When I saw the title, I thought maybe they'd found actual evidence about where Jesus was buried. No, it's the traditional birthplace, identified as such in AD 329, apparently.
What is now known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was actually designated as such only in around 325/6. At the time there was a temple of Aphrodite on the site; Emperor Constantine ordered it replaced by a church, and when his mother Helena went to visit the site, she claimed to have discovered the True Cross and proclaimed it to be the spot of Jesus's burial. Aside from that rather questionable and politically/religiously convenient claim, there's no other evidence for the site having anything to do with the historical Jesus.
Josephus was not contemporary of Jesus. There is also the slight problem that the passages about Jesus in Josephus look to be later Christian interpolations [1].
"Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17]
Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5, 2 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic and not a Christian interpolation.[18][19][20]"
Among historians and biblical scholars, there's very little question that a person called Jesus from the Galilee was executed by the Romans for treason of some sort or other. Aside from name, place of origin, and death, however, everything else is very hazy.
Jesus was a very common name at the time and Josephus mention at least 4 other Jesus's. I do agree that everything about the historicity of Jesus is very hazy.
It is a very complex area, but the sections that are thought to be valid don’t really say much about Jesus. Even if they did, Josephus was not contemporary with Jesus.
There really are no historical records of Jesus that are contemporary. The earliest are the letters of Paul and they were written decades after Jesus lived. Paul himself says he never met Jesus (except by revelation).
There are very few historical figures of that period (especially ones of such little contemporary importance) that we have a lot of really-contemporary written accounts of. By comparison, we have no contemporary accounts of Socrates, a much more prominent figure, in a much more literate subculture.
But yes, agreeing with you again (hello from the other thread!) from the other end - the authentic bits tell us next to nothing about this character.
The whole field is mired in methods that don't work. A counterpoint is the book 'On the Historicity of Jesus' and 'Proving History' by Richard Carrier. It's not as easy to dismiss as many suppose.
People like Carrier who deny the historicity of Christ are the equivalent of creationists/ID-ists/climate change deniers in history. They are regarded as crackpots in history and biblical studies.
Hah, no. Read his book. As I said, not so easily dismissed. Sure, historicity-deniers have been tainted by poor scholarship in the past, but this is nothing like that.
I had the privilege of visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after attending an astronomy conference in Israel a year ago. My wife and I got there for a mass just a little before 6am so it wasn't very crowded. It was really an extraordinary experience. The Edicule had something of a steampunk feel to it, which I was not expecting. As the article mentions, it was built in the 1800s, but due to the Status Quo agreement, it has not been maintained at all and it looked like it could collapse at any moment.
The whole mass felt very surreal. As it was being celebrated there was simultaneously an Armenian liturgy and Greek Orthodox liturgy being celebrated on other sides of the Edicule. If you've ever been to one of those liturgies, you know that there's an almost constant drone of chant throughout. At times it was hard to hear the priest in front of us! I'm still not sure whether to interpret the experience as being a wonderful illustration of the unity or the disunity of the Christian Church.
Spent the winter in Israel a couple of years ago. The old city in Jerusalem is awe inspiring.
As for the Holy Sepulchre, as a non-Christian I found it pretty surreal. Clearly for the faithful it's a big deal, saw people outright crying coming out of the Sepulchre.
The church itself is beautiful, powerful artwork from all of the sects (Ethiopian included). Particularly the fresco at the entrance, Christ being laid to rest, the disciples in tears, pretty moving piece.
Unfortunately my experience was darkened by a group of troublemaker teenagers; saw them shove an old woman deep in prayer, just appalling. On leaving they followed me and one of them spit in my hair. When I turned around the kid said, "only water, only water".
Needless to say Jerusalem's a complex mix of cultures, history, and religions.
> saw people outright crying coming out of the Sepulchre
This sort of reaction is deeply troubling to me because I see it as evidence of the overwhelming grip that religions have on (some of) their followers. It reminds me of videos of teenagers crying at the sight of Michael Jackson or the Beatles at live performances. It is unnecessary.
