An article, Five things you didn’t know about Jesus by The Rev. James Martin in a special to CNN, was posted today on CNN’s website. This picture below is from the video that accompanies the article. Links to the article appear in a sidebar on countless news pages. Most on air anchors are now mentioning the upcoming special.
(CNN) — With Lent beginning, and a new CNN series on Christ coming up, you’re going to hear a lot about Jesus these days.
You may hear revelations from new books that purport to tell the "real story" about Jesus, opinions from friends who have discovered a "secret" on the Web about the son of God, and airtight arguments from co-workers who can prove he never existed.
Beware of most of these revelations; many are based on pure speculation and wishful thinking. Much of what we know about Jesus has been known for the last 2,000 years.
Still, even for devout Christian there are surprises to be found hidden within the Gospels, and thanks to advances in historical research and archaeological discoveries, more is known about his life and times.
With that in mind, here are five things you probably didn’t know about Jesus.
CNN makes a point of reminding us that their upcoming special, "Finding Jesus: Fact. Faith. Forgery," premieres Sunday Night, March 1 at 9pm ET/PT on CNN. That episode will deal with the Shroud of Turin
It is nice to see that the Shroud has been included. The same cannot be said about some of the other material. As commented previously, the Rev. James Martin raises questions that he cannot answer and then points to his book. I have not read his book, however another book by the late Father Jacques Dreyfus, O.P., a Jewish convert to Catholicism who lived in Jerusalem can be recommended; “Did Jesus know that he was God?”.
This topic will be part of a review that I will have to write. It was the great liberal Protestant scholar Harnack who hit the nail on the head. Catholic scholar Schnackenburg came to say the same thing in a different way and Benedict XVI began to write “Jesus of Nazareth” where Schanackenburg had finished.
As everyone knows I have strong doubts about the authenticity of the Shroud but if you believe it is authentic, you also have to show the flagellation as affecting the whole of Jesus’ body, front and back, top to toe – unless you happen to believe that the criss-cross of flagellation marks were a later addition…..
Charles wrote: “(…) you (authenticists) also have to show the flagellation as affecting the whole of Jesus’ body, front and back, TOP TO TOE (upper cases mine)”.
Reminder (once more) for Charles:
On October 22, 2014 at 11:39 am, I wrote:
“Isaiah 1: 5-6 does NOT specifically refer to scourge-marks as it reads:
“Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart afflicted.
6 From the sole of your foot to the top of your head
there is no soundness—
only wounds and welts
and open sores,
not cleansed or bandaged
or soothed with olive oil.”
Could Charles show us scourge-marks on the TS man’s ‘crown of the head” and “soles of the feet”, PLEASE? The fact is there are none in those specific body areas!
Marrow’s forced interpretation of Isaiah and consequently Charles’ is irrelevant and biased as too reductive to back up his 14th century made Lirey shroud hypothesis as far as the TS bloodied body image is concerned.”
Isaiah 1.6. is not merely “the premonition of the flagellation”, as Charles wants us to believe, but that of Yeshua’s WHOLE Passion (crown of thorn wounds, spear wound, foot nail wounds etc included).
Max, I was not referring in this instance to James Marrow, a far greater expert in medieval iconography and Passion narratives than either of us. ( I assume you have read Marrow in detail- it is quite a long study- in order to comment that his is ‘a forced interpretation’. He brings in a lot of supporting material from his own archival work and certainly there seems enough evidence to suggest that his interpretation is anything but ‘forced’. It is not me who wants to believe that Isaiah 1.6 is a premonition of the Passion. As Marrow shows this was a specifically fourteenth century interpretation of that verse and he gives archival and iconographical evidence in support.)
No, I am looking at the Shroud itself. Barbara Faccini’s interpretation of the marks of the flagellation claims that ALL the marks on the Shroud are the direct result of three specific instruments. If she is right (and perhaps she is not), then any representation of the flagellation must show Jesus bound in such a way that the flagellation can mirror the marks on the Shroud in that the instruments used must reach front and back. If you click in to the posting you find a flagellation image where this would have been impossible so it is perhaps by someone who has not absorbed how the flagellation would have taken place if the Shroud is authentic.There is no need to illustrate the flagellation but if you do, and believe in the authenticity of the Shroud, then you have to show how the scourge marks or whatever on the Shroud, were possible.