Jesus DNA

[Faith1960]

This Easter the History Channel ran a show called “The Jesus Strand.” Scientists obtained DNA from blood clots taken from the Shroud of Turin. Apparently the blood clots were taken during testing taken in the past.

This raises some questions immediately, such as… Do these clots taken from the shroud, and on the Shroud contain the Divinity or essence of God? Is this not a sacrilege to test these clot? Why did the Church allow these samples to be taken and kept by scientists?

They found that Jesus was AB type blood, and has descent from Druze ancestry.

Is Jesus known to be of Druze ancestry?

 

[ericc]

I noted my source, but here is again:

THE SHROUD, 2000 YEAR OLD MYSTERY SOLVED, Wilson, 2010.
After many years of research, Wilson proves this idea in his 2010 book.
The ancient Image of Edessa was not understood by people in general to be a burial cloth. As Wilson explains, in those times a bloody grave shroud was regarded as a terribly unclean and spiritually polluted object.
Even viewing such a thing could be harmful to a person’s soul. If anyone knew that the sacred cloth bearing our Lord’s image was actual a bloody burial shroud, they kept quiet about that fact.

The Shroud was folded in such a way as to only exhibit the facial portion, and the view of that faint image does not indicate that the person depicted is deceased. The image appears as simply a brownish stain that might have been left by someone pressing a cloth to his sweaty, dirty face. The eyes of this image actually appear to be open and staring straight ahead. That is what you find on the icons and mosaics of the Image of Edessa.

I could go on about these ideas for some time here. Why don’t you read Prof. Wilson’s books? His evidence is quite good.
Here are some other sources that mention the Image of Edessa:

The Doctrine of Addai the Apostle, Deleanu (translator), 2012

Eusebius’ ECCLESIATICAL HISTORY, Cruse (translator), 2015

EDESSA ‘THE BLESSED CITY,’ Segal, 1970

The Image of Edessa, Guscin, 2009

I don’t have his book and I don’t seems to be able to borrow an ebook from the Internet Library. The Edessa image was accounted as done when Jesus was still alive before his crucifixion and the Shroud is of course post crucifixion. If the face towel and the letter from Jesus accounts are true, then the Edsessa and the Shroud items must be different. If this account is false, then the person made up the story about the image and hence such accounts of it can not be deem to be credible. Your faith in the story of Thaddeus will be seriously undermined. Nevertheless, copies of the Edessa image shows an alive and eyes open Jesus.

Accounts of the Abgar letters varies from no mention of the image, to image from the living Jesus wiping his face on the towel either (one claim in Gethsemane Garden) to one that was painted. No full body portrait nor mention of burial shroud. If it is THE burial shroud, then ALL these accounts would be lies and hence not much value can be accorded to these stories. Cherry picking would be doing a Dan Brown.

Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History wrote about the Abgar legend did not refer to any image, nor shroud. The pilgrim nun Egeria in the 4th century saw copies of the Agbar letters and but nothing about the image. In addition there is doubt of the reply that Jesus wrote to Abgar. For instance Jesus was supposedly to have wrote :

Blessed art thou who hast believed in me without having seen me. For it is written concerning me, that they who have seen me will not believe in me, and that they who have not seen me will believe and be saved. But in regard to what thou hast written me, that I should come to thee, it is necessary for me to fulfill all things here for which I have been sent, and after I have fulfilled them thus to be taken up again to him that sent me. But after I have been taken up I will send to thee one of my disciples, that he may heal thy disease and give life to thee and thine.

The words in red would be an anachronism because nothing was written about Jesus at the time Jesus was supposed to have written this reply. The Gospels came a few decades later.

Another point that support that the Edessa Image and the Shroud being 2 distinct artifacts is from inventory listings that list them separately from various accounts when they were taken to France and/or moved around in France.

The linkage of the Edessa cloth to the Shroud I suspect is to provide a longer history for the Shroud since the Shroud made its appearance very much later. The late appearance creates serious doubt about the authenticity of the icon. Like in all antiques, claiming linkage with some famous identity raises its value compared to that owned by an unknown person. The Shroud could have wrapped some holy man other than Jesus. That possibility can not be ruled out. According to Josephus, during that period +/- 250 years of dating of the shroud, there were thousands of crucifixions. Some may be locally more famous than Jesus (Jesus didn’t get a lot of mention in Josephus writings). We should be seeing more samples than this Shroud. There is one other reported that I know of. Of the handful out of thousands of crucifixions and to p(name removed by moderator)oint this particular one as containing the body of Jesus is extraordinarily optimistic.

