Bones found beleived to be of John the Baptist

[Aromagician]

Some of you may have already seen this, but it appears some researchers believe they have found the bones of John The Baptist. I wonder if the head is there? There are all those rumours about how the Knights Templars used to have a head they used in ceremonies that was purported to belong to John the Baptist.
Here is the article

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/3 ... aptist.htm Here is a snippet.

A few small bones said to have come from John the Baptist were found in the ruins of an ancient church on an island off Bulgaria's coast in July 2010. Since then, thousands of worshippers have traveled to a church in the seaside town of Sozopol to pay respects to the man who baptized Jesus.

Now, fact meets faith as DNA testing and carbon dating on the remains - including a knuckle bone, a molar, a piece of cranium, a rib, and an ulna, or arm bone - have shown that the bones come from a time and place that could plausibly be related to John the Baptist.

"When I first heard this story in 2010 I thought it was a bit of a joke, to be honest," said Tom Higham of the University of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, one of the world's top laboratories for carbon dating of archaeological material, according to Reuters.

The bones were discovered on the island of Sveti Ivan, or Saint John in English, where they had been buried in a marble sarcophagus near a second box bearing the name of Saint John and the date of his holy feast, June 24.

Higham's team used radiocarbon dating on the collagen in the knuckle bone to date it to the early first century, a time when the prophet is believed to have lived before his beheading by King Herod.

Scientists from the University of Copenhagen analysed the full DNA code of three of the bones, finding that they came from the same person, most likely a man who lived in the Middle East, where John would have lived,


I have just read it, and seems it is just a few bones, as was the fashion churches often held relics if saints in their churches. I remember seeing bones of a hand in a church in Venice.

[Who2]

Well i don't know about that. 2O years ago in Clerkenwell which seems to-be dedicated to St John I found his 'head on a plate in a skip.
It is cast iron, but the one pictured is a plastic copy, the first copy was sold to 'The Jerusalem Tavern and try as I might couldn't persuade St John's Restaurant to purchase a copy....

[Bullet Magnet]

I cannot imagine Why..

[Scottishtourist]

Until it is disputed,I'll believe that they are bones of John the Baptist!
In Christianity,he is a very important man.His mother was sister of Mary,Anne,a woman far beyond child bearing years when she conceived,and the child "leapt in her womb"when Mary announced her pregnancy.
This is "Roman Catholic"catechism at its most basic.
It's maybe irrelevant,but our relics are very important to us!
Whilst everyone extols the virtues of viewing "Egyptian Mummies"and the exciting experiences they have in their tombs,I personally find it all a bit distasteful.I've viewed enough dead bodies in my time!
Why preserve the dead and show them off as "morbid curiosities?"
They should be allowed to rest in peace and have their dignity restored.

[LivinginLuxor]

It probably goes into the collection with 12 foreskins of Jesus! It was an extremely lucrative business to be able to exhibit 'holy relics', and it is more than likely that some souvenir seller in Palestine made good money from selling the bones to a gullible tourist.

[TonyC]

Ah, but how did the gullible tourist come to bury the bones on an island off Bulgaria! Fragments from a first century man found on an island named after St John ... it's a godsend.

Bits of the Baptist are, apparently, to be found all over the world. I did like one snippet seen on Wikipedia about his links to Halifax in Yorkshire, where the head appears on the official coat-of-arms. It says: "A legend first recorded in the late 16th century and reported in William Camden's Britannia accounts for the town's place-name, as 'halig' (holy) and 'fax' (face), by stating that the first religious settlers of the district brought the 'face' of John the Baptist with them."

[Aromagician]

And yet, one should not be the worshiper of idols?
Than what are the saints for?

The whole John the Baptist intrigue does interest me. Some claim that he was the foretold prophet? I read some of the Holy blood and Holy grail, but didnt quite get the whole John the Baptist intrigue.

This Gnostic site here talks of a Holy blood line that included John the Baptist
http://www.gnostictemplars.org/

During their one hundred years in the Middle East, the Templars received the Holy Grail from a lineage of Holy Grail Guardians that had existed for many thousands of years previously. This ancient Grail lineage, which included John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and Mary Magdalene and John the Apostle, had originated on Sri Lanka, the island paradise recognized within the Arab world as the true location of the fabled Garden of Eden.

