The Shroud Of Turin

[Jonathan H]

To Ally,

Wrong way round. It's about being open-minded.

I already hold certain beliefs about the historical Jesus but am open to serious, professional people who have got a new angle on old sources.

Simply because being professional they have written something I can access, as opposed to something which is unpublished and not accessible.

[The Good Michael]

Ally,

It's because it's all being made up as time goes on. That's the plan.

Mike

[Ally]

It has always been my belief, Ally, you believe there are no such things as co-incidences or accidents, only by design or a result of a flaw in said design.

Don't be silly. Of course there are things such as co-incidences and accidents.

Well, if the 3-D image was by design how did the artist know how to bring the effect into being when 3-D was a concept 700 years away.

By accident. He was not attempting to do any such thing but the results of his work, led to what we see as "3D"

And if it were a flaw in the design it is a rare occurance indeed when a flaw in the design of a forgery would, even superficially, support the possible authenticity of the object in question.

It is not a "flaw" in the design. It occurred as the natural result of attempting to make a burial shroud "hoax" and using a 3-D subject, layers and different techniques to simulate what happens when someone bleeds out under a cloth. But of course the biggest thing against the shroud of Turin is exactly how perfect that face is rendered. Cloth does not lie perfectly flat against a face and yet that face in 2d shows as if it was.

But you didn't answer my question. If Jesus was making artifacts with an eye towards modern technology 2000 years down the road, why didn't he time his arrival better, so that millions and millions of people on the planet would not die AFTER he'd arrived, condemned by never having heard of the only path to salvation?

You don't believe in flaws in the design like that do you?

[Ally]

I had thought, wrongly, that nobody in academia touched the late apocrypha material accept as very late, Gnostic Apologetics.

Just out of curiosity so now, because a historian has written a book on it, you are more willing to accept the idea? Even though the gnostics have been there for decades, there for YOU to read and make up your mind, it requires someone else interpreting it for you and telling you what's valid and what to take from it?

How is that any different than preachers and their Bible?

[Archaic]

In my opinion, the shroud came out of Battlecrease.

You always were a trouble-maker Robert...

Cheers,
Archaic

[BillyE]

I just wanted to address a few critisisms of my previous post:


The Good Michael:

"Excuse me! Did you see Jesus' wounds? There is no proof that Jesus ever existed,"

I'll leave that one alone. I'll let history decide if Jesus (actually his name was Yeshua. Jesus is the Greek translation of his name) existed.

"and you're talking about corresponding wounds. Perfect anatomy? Define perfect anatomy please."

For that term "perfect anatomy" you have art critics and art historians to thank. It's comes from attempts to put the human form in the center of a circle. Most had their arms too long, or short, legs to long or short, torso too long or short. Da Vinci was the first to succeed with his "Vitruvian Man" sketch. And as for corresponding wounds, had the shroud been a 11-12th century forgery the painter would have almost certainly put the nail wounds in Jesus' palms rather than his wrists. All the art, sculptures, and crucifixes of the time prove this to be true. But on the shroud the nail wounds are through the wrists. Again, it doesn't prove the shroud is genuine. Just more sauce for the goose.


Ally:

"I am not entirely sure what your argument is here. Are you saying that because we have technology today that shows something that couldn't have been shown in the 12th century, Jesus must have made this especially for us here in the 21st? Knowing that the technology would exist?"


It has always been my belief, Ally, you believe there are no such things as co-incidences or accidents, only by design or a result of a flaw in said design. Well, if the 3-D image was by design how did the artist know how to bring the effect into being when 3-D was a concept 700 years away. And if it were a flaw in the design it is a rare occurance indeed when a flaw in the design of a forgery would, even superficially, support the possible authenticity of the object in question.

[Jonathan H]

I meant, Celesta

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Celeste, that's exactly what I have been looking for. What have accredited scholars written on this topic?

From Publishers Weekly
The Gospel of Mary of Magdala, a second-century gospel that was discovered in the 19th century and not published until 1955, shows Mary to be the apostle (yes, apostle) to whom Jesus revealed deep theological insights. King, a professor at Harvard Divinity School and author of What Is Gnosticism?, argues that the Gospel prefers inner spiritual knowledge to exterior forms such as the law and that it reveals some of the gender conflicts and spiritual divisions of the early Christian movement. King places translations of two extant fragments of the Gospel of Mary side by side, so readers can see the slight differences that appear in the originals. (Because approximately 10 pages of the Gospel are still lost, scholars believe we only have about half of its original material.) In the brief text, the male apostles are afraid and despondent after Jesus' post-resurrection departure, so Mary tries to cheer them by revealing some of the esoteric teachings that Jesus imparted to her alone. But the teachings cause discord, as Peter and others refuse to believe that Jesus would have given such "strange ideas" to a woman. ("Did he choose her over us?" a petulant Peter asks.) The bulk of King's book takes up various issues raised by the text-questions about the Son of Man, law, women's authority, visionary experiences and the body. This is a serious scholarly study with the apparatus of an academic book, including Coptic facsimiles of the papyrus, and Coptic and Greek phrases sprinkled throughout the text.

