# So what was Jesus's DNA like anyways? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 28, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068 "2010-05-28T13:54:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/21 "2010-05-28T17:26:58Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > I’ve always assumed God just tweaked Mary’s DNA enough so Jesus was what Mary would be if Mary had been male. > > Or a woodchuck. See what I did there? Proof that we’re all just a game of Sims for the big guy, if you use a cheat to impregnate your sim by itself the offspring is a clone of the original but of the opposite sex. I think Jesus’ DNA was 98% chimpanzee. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/22 "2010-05-28T18:53:50Z")
Your DNA is 98% chimpanzee. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/23 "2010-05-28T19:08:28Z")
There was a big fad for cloning Jesus novels a few years back. I never read any and never will, so I don’t know what they did with the DNA. Presumably it had to be like human DNA for a clone to grow, but who knows? Try searching for them and see what solutions they gave. There are only two realistic answers to this question, though. One is DtC’s and the other is “anything you want.” ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/24 "2010-05-28T20:13:45Z")
Jesus inhabited a completely human body. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/25 "2010-05-28T20:41:04Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > A more interesting question in my mind is why god needed a woman to carry his child in the first place. I think the answer to that is that the bronze-age human authors of this tale You need to ask Paul of Tarsus about that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/26 "2010-05-28T22:20:35Z")
> [@Elvis\_Chimney](#): > > Do we know for sure that Jesus was definitely male? Does the bible describe Christ’s penis at any point? [Yes](http://bible.cc/luke/2-21.htm) it does. Thanks for playing. ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/27 "2010-05-28T22:31:23Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > > [@Elvis\_Chimney](#): > > > > Do we know for sure that Jesus was definitely male? Does the bible describe Christ’s penis at any point? > > [Yes](http://bible.cc/luke/2-21.htm) it does. Thanks for playing. Damn, beat me to it. However, that does mean that, aside from the questionable claim of the Shroud of Turin, He did leave DNA behind to potentially be analyzed - hair clippings (unless he was a Nazirate, like Samson, quite probable per Biblical scholars), fingernail clippings, and, per the verse, a foreskin. We need to find the Holy Prepuce! Let’s form another Crusade! ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/28 "2010-05-29T02:07:42Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > [One needn’t an XY set to be male](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome). Mary might have had a funky X chromosome. Or she had [mosaicism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28genetics%29). I’m atheist, so I don’t believe all that nonsense in the first place; just carrying on the argument for fun ---
**Author:** ![auntie\_drama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@auntie\_drama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auntie_drama)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/29 "2010-05-29T02:40:31Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Historically, Jesus got half his DNA from his mother and half from his entirely human father just like everybody else. > > Theologically speaking, you can fanwank whatever you want. The Bible doesn’t give an answer because the authors of the New Testament didn’t know anything about DNA. They also didn’t know that without a human father, Jesus couldn’t have received a Y chromosome and could not have been a male. 🙂 Well said. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/30 "2010-05-29T06:00:17Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > Your DNA is 98% chimpanzee. I know. But some of us are more chimpy than others. Way to take the fun out of it. I was hoping to start a series of Jesus/Chimp jokes. Okay, I have no idea what they could be but I had faith in the Dopers to come up with something. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/31 "2010-05-29T06:18:16Z")
> [@dhkendall](#): > > We need to find the Holy Prepuce! Let’s form another Crusade! No need to. It has already been [found a dozen times](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Prepuce) ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/32 "2010-05-29T09:23:03Z")
> [@Wile\_E](#): > > Proof that we’re all just a game of Sims for the big guy, if you use a cheat to impregnate your sim by itself the offspring is a clone of the original but of the opposite sex. > I think Jesus’ DNA was 98% chimpanzee. Oooooooooooooooh. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/33 "2010-05-29T10:13:02Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > In reality, IMHO, if he existed he had human father and normal DNA. > > If we speculate on how a supernatural god, who has limitless power, would do this, almost anything is possible, DNA-wise. Whatever problem or question that might arise is solved by “God fixed it with his magic!” > > A more interesting question in my mind is why god needed a woman to carry his child in the first place. I think the answer to that is that the bronze-age human authors of this tale didn’t really think out the whole omnipotence thing, or perhaps didn’t yet believe Jehova was omnipotent and was still considered just a storm god. I say the reason why Jesus is born of a woman is because of the associated Isaiah prophecy, and fitting the whole concept that Jesus is human. If he is formed directly by God, he’s either an angel, or a new species. Even when he makes Eve, God has to use at least part of a human. And, yes, I know that other people interpret the Isaiah prophecy differently, and that Jesus’ backstory was retconned to fit. I’m just pointing out that not understanding omnipotence doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with it. BTW, where’d you get the spelling Jehova? I know that ה(H) is usually not pronounced as /h/ at the end of words, but I’ve never seen a transliteration that did not include it ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/34 "2010-05-29T11:52:55Z")
