ROME, (Reuters) - Pope Benedict announced yesterday that fragments of bone from the first or second century had been found in a tomb in the Basilica of St Paul in Rome, which he said confirmed the belief that it housed the apostle’s remains.
“This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains on the Apostle Paul,” the pontiff said at St Paul’s-Outside-the-Walls, on the eve of the Feasts of St Peter and St Paul celebrated today.
Peter and Paul are revered by Christians as the greatest early missionaries. Converting on the road to Damascus following a blinding vision of Jesus, Paul took the Gospel to pagan Greeks and Romans and met his martyrdom in Rome in about AD 65.
Christian tradition had it that St Paul was buried together with St Peter in a catacomb on the Via Appia, before being moved to the basilica erected in his honour. For centuries it was believed that his remains were buried beneath the altar.
Put the bones to a DNA test.
Doesn’t it all sound eerily familiar:
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“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
“Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?
“Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
“Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” (Mat. 23)
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It does, doesn’t it. How strange!
Matthew did not write the gospel named after him. It was authored and edited by others long after Yeshua left the the scene and some years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple in 70 CE.
[You Can Live Forever(-63)] did not write the following comment:
“Matthew did not write the gospel named after him. It was authored and edited by others long after Yeshua left the the scene and some years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple in 70 CE.”
It was authored and edited by some unscrupulous person long after the article above was penned and some days after it appeared in the Stabroek News.
None of the four gospels were written by the putative authors. They were all authored and edited by others long after Yeshua left the the scene and some years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple in 70 CE.
Finding bone fragments does not mean it was st. paul’s bones it can be any old bones, could they do a dna test to prove it, because my understanding that he never existed and those so-called preaching came from another period having nothing to do with christianity.
Paul did exist. He wrote several books in the New Testament, not all that are attributed to him. But the Gospel he preached was totally different from what is known as Christianity today. He never mentioned the virgin birth, for one. Read two books St Saul and The Invention of the Bible and Talmuds both by Prof Donald Akenson. Available at Amazaon.com
The Christian Church has been spitting in the wind for centuries trying to find concrete evidence of the authenticity of the stories in the New Testament. The Turin Shroud was a fake; the tomb of Jesus’ brother was a fake; and we could go on. It would not be difficult to carbon date these bone fragments although it would be the Church’s word that they are those of Paul.
It is interesting to note that there is not one shred of evidence, outside of the Bible whose authorship is questionable, of the historical Jesus.
Paul, ( Saul ) was a former bounty hunter. He hunted and captured Christians before his transformation. He should never be classfied as an Apostle, ( one of Christ’s twelve disciples) The historical Christ had 12 disciples, which one, Judas, died. Paul was given the title to fill the void created by the death of Judas, by a gathering of religious heads called by Emperor, Constantine ( around A.D.306-337). Thus began the concept of an invented Christ, totally different from the Historical Christ.
If one is going to make a blanket claim that Jesus didnot exist, at least do it from a base of intelligence and not ignorance. Hundreds of historical records outside of the Bible confirm the existance of Jesus. The Roman historian Josephus mentions Jesus and Roman records even recorded the existance of him. The argument is of course was Jesus the Son of God.
His human existance is historical fact.
There is only one early fragment of Homers Illiad in existance yet from that, the world accepts the existance of Homer. Why is that? Because Homer doesn’t threaten your philisophical world view as Jesus does.
James. Jesus did exist. It’s a fact. The Prophet Mohammed even recognised His existence. Mary was his mother. God is His Father, but He referred to himself as, The Son of Man.
No, not hundreds outside of the Bible. Just two and one of them is believed to be a fake by most scholars. I debated this with a Jesuit priest in the GC couple years ago.
The only ascertainable historical facts about Yeshua are:
(1) His mother was pregnant with him before she was married
(2) He was baptized by John the Baptist
(3) He was an itinerant preacher
(4) He had at least 12 disciples, possibly more
(5) He partook of a last supper with his disciples
(6) He irritated the civil authorities so much that they ordered him put to death
(7) He was crucified and died and was buried.
Everything else is …
To deny Jesus is blasphemy. “He who denies me denies HE who sent me.”
Thank goodness there is no capital punishment for ‘blasphemy’ like in the theocratic days like stoning to death or burning at the stake in the name of gentle Jesus.
Give it a rest people , u’ll only go on arguing , getting angry & in the end , we know not what is really true from false .
Only when we move on to the other side , then the surprise awaits us .
Ultimate W. Christ said, ” The truth shall set you free.” Seek it my friend. Delay is dangerous.
If it’s a surprise then we might not know it is a surprise or we won’t be there or there is no other side to be there.
Diamond D I’m free already bro. u seem to be a new ager , one who don’t believe in a God but in oneself. Try studying the Bible , don’t try to believe in it’s God , just study it . then come back and tell me who is really free.
Constantine was a tactital warrior, who claimed the have seen a vision of the Cross. He used the Cross to murder hunderds of thousands of non believers and acquire vast wealth and real estate. All in the name of Christianity. The Pope should now avail himself to be an instrument of the Truth, instead of dabbling in matters far beyond his capacity.
There is a historical Jesus, properly known by his Jewish name, Yeshua, who was a far cry from the iconic Jesus Christ of the Christian faith.
Have you read the historical jesus and the mythical christ by gerald massey, and also massey lectures, and als the deception and myths of the bible by Lyod m. Graham. Remember the ancient tamerian[egyptian] had the immaculate conception written on the walls in their temples thousand years before anything or anyone came up with christianity.
The immaculate conception is a biological impossibility among humans. It is only possible in certain animals and is called parthenogenesis.
no it’s not, i was born through an immaculate conception, that means my mother and father came together and had me and it was a perfect birth, that means it was immaculate, no complications.
Thought you meant virgin birth, which is what immaculate conception means. Won’t work today if your daughter told you that the Holy Ghost overshadowed her.
There’s a difference between a virgin birth and the immaculate conception, the immaculate conception happens all the time but virgin birth is a lie.
In short, believe what Jesus says, and what the Bible says.Do not believe what those who administrate the Church says.
It was the Church who administrated and decided, based on political and ecclesiastical expediencies, which books to include and which to exclude from the Bible.