vode and I didn't see the movie.
I have, however, read books by Father Greeley. I think I prefer his word.

 

[IrishMist]

I saw Andrew Greeley on Today show this morning.
He has written a book about Jesus and women.
He stated plainly this morning that Jesus and Mary Magdalene
WERE NOT married.

I do not believe Jesus was ever married.
I didn't read the Da Vinci Vode and I didn't see the movie.
I have, however, read books by Father Greeley. I think I prefer his word.

Does he state WHY he so strongly believes that Jesus wasn't married?

ETA: Welcome to Websleuths

 

[LovelyPigeon]

In the Lost Tomb docudrama, when they put the camera down the tube and it went around the bend and they all saw the ossuaries, they were ooooing and ahing and one of the men said, "What does it mean?" The other two simultaneously answered, "It's the wrong tomb." Like duh!

The tomb they were looking for was empty, and they knew that because it had been excavated, emptied, and catalogued in 1980. When they saw the ossuaries in the first tomb they looked into by camera, it was obvious immediately that it wasn't the tomb the 'Jesus family' ossuaries had been removed from.

The tomb they were looking for wasn't far from that first one they looked into; it was just a few yards away.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

What was left of what was believed to be the True Cross was burned by the Muslims during the Crusades following a battle, unfortunately.

Is that your personal opinion or do you have a source for that information?

 

[LovelyPigeon]

She said Jesus came from a poor family that, like most Jews of the time, probably buried their dead in ordinary graves. "If Jesus' family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem," she said.

Yet the NT says that Jesus was "buried" in a rock-cut tomb. It didn't belong to his family, but it did belong to a wealthy believer who provided it for Jesus.

Jesus had many followers while he lived, and some of them provided money and means for his ministry, since he was unemployed when he walked from town to town, giving his interpretation of Jewish scriptures.

Whether or not Jesus "came" from a poor family doesn't have to dictate where he and/or his surviving family were later buried.

As Galileans, Jesus and his family members would have used their first name and home town, she said.

Anyone know if there are examples of what she claims would have happened if a family originally from Galilea were buried in Jerusalem in the 1st century?

 

[LovelyPigeon]

Most Jews were literate? What did they read in that day without printing presses?

Seriously. That's the first time I've heard a pre-printing...

I wanted to answer you, Nova, since I talked with my "source" about 1st century Jewish literacy. He emailed me in answer to question, and I'll supply some cut & paste that convey the reasons for his belief which is basically an examination of the NT scriptures and references from Josephus:

Staying away from modern sources, I will answer your inquiry by pointing to the evidence of ancient sources. For instance, most Palestinian Jewish communities had synagogues (even a little community like Nazareth where the common people like Jesus were invited to read from the Old Testament-- Luke 4:16-17). Each synagogue had a "Chazzan" (a teacher) who was charged with instructing young Jews in studying the Law. In the gospels Jesus at numerous times cites Old Testament scriptures that his listeners are familiar with -- even long passages. In fact, his critics even quoted scripture back to him at times and this prompted Jesus to say at various times, "Have you not read...." ( example, Matthew 19:4). Notice their response (Matthew 19:7). Another passage in at the end of the Gospel of John 7:41-53 is also an interesting commentary of the literacy of the common people. Pharisee leaders had to rebuke some of their own people for believing in some of Jesus' claims and works. Pharisee leaders had to appeal to the scriptures to support their own views (verses 42 and 52). In the latter verse, they even chided their Jewish audience by saying, "search [the scriptures] and look..." One more example is also telling-- In John 8: 1-11, Jesus saves an adulterous woman from a mob of zealots who want to stone her. They cite the Old Testament as a reason for doing this (verse 5). Jesus disarms them by writing an unknown message in the dirt that they read, understood, and then left (verses 8 and 9)...

But Jewish sources of the era also support widespread literacy. Josephus, a Pharisaic Jew, tells us in his autobiography, The Life of Josephus, 2, that he was "very proficient in learning," and began his own formal studies at age fourteen. In another Josephus work, Against Apion, 2, 26, he tells Gentile readers that Jewish parents were admonished to "bring those children up in learning, and to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of them, and that they might be nourished up in the laws from their infancy, and might neither transgress them, nor have any pretence for their ignorance of them." In other words, if they were to keep the law, they had to know what the laws were-- only literacy can accomplish that.

Furthermore, the great Jewish sages of this era, such as Hillel, also admonished young Jews to study the law so that they could keep it. His maxim, "He who has acquired for himself the words of the Torah [Law] has acquired life in the coming world" (Mishnah, Aboth, 11,7), was directed at all Jews, not just community leaders.

Finally...widespread use of signage and inscriptions in antiquity. Do you remember that Jesus' cross inscription was in three languages for all to read (including Jews-- John 19:19-22). In addition, archeologists have uncovered many "signs" from this period of antiquity written in Aramaic-- the language of the Jews of Jesus' day. For instance, a few years ago...a sign in Jerusalem in Aramaic that read, "To the place of the trumpeting." This sign was once in the Temple complex and told where Temple trumpeters were to blow their horns. Other Aramaic signage has also been found in Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Herodium. The audience for these signs were Palestinian Jews. Also what are we to make of coinage, gravestones, and "bone boxes" also labeled in Aramaic? All of this implies a widespread literacy among the ancient Jews.

