Jesus DNA?

[Charity]

Ghosty:

I can’t say anything about disease or decay, but both (Jesus & Mary) most certainly died, in fact it’s Dogma that both died… Both were free from Original Sin, yet both died…

It is dogma that Jesus died; it is NOT dogma that Mary died. The Church doesn’t pronounce dogmatically whether Mary died, or not. The dogma is that she was bodily Assumed into heaven once her life on earth was finished.

If she had DNA, is it possible she was assumed with her DNA intact? She was not subject to decay, because she was the Immaculate Conception, free of original sin; this is why she got to go to heaven right away with her body in the first place. She was exempt from rotting in the grave and being separated from her soul like the rest of us sinners.

CCC
. . . also in her Assumption

966 "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death."506 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.507

. . . she is our Mother in the order of grace

969 "This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect.** Taken up to heaven** she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation …

 

[Ghosty]

The stories from which we get the basis of the Assumption from state that she did in fact die, and was even laid in a tomb. It has always been the tradition that Mary physically died, and in some accounts she was even placed in her tomb by the Apostles. This is what “when the course of her earthly life was finished” has traditionally meant.

While it is true that the definition of the Dogma itself does not use the term “died”, the tradition from which the Dogma is formed from specifically states that she did indeed die a physical death, just like Jesus did.

Regardless, the issue of the very real death of Jesus is still at issue. If Matt16_18’s argument is true, then Jesus could not have physically died. Jesus was born without the mark of Original Sin, without mortality according to Matt16_18. Incidently, that was an early Church heresy, and one of the reasons that His death is stressed in the Creed. I’m not saying that Matt16_18 is a heretic, but rather that his views were the logical foundation of an ancient heresy.

 

[Ghosty]

Matt16_18: Would you be so kind to explain to me the context that I’ve missed? I honestly can’t see any other way of reading that passage in the context of everything the CCC teaches on human nature and Divine Grace.

I would also be interested in your explaination as to why the blood of Jesus in the Eucharist has a blood type.

 

[Diane]

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Strider:

Marci,
The X and Y chromosomes have completely different genes on them. The Y chromosome ONLY confers maleness; the absence of a Y chromosome will produce a XX female (under normal conditons.)
The X chromosome is very complex and carries many genes not related to sex (such as male-pattern baldness - inconsequential, and blood-platelet formation - consequential = hemophelia) All females are X chimeras, carrying X chromosomes from both mom and dad and so are protected form many X-chromosome recessive diseases… Males receive the X only from mom and so are susceptible to these X-related problems.
I have a bachelor’s degree in zoology, a masters degree in the
teaching of biology and post-grad credits in human genetics and bioethics. I’m not a doctor, but I taught this topic in high school for years.
Oh, by the way, each X chromosome has different FORMS of the SAME information.
The above is why I wrote in my first post Jesus’ DNA would have half its origin in Mary and half in the Holy Spirit.
I am NOT suggesting anything untoward, here. I’m just saying the H.S. must’ve miraculously done this.
I hope this helps. You can return the favor. I’ve been on this board for months and haven’t been able to figure it out…what does lol stand for?

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Haven’t there been cases called parthenogenesis where just electrically stimulating the egg cell they have produced rabbits, but all were males. Could not the power of the Holy Spirit have done something similar to this in causing fertilization of Mary’s ovum? DM

 

[marciadietrich]

Ghosty:

The stories from which we get the basis of the Assumption from state that she did in fact die, and was even laid in a tomb. It has always been the tradition that Mary physically died, and in some accounts she was even placed in her tomb by the Apostles. This is what “when the course of her earthly life was finished” has traditionally meant.

While it is true that the definition of the Dogma itself does not use the term “died”, the tradition from which the Dogma is formed from specifically states that she did indeed die a physical death, just like Jesus did.

Actually there are two traditions. The one you are referring to is the one that the Orthodox adhere to - and they call it the dormition. The tradition Catholics tend to favor says she did not die but was assumed at a point before death. Each tradition favors a different city where the assumption took place. I can’t recall which city for which tradition, but one says jerusalem the other I believe Ephesus because tradition has Mary living with John there near the end of her life.

This is similiar to the two traditions in regard to the age of Joseph and if Jesus’ “brothers” in the scriptures were step brothers or cousins.

