Orthodox Easter isn’t until next week.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel so mocking about this quasi mystical mumbo jumbo, if this sort of thing wasn’t designed to forward an utterly evil political agenda.
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My mother donates to Catholic charities and receives tons of reliquary keychains in the mail. I get handfuls of them when I visit. I agree, it’s humbling if they’re really that, but…St. Symphorian didn’t save me from that speeding ticket.
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I forget the part of the New Testament where Jesus said, “hey is cool to invade countries and murder countless numbers of innocent people, destroying their homes and livelihoods as long as you carry a sliver of wood that I might have touched once.”
(Seems to be an all too common misunderstanding in history no doubt…)
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This is clearly one of Eco’s pet jokes. I quoted a bit of “The Name of the Rose” in an earlier comment, on the subject of the True Cross, but the scene – and the discussion of relics – continues, with William teasing his apprentice about possible multiple heads of the Baptist and concluding “the other head must be in a different reliquary”.
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He should try viagra
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They only lean towards saying Jesus existed out of deference to whiny Christians. Fact is it can never be verified. Someone like him, a peasant from a backwater province who did not challenge Roman authority, would never have the records of his existence that would have survived centuries later. Historians were not objective chroniclers of fact at that time and in that area, entirely Roman (or Roman lackeys like Josephus). We know more about Bar Kochba and his revolt than
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A Russian warship recently sank in the Black Sea after a blaze swept through its ammunition magazine. The fire was ignited after a scrap of wood believed to be a piece of the “True Cross” burst into flames.
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Having seen some of the discussion on the subject, that is definitely not true. Historians’ business is trying to reconstruct the past out of biased records, and the current consensus is that the balance of evidence points to a historical Jesus likely having existed. There is room for argument, not everyone agrees and I would not insist you should either, but let’s not smear people who have worked very hard considering what kinds of evidence there are like that.
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So, it’s an early present for Putin.
I’m glad the Ukrainians sunk the bugger, before it could do any more damage.
I do hope the crew escaped, though.
But hasn’t that always been the case, thoughout history?
Just look at the talibanners in the U.S. not to mention ongoing conflicts in the Usual Places for recent examples.
They all think they have their deity on their side.
Charlie Foxtrots, all, & ripe for mockery.
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Modern historians, yes. Ancient Roman ones, not so much. I may not have been clear about that. I apologize for any misunderstanding I caused.
There is no reliable contemporaneous evidence for Jesus, nor would there be. There is a lot of stuff made after the fact whose significance has been wildly exaggerated and conflated over the centuries. But there is no direct, reliable or objective evidence to suggest an answer here. Jesus would not have been considered significant enough to the Romans to be worth chronicling at the time.
He could have existed or not. My point is it will be an open question due to the passage of time and a large number of people seeking validation for their religious beliefs. The evidence one way or another is not likely to have survived.
Therefore it’s far more polite to just assume he existed because Christianity exists. But it not something which can be demonstrated based on what is out there.
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Just spitballing here, but what if that sliver wasn’t really part of the cross, but was something evil?
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why is true cross capitalized? Shouldn’t it just be “true cross” with scare quotes not True Cross?
Weird that style guides succumb so much to religious whims.
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More like true crosshairs.
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I mean I don’t think it’s subjecting it to a specific whim. There’s crosses, and there’s The Cross which I would think is a proper noun. Then there’s the True Cross which is the name of the cross that was the real one Jesus was crucified on. It’s like how there’s the electric chair that Ted Bundy died on, and the name of that chair was “Old Sparky.” I don’t see this as religion forcing a stylistic choice at all. I see it as a proper noun referring to a specific instance of a cross as The Cross, and that since there were many “The Cross” 's that were , for the sake of argument, NOT the real “The Cross” and there was only one real “The Cross” calling it the “True Cross” is just its name.
No scare quotes necessary, as named proper nouns get capitalized.
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Archaeologist here.
Yeah. Wood species identification would be done through optical microscopy in a case like this.
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Marxism had mostly been stripped from Russia by the end of 1952. It’s for the same reason that the Chinese and North Korean governments don’t want everyone reading Karl Marx, people might realise that they aren’t living under Marxism and get ideas.
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Don’t worry. No one’s blaming the war on “Marxism”. Putin and Russia had thankfully moved on from that in 1991. Blame the war on Putin’s criminal despotism.
But you could do carbon dating, to establish whether its at least 2000 +/- 200 years old?
Also: Good news on the True Cross. It’s apparently easily replaceable from eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/194982496946?hash=item2d65dccab2:g:udsAAOSw-kJiWuCn
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“So this is the skull of John the Baptist?”
“Yes it is.”
“Only… the Cathedral at Amiens also says it’s got the skull of John the Baptist.”
“Yeah, but they’d say anything. You can’t trust those Picards. This here is the real deal.”
“So does San Silvestro.”
“pfft. Italians. I ask you.”
“And in Munich. And in Damascus.”
“So? This is the true, genuine, authentic head of Saint John the Baptist.”
“It’s a bit small, isn’t it?”
“… Well, you have to understand, this is his skull when he was a boy.”
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That’s awfully reductive and a little insulting regarding what historical researchers do. I encourage you to read the research on this topic before dismissing all the evidence out of hand. I’m an atheist and see no particular value in Jesus or his story, but it seems there probably was a real guy who went around making speeches and starting a cult. I went in expecting it to be garbage, but the evidence does seem to be there, according to rational non-religious people who know a lot more about this than me.
Anyways, we’re drifting off topic here so we should probably rein it in.
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If the cross was one of the things that killed Jesus, then why is it a good thing to keep pieces of it around?
End Times Jesus sounds like an angry guy with many issues. Maybe there’s a special order of assassins, all armed with a toothpick of the Absolutely True Cross, ready to take him out if need be?