My mother, for example, is unable to laugh at even the most trivial of jokes about her religion, things that aren't even attacking her religion but simply having fun with a play on words. I am constantly seeking to remind her that it is a lack of lightheartedness that is at the rock of extremism. I encourage her involvement at her church for social reasons while attempting to remind her that anything that can't be laughed about is being taken too seriously (this is the foundation for many unnecessary wars and acts of violence or discrimination).
I know the likelihood that I'll ever succeed is small, but it's important to me to wake people from what I consider to be a way of thinking that impairs sound judgement (say, when voting or choosing how to react to world politics). I'm not against religion or the right to practice religion, just its ability to cause hysteria.
Not just religion. People cried when Princess Diana died. They cried on the anniversary of 9/11. And on 9/11 itself. People develop personal feelings towards popular people/events/concepts. That's just how we are, automatically forming emotional relationships, even when they're one-directional like in all these cases.
> I am constantly seeking to remind her that it is a lack of lightheartedness that is at the rock of extremism....I know the likelihood that I'll ever succeed is small, but it's important to me to wake people from what I consider to be a way of thinking that impairs sound judgement (say, when voting or choosing how to react to world politics). I'm not against religion or the right to practice religion, just its ability to cause hysteria.
Have you considered what is trivial and lighthearted to you might be deeply offensive to her? You might say "that is exactly what I am trying to change" but to that I would say "why". Unless a person is explicitly causing harm either by doing anti social things or inciting people with speeches to do anti social things, or forces their belief system on you, what someone believes in or finds funny is no one's business. I guess your mother isn't any of that - she's just a law abiding woman with a certain religious faith that makes her life feel meaningful - so leave her alone.
It also seems that you are to quick to relate religious people with religious extremists, which is flawed. The whole idea of atheists having to "wake up" religious people is quite cocky and indecent. Also the assumption that religious people have "impaired judgement" is deeply offensive. If anything, its the atheists who are extremists with impaired judgement because they think they are better then the religious people.
I used to be one of these cocky atheists in my early 20s and used to constantly bother my deeply religious mother until one day she told me off. She basically said why do I bother her when she doesn't force me to follow the religion (she did like any parent till I was a teen and rebelled and then left me alone). That was a wake up call to me. Of course, my cockiness will come right out whenever a religious relative or colleague tries to mock my lack of faith or give me unsolicited advice with religion based arguments. But in general, I don't try to be holier than thou and look down upon religious people or interfere with their faith.
> Have you considered what is trivial and lighthearted to you might be deeply offensive to her?
No doubt. Perhaps I could have been clearer. There is no version of a joke about her religion that isn't offensive to her. And yes, this is indeed the basis for the beginnings of extremism, although not full blown extremism by itself.
If you can't hear or read something about your religion that is contrary to your strict beliefs without getting offended, you are 100% doing it wrong.
It's surprising that they've done this, given the Immovable Ladder's example of just how difficult it is to alter anything in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This is the first time I have heard about that story. This is so strange and unbelievable, and yet very familiar. It sounds like something out of Swift between the Big Endians and the Little Endians. Thanks for bringing it up.
Nothing some termites or woodworms can't fix, and it will at least lay to rest one more religious conflict.
From your link:
"The primary conflicts, however, surrounding the ladder and its immovability have been disputed by a lasting conflict between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church."
Surely such insect activity could be interpreted as 'an act of God' and then all parties could get on with their lives.
I've been to the tomb, once, when I was 13 ish. I remember an Orthodox priest inside the chamber, who was taking donations in exchange for candlesticks and talismans etc. I also remember him telling my father to leave the money on the tomb, next to his goods. My father, who is no more a Christian than I am was absolutely disgusted at that.
'Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible ... all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise being that somehow just can't handle money!, Always needs a little more.'
My experience was different while in Jerusalem - Christian churches were free to visit, synagogues required you to "donate" and mosques were immediately kicking you out.
I call complete bullshit. From having watched shows like NCS, we know the amount of direct evidence it takes to establish something like who was buried somewhere.
Like the shroud of Turin this is just another example of wishful thinking. They found some random tomb that has survived and announced that it was the tomb of this fictional character Christ. No chain of custody for evidence, just the wishful thinking of somebody who wants it to be true, just like the entire resurrection theory. Complete and total hogwash.