 

[Charity]

Ghosty:

Matt16_18: Would you be so kind to explain to me…?

Dear Ghosty,

I am definitely not the venerable Matt16_18. Nevertheless, I humbly think it would be useful to formulate this DNA of Jesus discussion within three categories of the conditions of man,( similar to what JPII does in his exquisite meditation the Theology of the Body):

The Three States of Man

1. Original Man- sinless innocent state prior to original sin
2. Historical Man- state of sin after the Fall, including the present
3. Eschatalogical Man- redeemed state after the future bodily resurrection of the dead

We do this on the basis of Christ’s words to return to the depths of the mystery of creation (Mt 19:4). The pope says an “insuperable barrier divides us from what man then was as male and female”, and " Yet we try to understand that state of original innocence in its connection with man’s historical state after original sin: “status naturae lapsae simul et redemptae”.

The state of Original Man was that of original justice and holiness, but was that his nature? After original sin, man is deprived of original justice and holiness , and hence, Historical Man’s human nature is transmitted in a *fallen state. *

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? the whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but** this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.**294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. and that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

Is it possible that the original sin also changed the functioning of human DNA?

 

[hecd2]

Diane:

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Haven’t there been cases called parthenogenesis where just electrically stimulating the egg cell they have produced rabbits, but all were males. Could not the power of the Holy Spirit have done something similar to this in causing fertilization of Mary’s ovum? DM

Diane, mammalian artificial parthenogenesis produces a female (of course, since no Y-chromosome is present). As far as I know no parthenogenetic mammalian embryos have developed to term. They abort, at the latest, about halfway through pregnancy - it is unlikely that haploid (containing only one set of 23 chromosomes) mammals are viable.

Alec
homepage.ntlworld.com/macandrew/Grenada_disaster/Grenada_disaster.htm

 

[hecd2]

SCTA-1:

Alec, God taking on human nature is not the Immaculate Conception.It is called the Incarnation or Virgin Birth.The Immaculate Conception pertains to Mary being born without original sin but she was conceived naturally.God has blessed you with great intelligence in science.

Thank you. My bad. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Put it down to a senior moment.
Alec

 

[hecd2]

Matt16_18:

A human ancestor has to have both a human body AND a human soul. It is, of course, impossible for science to determine when the first human soul was breathed by God into a mortal body.

Matt, a human ancestor might have to have a human body and a human soul, but an ancestor of humans needs have neither a human body nor a human soul. Of course science cannot tell when God breathed a human soul into the mortal body as all supernatural acts lie outside the domain of science. But science can tell when anatomically modern humans evolved (about 125 thousand years BP) and when behaviourally modern humans evolved (about 50 thousand years BP)

You cannot disprove the statement that Adam and Eve are the sole ancestors of humanity since there is no scientific way to prove or disprove the existence of a human soul. Science simply cannot answer the question of when the first human being appeared on earth, because science can say nothing at all about human souls.

I can disprove the statement because it has nothing to do with souls and everything to do with genetics and molecular biology, which demonstrates that is impossible that the lineage leading to modern humans ever passed through a bottleneck of two individuals since our lineage diverged from the lineage leading to chimpanzees. Modern humans cannot be derived solely from a pair of ancestors. If you take the set of all humans alive today, and consider our ancestry in every generation leading back from the present to 6 million years ago, humans have many ancestors in every single generation. The biology leaves no room for any other conclusion. As I said before, I have aired the full argument on other threads but can repeat it here if you wish.

Alec
homepage.ntlworld.com/macandrew/Grenada_disaster/Grenada_disaster.htm

 

[hecd2]

Matt16_18:

Is the Catholic faith supposed to be based on scientific evidence? So what if there is no scientific evidence that Adam and Eve were immortal before they were cast out of the terrestrial paradise! This is a matter of faith, not science. There is no scientific that Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell exist either.

It might be dogma that Adam and Eve were immortal before the Fall, but the scriptures are silent on the question of DNA. All living things on earth are based on DNA - it is possible that life based on some other genetic material could exist elsewhere in the universe, but on earth all life is DNA based. You can make up whatever fantastic stories about the biology of the pre-Fall Adam and Eve you like, but for the last three billion years life on earth has been DNA based. That includes the entire ancestral line of humans back to simple bilaterians and beyond to bacteria and Archaea.

