You’re making broad sweeping generalizations based on your own experiences with assholes. Every single group of people has some assholes. That doesn’t justify broad sweeping generalizations.
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Maybe they should have tried to acquire JC’s foreskin instead.
And lo! The true “shroud of Turin” of His “Hebrew hammer”.
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I feel a bit weird stepping up the plate here as a born-again atheist, but from what I remember of my RE classes, which were a bit closer to the event…
The Gospel of Mark was probably written about 70CE, or less than 30 years after the Cruxificion, so he could have been an eye-witness. The mysterious man in white at the tomb is thought to have been Mark himself. The common elements in the synoptic gospels (Mark and others) seems to be from some earlier written document, now lost. And there seem to have been a set of quotes in Aramaic that may have survived separately.
Dammit, fifty years later and I still have this junk in my head. But if Jesus comes across as a real person to you, and you want to shock your Xian pals, tell them he was a Pharisee. They were a hippie-like sect that lived in the deserts and had similar views, and all the texts that rubbish the Pharisees were added later. No actual proof because the Pharisees didn’t have ID cards, but it might make some think about who wrote what and why.
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I also want to point out that the people writing these Gospels did not have the same understanding of history that we have today - the idea of writing a factual account of events that are as objective in tone as possible. Plus, the Gospels were written as an exercise of persuasion, and from an “enchanted” point of view, as opposed to a modern POV that assumes an objective reality that can be uncovered via research.
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This started off by being about a Russian warship with a piece of the True Cross. Maybe be are getting off the subject a bit. But what the heck…
What you say is very true of writings form 200CE and beyond. They had more or less forgotten that Jesus might have been a real person, and more an allegorical figure in the fight against good and evil, the material world and the spiritual. But the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel wanted to be known as ‘The Son of Man’ and not ‘The Son of God’, Mark was no historian, and he was probably getting most of his stuff second or third hand, but he doesn’t have the Christmas story with the three Wise Guys. We know Jesus had a brother James, who Mark may have known. But there is a lot of mucking about, and people with the same name claiming to be the same as earlier guys. Almost as bad as the internet, really,
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Movie producers are getting more and more clever as this is clearly an attempt to seed the “news” with advertising for the next Dan Brown knock-off adaptation: “The Search for Red Oak to Bear” or some such. 
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Biologist here.
I may be mistaken since I haven’t done any DNA extraction in a lab since 2005 myself, so I am a bit out of touch with the development of the details. But I would rather say it is so highly improbable to determine a species of wood nearly 2000 years old by molecular genetics that it would probably have to be considered a proof of God.
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If people get irritated enough, the subthread can be moved…
I’ll add that even in the modern context, with recent history, it can often be difficult to pin down accurate accounts of events, and that’s with mass media! Imagine in the 3rd or 4th century, piecing together the past, and not even thinking in terms of “objective history”. These are works specifically meant to spread their belief systems to others and grow the church - hence, they are gospels.
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“Give me till five o’clock and I can get you a whole foot”
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You might be better off if you could get a pollen sample. The most recent Turin Shroud is thought to be a Victorian fake, made by draping a cloth over a heated metal image. But the cloth was dated to about 300 CE and the right area from the pollen, which suggests they got the cloth from a tomb in the district. But any wood in the district would do for a Piece of the Cross, and have the right pollen too.
If they truly believe, maybe they should be more worried about HAFTC (Holy Anti Fake True Cross) missiles that can home in on that sort of thing.
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True, but still not really likely to work with genetics, as far as my outdated knowledge goes.
Give me a SEM and some pollen grain and I’ll have a go to see if I can ID the species of a plant. Still, most trees are rather difficult in that case, because many lack species-specific characteristics, as far as I remember. Tree species in the middle east are mostly from a small set of phylogenetic groups, in which they are rather closely related to each other.
Wood, however, can be pinned down by its ultrastructural characteristics down to the species, if I remember correctly.
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Oh, he might have saved, but sometimes even half damage is enough to take you out.
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One of my favorite books is Baudolino by Umberto Eco. It’s an entertaining late medieval romp and in it, one of the central plots involves the main characters buying and selling holy relics, including six heads of John the Baptist.
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Or did he?
That’s one less warship in the world.
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I gotta admit, the logic of “Well if I keep buying John the Baptist’s head I’ll get the right one eventually” butting up against “Hey I sold this guy six heads for the SAME GUY, maybe he’ll buy a 7th” is hilarious to me.
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Was Joe Pesci in it?
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“Armed?”
WTF?
Well, the ship sank just in time for easter.
Coincidence? Irony? Inevitability?
They all apply, depending on your POV.
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FYI, Easter (or Pascha) for Orthodox Christians is actually next weekend not this weekend.
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I knew that because my wife’s sister had 7 kids, the oldest daughter married a Greek guy, they have always roasted a whole lamb that they butcher themselves (poor little guy).
But the last few years it’s just been lamb chops.
It’s next weekend.
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Maybe be nice to Him, just in case.
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