Jesus' genome

You are not alone. Taken literally, Christian teachings can seem bizarre. I think that these sort of conversations are beneficial as they help us examine what, exactly, we do believe. I also think that Jesus was a lot more fun than people think. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Prov 17:22 “A joyful heart does good like medicine.” Good medical advice, sometimes!

2 Likes

No God does not have a genome. He does not have an ethnicity, eye color, sex or nationality. He chose to become a human being with those things. This is not the same thing. He is God become man not man become God. There is no genome or ethnicity in his origins. He has no limitations or particularity except what He chooses and that particular choice does not limit Him in any way. He can still become another human being with a different genome or ethnicity if he so desires.

Thanks for sharing your assertions. They don’t seem to consider the ascension, or the fact that the bible refers to Jesus as the “lamb slain since the foundation of the world,” but it seems you are mostly interested in telling us what you think as though your opinions are obvious.

This is an interesting conversation. Perhaps considering what a genome is would be a rewarding direction. A genome is the entire complement of DNA that an individual maintains in each of its cells (usually referring to nuclear chromosomal DNA, but mitochondria contain a chromosome as well). The term can also be used in a more abstract sense when used to describe the composite genetic information of a population (e.g. “the human genome”). DNA is a material remarkable in its properties that allow it to preserve and propagate biochemical information, most notably primary amino acid structure, and thus indirectly, phenotype. DNA has multiple functions providing information necessary for metabolism, adaptation, self-regulation (homeostasis), and reproduction.

One of the most amazing and intriguing aspects of DNA is the historical record that it contains. DNA sequence analysis is a primary tool in determining the history of humanity and life itself. We can now take our human fascination with geneologies and lineages much deeper than could have been imagined a couple of generations ago. The human Jesus, like all of us, carried the deep history of life within his genome. Like our genomes, his genome was shaped by retroviral insertions, gene inactiations, duplications, and rearragements. Jesus’s human genome and the structure of his cells would be related to all other eukaryotes all the way back to the Last Universal Common Anscestor (LUCA). The history of life goes back another two billion years before that, to the first simple replicating cells. These biochemical systems are dependent upon and emerge from the geochemistry of the planet in its early life (adamah).

Surely Jesus must carry this history of life, as he is the Lord of Life. As God incarnate he is human, and carries our shared history and origin.

1 Like

40 posts were split to a new topic: Human thought and language acquisition

No, I do not have any interest in a theology you have made up about Jesus ascending into heaven as if that were actually some place in the sky or whatever else you want to change this imagery into. Nor do I have any interest in a theology which annihilates life and consciousness by turning the whole world into a story which has already been written. I certainly don’t think any of this is anywhere close to obvious let alone worthy of an expectation that others should agree. Atheism is a perfectly rational alternative. What does interest me is that Christianity doesn’t have to be this magical deal where you have purchase salvation in exchange for rational thought and the objective evidence of science - because only a rational Christianity holds the slightest interest for me. I don’t think Christianity has to be fairy story, or fantasy story right out of a comic book. I think Christianity can be rational, meaningful and about the reality we experience everyday.

Golly, I’m flattered that you think I made that up. But… news flash… the story was written in the first century AD, and its importance in “theology” established sometime around AD 325 when it was written into the Nicene Creed.

1 Like

Here are my thoughts on the issue, which I had summarized earlier in a blog in celebration of Christmas: Why Jesus was born of a Virgin, and the Origin of the Soul

I guess I didn’t express myself clearly enough. I wan’t talking about the story but about inserting this theology that somehow Jesus going to be with the father meant God has a genome. And the fact is, I see no reason to believe that the resurrected spiritual body Paul talks about in 1 Cor 15 is something with a genome, or even atoms or any of that physics stuff. The spiritual body (not a natural or physical body according to Paul) is clearly something that has nothing whasoever to do with the laws of nature and thus there is no need for DNA chemistry which is by nature fragile and perishable.

That would certainly be a reason for saying this isn’t a valid scientific hypothesis let alone a scientific theory. But the according to the more general definition of the word “theory,” your objection isn’t correct. But to be sure this is more in the realm of religious belief and I would tend to agree with you that this isn’t one that agrees very well with what can be tested. I certainly disagree with all such pre-existence ideas even when there is no claim of knowledge retention.

