Jonah's Net :: Fishers of People

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:6-7)

Is the story of the first Christmas historically accurate? many historians say YES.
   The Bible says that jesus was born during a census that had been ordered by Caesar Augustus, emperor of Rome. The purpose of these censuses was to count the population and help the Roman government to calculate how many people were to be taxed.
   According to historical records, Augustus issued three censuses during his reign: in 28 B.C., 8 B.C. and 14 A.D. The censuses were implemented province by province. A census for the whole Roman empire took as much as five to ten years to finish because census-taking was done only in September, when harvest was finished and people had the time to return to their hometowns. The autumn season was also favorable because snow in wintertime would have made traveling difficult. During the second census, provincial Italy was taxed in 7 B.C. while Rome, the capital of the empire, was not even taxed until 6 B.C. Jesus was born while the second census was still taking place: between 5 B.C. and 1 B.C.
   Because of people returning to their hometowns for the census, naturally the inns would be croded. Joseph and Mary then found shelter in a cave; during these times, it was common for caves to be used as stables for farm animals. Here, jesus was born. In the second century A.D., the Greek historian and philosopher Justin Martyr identified a cave in Bethlehem in Israel which early Christians honored as the birthplace of Jesus.
   In 333 A.D., Constantine, the first Roman emperor to tolerate Christians and stop their persecution (his own mother helena had become a Christian), ordered that a basilica be built on the cave. It was further improved by Emperor Justinian from 527 to 565 A.D. The basilica is now called the Church of the Nativity, and is the world's oldest Christian church that is still in use. Behind the church altar is a marble grotto on which is embedded a fourteen-point silver star that marks the manger where Mary had placed Jesus. Every year, millions of people visit the church to see the place where jesus was born.
   The Bible also says that the baby Jesus was visited by shepherd who had been guarding their sheep in the fields nearby. However, Sara Ruhin, chief of the Israeli weather service, noted that Bethlehem has three months of frost: December with 29 Fahrenheit, January with 30 F and february with 32 F. With such colder, shepherds would not have let their sheep out; they start taking their sheep back to the stables in late October. Yet the Bible never said that Jesus was born in December. His birthday is celebrated on the wrong date -- but that does not mean that He was never born.

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THE SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF JESUS' BIRTH
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east camt o Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him." (Matthew 2:1-2)

We have learned before that it was scientifically possible for the virgin Mary to give birth to Jesus (parthenogenesis). We have also learned that Jesus was born while the second census (done only in September) was still taking place: between 5 B.C. and 1 B.C. The Bible says that Jesus was born during the time of King Herod the Great. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that Heropd, an Arab, was appointed by Rome in 36 B.C. to be the king of the Jews; and that he died in January of 1 B.C. This means that Jesus must have been born before 1 B.C.
   Shortly after Jesus was born, Mago came to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, looking for the baby who was the true heir of David, Israel's second king. The Magi were priest-kings of ancient Persia and were experts in astronomy. They were obsessed with the interpretation of prophecies in religious writings. The Magi who came to Jerusalem may have studied some old testament writings that predicted the coming of the true king of Israel, whose birth was to be signified by a "special light in the sky": "I see him, bit not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel." (Numbers 24:17) So the Magi were led to Israel by a unique star in the sky!
   Archeologist and historian Dr. Ernest Martin explained that if the Bible's astrological prophecy and modern astronomy were interrelated, it would show that Jesus would have been born on September 11, 3 B.C. Starting on this date, the king planet Jupiter came into a momentary conjunction with Regulus ("Royalty"), the brightest star in the constellation Leo ("The Lion," king of beasts) -- creating a spectacular light in the night sky of Israel. Amazingly, Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year's Day) fell on September 11 in 3 B.B.!
   Astronomers claim that the planet Jupiter moved backwards to again unite with the royal star Regulus on February 17, 2 B.C. And the for the third time, Jupiter again moved in the opposite direction to reunite with Regulus on May 8, 2 B.C. On December 25, 2 B.C., Jupiter reunited with Regulus for the last time, coming to a momentary stationary position over Bethlehem! The Magi may have finally found Jesus on december 25, after more than a year of searching. They presented Him with expensive gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
   Shortly after, King Herod ordered the killing of male babies in Bethlehem to prevent any of them from trying to steal the throne from him. Herod was known for killing even his own children, including his sons Antipater, Alexandros and Aristobulus. This prompted the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus to say, "It is better to be herod's hog than to be his son" -- because at least the Jews do not eat pork and therefore do not kill pigs.