If we were to say this is the burial site of Joseph the plumber, the proponents of this idea would have no evidence to argue otherwise.
I wonder if it actually matters if he was real or not, or whether he did what the major religions claim he did. What matters is that billions of people believe it, and he's an example to billions of people, giving them a moral example to strive towards.
You know, like superheroes in the US. They don't exist (which is factually verifiable still), but people are fans of them. What if in 2000 years people forget or lose the origins but the story of e.g. Star Wars is passed on through the ages? It's not proven to be real, but it provides a moral example, a distinction of good vs evil, and a code to live by.
Short version of the evidence is these two (rather thin) things:
1. The Biblical texts include many theologically inconvenient details. A purely fictional character would just not have been written with them.
2. A near-contemporary mention, before the rise of Christianity, in a source (Josephus) without an agenda in promoting Jesus's story. (This is complicated by the fact that later Christian redactors added in extra references with more theologically convenient bits.)
This looks quite thin, but note that in this part of history sources are always hard to find - there are Roman emperors that we have much more tenuous direct evidence for! But it does mean that we can't really say much about this figure.
EDIT: On re-viewing - note Dr. Martin's interesting philosophical cartwheels trying to not look (to himself even) like he's going against articles of Christian faith.
EDIT 2: For the interested - skip to 27:00 after he's done hemming and hawing about theology vs. history and gets to actual information.
and here we all were thinking they'd irrefutably proved Christianity.
there's still history to be learned and an interesting story to be told about life thousands of years ago regardless of its lack of real supernatural content.
in other news Apple didn't revolutionize everything again with the touch bar, welcome to life :p
The article consistently qualifies it like "According to Christian tradition". Only the title is inaccurate. It even mentions that they're interested in finding out "how it evolved as the focal point of veneration since ... A.D. 326." Jesus was buried 300 years after his death? It's pretty clear on the fact that Jesus's body didn't really get put there and that it's just a myth.
I always find stories like this fascinating. We're talking about a place where a mythical event was supposed to occur. It's like analyzing the place where Promethius first brought fire, or the spot where Osiris was resurrected. Maybe interesting for anthropology, but by no means the 'hard science' implied by the tone and presentation of the article.
Of course they're OUR myths, so it's important that we describe them with serious sounding words, and pretend that they're a valid spur for hard scientific research.
There isn't any evidence, outside of mythology, that this place or slab of marble has anything special to reveal about our universe. Just because you're looking through a scientific tool, does not change the fact that what you're looking at is mythology. You're just looking at a communion wafer through a microscope.
Still, it's fascinating to me that we present it in the same tone and context that we present LHC results.
It's fascinating to me that your strong belief (ie faith) that this is a myth should cause you to not be truth-seeking and thoughtful.
I also can't see how the article's tone is "hard science". It uses words like "venerated", "Christian tradition", "sacred", and "cultural heritage" so I don't read presuppositions in it, and I don't recall seeing a hypothesis posed.
One of the main points of the article was that there are a lot of people and representatives of faith involved, and if the result of "hard science" research is "peace and mutual respect" (as the article quoted), then I would take that over LHC results every time.
Article is misleading. "Restorers working in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Israel uncover stone slab venerated as the resting place of Jesus Christ"
But it looks like the church is actually in the Palestinian lands [1]. Is there political motivation here?
The old city is technically part of the area taken in the 67 war, which is the areas which are usually talked about when refereing to palastine.
But unlike the west bank, it was formally annexed by israel, it contains jewish holy sites such as the west wall, it is not currently part of the PA and I doubt anyone is seriously expecting it to be part of a future palastinian state (in a two state solution at least).
A lot of the National Geographic societys work these days seems to have a strong appeal to religous people. They are owned by the FOX corporation and I wonder if this religious market is something that FOX is pushing them to focus on.
One story about archaeology, including the science thereof, in an ancient church isn't going to be a deal-breaker even for people who are fair-minded atheists.
They should have really mentioned the real most likely burial place of the historical Jesus, which was found some decades ago by the archeaologist James Tabor, the Talpiot Tomb.