Do angels have DNA? Are not angels living creatures?

No, angels are not living creatures. Angels are pretty figments of our imagination, in a grander but comparable class to goblins that live in the potting shed.

Alec
homepage.ntlworld.com/macandrew/Grenada_disaster/Grenada_disaster.htm

 

[marciadietrich]

hecd2:

But science can tell when anatomically modern humans evolved (about 125 thousand years BP) and when behaviourally modern humans evolved (about 50 thousand years BP)

Hello Alec,

The standard for behaviorally modern, is that tool and weapon making? Other items? Dwellings? Graves? All of the above? Been a while since I read up on that, can’t recall timing on when those sort of things popped up.

Marcia

 

[Charity]

hecd2:

… All living things on earth are based on DNA - …on earth all life is DNA based. You can make up whatever fantastic stories about the biology of the pre-Fall Adam and Eve you like, but for the last three billion years life on earth has been DNA based. That includes the entire ancestral line of humans back to simple bilaterians and beyond to bacteria and Archaea.

It is unneccessary to make up any fantastic stories about the biology of pre-fall Adam & Eve. True science and faith cannot contradict, because it is the same God that made them both.

I agree with you that all living creatures (not spiritual beings, as in the angelic beings or the Godhead) ARE DNA-based, RNA viruses excepted.(see here) It is my educated guess that Adam & Eve most likely did have DNA pre-Fall; the million-dollar-question is:
" Which components of the pre-fall state of original man can be scientifically elucidated, and which are within the supernatural realm?"

Matt16_18:

I think it is wrong to assume that Adam had DNA as we know it before the Fall. Adam had an immortal body before the Fall; a body entirely different than the mortal body that he received as a consequence of his disobedience.

But is it wrong to assume that A & E had DNA as we don’t know it today? What if the human DNA of original man was somehow qualitatively different in structure or function than the current genome? This is certainly within the possibility of speculation as in known processes of mutation, etc.

Let’s brainstorm and generate some hypotheses… Then we can shoot down the untenable conjectures and clarify the ideas that exhibit consistent accountability to the facts across both faith and reason.

Here are some hypothetical questions:

Are there natural means for original pre-fall DNA to phenoytpically exhibit any of the characteristics of man prior to original sin? Is the current human genome in a fallen state, too?
Is it now different from that of A&E’s genome?

Could the original DNA/chromosomes, in a physically different environment (paradise). have had functional immortality genes? What about anti-aging genes, telomeres/telomerase activity, self-repair capacity, or other mechanisms?

What if the original sex-chromosomes were different; not the curent X, Y ; but, previously constructed somehow to chromosomally explain Eve made from Adam and Jesus conceived of Mary? Could a catastrophic event like original sin have a genetic reverberation, accounting for the presence of the maternally-derived mitichondria in the genome?

 

[Matt16_18]

Ghosty:

If Matt16_18’s argument is true, then Jesus could not have physically died.

Say what? I have never said that Jesus did not have a mortal body. Both Jesus and Mary were indeed born with mortal bodies, and they were both born without Original Sin. One of the preternatural gifts that Adam and Eve possessed before the Fall was also possessed by Jesus and Mary – the lack of concupiscence. One can have a human nature with or without the preternatural gifts, because the preternatural gifts are exactly that, preternatural.

 

[Matt16_18]

Charity:

Let’s brainstorm and generate some hypotheses… Then we can shoot down the untenable conjectures and clarify the ideas that exhibit consistent accountability to the facts across both faith and reason.

You are on the right track. The first point that I would make is that Catholics have to accept that the Church teaches that death, disease, and decay were not in the universe that Adam and Eve were dwelling in before the Fall. That means that the physical laws that governed the terrestrial paradise were radically different than the physical laws that govern our universe (the Kingdom of Darkness). Decay is “built in” to the physical laws that govern the fallen world, i.e. the laws of entropy, the laws governing radioactive decay, etc. With an entirely different set of physical laws governing the universe that contained the terrestrial paradise, it is obviously true that DNA as we know it in the fallen world could not exist there, since the DNA of the fallen world is formed and shaped by the processes of disease, decay, and death.

