Death and Total Love

If you've ever wondered about ~ or feared ~ death, I recommend spending about four minutes listening to Father Bede Griffiths and his conclusions after having a stroke and decided to yield to death. It was then that he learned about surrender and unconditional love. Recognized as one of the great religious prophets of the 20th century, Bede Griffiths (1906-1993) was a Benedictine monk who spend several years in India, melding Christianity with aspects of Hinduism.

'Da Vinci Code' and Fear of Death

Da Vinci's "The Last Supper," key to some of the theories.

A new study finds that people who are anxious about death are more likely to believe in the conspiracy theories outlined in Dan Brown's 2003 book, The Da Vinci Code. The author contended in the best-seller that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, leaving living descendents behind. Plus, he says the Catholic Church covered up this fact, while a secret society called The Priory of Sion was formed to keep Jesus' descendents safe.

"It's difficult to change people's beliefs in these theories because they tend to be very fundamental to the way they view the world," study researcher Anna Newheiser, a doctoral student in social psychology at Yale University, told LiveScience.com.

The researchers gathered college students who had read the book and conducted two studies. In the first, they asked 144 students to rate their agreement with Da Vinci conspiracy beliefs, such as, "The church has burned witches and other 'heretics' to keep the truth about Jesus hidden." The students also filled out questionnaires about their religiosity, biblical knowledge, enjoyment of The Da Vinci Code novel or movie, and their fear of death. 

 The students most likely to believe the conspiracies in Brown's novel were those who enjoyed the book the most, expressed the most New Age beliefs, and felt the most anxiety about dying. People who were religious, knowledgeable about the Bible and desiring of social approval, on the other hand, tended not to buy into the Da Vinci conspiracy.  

Next, the researchers called 50 of the original students back and presented them with historical evidence that the Da Vinci conspiracy is false. They found that among the most religious participants, this counterevidence lessened the belief in the conspiracy. Nonreligious participants, however, did not budge. 

Conspiracy theories "can alleviate people's sense of loss of control by giving them a reason that things happen," Newheiser said. "In this case, it's particularly interesting because it might help people who are nonreligious or non-Christian to understand the events related to early Christian history."

Click here for the complete article.

US Belief in God Still at 90 Percent

Michaelangelo's "Conversion of St. Paul"

A new Gallup poll finds more than nine in 10 Americans continuing to believe in God. Ninety-two percent of Gallup's 1,018 respondents answered yes when asked whether they believed in God.

According to Gallup pollsters:

Despite the many changes that have rippled through American society over the last 6 ½ decades, belief in God as measured in this direct way has remained high and relatively stable. Gallup initially used this question wording in November 1944, when 96% said "yes." That percentage dropped to 94% in 1947, but increased to 98% in several Gallup surveys conducted in the 1950s and 1960s.

When asked, "Do you believe in God or a universal spirit?" 80 percent said they believed in God and 12 percent said they believed in a universal spirit. The survey did not probe into specific religious allegiances.

Belief in God drops below 90% among younger Americans, liberals, those living in the East, those with postgraduate educations, and political independents. Believing in God is nearly universal among Republicans and conservatives and, to a slightly lesser degree, in the South.

Click here for the complete article.

Earliest Illustrated Christian Book is Saved

A page from the Garima Gospels.

A British charity has saved the world's earliest illustrated Christian book, which was found at a remote Ethiopian monestary.

The Garima Gospels are named after a monk named Abba Garima who arrived in Ethiopia from Constantinople in 494 AD. Legend has it that he was able to copy the gospels in a day because God delayed the sun from setting. The relic has been kept ever since in the Garima Monastery near Adwa in the north of the country.

According to the London Mail:

Experts believe it is also the earliest example of book binding still attached to the original pages. The survival of the Gospels is incredible considering the country has been under Muslim invasion, Italian invasion and a fire in the 1930s destroyed the monastery's church. 

They were written on goat skin in the early Ethiopian language of Ge'ez. There are two volumes which date from the same time, but the second is written in a different hand from the first. Both contain illustrations and the four Gospels.

Though occasional travelers have mentioned the texts since the 1950s, it was thought they dated from the 11th century at the earliest. Carbon dating, however, gives a date between 330 and 650, overlapping the date Abba Garima arrived in the country.

Click here for the complete article.

Christianity Can Absorb Non-Historical Basis

A major rupture occurs in the Christian faith regarding the divinity of Jesus ~ virgin birth, resurrection, ascension and the like ~ and whether belief in those supernatural events is mandatory to be a “Christian.” Or, can you still be a “Christian” without adopting a literal interpretation of events described in the Bible?

Growing up in Kansas in the 1950s, best-selling author and scholar Bart Ehrman was a born-again Christian who went off to college to study Scripture in detail and thus reinforce his already-strong faith. But the more he studied the historical reality of the Bible, the more disenchanted he became. He eventually wrote the influential 2005 Misquoting Jesus and now his Jesus Interrupted is hitting the best-seller list.

Salon.com recently interviewed Ehrman on his spiritual pilgrimage and the implications of his studies. Here are a couple of questions and answers from that interview. If the topic interests you, I suggest reading the entire interview.

Q: I take your point that there are many sophisticated Christians who don't believe that everything in the Bible is literally true. And yet, in order to be a Christian, one has to subscribe to the fundamental tenets that are in the Bible. That's not really an option, is it?

Well, you know, part of it comes down to a debate over what really is a Christian. A lot of sophisticated Christian thinkers, theologians and biblical scholars would say that you shouldn't have an essentialist understanding of Christianity. You can't just define Christianity and then gauge whether somebody is that or not. I have friends who don't believe that Jesus was physically raised from the dead. But they still call themselves Christian, and they still believe Jesus is divine. They have a different understanding of what it means to be Christian from an evangelical understanding of what it means to be Christian.

