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I recently read an article about how a mummified torso of a man living in Ireland was discovered. The torso dated back to 2,000 years ago.
Can you imagine....thousands, even millions of people living in the same time period as Jesus? I wonder what religion they followed. What their beliefs were. What did they think of the afterlife. Did they convert to Christianity? If so, when and what convinced them?
It makes me curious... how come we have physical evidence of things that existed 2,000 years (or more) ago but nothing from anything that was in direct contact with Jesus? eg: the bodies of any of his disciples? or any artifacts that were used by any of His followers?
But it also makes me wonder....it amazes me how a person who could be living in a whole nother country could be living their regular life when something extraordinary and miraculous is happening thousands of miles away.
While it can't be proven, there is circumstantial evidence that the house of the apostle Peter may have been found more than 25 years ago. It's very difficult to prove conclusively of course. It would be very difficult to prove that some object was the personal possession of one of the apostles of Jesus.
There were many different religions and beliefs during the time of Jesus. Some of these people did convert to Christianity as a result of hearing the gospel, as well as seeing the miracles performed by the apostles, according to the NT.
While it can't be proven, there is circumstantial evidence that the house of the apostle Peter may have been found more than 25 years ago. It's very difficult to prove conclusively of course. It would be very difficult to prove that some object was the personal possession of one of the apostles of Jesus.
There were many different religions and beliefs during the time of Jesus. Some of these people did convert to Christianity as a result of hearing the gospel, as well as seeing the miracles performed by the apostles, according to the NT.
Agreed. It's one thing to find a corpse or an implement or a house dated to around the beginning of the Common Era, it's another thing to conclusively determine the corpse's name or who owned or used a house or artifact. Even the original NT manuscripts are lost and the vast majority of the ones we have are 3 or 4 centuries old and probably represent dozens of generations of copying (either that or most of that stuff was written 3 or 4 centuries later and passed off as older, but I won't further kick that particular hornet's nest here).
The Vatican has a "Scavi Tour" you can take in the necropolis beneath the Vatican (St Peter's Basilica is built atop a cemetery from around the 1st century) and the "highlight" of the tour, if you can call it that, is to see the place where some bones were found that were believed to be those of St Peter, who was said to have been buried in that cemetery. One peers through a small hole in the wall, across a chamber, to see a hollow illuminated in the wall on the other side, where the remains were found. So it's just a glimpse of a hole in a wall about 8 or 10 feet away. Just a few bone fragments were found, and even the Vatican admits that evidence is inconclusive (they can't prove it's St Peter, but Strongly Imply that they think it was he).
The Catholic Church has throughout its history possessed many such "relics" including multiple individual parishes claiming to have the same object. There were even several churches claiming to have the "Holy Prepuce", the foreskin of Jesus. That particular feeding frenzy was so ridiculous and got so out of hand that the Church officially repudiated it and threatened to excommunicate anyone claiming to have one of those foreskins. To this day you can make a saintly bishop angry by bringing it up, I hear.
So it's a fool's errand to put any hope in finding some definitive proof of the gospel narratives via archaeology.
To the OP's point, though, allowing for the sake of argument that the guy to whom this torso belonged was alive while Jesus walked the earth just a heroe's journey away ... what I always used to wonder is, yeah, if millions of people in that period had zero chance of hearing even rumors of what was going on in the Holy Land, what use was it to them? There's a convoluted subplot about how righteous Jews during the OT era were kept in an anteroom in the underworld called "Abraham's bosom" until such time as Jesus' death and resurrection could allow them into heaven, but what about some random druid in what's now the UK, or some random hunter-gatherer in the steppes of whatever-a-stan? I mean, Christianity is certainly a very exclusive club even today, since two thirds of the world isn't even culturally Christian, much less via actual belief.
Can you imagine....thousands, even millions of people living in the same time period as Jesus? I wonder what religion they followed. What their beliefs were. What did they think of the afterlife. Did they convert to Christianity? If so, when and what convinced them?
Most followed some sort of paganism, worshipping a panoply of household or tribal deities and offering sacrifices or performing slavish rituals to appease them. Paganism was thoroughly crushed by Christianity in large part because it was so easy to demonstrate the superiority of Jesus Christ over their deities. Christianity has so influenced our mode of life, even for non-believers, that it's hard to even fathom what it must have been like to be overtly enslaved to the demonic as the pre-Christian peoples were. Christianity was seen as such a profound relief -- such freedom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiz02
It makes me curious... how come we have physical evidence of things that existed 2,000 years (or more) ago but nothing from anything that was in direct contact with Jesus? eg: the bodies of any of his disciples? or any artifacts that were used by any of His followers?
We do have relics from early Christians, including the head of St. John the Baptist; although it must be said that there is debate as to which skull is the real article, since there are several claimants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiz02
But it also makes me wonder....it amazes me how a person who could be living in a whole nother country could be living their regular life when something extraordinary and miraculous is happening thousands of miles away.
Extraordinary and miraculous things are still happening, albeit nothing as profound as that of God becoming Man as happened only then.
We do have accounts of unusual signs and happenings taking place all over the world during the time of Jesus.
what I always used to wonder is, yeah, if millions of people in that period had zero chance of hearing even rumors of what was going on in the Holy Land, what use was it to them?
Christ's Life, Death, and Resurrection is of infinite "use" to anyone, anywhere; because in it salvation is found. Then, just as now, one only has to "knock" and the door will be opened -- "seek", and it will be found.
Christ's Life, Death, and Resurrection is of infinite "use" to anyone, anywhere; because in it salvation is found. Then, just as now, one only has to "knock" and the door will be opened -- "seek", and it will be found.
So torso-guy just had to ask the correct god who he didn't know for direct revelation?
So torso-guy just had to ask the correct god who he didn't know for direct revelation?
I don't know what "torso-guy" means or is in reference to; but we are all responsible to seek after God. If we are truly seeking Him in humility, He will not hide Himself from us.
So this is a modern Chinese Christian retconning Chinese astrology from that era as fitting the general narrative of the death and resurrection. This does not seem like it would be hard to do. It's the same process whereby OT passages are reinterpreted to be messianic prophecies.
Some of it is kind of ridiculous. The gospel account has darkness for 3 hours during the day, and this is equated with a solar eclipse, for which totality lasts maybe a minute at most, assuming you are in the path of totality to begin with. And of course, eclipses don't happen simultaneously in two different parts of the world. They are really having to force fit some of these celestial observations.
I don't know what "torso-guy" means or is in reference to; but we are all responsible to seek after God. If we are truly seeking Him in humility, He will not hide Himself from us.
In reference to the OP
the literal individual torso of a person who was born, lived, died in Ireland 2000 years ago
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