{"id":8109,"date":"2012-06-16T22:54:48","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T02:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=8109"},"modified":"2012-06-16T22:54:48","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T02:54:48","slug":"bones-of-john-the-baptist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/06\/bones-of-john-the-baptist.html","title":{"rendered":"Bones of John the Baptist?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/blogs\/headlines\/2012\/06\/bones-of-john-the-baptist-possibly-discovered\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">news<\/a> has been making the rounds that bones have been found which some think might have belonged to John the Baptist. This is <a href=\"http:\/\/robertcargill.com\/2010\/08\/03\/no-no-you-didnt-find-the-remains-of-john-the-baptist\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">a story which first appeared in 2010<\/a>, but which has been revived by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2159578\/John-Baptist-bones-theory-Scientists-claim-positive-tests-1st-century-relics.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the carbon dating of the knuckle bone to the first century<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.skeptic.com\/doubtful-news\/i-got-a-bone-to-pick-with-john-the-baptist\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Skepticcom+%28Skeptic.com%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The site <em>Skeptic<\/em> reports<\/a> on the matter in a way that seems to me level-headed. But the most detailed and fair assessment, complete with suggestions about what sorts of data might be needed to make the case, is<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollstonepigraphy.com\/?p=524\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"> offered by Christopher Rollston<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/ntweblog.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/john-baptists-bones-have-been-found.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MarkGoodacresNTBlog+%28Mark+Goodacre%27s+NT+Blog%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mark Goodacre<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/thebiblicalworld.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/john-baptists-bones-discovered.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">John Byron<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelsheiser.com\/PaleoBabble\/2012\/06\/john-baptists-bones-discovered-noahs-ark\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Michael Heiser<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com\/2012\/06\/15\/no-they-have-not-found-john-the-baptists-bones\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jim West<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/dienekes.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/bones-of-john-baptist.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Dienekes\u2019 Anthropology Blog<\/a> have also mentioned the topic.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pasthorizonspr.com\/index.php\/archives\/06\/2012\/controversial-john-the-baptist-relics-right-place-right-date\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">A documentary on the topic is apparently scheduled to air tomorrow<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pasthorizonspr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/baptist2.jpg\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" width=\"670\" height=\"499\"><\/p>\n<p>In considering the historical John the Baptist, it may perhaps also be of interest to readers that John the Baptist\u2019s execution\/martyrdom is not a focus of the Mandaean tradition, whereas it is one of the main stories told about him in the New Testament (The only account of the death of John that I am aware of in Mandaean literature is in a single passage in the Ginza Rba). What\u2019s more, their stories about John include not just alternate versions of those found in the New Testament about his parents, which I have blogged about before, but they provide a wife and children for him as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The news has been making the rounds that bones have been found which some think might have belonged to John the Baptist. This is a story which first appeared in 2010, but which has been revived by the carbon dating of the knuckle bone to the first century. The site Skeptic reports on the matter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,57],"tags":[753,1300,5875,6111,6260,6930,10165,12116],"class_list":["post-8109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology","category-mandaeans","tag-archaeology","tag-bone","tag-john-the-baptist","tag-kazimir-popkonstantinov","tag-knuckle","tag-mandaeans","tag-relics","tag-sveti-ivan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bones of John the Baptist?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The news has been making the rounds that bones have been found which some think might have belonged to John the Baptist. 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