Are you now "compelled" to acceptance of 1st century Jewish literacy, Nova?

(Sorry for the multiple hit 'n run posts, but my 84-year-old Daddy is visiting through the weekend...and he takes a lot of entertaining!)

 

[narlacat]

Which Christians claim that? This is the first I have heard of that one. It reflects a true lack of understanding of DNA.

Well Catholics for one.

Ahh but it's a question of faith

 

[narlacat]

I saw Andrew Greeley on Today show this morning.
He has written a book about Jesus and women.
He stated plainly this morning that Jesus and Mary Magdalene
WERE NOT married.

I do not believe Jesus was ever married.
I didn't read the Da Vinci Vode and I didn't see the movie.
I have, however, read books by Father Greeley. I think I prefer his word.

Oh, it must be true then

 

[Maral]

Well Catholics for one.

Ahh but it's a question of faith

Narla, there may be someone who is a Catholic who claims that, but it is certainly not a Catholic teaching.

 

[Nova]

Are you now "compelled" to acceptance of 1st century Jewish literacy, Nova?

(Sorry for the multiple hit 'n run posts, but my 84-year-old Daddy is visiting through the weekend...and he takes a lot of entertaining!)

Gee, LP, this gets less credible with each argument. Now I am to believe that not only were Jews of the 1st century widely literate in one language (the Hebrew studied at temple), but in a second, Aramaic, as well. That's a lot of time spent in school while somebody supports you.

I'll reread the post and be more specific tomorrow...

 

[narlacat]

Narla, there may be someone who is a Catholic who claims that, but it is certainly not a Catholic teaching.

I thought that was your argument re:incest in the Bible?
You know, the age old question of just who was Cains wife and why there were no birth defects back in the day etc
I thought God permitted intermarriages with close relatives up until a certain point and that Cain married his sister or a niece (or some female relative)

 

[narlacat]

I don't think I've heard of this Christian claim, but perhaps it rises as a question of where did Eve get her mitochondrial DNA. The creationist answer would be that God created it for Eve.

A literal belief in the OT would have all living humans in the world today descended from Noah (of the Ark fame) through his sons and their wives, Noah having been a direct descendent of Adam and Eve. It would literally mean that we should all have the same DNA if we all descended from the same 2 parents, Adam & Eve--wouldn't it?

It seems to me that the question of Jesus' DNA would involve the combination of the mitrochondrial DNA of his mother Mary and the DNA of the Holy Spirit sent by God to impregnate her. If Jesus' DNA had been sampled, wouldn't it be unique to the DNA of all descendants of Adam & Eve, reflecting the unique parentage that contributed to his existence on earth?

Well, they traced Mitochondrial Eve back to Africa- does this mean she was black?

But we don't do we?


Question- if Adam and Eve had more children besides Cain Abel and Seth, why did it not get mentioned in the Bible less one verse where it says 'Adam had other sons and daughters', what was so special about Cain Abel and Seth that their names got mentioned?

 

[Dark Knight]

Is that your personal opinion or do you have a source for that information?

I remember reading it several years ago. Don't recall the book or magazine off the top of my head.

 

[Maral]

I thought that was your argument re:incest in the Bible?
You know, the age old question of just who was Cains wife and why there were no birth defects back in the day etc
I thought God permitted intermarriages with close relatives up until a certain point and that Cain married his sister or a niece (or some female relative)

No, it wasn't my arguement.

 

[Maral]

Question- if Adam and Eve had more children besides Cain Abel and Seth, why did it not get mentioned in the Bible less one verse where it says 'Adam had other sons and daughters', what was so special about Cain Abel and Seth that their names got mentioned?

I would guess no other children of Adam and Eve were mentioned by name because it wasn't important to the religious truth that the writers of Genesis wished to convey.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

Well, they traced Mitochondrial Eve back to Africa- does this mean she was black?

But we don't do we?


Question- if Adam and Eve had more children besides Cain Abel and Seth, why did it not get mentioned in the Bible less one verse where it says 'Adam had other sons and daughters', what was so special about Cain Abel and Seth that their names got mentioned?

Who is "they" that traced the original mtDNA back to Africa? Tell us, and also if the conclusion was that the 1st female human was black.

Answer-We don't know why daughters weren't named. The special circumstance about Cain & Abel is that the OT lists them as the first murderer and first murder victim.

According to creation as described in the OT, God either had to create other humans who then married with the children of Adam & Eve, or Adam & Eve also had daughters who married the sons of Adam & Eve.

Remember that Genesis says Eve was actually made from Adam when God took out a rib and created Eve from that rib. Eve technically would have been a daughter of Adam.

The DNA heritage of Adam, though, continued through Noah, and after Noah, all the other inhabitants of the earth--at least as the story is told in the OT.