Holy Grail finally found?

The holy grail is what Jesus drank out of at the last supper?

Why would he be drinking out of something so lavish and rich? He didn't come off as particularly wealthy to me.
 
The holy grail is what Jesus drank out of at the last supper?

Why would he be drinking out of something so lavish and rich? He didn't come off as particularly wealthy to me.


We learned that in one of the Indy Jones movies.
 
Yeah, makes no sense. I'd click the link to see what it says, but it's the Daily Mail and I refuse to dignify it even that far. If I can find it, I'll post their wonderful article about Rome in Asia Minor before they fell to the Carthaginians.

ETA: Here it is

A university team has uncovered a massive Roman mosaic in southern Turkey - a meticulously crafted, 1,600-square-foot work of decorative handiwork on the fringes of the Roman Empire.
While Turkey was under the Roman Empire for a time, it was pushed back by the Carthaginians - making this find a demonstration of the surprising reach and cultural influence of the Roman Empire in the area during the third and fourth centuries AD.
 
Yeah, makes no sense. I'd click the link to see what it says, but it's the Daily Mail and I refuse to dignify it even that far. If I can find it, I'll post their wonderful article about Rome in Asia Minor before they fell to the Carthaginians.

ETA: Here it is

what



Also, why does the Holy Grail matter at all? Christ doesn't seem to have considered it any more remarkable than his sandals or toenails, nor did any of the disciples. He'd probably be put off by how people obsess over something so insignificant.
 
I for one wonder where the holy foot washing bowl has been. If the Holy Grail gives eternal life, the Holy Foot Bin will surely keep my feet clean forever.
 
The holy grail is what Jesus drank out of at the last supper?

Why would he be drinking out of something so lavish and rich? He didn't come off as particularly wealthy to me.
Come on man, all the gold and jewels around it were added at the 11th century by Queen Doña Urraca ("Urracca" can be read at the stem), the chalice is the onyx cup inside it.

Since you guys refuse to read it (i would too, i chose this article because it has a large pic), historians say they have documents found at Cairo proving the cup in question was at Jerusalem from year 400 at least to around 1050, then a famine struck Egypt and Egypt Caliph asked by help. An Emir from Al Andalus send a fleet with food and stuff, but in return he asked by this christian relic, so he could give it as present to Leon King Fernando I.

Here there is a more detailed article, it is in Spanish though.
 
bah , anybody who has ever played the relevant Civ III Firaxis scenario knows Jean d'Arc took it from the English and took it to Kudüs .
 
The holy grail is what Jesus drank out of at the last supper?

Why would he be drinking out of something so lavish and rich? He didn't come off as particularly wealthy to me.

As the article states, the cup in question is inside all of the jewels and things.

BTW, thanks for making me accidentally look at a Mail Online article. I will need to have another shower now.

The historians making the claim are reputable, but the claim still seems wildly improbable. The problem with any object like this is that one might be able to trace it back to the early Middle Ages or even to late antiquity, but there's simply no reliable way to trace it back earlier than this. Suppose it could be shown that this object was being revered as the Holy Grail in the fourth century; that's still way too late for there to be any reasonable chance that it was actually the cup used by Jesus. The same thing goes for the True Cross and the True Nails and the other bits and bobs that first appeared in the fourth and fifth centuries. I can't see anything in any of the sensationalist articles online about this that addresses this issue. The Spanish article that Thorgalaeg links to doesn't mention it either, dealing only with the cup's medieval heritage. Whether the book deals with it or not, obviously I can't tell.
 
Daily Mail article lines posted by Louis XXIV said:
A university team has uncovered a massive Roman mosaic in southern Turkey - a meticulously crafted, 1,600-square-foot work of decorative handiwork on the fringes of the Roman Empire.
While Turkey was under the Roman Empire for a time, it was pushed back by the Carthaginians - making this find a demonstration of the surprising reach and cultural influence of the Roman Empire in the area during the third and fourth centuries AD.

That is just great. "Turkey was under the Roman Empire for a time" :rotfl:

The Carthaginian invasion was very good too.
 
As the article states, the cup in question is inside all of the jewels and things.

BTW, thanks for making me accidentally look at a Mail Online article. I will need to have another shower now.