Perhaps something similar to DNA existed in the pre-fall Universe, but I rather doubt it. Adam and Eve were created to be above the plants and the animals in paradise – they were created to be the masters of nature. But the Fall brought Adam and Eve down to a degraded level of existence; instead of being masters of nature, they became the subjects of nature. Adam and Eve sinned by choosing the created to the Creator, and they suffered a punishment appropriate for that sin; they became slaves to the creation that they chose. It is an entirely appropriate punishment that Adam and Eve in the fallen universe should inhabit bodies with DNA that is 70% identical with that of turnips.

 

[Matt16_18]

hecd2:

No, angels are not living creatures. Angels are pretty figments of our imagination …

That tells me all I need to know.

 

[Matt16_18]

Charity:

The state of Original Man was that of original justice and holiness, but was that his nature? After original sin, man is deprived of original justice and holiness , and hence, Historical Man’s human nature is transmitted in a **fallen state. **

Is it possible that the original sin also changed the functioning of human DNA?

It is also possible that man acquired DNA because of sin, which is the viewpoint that I favor. Of course, my view can be neither proved nor disproved, and I recognize that Catholics can hold alternatives to my view.

What a faithful Catholic cannot believe, is the view that death, disease, and decay were already in the world before the first human beings (Adam and Eve) came into existance. That is my real point of contention with Hecd2 and Ghosty.

 

[Charity]

hecd2:

… genetics and molecular biology, which demonstrates that is impossible that the lineage leading to modern humans ever passed through a bottleneck of two individuals since our lineage diverged from the lineage leading to chimpanzees. Modern humans cannot be derived solely from a pair of ancestors…

Modern humans (historical man) are derived solely from two pre-Fall (original man) human ancestors, Adam & Eve. What is unclear is whether traditional genetics and molecular biology can be a basis for analysis of this truth since A & E were originally in a radically different physical & spiritual condition and environment than our current condition post-fall.

John Paul II speaks of God creating man in His own image, as “…the absolute impossibility of reducing man to the world. Already in the light of the first phrases of the Bible, man cannot be either understood or explained completely in terms or categories taken from “the world,” that is, from the visible complex of bodies. Notwithstanding this, man is also corporeal.” Theology of the Body, p.28.

There are still too many unknown and uncertain variables to allow scientific closure on mongenism. Molecular genetics should investigate other possibilities, such as an alternatively configured or expanded genome, or pristine genotype, in the original parents, fresh from the creative process of God. Otherwise the findings will subsequently be forced to a non-applicable Darwinian polygenic paradigm, resulting in a false negative conclusion on A & E.

hecd2:

… The biology leaves no room for any other conclusion.

The biology leaves room for other hypotheses. The biology leaves room for other premises and pre-assumptions. The biology certainly leaves room for reinterpretation and revision based on future findings.

 

[Charity]

Quote:
Originally Posted by hecd2
*

No, angels are not living creatures. Angels are pretty figments of our imagination …*

That tells me all I need to know.

Hey Matt,

Leave hecd2 alone. I didn’t use to believe in angels before I became Catholic, either.

Let us pray to Alec’s guardian angel…

That he continue to be guided to this forum to share his God-given gifts with us here.

Amen

 

[marciadietrich]

bumping to highlight this section on conscience and soul for Isabus … the thread is getting a bit hard to navigate so if you’d like to start a new one on that subject that would be fine by me

 

[Ghosty]

Matt16_18: It’s unclear whether or not death entering the world refers to human or all creation. The Church certainly implies that death occured before the Fall of humanity in its endorsement of scientific exploration. The teachings of the Church seem to imply that the “death entered the world” argument does not apply to all life, and to say that such is Dogma stretches the truth quite a bit. The Church has never spoken definitively on the matter, saying only that it is impermissible to say that humans died before the Fall. All previous official documents on the matter have been aimed towards addressing that in particular, so there language can’t be used to apply as a blanket statement for all life. It’s very important to recognize the context in which a doctrine was promulgated, and what the question being addressed is.

Say what? I have never said that Jesus did not have a mortal body. Both Jesus and Mary were indeed born with mortal bodies, and they were both born without Original Sin.

You have stated numerous times, however, that death is a trait of Original Sin, and that without Original Sin humans did not possess mortal bodies. If Jesus and Mary were not born with Original Sin, and indeed were born free of the taint of Adam and Eve, they why would they have mortal bodies. Furthermore, why would the transformed body of Christ in the Eucharist have the traits of an immune system, and of DNA?