> [@](#): > > So what was Jesus’s DNA like anyways? ’ Immaculate. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/35 "2010-05-29T12:26:07Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > Oooooooooooooooh. Don’t you mean “Ooooooooooooooo **k**!”? Doing an exhaustive analysis, without even the presumptions that **Diogenes** brings: 1. If Jesus never existed, then obviously he had no DNA. Mythical entities don’t have a sequencable genome. 2. If Jesus existed and was a normal human being, **Diogenes** has it right: 50% from Mary, 50% from unidentified human father. 3. If Jesus existed as what orthodox Christianity proclaims him as, one person who was truly God and truly man in hypostatic union, born to a virgin, then his genome was 100% Mary’s. (The Y chromosome has very little to do with making someone male; that’s mediated on the ‘somatic’ chromosomes [those not X or Y]. The double-dose of ‘female’ from the reduplicated X is what makes women female, and why Klinefelter’s syndrome sufferers are androgynous.) Orthodox doctrine says that he derived his humanity from Mary. Presumably he was biologically an instance of parthenogenetic reproduction in which the double-X trigger towards femaleness had been suppressed. And it’s worth noting that the ‘virgin birth’ meme came out of a culture in which virginity other than the pre-marital kind was not celebrated and that it was a very early development, with earliest instances of the meme no more than 40 years after the Crucifixion, when there were still people alive who could put the lie to it. I’m not thrilled to be defending the idea of the Virgin Birth. It’s always seemed to me to be a silly, contra-biological meme tacked onto the idea of Messiahship – a stumbling block rather than a stepping stone to belief. But there seems to be some evidence in the orthodox tradition that it was the real deal. It’s kind of like arguing that it doesn’t make sense for the tuatara to have survived in New Zealand. Rather, you take the data as it comes – it did, and try to figure out why. ---
**Author:** ![Umbriel2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/4af34b/32.png) [@Umbriel2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Umbriel2)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/36 "2010-05-29T18:33:38Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > [One needn’t an XY set to be male](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome). Mary might have had a funky X chromosome. That actually seems plausible, from the description. So we might potentially add “non-miraculous virgin birth” to the potential scenarios. I mostly concur with **Polycarp’s** analysis, though Option 3 assumes the creator working through established physical means. While that’s not unreasonable, the alternative option remains that in the act of divine conception, God might have created part or all of His DNA in that act of conception. While God might theoretically have made Him even more physically non-human, there’s no indication of his bleeding angelic ichor during the crucifixion, or anything of that sort, and one would think that it would subvert much of the point of the crucifixion and resurrection for Jesus to have been other than physically human. So if we assume a divine conception, I’d go with the “freshly custom-minted DNA” scenario. Whether any of that DNA would endure after the resurrection is another matter – I would propose that it might have ceased to exist or ascended along with Christ, leaving the bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin with fragmentary of no genetic material at all, and confounding efforts to analyze the artifact in scientific terms. 'cause that’d be just like Him… ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/37 "2010-05-29T20:50:46Z")
As a fictional character (albeit one with a lot of cultural bias toward the idea that he was historical) there was never any actual DNA to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/38 "2010-05-29T21:08:16Z")
> [@PsyXe](#): > > I once read an entertainingly crazy theory that he was actually haploid. Yes. Jesus Haploid Christ! ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/39 "2010-05-29T21:20:44Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Yes. Jesus Haploid Christ! See post #3. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068/40 "2010-05-29T21:50:55Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > BTW, where’d you get the spelling Jehova? I know that ה(H) is usually not pronounced as /h/ at the end of words, but I’ve never seen a transliteration that did not include it Heh, I got that spelling by writing that post on my phone with the Tapatalk app, which doesn’t underline misspelled words for me like my PC browsers… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-was-jesuss-dna-like-anyways/541068.md?page=3)