The historians making the claim are reputable, but the claim still seems wildly improbable. The problem with any object like this is that one might be able to trace it back to the early Middle Ages or even to late antiquity, but there's simply no reliable way to trace it back earlier than this. Suppose it could be shown that this object was being revered as the Holy Grail in the fourth century; that's still way too late for there to be any reasonable chance that it was actually the cup used by Jesus. The same thing goes for the True Cross and the True Nails and the other bits and bobs that first appeared in the fourth and fifth centuries. I can't see anything in any of the sensationalist articles online about this that addresses this issue. The Spanish article that Thorgalaeg links to doesn't mention it either, dealing only with the cup's medieval heritage. Whether the book deals with it or not, obviously I can't tell.
Exactly. I started the thread after watching a report at TV where the historians were interviewed. They said it is proved the item was revered at Jerusalem since the 5th century at least, but before that there is not any link beetwen it and Jesuchrist. However they also said that fact only is a very notable thing and that the material and design of the chalice are consistent with the ones used by jews at Jesuchrist times (even being much more expensive, they preferred onyx for special occasions over wood and clay since Torah advice against any porous material).

Of course i am highly sceptical too, many things can happen in 400 years and i think they should prove the real existence of Jesuchrist to begin with.
 
There isn't any serious doubt about Jesus' existence, and I don't see how one could reasonably expect better evidence than we already have, under the circumstances. The impossibility of proving any link between an artefact such as this cup and Jesus himself is symptomatic of that.
 
The impossibility of proving any link between an artefact such as this cup and Jesus himself is symptomatic of that
Care to elaborate? That only prove we have not any material evidence.

Also, out of curiosity, how many non christian textual evidences we have? Not too many i guess.
 
Care to elaborate? That only prove we have not any material evidence.

Well, the problem as I see it is that the early church (by which I mean between the first and fourth centuries) didn't tend to regard objects as holy or preserve them. There wasn't much of a cult of saints' relics, for example. There was some - a notable example is when Cyprian of Carthage was executed, the last thing he saw was people spreading their handkerchiefs on the ground in front of him, to catch his blood and become relics. But we don't hear much of keepsakes of the apostles or anything like that. And I don't think we hear anything at all of other objects such as grails, pieces of the cross, clothing, etc. These things first appear in the fourth century at the earliest, and are associated with the "rediscovery" of the Holy Land as, well, a holy land. Constantine's mother, Helena, led archaeological expeditions there, and the country was reinvented as a holy site.

The point is that it was only then that the geography and materiality of Jesus' life became a thing of interest. Before then, people didn't bother to travel to Galilee to see where Jesus lived, and they didn't bother to preserve objects associated with his life or death. Only in the fourth century did that develop. So we just don't have anything from earlier. And obviously by the fourth century there could be no way that some object associated with Jesus could reliably be identified. That's why, even if this supposed grail can be traced back to the fourth century, there's just no way to trace it further - no documents or written descriptions or material evidence.

Also, out of curiosity, how many non christian textual evidences we have? Not too many i guess.

If you mean for Jesus' existence, the only one that doesn't ultimately rely on Christian sources is Josephus, who famously mentions Jesus twice. This tells us little about him, given that later Christian copyists seem to have interfered with Josephus' text, but there's little doubt that Josephus did mention him, and furthermore he mentions him in the context of what was going on at the time of Pilate, rather than in the context of "founder of Christianity", as other non-Christian sources do. That suggests that his information is not drawn from Christian sources.

Obviously the Christian sources are far more important, but the mere fact that they're Christian doesn't invalidate them as sources. They include lots of stuff that Christians would have been unlikely to invent, starting with the crucifixion itself and many details of Jesus' teaching such as the kingdom of God or the Son of Man, which are almost entirely absent from other early Christian texts, including the rest of the New Testament. Overall, the kind of information we have about Jesus is similar to the kind of information we have about other figures like him, such as Hillel and Shammai, Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina Ben Dosa, and so on. Our sources for those people are also texts, mainly in the Talmud, that record much earlier oral traditions for the edification of later readers; but scholars can still tease them apart and assess which elements are authentic. In Jesus' case the material is similar but rather better, in that it there's a lot more of it and it's mostly from a time closer to that of the subject. We don't typically dismiss the sources for Hillel simply because they're Jewish; there's no reason to dismiss those for Jesus just because they're Christian.
 
