(Posting this is GD because of the religious aspects of the story and the inherently controversial nature of positively identifying the remains of a legendary historical figure)
The Vatican intends to announce that it has located a sarcophogus containg the remains of Paul of Tarsus.
Is it really Paul? I don’t know. Could be. The Vatican is saying it doesn’t want to open the sacrophagus and look for remains but I don’t see how they can positively identify the tomb unless they do that. Obviously there’s no way to do a DNA match on any bones or anything but they could date them. Tradition also alleges that Paul was beheaded so that’s something which could be determined as well.
It’s a 4th century site and fake Christian relics were not unknown, on the other hand, most historians accept that Paul was a real person with a real following so who knows?
I’m amazed that nobody ever looked behind the plaque before.
As to the tomb, I’m betting that if you go by post-dated inscriptions like this one you could find hundreds of tombs containing Paul. Several true crosses and heads of John the Baptist as well. That’s why only someone deranged would look at a 4th century inscription of this nature as proof, let alone evidence.
At least this doesn’t sound like that whole mess with the ossuary, and is instead an interesting historical find no matter who it is or how you slice it.
At the very least it appears to be an authentic 4th century site of veneration for the alleged remains of Paul and I agree with *Apos that it’s interesting for that reason alone. The James ossuary was an outright forgery, at least this is a real discovery.
Being the the skeptic (and the ghoul) that I am, though, my impulse is to want to open up that box and see what’s doing in there. If it contains a 1st century skeleton minus a skull- or at least with a clearly severed neck, that would make it at least a good fake and keep it from being falsifiable as Paul.
Given early Christian apologists’ habit of forging relics and writings, finding some bones in an old tomb could mean they belong to Paul of Tarsus, or that somebody took some care to make it seem so. Either is entirely possible.
I just hope they don’t clone him and make an “Apostle Park” island amusement park. Chaos Theory clearly indicates that the Paul will break free and eat the visitors. And change his sex and reproduce.
Credit where it’s due, the above is from Handelsman’s Freaky Fables, a cartoon strip that used to run in the British humor magazine Punch. (Which folded in 1992, alas, after a run of almost 150 years.)
I’m guessing that when they open it they’re going to find Ashton Kutcher who’s going to yell “You are so Punk’d!” and start a Holy War. Some die hards will insist that it wasn’t Ashton Kutcher but rather the remains of the Apostle Paul with an Ashton Kutcher form, but Penn & Teller will straighten them out.
If I were a Vatican official and thought for a second that it was Paul I’d open that thing with a crowbar and a jackhammer if I had to. He may have been buried with some true relics or even with some of his writings. (I wonder if he would have been buried in the Jewish custom?)
That’s correct. Paul’s martyrdom is extra-Biblical Christian tradition. An intact neck would not disprove it as Paul but it would be embarrasing for the Vatican to positively identify it as Paul and then find out he hadn’t been martyred. They would have to either admit the tradition was false or that the remains were not Paul’s. I’m guessing that after the Shroud was proven to be a medievel forgery the Church is going to opt for a little pious mystery over the possibility of embarrassing certainty.
Having said all that, since the plaque identifies Paul as a “martyr” (and I love the simplicity of the inscription. It appeals to me asthetically), I’m guessing that if the relic was a fraud, someone would have made sure it matched expectations and performed any necessary operation on the skeleton.
“Whatever the physiological or psychological analysis of Paul’s temperament may be, his conception of life was not Jewish. Nor can his unparalleled animosity and hostility to Judaism as voiced in the Epistles be accounted for except upon the assumption that, while born a Jew, he was never in sympathy or in touch with the doctrines of the rabbinical schools. For even his Jewish teachings came to him through Hellenistic channels, as is indicated by the great emphasis laid upon “the day of the divine wrath” (Rom. i. 18; ii. 5, 8; iii. 5; iv. 15; v. 9; ix. 22; xii. 19; I Thess. i. 10; Col. iii. 6; comp. Sibyllines, iii. 309 et seq., 332; iv. 159, 161 et seq.; and elsewhere), as well as by his ethical monitions, which are rather inconsistently taken over from Jewish codes of law for proselytes, the Didache and Didascalia. It is quite natural, then, that not only the Jews (Acts xxi. 21), but also the Judæo-Christians, regarded Paul as an “apostate from the Law” (see Eusebius, l.c. iii. 27; Irenæus, “Adversus Hæreses,” i. 26, 2; Origen, “Contra Celsum,” v. 65; Clement of Rome, “Recognitiones,” i. 70. 73).”
I’d think so too. Short of something miraculous, I can’t imagine how if there is a body in there that it was really that of Saul of Tarsus. However, what if writings were found in there that otherwise are unknown? Say the letters sent by the Corinthians to Paul? THAT would be an interesting find. Particularly if these writings could be somehow dated to the first century C.E. This would be evidence against this being a fake 4th century relic.
Why would that require a miracle? Even as an atheist and general skeptic, I see little reason to doubt that Saul/Paul lived, nor that he had a following, nor that he ended his life in or near Rome, preaching to the nascent Christian community there. It does not strain credulity that, whatever the manner of his death, his followers would have buried him ceremoniously and marked the spot. The basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls might have been built on that spot for that reason.
I miswrote that. I meant to write “Short of something miraculous, I can’t imagine how if there is a body in there that it could be proved it was really that of Saul of Tarsus.” Sigh.