Ian Wilson seems to weave his story telling convincingly. But for archaeologists and historians, his stories are just not supported by evidence but suppositions.

You may want to look at alternative opinions such as “From the Mandylion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin” by Andrea Nicolotti. I am not saying who is correct but that there are sufficient doubt cast on the Ian Wilson’s version by this author and other historians. In fact Guscin In the Image of Edessa that you cited, says that " the safest conclusion is to say that the origins of the Image of Edessa can not be established with any certainty." And yet, you say

"We now are sure that the Shroud of Turin (as it is now known) was taken to the city of Edessa by the disciple Thaddeus where he used its facial image to heal King Abgar V. " The image story only came into prominence 6 centuries later when the Persians attacked. Perhaps you can explain your version of how Thaddeus with the burial shroud and the Abgar Letters story tie in together.

 

[undead_rat]

We know that the Image of Edessa was extracted from that city in 944 AD and taken to Constantinople. There it became know as the Holy Mandylion. Descriptions of its image are that it was brownish and watery, and Jesus’ features were difficult to distinguish. One account refers to His wounds on His side and wrists. The Byzantines regarded the Mandylion as the most sacred and important relic of our Lord’s passion. August 16th is still celebrated in the Orthodox Church as the Feast of the Holy Mandylion.

If it had been a Moslem army that sacked Constantinople in 1204, it might be conceivable that the Mandylion would have been destroyed then. But such was not the case. Officers of the French Fourth Crusade had been inside the city many times and had been allowed to witness the Mandylion. They knew exactly where it was kept and also how valuable it was. The French takeover of Constantinople was motivated by the refusal of the French installed Byzantine Emperor to pay to the Fourth Crusade the money that he had agreed to. The Venetians wanted hard currency to recompense themselves for their great expense of providing a fleet of ships to the Crusade. The French, on the other hand, were primarily after the valuable Christian religious relics, and the Holy Mandylion would have been a top priority.

Barbara Frale is a historian on the staff at the Vatican Secret Archives. I refer you to her research results:

THE TEMPLARS AND THE SHROUD OF CHRIST, 2011.

There you will find the story of what happened to the Holy Mandylion after it was stolen by officials of the Fourth Crusade until it reappeared in Lirey, France, in 1357.

Prof. Wilson’s works are available on Amazon for a small price (except for the hardcover of THE SHROUD, the price of which often goes up to $500.)
If you are really interested in this subject, these books are essential reading.

 

[ffg]

Does someone know if the back of the man on the shroud is the flip side of the front, or if the back is a separate piece of cloth?.

Is the cloth like this back- /\ -Front (where images are not on the same cloth, or part)

Or like this back - I - Front (where images are on the same cloth on reverse sides, like a coin)

I thought it was like the second option.

 

[undead_rat]

Thanks for the reference to “FROM THE MANDYLION OF EDESSA TO THE SHROUD OF TURIN.”
Ian Wilson addresses the idea that the Mandylion was sent to Paris and refutes it.
But the fatal flaw in Nicolotti’s work is that he reveals that his whole premise is based on the carbon fourteen dating of the Shroud to the fourteenth century. I other word’s, Nicolotti accepts the C-14 dating result as proof that the Shroud is no older than 800 years, and he works backward from there.

But such is not the case. Let me make three assertions here.

1. The sample taken from the Shroud in 1988 for C-14 dating was a VALID sample.
2. No sample from anywhere on the Shroud will show a C-14 date of any older than about 800 years.
3. The 1988 C-14 dating results are proof that the Shroud is the authentic burial linen of Jesus!

Do these assertions seem contradictory? Let’s take a close look at the 1988 C-14 dating results. The first thing that we should note is that the smug professors who presented on their chalkboard the dates of “1260 to 1390” were not telling the whole story, lying really.
The actual results are 540 years old (1448 AD) to 795 years (1193.)* The British Museum didn’t like this 255 year variance for cloth supposedly only 700 years old. So they asked the labs to “average in” their outlying dates.
The interesting and very strange thing about these dates is that they show a linear progression. The oldest date was obtained from the part of the sample closest to the edge of the Shroud. The youngest (1448 AD) from the part closest to the sacred image.
This indicates that the formation of the divine image affected the C-14 content on the burial linen.
That theory is called the Historically Consistent Hypothesis.* It predicts that for every inch that a Shroud sample gets closer to the image of our Lord, its C-14 date result will be younger by about 100 years.
The 1988 C-14 results already confirm this theory. Further tests which produce C-14 dates of thousands of years into the future will astound the world!

*TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015