The same guy also found the tomb of Jesus' family before.
This tomb was opened in 2005 for some short time, but there's a new jewish apartment building on top of it, so they rather go with the Church of Holy Sepulcher fairy tale.
Not many scientists but many Christians believe that Jesus actually lay in this Church of Holy Sepulcher for 3 days.
66 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadBut seriously, it should be an interesting read once they've fully studied it.
Edit: find->found
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Events_ge...
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
"Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17]
Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5, 2 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic and not a Christian interpolation.[18][19][20]"
Among historians and biblical scholars, there's very little question that a person called Jesus from the Galilee was executed by the Romans for treason of some sort or other. Aside from name, place of origin, and death, however, everything else is very hazy.
There really are no historical records of Jesus that are contemporary. The earliest are the letters of Paul and they were written decades after Jesus lived. Paul himself says he never met Jesus (except by revelation).
But yes, agreeing with you again (hello from the other thread!) from the other end - the authentic bits tell us next to nothing about this character.
The rest is just writings by the followers of said religion. That's not evidence, that is hearsay by definition.
The whole mass felt very surreal. As it was being celebrated there was simultaneously an Armenian liturgy and Greek Orthodox liturgy being celebrated on other sides of the Edicule. If you've ever been to one of those liturgies, you know that there's an almost constant drone of chant throughout. At times it was hard to hear the priest in front of us! I'm still not sure whether to interpret the experience as being a wonderful illustration of the unity or the disunity of the Christian Church.
As for the Holy Sepulchre, as a non-Christian I found it pretty surreal. Clearly for the faithful it's a big deal, saw people outright crying coming out of the Sepulchre.
The church itself is beautiful, powerful artwork from all of the sects (Ethiopian included). Particularly the fresco at the entrance, Christ being laid to rest, the disciples in tears, pretty moving piece.
Unfortunately my experience was darkened by a group of troublemaker teenagers; saw them shove an old woman deep in prayer, just appalling. On leaving they followed me and one of them spit in my hair. When I turned around the kid said, "only water, only water".
Needless to say Jerusalem's a complex mix of cultures, history, and religions.
Wtf?
This sort of reaction is deeply troubling to me because I see it as evidence of the overwhelming grip that religions have on (some of) their followers. It reminds me of videos of teenagers crying at the sight of Michael Jackson or the Beatles at live performances. It is unnecessary.
My mother, for example, is unable to laugh at even the most trivial of jokes about her religion, things that aren't even attacking her religion but simply having fun with a play on words. I am constantly seeking to remind her that it is a lack of lightheartedness that is at the rock of extremism. I encourage her involvement at her church for social reasons while attempting to remind her that anything that can't be laughed about is being taken too seriously (this is the foundation for many unnecessary wars and acts of violence or discrimination).
I know the likelihood that I'll ever succeed is small, but it's important to me to wake people from what I consider to be a way of thinking that impairs sound judgement (say, when voting or choosing how to react to world politics). I'm not against religion or the right to practice religion, just its ability to cause hysteria.
People aren't robots.
Have you considered what is trivial and lighthearted to you might be deeply offensive to her? You might say "that is exactly what I am trying to change" but to that I would say "why". Unless a person is explicitly causing harm either by doing anti social things or inciting people with speeches to do anti social things, or forces their belief system on you, what someone believes in or finds funny is no one's business. I guess your mother isn't any of that - she's just a law abiding woman with a certain religious faith that makes her life feel meaningful - so leave her alone.
It also seems that you are to quick to relate religious people with religious extremists, which is flawed. The whole idea of atheists having to "wake up" religious people is quite cocky and indecent. Also the assumption that religious people have "impaired judgement" is deeply offensive. If anything, its the atheists who are extremists with impaired judgement because they think they are better then the religious people.
I used to be one of these cocky atheists in my early 20s and used to constantly bother my deeply religious mother until one day she told me off. She basically said why do I bother her when she doesn't force me to follow the religion (she did like any parent till I was a teen and rebelled and then left me alone). That was a wake up call to me. Of course, my cockiness will come right out whenever a religious relative or colleague tries to mock my lack of faith or give me unsolicited advice with religion based arguments. But in general, I don't try to be holier than thou and look down upon religious people or interfere with their faith.