Thorgalaeg said:
Also, out of curiosity, how many non christian textual evidences we have? Not too many i guess.
We have two contemporary non-Christian sources. (I assume that's what you want because we actually have a lot of non-Christian sources about Jesus including polemics against him which take his existence as a given). The first of these references can be found in Josephus' Antiquities. In it Josephus relates an anecdote about the High Priest Ananus' who "assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James [the Just], and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned..." This caused Albinus, the Roman Procurator, to strip Ananus' of his role as high priest and replace him. The second passage can be found in Tacitus' Annals. There Tacitus' tells us how Nero tried to deflect blame for the Great Fire of Rome from himself to a convenient scapegoat, Christians:

Tacticus' Annals said:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

Josephus makes another reference to Jesus known as the Testimonium Flavianum. In it Josephus says:

Josephus' Antiquities said:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

It's generally accepted that parts of this are subsequent Christian interpolations. The extent of these interpolations exist, and what was actually said by Josephus are not known. However, scholars still accept that there was at some stage an authentic passage about Jesus in this part of the text. Other later figures including Suetonius, Pliny and Celsus wrote about Christians. Suetonius blames friction between Jews and Christians for the Jews and Christians being ejected from Rome under Cladius' reign. Pliny wrote about how to tries them and some of their practices. Celsus wrote a polemic in which he asserts that Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier. But these are somewhat later figures.

Based on this, it's fair to argue that there is rather more evidence for Jesus being a historical person than can be mustered for people who were more significant than Jesus at around the same time and in the same region. for other persons more significant in their lifetime in the same region. John the Baptist (outside of Christian sources) is only attested in Antiquities despite John being rather more important during his lifetime. Josephus tells us that John was a good man whose death at Herod's hands was the result of his popularity and ability to raise a mass following. Popular tradition related by Josephus furthermore held that the killing of John was the reason that Herod lost his army in battle with the king of Arabia Petres, Aretas. I believe Honi the Circle Drawer is another example who survives through the Antiquities and subsequent Jewish traditions. Honi was captured by Hyrcanus II who asked that Honi pray for the death of his brother and foe Aristobulus II. Honi refused and Hyrcanus II's supporters stoned him to death. In revenge Josephus tells us God sent down a great storm. (Amusingly enough, Josephus hated miracle workers and usually called them deceivers or enchanters. He called Honi alone a righteous man).
 
The second passage can be found in Tacitus' Annals. There Tacitus' tells us how Nero tried to deflect blame for the Great Fire of Rome from himself to a convenient scapegoat, Christians:

While this is technically a non-Christian author mentioning Jesus, I don't think it can really be considered a non-Christian testimony to Jesus' existence. This is because Tacitus clearly knows about Jesus solely as the founder of Christianity. He knows him only by the name "Christus", obviously thinking this to be his actual name. So his knowledge of Jesus, such as it is, is evidently wholly derived from Christianity - and this is hardly surprising, because why would someone like Tacitus have ever heard of someone like Jesus otherwise? He would have said exactly the same things about him if in fact the Christians had invented Jesus, so he can't really be used as evidence for the claim that they didn't. The same goes for Suetonius and other later pagan references to Jesus.

This is why I think Josephus is much more important as a non-Christian testimony, because he's the sort of person who might be expected to know about Jesus without having to rely on the Christians' report.

But really the significance of these non-Christian sources is usually exaggerated, in my opinion. Even if we didn't have them, the Christian sources would be quite sufficient to put Jesus' existence beyond reasonable doubt.
 
That is pretty interesting info, guys. So, Urraca´s chalice is probably a random cup found buried somewhere at Jerusalem by some Roman archaeologist (i find it somewhat bizarre to imagine archaeologists from 4th century , looking for something from the 1st century)
The chance of it being the real thing is about 1/1,000,000 i suppose. Well, historians need to sell books too.

Masada said:
Josephus' Antiquities said:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
It's generally accepted that parts of this are subsequent Christian interpolations. The extent of these interpolations exist, and what was actually said by Josephus are not known.
So even the only non-Christian source has been somewhat corrupted. I think the problem with Christian sources in general is precisely that: way too many interpolations. After 2000 years of councils, schisms, biased interpretations, political interests... what remains? The original texts, if there were any (when was the oldest gospel written, 30, 50, 100 years after the alleged facts?), probably have been mutated ad infinitum. So probably something happened at Jerusalem the year 33 but to what point was it related to the figure of Jesus we have?

Plotinus said:
Overall, the kind of information we have about Jesus is similar to the kind of information we have about other figures like him, such as Hillel and Shammai, Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina Ben Dosa, and so on. Our sources for those people are also texts, mainly in the Talmud, that record much earlier oral traditions for the edification of later readers; but scholars can still tease them apart and assess which elements are authentic. In Jesus' case the material is similar but rather better, in that it there's a lot more of it and it's mostly from a time closer to that of the subject. We don't typically dismiss the sources for Hillel simply because they're Jewish; there's no reason to dismiss those for Jesus just because they're Christian.
How Jesus compares to Muhammad on historical evidence for example?

@Domen. Yeah, then the one at Leon is the real thing, since it has been used for the Eucharistia along centuries and nobody has exploded into a cloud of dust and dry bones AFAIK.
 
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