Sounds a lot like the Gnostics, who believed we are all trapped in the evil world of the Demiurge, and this is a large part of why I don’t like any of this “soul” stuff. I prefer Paul’s explanation of a spirit body in 1 Cor 15 which comes after the physical body.

You realize that even competent scientists can go off the rails later in life. Look at Linus Pauling,the great Mr. Vitamin C.

2 Likes

12 posts were split to a new topic: S/O Should mental illness be treated with medication

I am with Beaglelady on this one. It is highly unlikely that a young woman of marriageable age in that culture was sleeping around, at any rate. And the impetus for some of the early aspects of the birth account — the possibility of Mary being stoned, Joseph’s anguish, and so on — comes, at least, from some uncertainty as to how Mary/Miriam ended up preggers without the usual prelude. That was an agricultural society. Kids grew up knowing “how babies came.” No one was fooled on that score. The taunts about Jesus’ legitimacy — found in some extrabiblical sources – seem to affirm that the issue was in question from the beginning.

And Nicea was quantifying issues that had been in the air since earliest times of Christian history.

1 Like

There are hints that maybe his legitimacy was being questioned even in the canonical Scripture. See John 8:

Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”

19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”

1 Like

And in Mark 6 where he is referred to as the son of Mary, rather than the son of Joseph.

3 Likes

Yes, that is what John 8:41 has often been said to suggest. That interpretation was made early on regarding the passage of verses leading up to, and including, v 41. It could also mean that people in the crowd were saying that they were children of God – at a point when Jesus was noting that their rejection of Him as Messiah and God suggested that they had a different father. There is a bit of a debate on that section of verses — see Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel and his sources.

Nevertheless, the idea that Jesus had a suspicious or uncertain heritage goes back to the beginning. I understand that if they were disputing or uncertain of a man’s parentage, he could be denied admittance to the Temple in Jerusalem — which really made someone an outcast.

1 Like

A post was merged into an existing topic: S/O Should mental illness be treated with medication

@beaglelady, you don’t seem to play fair with @mitchellmckain. You seem very fond of animals, and I’m assuming you believe they have spirits. Is it not logical to assume that our human spirit, our soul, is intrinsically different because there is a mysterious connection between Mind & Spirit–how a human soul ‘grows’ as it is influenced by the growing mind (and conscience) with which it is associated. At 20 weeks into pregnancy the human mind begins to react to stimuli–to sounds surrounding it in its mother’s belly, and later to her voice and to music. Upon entry into the world, the infant mind is suddenly subjected to an avalanche of new information, which it files away for future use in making choices which determine its spiritual as well as material nature.

Usually before its 2nd birthday a child realizes it is one individual in a human society and its behavior can give it some advantage in fulfilling its desires, even if they are purely selfish; i.e. the “terrible twos”. This is where parental discipline plays such an important role in spiritual growth [“as the twig is bent”] However, throughout history, society, while recognizing that humans are making choices at the early age of two, it does not hold them morally responsible until the “Age of Reason”, which is usually between 7 and 10. The human spirit (or soul) is constantly changing through out life, and no one knows for sure how God will judge each of us upon leaving this earth. Most humans have some sort of Faith that gives them some satisfaction that all will turn out OK.

But all this is somewhat tangential to the topic, “Jesus genome”. Did Jesus possess a God-genome at the moment of his conception? Or did he just have that potential, and he actuated it by the choices he made during his life before his ministry? Furthermore, as humans are we 'made in God’s Image from the moment of conception? Or is it just a potential that we must actuate by making unselfish choices through out our lifetimes? The solution to many of the most troubling problems of current society (e.g. abortion, capital punishment) depend on how we deal with these basic issues.

These ideas are submitted with the best of intentions–not to ‘rock anyone’s boat’.
Al Leo

Why, because I questioned his implication that I have fetishes? Or because I asked when a baby can make choices? I just don’t think a newborn makes choices and certainly viruses don’t. I don’t need a LONG lecture on human development or any other mansplaining, thank you.

1 Like