Will dna testing show a holy blood line?This site here also talks of John the Baptist and his Gnostic links
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27366548/The- ... ts-Templar
According to the Mandeans, John the
Baptist was born a Mandean and both raised and trained by the Nasurai,the spiritual adepts of their gnostic sect. The Mandeans refer to John astheir last great prophet and maintain that he was a fully enlightened andempowered Nasurai priest. John passed the wisdom and power he hadreceived from the Nasurai to Jesus, who in turn transmitted it to John theApostle. Thus, according to Mandean history, the Johannite Lineageexisted long before the time of either John the Apostle or John the Baptistand had passed down an ancient lineage of Nasurai adepts.According to Lady Drower, the origin of this lineage of Mandean Nasurai was the island paradise of Sri Lanka. In the Mandeans’ records she discovered that the entire sect had originally emerged out of Sri Lanka andthen migrated west, eventually to Palestine. Today, Sri Lanka is to muchof the world - not just the Mandeans- the original Garden of Eden and even contains Adam’s Peak, the mountain that God placed Adam in theGarden of Eden. Therefore, the Mandean records trace the sect all the way back to Eden. But this is not unusual for a gnostic sect do to, since through the ages the gnostic orders have tended to trace their gnostic lineages back to the first gnostic teacher, the Serpent on the Tree, who was sent down by the gnostic Goddess Sophia to enlighten Adam and Eve.But the Serpent on the Tree is not just a fantasy or metaphor; in fact it is still worshipped in the Eden of Sri Lanka by priests and pilgrims in atemple town known as Kataragama. Here the infamous serpent isvenerated in the form of both a snake and forever-young boy. The Hindus, Sri Lankans, Buddhists and Moslems who worship the Kataragamadeity refer to this gnostic teacher as Murrugan, Sanat Kumara, Karttikeya,Subramaniya, Skanda and Jnana Pandita, meaning the “Teacher” and“Lord of Gnostic Wisdom.” The Sufis also know him as Al-Khadir, the“Initiator,” and the Hindus recognize him as the first Kundalini master onEarth, an Avatar, and the founder of the Siddha Marge, the Path toPerfection. Kundalini is the serpent power at the base of the spine thatonce awakened culminates in gnostic consciousness. Sanat Kumara, who was merged with or consumed by the Kundalini, initially existed on Earthin an etheric form or in a body of pure serpentine energy, which is whyhe is often depicted as a serpent on a tree. But according to many yogis of India, the tree in the Garden of Eden is both literal as well as symbolic, it is an actual tree but also symbolic of the human spine, which the yogis know as the Tree of Life. Similarly, the Serpent on the Tree in the Garden of Eden should thus be perceived as both an actual teacher of Gnosticism as well as a metaphor for the Kundalini serpent in your body that climbs the Tree of Life, your spine, in order to open your chakra centers andteach you gnostic wisdom.

[Chocolate Eclair]

A good indication may be that the head is missing. ha ha!!! No a very interesting little story you have posted..

[Bullet Magnet]

So, why would the Snake be a BAD thing ?
The Snake is awakening you, and has nothing to do with a serpent climbing out of a tree. It's a metaphor.
The Tree of life has been decyphered by the Female part of consciuosness.
Once you achive Kundalini, one may not need human Authority anymore as it's guiding light..

Even this whole Story of John the Baptist should have Christian alarm bells ringing.

Jesus is allegedly the number one holy man of his day, who goes to another man to be Baptised in the river..
What Did he know ? John that is. Jesus's cousin.. Why such an elaborate plot hatched to kill John ? If the man spoke out of turn,
it would be easy enough to justify killing him.


Now with my cynical hat on, as CE righty said, this guy has his head..

In Glastonbury many hundreds of years ago, two 16 foot holes were dug and low and behold, they claimed to have found Arthur and Guinevere.. That just happened to coincide with some much needed roof repair work in the day, when the coffers were very low...

Anyhow, I think I can now see a way of getting the missus that new kitchen she has been pining for. .
Where's my spade and torch ?

[Who2]

Update on CNN. 1745hrs:..... is that the bones have been evaluated by the University of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, as canine and 89% to-be probably that of a golden retriever......

[Who2]

The remaining 11% could either be a lLhasa Apso or lapsang souchong....

[Bullet Magnet]

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[HEPZIBAH]

Some of you may have already seen this, but it appears some researchers believe they have found the bones of John The Baptist. I wonder if the head is there? There are all those rumours about how the Knights Templars used to have a head they used in ceremonies that was purported to belong to John the Baptist.
Here is the article

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/3 ... aptist.htm Here is a snippet.

A few small bones said to have come from John the Baptist were found in the ruins of an ancient church on an island off Bulgaria's coast in July 2010. Since then, thousands of worshippers have traveled to a church in the seaside town of Sozopol to pay respects to the man who baptized Jesus.

Now, fact meets faith as DNA testing and carbon dating on the remains - including a knuckle bone, a molar, a piece of cranium, a rib, and an ulna, or arm bone - have shown that the bones come from a time and place that could plausibly be related to John the Baptist.

"When I first heard this story in 2010 I thought it was a bit of a joke, to be honest," said Tom Higham of the University of Oxford's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, one of the world's top laboratories for carbon dating of archaeological material, according to Reuters.

The bones were discovered on the island of Sveti Ivan, or Saint John in English, where they had been buried in a marble sarcophagus near a second box bearing the name of Saint John and the date of his holy feast, June 24.

Higham's team used radiocarbon dating on the collagen in the knuckle bone to date it to the early first century, a time when the prophet is believed to have lived before his beheading by King Herod.

Scientists from the University of Copenhagen analysed the full DNA code of three of the bones, finding that they came from the same person, most likely a man who lived in the Middle East, where John would have lived,


I have just read it, and seems it is just a few bones, as was the fashion churches often held relics if saints in their churches. I remember seeing bones of a hand in a church in Venice.

I'm no expert, but if John the Baptist was beheaded - I have no reason to disbelieve this - surely his head would have been put on display and likely not have been reunited with his body for any kind of burial. With that understanding, it does seem a bit odd that there should be a piece of cranium (skull).

Also...showing my real ignorance here but how does DNA testing help? What specimen/benchmark is there to link and identify with?

[Bullet Magnet]

Possibly the Rhesus negative connection..

I have not looked into this yet. Rhesus Positive, Rhesus Negative, sound more like electric-trickery to me..