Q: But isn't that view not only different from the evangelical one but outside mainstream Christian beliefs?

It probably is, although people who hold this claim would say that it's also the view of the early Christians. And so they would claim some historical continuity with the earliest forms of Christian belief. Christianity is just a widely diverse phenomenon. That's why I wrote the last chapter in the book, "Is Faith Possible?" I'm against the idea of thinking that Christianity is just one thing and that you have to toe the line or else you can't be a Christian anymore. I want people to feel free to accept the historical conclusions that scholars have come to, and not feel like they can't accept these because they can't be Christians.

Click here for the complete interview.
Photo at left is Bart Ehrman

Early Christian Diet Laden with Fish

Roman fish mosaic from the early Christian period.

Early Christians ate more fish then their non-Christian counterparts. Some scientists theorize it was because the early Christians tended to be poor. Others will content it was because the fish was the symbol of the faith. And still other, I’m sure, would attribute the fish-laden diet to the Age of Pisces that dawned during at the outset of the Christian era and also is symbolized by the fish.

“The eating habits of Rome’s early Christians are more complex than has traditionally been assumed,” writes Leonard Rutgers and his colleagues in The Journal of Archaeological Science. They analyzed 22 skeletons found in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus on the Appian Way, an area utilized in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, although some of the skeletons were radiocarbon-dated to the 2nd century, according to the Times of London.

“While distancing themselves from Jewish food taboos and generally avoiding meat derived from pagan sacrifices, the early Christians are normally hypothesized to have eaten the same food as their non-Christian Roman contemporaries,” the team says. “Within the larger context of what is currently known about Roman dietary habits, the inclusion of freshwater fish therefore comes as unexpected and raises questions about the social origins of Christianity as well.”

“When Romans ate fish at all, they are normally believed to have consumed sea fish. Freshwater fish has not been considered as an essential ingredient in the classical Roman diet.” In AD301, the Emperor Diocletian’s Edict on Prices tried to fix the cost of freshwater fish at around a half to a third of its marine equivalent, so that even the poor could eat it. Roman fish probably came from the Tiber, and would have been a free or cheap source of protein.

Rutgers and his colleagues conclude “that at least the small selection of early Christians analyzed were all simple folk, suggesting that the inclusion of freshwater fish is indicative of a relative lack of wealth rather than of religiously motivated ascetic behavior."

Click here for the complete Times of London article.

Mormons Still "Baptizing" Jewish Holocaust Victims

"The Baptism" by Piero della Francesca, 1442.

Want proof of the emotional impact of religious ritual? This week saw the resurgence of a powerful conflict that reaches deep into the beliefs of two religions. At a press conference in New York, it was revealed that Jewish and Mormon leaders are still intensely at odds over an ongoing Mormon practice of "baptizing" Jewish victims of the Holocaust by using Mormon stand-ins to convert the deceased Jews to Christianity.

A Jewish Holocaust-survivor group wants the Mormons to stop. "We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Ernst Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, wrote this week to Mormon leaders. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone. They suffered enough."

Leaders of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) say they’ll alter their genealogical database to reduce the chances of Holocaust victims being “baptized,” but there are no guarantees.

Reuniting in Heaven

Mormons believe the only way families can be reunited in heaven is for all members to be baptized, making them Christians. So, for more than a hundred years, Mormons have used family genealogies to retroactively baptize deceased persons from all over the world, from all religions. The Mormons do this by having living Mormons stand in as a proxies for the deceased persons and immerse themselves in baptismal pools. Then the Mormons regard the dead people as Christians, regardless of what their religions may have been when they were alive.

Jewish leaders say the practice is especially upsetting when applied to Jewish Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their non-Christian religious beliefs. They want the Mormons to stop baptizing the Jewish victims and "to implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."

Mormons Refuse to Stop

Mormon leaders say nobody ~ Jewish or otherwise ~ has the right to demand that the Mormons change their posthumous baptism practices.

"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Mormon Elder Lance Wickman told reporters this week in Salt Lake City. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."

Jewish leaders persuaded Mormon leaders in 1995 to limit the proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims. Mormons supposedly removed about 42,000 names from the database. But since 2005, independent researchers monitoring the Mormon genealogical database say a number of the names have been placed back on the database along with new entries of Jews from Holland, Greece, Poland and Italy.

Click here for the complete Associated Press article.

Ancient Bowl Links "Christ" with "Magician"

Depiction of Jesus's first Biblical miracle, transforming water into wine at the wedding in Cana.

The recent discovery of an ancient bowl bearing a reference to “Christ” could be the earliest known reference to Jesus Christ. Researchers think the meaning of the words engraved on the bowl ~ Dia Chrstou O Goistais ~ could link the bowl and the Christ reference to supernatural practices.

Researchers say the phrase translates to either “by Christ the magician” or to “the magician by Christ.”

The bowl dates somewhere between the late 2nd Century BC to early 1st Century AD and was found during an underwater excavation of ruins in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. A team of scientist led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio discovered it near the submerged island of Antirhodos.

The bowl is very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.

"It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic," Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology, said. He and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a "magus" such as mentioned in the Matthew gospel could have practiced rituals using the bowl.

"It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium BC," Fabre said. "The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals." The magus or medium then goes into a trance when studying the oil in the cup.

"They therefore see the divinities, or supernatural beings appear that they call to answer their questions with regard to the future," he said. A magus might have used the engraving on the bowl to legitimize his supernatural powers by invoking the name of Christ, the scientists theorize.

Click here for the complete Discovery News article.

The bowl, found submerged in the bay of Alexandria, with the engraved words translating to either "by Christ the magician" or "the magician by Christ."