A small handful of bones found in an ancient church in Bulgaria may belong to John the Baptist, the biblical figure said to have baptized Jesus.
There's no way to be sure, of course, as there are no confirmed pieces of John the Baptist to compare to the fragments of bone. But the sarcophagus holding the bones was found near a second box bearing the name of St. John and his feast date (also called a holy day) of June 24. Now, new radiocarbon dating of the collagen in one of the bones pegs its age to the early first century, consistent with the New Testament and Jewish histories of John the Baptist's life.
"We got some dates that are very interesting indeed," study researcher Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford told LiveScience. "They suggest that the human bone is all from the same person, it's from a male, and it has a very high likelihood of an origin in the Near East," or Middle East...
Jim Lincoln wrote: Well, if there was a head included, it wasn't John the Baptist.
You have that right Jim!
I remember reading a couple of years ago when one Roman Catholic church in Rome was going to have a display of the "head" of John the Baptist. A controversy broke out among several other Roman Catholic churches in Rome who each had a "head" of John the Baptist. Must have been quite a sight in the Lord's day upon earth, this guy walking around preaching repentance, John the Baptist, who had several heads!!
I don't Know why they make a big deal about all this considering there is absolutely no way to verify the remains.
As far as the head thing goes, you guys do realize that they could have obtained his head and buried it right along with the rest of his body right? I don't think they made a wall mount out of it.
Yeah, this would be more bones to venerate, for the Romish Church, I don't know what the Orthodox church does with any old bones they find lying around?
Oh, I read the story and it said there was a tooth and part of the cranium, scratch John.
Martin Luther wrote: ... The relics, in which there are found so many falsehoods and tomfooleries concerning the bones of dogs and horses, that even the devil has laughed at such rascalities, ought long ago to have been condemned, even though there were some good in them; and so much the more because they are without the Word of God; being neither commanded nor counseled, they are an entirely unnecessary and useless thing. But the worst is that [they have imagined that] these relics had to work indulgence and the forgiveness of sins [and have revered them] as a good work and service of God, like the Mass, etc.
Cheer up wrote: Oh this should cheer up the Baptists. Some of them think that their denomination founded in 1521 came from John!! But it should also cheer the Roman Catholics up. It well give them a new relic to worship.
The bones shouldn't be wasted. They can be made into soup, to go along with the cheese sandwich of past days.
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