Jesus' birth is one thing, but His resurrection is another which many would find more controversial. The article below is what I use for the Lenten season, usually during the week before Easter Sunday. I suggest that this lecture be accompanied by visual aids -- that is, pictures of the Shroud of Turin which are easy to get from the Internet.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN: PROOF OF JESUS RESURRECTION?

In the Turin Cathedral in Italy is kept a piece of cloth measuring 14 feet by 3 feet. It is obviously old and generally white except for the light brown coloration on it that looks like ordinary stain. But if you look carefully, the stain forms an image of a human being that Christians believe to be Jesus Himself. Famously known as the Shroud of Turin, this relic poses some serious questions for Christians and non-Christians, theists and atheists:

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION #1: What exactly is the image on the Shroud?
The image is that of a man, around six feet tall. Both the front and the back of his head and body are printed on the Shroud, with the feet on each end of the cloth. The face is bearded, and the hair is lengthy the way artists have portrayed Jesus in paintings for many centuries.

FAQ #2: Is the image painted on the Shroud?
No. The image is not one-dimensionally flat, like most paintings. Hungarian Isabel Piczek, a professional painter, assessed that the Shroud image is so realistic and 100% anatomically correct, that it is more of a photograph, not a painting. If the image had been painted, light would not pass through the solid paint. But the image is very faint and thin. No paint pigment or brushstroke is found on the image. The image was formed by ammonia (present in human sweat and urine) that was seemingly laser-burned only onto the very surface of the cloth.

FAQ #3: Is there any trace of blood on the Shroud?
Italian hematologist Baima Ballone says yes! The blood type is AB, which is rare: only 3.2% of people in the world have it. But AB is common among 18% of the Jewish population. Interestingly, the blood on the Shroud is still bright red, unlike ordinary blood that turns brown after several minutes of being exposed to air. When a person experiences great traumatic pain, the bile produces an excessive amount of bilirubin which then mixes with the blood. This chemical preserves the redness of the blood even when it is exposed to the air.

FAQ #4: Are there any details of torture on the body?
Prof. James Cameron, head of the London Hospital's School of Forensic Medicine, along with two other forensic experts from the United States and Australia, found at least 120 wound marks on the image and assessed them as genuine, including the flagellations on the back, arms and legs, abrasions on the face, the crowning of thorns on the head, the nailing on the wrists and feet, and the piercing on the right side of the torso. Amazingly, these wounds correspond to the physical tortures experienced by Jesus as recorded in the Bible.

FAQ #5: What is the material of the Shroud and is there any proof that it has been in the Middle East, specifically in Jerusalem (capital of Israel) where Jesus was buried?
The Shroud is made of linen, commonly used in the Middle East for clothing, tents and wrapping the dead, from ancient to modern times. Swiss criminologist Max Frei found limestone dust on the Shroud and Jesus tomb in Jerusalem was indeed carved out of limestone (CaCo3). Also, botanist Avinoam Danin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found at least 43 different kinds of pollen spores on the Shroud. He assessed that 28 of these plants grow in Israel of which 20 grow in Jerusalem, while 14 do not even grow in Europe.

FAQ #6: In 1988, three laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona, using the carbon-14 dating technique, concluded that the Shroud was a fake dating from 1260 to 1390 about 13 centuries after Jesus was crucified. So is the carbon-14 dating still reliable to this day?
Not anymore. In 2005, Dr. Raymond Rogers, a chemist from the Los Alamos National Laboratories in the United States, again analyzed the samples that the three laboratories had taken from the Shroud seventeen years ago. He discovered that what the laboratories had analyzed were not cloth from the Shroud, but of clever-looking patches used by medieval nuns to fix the Shroud after its being damaged by several church fires from 1357 to 1532.

FAQ #7: How could this Shroud be proof that Jesus came back to life?
Firstly, there is no body. Jesus followers could not have stolen His body because the Roman governor ordered guards to the tomb. (Neither could Jesus followers have experienced a hallucination because even non-believers saw Jesus alive again!) Secondly, the American Medical Association assessed that anyone who would experience the tortures shown on the Shroud would really die so Jesus did not have a fake death. Thirdly, there is no technology during Jesus time or in the Middle Ages that could produce this mysterious image (photography was not invented until 1827). And if the Shroud were put through an x-ray, the bones of the human image would also appear no modern photo-imaging technology can do this! The Shroud itself is a tangible miracle which has made scientists open their minds about Jesus resurrection.