BONES [21c]
Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast. July 2010. Here, in the ruins of a medieval church on St. Ivan Island, six small human bone fragments are discovered inside a marble sarcophagus. Through radiocarbon dating and DNA testing of one knucklebone, scientists conclude that the bones are from the 1st-century AD. But what is even more incredible is the belief by many that the bones are actually those of St. John the Baptist.
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“In Christianity, John the Baptist is specifically important because he is known as the forerunner, the precursor, the one who comes before the Messiah. And in the stories of John the Baptist, he becomes extremely important for Christians because he announces that a greater messiah is coming after him. And the legends around John’s bones were always legends of extreme power. John was a prophet.” – Kathleen McGowan Coppens (Author/Researcher), |
Now on tour in churches throughout Bulgaria, tens of thousands of the faithful come to visit, pray and even worship these tiny bone fragments. But why? What is it about ancient bones even those thought to have belonged to a saint that compel people to come and visit them? Could it be they possess some mystical or otherworldly power?
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“The idea of saints’ bones and relics having power is something that goes back to the very early days of Christianity. And certainly, in the latter part of the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, they became very big business. If you had saints’ relics in your church or in your cathedral, you could bring in a lot of pilgrims who would also bring in a lot of donations. There was a strong belief by the nobility and the royalty that the bones of these saints actually did contain some kind of power.” – Kathleen McGowan Coppens (Author/Researcher), |
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“Humans always want to worship their celebrities, their kings. Whatever was linked with mysteries, humans worshipped it. So, in antiquity, it entered already into altars. When a high priest died, part of his body, part of his bones, was sometimes separated, brought to different countries. And everyone worshipped the bone in an altar. That’s still happening in Christianity.” – Erich von Däniken (Author, Chariots of the Gods?) |
Kushinagar, India. 483 BC. Siddhartha Gautama, the great spiritual teacher upon whom Buddhism is founded, dies. According to legend, after Buddha was cremated, several small pieces of his body remained intact and were retrieved from the ashes.
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“After his cremation, the ashes were fought over by a lot of his disciples. And finally, they resolved to the problem by dividing them into eight different parts. When the Buddha’s ashes were divided and there’s a claim that there’s a tooth found there it was considered it was very valuable. Right away, when the tooth was given to a king, the relic the tooth relic itself became associated with the power of kingship. And it is believed that the king who possesses the tooth will be able to rule properly and there will be peace and prosperity in his kingdom.” – Judy Chungwa Ho, Ph.D. |
Could such a tiny but tangible relic from the mouth of the dead Buddha really have such power? Is a physical link to a holy and venerated leader really a means of connecting to the afterlife and, even more profoundly, some divine life force?
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“The worship of relics, actually, is as old as the Buddhist religion itself and many other religions, too. The Buddha himself approves of the worship of relics because he believes that his followers need something very concrete to remind them of his presence and his teachings. The relics are supposed to be actually the essence of the saints. So, in a way, the relics are the saints themselves, so they have the powers of the saints.” – Judy Chungwa Ho, Ph.D. |
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“The importance here is why is it that objects like this can gain such an incredible spiritual value? And, quite clearly, it’s to do with the-the psychology of the importance of-of individuals like the Buddha, who is seen to be personifications of God or the gods themselves and that just to own this or to have some part of it imbues you with the same power as the gods themselves.” – Andrew Collins (Author, Gateway to Atlantis), |
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“So, you have to wonder just why these relics are so important. We give them power, these bones and these teeth. But what they are at least in a scientific manner is a piece of DNA from the Buddha himself.” – David Childress (Author, Technology of the Gods) |
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“I think they knew that in a far future, the gods, the extraterrestrials, would return again. And some of these gods may have said to one of his darlings on planet Earth, ‘If we find your body or your cells are still existing, then we are able to reconstruct your body.’” – Erich von Däniken (Author, Chariots of the Gods?) |
Cloning dead saints using DNA from their relics? Could this incredible notion be one of the reasons why bone fragments and other human remains have been so prized throughout the centuries? And might this now very real scientific possibility be connected to ancient religious notions of rebirth and resurrection? Perhaps the answers can be found in another mysterious relic that some believe depicts the greatest religious figure of all time.
The Cathedral of Turin, Northern Italy. Here lies the sacred relic known as the Shroud of Turin, a large piece of linen which, when photographed, bears the eerie image of what appears to be a crucified man.
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“The Shroud of Turin is a piece of ancient linen cloth, measures about 14 feet long by three and a half feet wide, and what’s so important about this cloth is, there’s a very faint imprint of a human being on the cloth who appears to have been crucified, which matches the biblical descriptions of Jesus Christ. So, many believe that this shroud, this relic, is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ, and bears the wounds of crucifixion.” – John de Salvo, Ph.D. (Dir., Great Pyramid of Giza Research Ctr), |
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“The Shroud of Turin has such a fascinating history, and the question is: Is it authentic? Those who are against it say, no, this could easily have been a fake, and a body would never have left such an image and so on. The chemicals of an embalmed body would not have done such a thing. But the people who say that are not able to explain how the figure did get there. It’s not painted. It doesn’t seem to be a pigment that’s applied to the cloth.” – Fr. William J. Fulco, Ph.D. |
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“The shroud has been studied, actually, by some of the top scientists and researchers in the world. And with all the scientific knowledge and equipment, we still do not know how the image of the shroud was produced.” – John de Salvo, Ph.D. (Dir., Great Pyramid of Giza Research Ctr), |
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“And this is what I think continues to fascinate us about it. Regardless of what you believe, whether you are a Christian and a believer and believe that this is the image of the resurrected Christ, or if you just believe that there is some other extraordinary metaphysical event that causes this, you have to be fascinated by the fact that this extraordinary relic could not have been created by any means that in the 21st-century we can identify.” – Kathleen McGowan Coppens (Author/Researcher), |
Could the Shroud of Turin really be a divine relic? Tangible evidence of the existence of an almighty power?
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“And in 2011, Italian scientists were able to prove that the Shroud of Turin was created by a supernatural flash of light, an unearthly flash of light. In my opinion, the Shroud of Turin is proof that Jesus transformed himself into a being of light, and projected himself through the Shroud of Turin.” – William Henry (Author / Investigative Mythologist), |
Does the Shroud of Turin actually contain an image of the crucified Jesus? Or could this sacred object be something else? Might it, in fact, be evidence of an incredibly advanced, otherworldly technology? Perhaps the answer can be found by examining another, even more perplexing, ancient artifact. One found on a land known as the Emerald Isle.
Previous: Metals | Next: Stones
References:
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