No doubt. Perhaps I could have been clearer. There is no version of a joke about her religion that isn't offensive to her. And yes, this is indeed the basis for the beginnings of extremism, although not full blown extremism by itself.
If you can't hear or read something about your religion that is contrary to your strict beliefs without getting offended, you are 100% doing it wrong.
That's how it starts, then it escalates and finally you get crusaded against.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immovable_Ladder
From your link:
"The primary conflicts, however, surrounding the ladder and its immovability have been disputed by a lasting conflict between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church."
Surely such insect activity could be interpreted as 'an act of God' and then all parties could get on with their lives.
Personal attack plus inflammatory rhetoric is the sort of dynamite we need to avoid if we're to have civil, substantive discussion.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12813739 and marked it off-topic.
This was not a personal attack in any way or form. It is a statement of the fact that supporting an apartheid state is not OK!
'Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible ... all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise being that somehow just can't handle money!, Always needs a little more.'
Like the shroud of Turin this is just another example of wishful thinking. They found some random tomb that has survived and announced that it was the tomb of this fictional character Christ. No chain of custody for evidence, just the wishful thinking of somebody who wants it to be true, just like the entire resurrection theory. Complete and total hogwash.
If we were to say this is the burial site of Joseph the plumber, the proponents of this idea would have no evidence to argue otherwise.
You know, like superheroes in the US. They don't exist (which is factually verifiable still), but people are fans of them. What if in 2000 years people forget or lose the origins but the story of e.g. Star Wars is passed on through the ages? It's not proven to be real, but it provides a moral example, a distinction of good vs evil, and a code to live by.
Short version of the evidence is these two (rather thin) things:
1. The Biblical texts include many theologically inconvenient details. A purely fictional character would just not have been written with them.
2. A near-contemporary mention, before the rise of Christianity, in a source (Josephus) without an agenda in promoting Jesus's story. (This is complicated by the fact that later Christian redactors added in extra references with more theologically convenient bits.)
This looks quite thin, but note that in this part of history sources are always hard to find - there are Roman emperors that we have much more tenuous direct evidence for! But it does mean that we can't really say much about this figure.
EDIT: On re-viewing - note Dr. Martin's interesting philosophical cartwheels trying to not look (to himself even) like he's going against articles of Christian faith.
EDIT 2: For the interested - skip to 27:00 after he's done hemming and hawing about theology vs. history and gets to actual information.
and here we all were thinking they'd irrefutably proved Christianity.
there's still history to be learned and an interesting story to be told about life thousands of years ago regardless of its lack of real supernatural content.
in other news Apple didn't revolutionize everything again with the touch bar, welcome to life :p
Of course they're OUR myths, so it's important that we describe them with serious sounding words, and pretend that they're a valid spur for hard scientific research.
There isn't any evidence, outside of mythology, that this place or slab of marble has anything special to reveal about our universe. Just because you're looking through a scientific tool, does not change the fact that what you're looking at is mythology. You're just looking at a communion wafer through a microscope.
Still, it's fascinating to me that we present it in the same tone and context that we present LHC results.
Well, I hope people are actually doing that. I think people believing in some phenomenon should aways encourage scientific inquiry into it.
I also can't see how the article's tone is "hard science". It uses words like "venerated", "Christian tradition", "sacred", and "cultural heritage" so I don't read presuppositions in it, and I don't recall seeing a hypothesis posed.
One of the main points of the article was that there are a lot of people and representatives of faith involved, and if the result of "hard science" research is "peace and mutual respect" (as the article quoted), then I would take that over LHC results every time.
But it looks like the church is actually in the Palestinian lands [1]. Is there political motivation here?
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7724981,35.2362521,15z
But unlike the west bank, it was formally annexed by israel, it contains jewish holy sites such as the west wall, it is not currently part of the PA and I doubt anyone is seriously expecting it to be part of a future palastinian state (in a two state solution at least).
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_t...
Not many scientists but many Christians believe that Jesus actually lay in this Church of Holy Sepulcher for 3 days.