I had thought, wrongly, that nobody in academia touched the late apocrypha material accept as very late, Gnostic Apologetics.

[Celesta]

This is from the Gospel of Mary:

Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
Then [M]ary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what are you imagining? Do you think that I have thought up these things by myself in my heart or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"
Levi answered, speaking to Peter, "Peter, you have always been a wrathful person. Now I see you contending against the woman like the Adversaries. For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us.
"Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said."
After [he had said these] things, they started going out [to] teach and to preach.


It's one reason some people believe that Mary was more important in the Jesus movement than we were led to believe, and why some believe she was closer to Jesus than some of the other disciples.

There are only a few fragments of this text.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelmary.html

http://www.maryofmagdala.com/GMary_Text/gmary_text.html

http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm

[Jonathan H]

Oh well, we will just have to agree to disagree about the quality, training, and methods of certain writers.

I am not sure I understand your concluding question?

As a child I found the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels disappointing. All those Super-man miracles and then a resurrection that is so unspectacular?

If you were raised from the dead after being killed by your enemies would you not appear before the High Priests, and Pilate, and the crowd who screamed for your death?

That'd show 'em!

That Jesus only appeared before his followers, male or female [who in one account number 500] I found very unsatisfying. It made no sense as a story compared to, say, the tales of Moses and Noah and David and Nimrod?

Mathew's Gospel strains to make it more Hollywood by having an eclipse, the Temple cracked, and dead people revived and walking around. It did not cut it for me.

At the turn of the last century, Dr Albert Schweitzer came up with a radical theory about the historical Jesus which, in the 1950's, a nervous 'Life' magazine went to great lengths to obscure when they turned him into a world celebrity; the humanitarian 'missionary' doctor in darkest Africa.

In 'The Quest of the Historical Jesus' and 'The Mystery of the Kingdom of God', Schweitzer argued that Jesus was a purely Jewish figure, a prophet/healer whose ministry was dominated by a single idea. That God was about to end the world and he, Jesus, would be designated the Messiah of this new Cosmic Kingdom, judging the living and the dead.

Therefore, what seems impossibly hard in Jesus' teachings now makes sense, even practical sense. The world is about to be destroyed and so forget burying the dead, forget material wealth, forget the primacy of the family unit. Don't fight back -- its both pointless and the so-called rich and powerful about their get their just deserts anyhow.

But the apocalypse was delayed, and so Jesus went to Jerusalem to be killed and thus trigger this Cosmic meltdown with his sacrificial death for the sins of the Jewish people. Of course, he was mistaken and that is the fundamental reason most Jews did not follow him. Yet, Schweitzer committed the rest of his life to this heroic/tragic figure as he believed that the ethics of Jesus, his call to action to help the poor in body and spirit, was forever relevant.

[Ally]

You've missed my point entirely. I don't care if every single "serious historian" on the planet believes Jesus farted sunflowers, there is no theory validated by the names of the people who believe them.

When you are using the exact same argument as "rationalists" such as DVV and arguing on the basis of "no serious historian believes it" as the sole evidence for your dismissal, you are arguing in direct opposition to reason.

The truth is not determined by who believes it. Considering you believe Jesus was a myth anyway, how can you actually be rationally arguing that there's no evidence to support Jesus being married and what "serious historians" believe? So no one can even determine whether he existed, and yet, serious historians are determined that if this possibly mythical man did exist, which they aren't saying he did, they are absolutely POSITIVE he wouldn't have been married.

There's sound reasoning.

Just out of curiosity, if you were raised from the dead, who would be the first person you'd go to see?

[Robert]

In my opinion, the shroud came out of Battlecrease.

[Jonathan H]

Not at all. There are a plethora of historians whom I read, and enjoy, and don't agree with on all sorts of subjects.

Niall Ferguson being one. A great historian -- and quite wrong about the Viet Nam War.

I mean are they either historians by training, and if so are they attached to an academic institution?

I am just asking for a name, any name?

[Ally]

[QUOTE=Jonathan H;130667]To Ally,

OK, so who are these serious historians who argue that the Magdalene was a major figure in early Christianity -- so major that her true role has been covered up, at some point, by the Catholic Church?[quote]

Define serious historian? Or is your definition someone who has published works agreeing with you?

[Archaic]

Apollonius of Tyana

Hi Jonathan. I'm not familiar with Apollonius either so I looked him up... here are a couple of links if anyone's interested:

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/apollonius_of_tyana.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana

Some of his activities sound very un-Christlike, like exhorting a crowd to stone a wretched beggar to death in order to cure the village of the plague.

Best regards,
Archaic