He was of the flesh, was he not? I'm curious if he came back to earth today (or if we found a preserved historic remnant of his clothing, would we be able to get a DNA sample? If so, would the father's side of his genetic makeup be missing, or does god also have DNA?

http://www.reasons.org/podcasts/i-di...frican-origins

How could it be missing? I'm putting my money on Roman DNA.....

Thanks. I'll listen to the whole thing when I have time. For now, do you have any idea where they talk about Jesus' DNA specifically? The beginning, middle, or towards the end?

[Edit:] Never mind, I found it. This is a pretty cool show btw.

Yes. And his midichlorian count was off the charts.

I don't always agree with them but I like getting a perspective from committed Christians. They have 3 Ph.D's in physics and astronomy and 1 in chemistry. One of them is a long time employee of JPL, semi-retired now, but was on the Cas_sini–Huygens Saturn team. It's a good balance against both Christians without science backgrounds and non-theist scientists.

They definitely aren't afraid to ask the tough questions. Not sure I Like the answer about DNA however. He states Jesus was definitely human, but that god could have giving him any genetic makeup whatsoever or none at all. He could have had Mary's genes, or not. This sounds like a bad sci-fi movie. If you're human, you have genes. Those genes need to come from ancestors.

I think Jesus Christ was the world's spiritual DNA.

Everyone comes first by natural birth into this world.

But to re-establish a spiritual connection to God you need the blood of Jesus.

Jesus explains it in John 3 while Paul explains it in 1 Cor. 15:12-33:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...33&version=NIV

I liked their answer because they were basically saying they didn't know. It's really a question that can't be answered because Jesus' birth is a miracle therefore not subject to the normal laws of nature. How did he walk on water or feed the 5000? As to genes, did Adam have them? If so, he didn't get them from his parents.

If you buy into the statement that all of your characteristics are either from your ancestors (pure heredity) or environmentally influenced (probability here) or a combination of both then you've answered your own question.

According to the pure heredity camp a genius like Beethoven must have received his talents from his Father, Mother , Grandfather, Great Grandmother,etc... The thinking is specious for this mandates that the greatness of Beethoven's compositions were there in original form from the beginning of family time, but still no genius beforehand.The other camp would say that a probability function through the Beethoven family tree would have culminated in a Beethoven. Probability, the insight from ignorance but still somewhat understandable.

It cannot be denied that genius has come out of families such as the Bach family of musicians or the Bernoulli family of mathematicians. It also cannot be dined that one's physical characteristics relate to one's capabilities. But this only means that a person cannot become a major league pitcher without arms but can become a major league scientist such as Hawking so long as the brain is intact.

The DNA taken from the physical body is lifeless and something entirely different within the human being. Likewise the corpse of Man which is the study of modern science is the inorganic realm, inclusive of DNA, and not at all the human being himself. Not only that : the modern scientist studies the human being on the anatomy table as is presented the solid objects of muscle, organ, bone; all again lifeless. It should be apparent that the human being is about 90% fluid but that's left as a waste product. There is "life" in the fluid also but at death it falls out of life into the lifeless.

This all leads to the fact that the human being (soul and spirit) reembodies from life to life and brings with it characteristics and predispositions from previous incarnations. this does not mean that Beethoven was a musician in a previous life but that he had acquired abilities for which incarnation in the Beethoven family tree was of the best nature for him and in fact for the progress of humanity. In the case of Beethoven or more to the point the Bach family the physical apparatus of a "good physical or earthly ear" was present or otherwise Beethoven would have worked in that incarnation in other channels. In any case the "good ear" was soul laden or alive and definitely not the ear of the anatomy table. DNA is a dead end, related to facile abstract thought, easy to live with for one doesn't have to think any longer.

An insight onto the talents or characteristics acquired from life to life. We have all learned our language, some more potently than others. We learned to read and write but we do not carry with us the ability to read or write English or German into the next life. We are able to read and write almost unconsciously as we age but effort was present as children in the obtaining of this ability. This effort and the abilities used to read the language of our nation is a soul spiritual fruit of our earthly work in the learning of our language.

Somewhere, transparently, in your question is the attempt to place Jesus of Nazareth under the cloud of mechanistic science and if someone tries to explain within the groundwork of your question it can only lead to contradictory dissension. The science is lacking and can only lead to despair about any all matters of life and death.

Now I'll offend a few Christians. The Jesus of Nazareth noted in the Bible was a great leader of mankind through his many lives. the Kings of the East who knew of his coming were aware that their great leader of Babylonia was to reincarnate. He was known a Zarathustra to the ancient Persian, had been a gift giver to Moses prior to the Mount and a gift giver to Hermes of Egyptian lore. As Nazarathos he was a teacher of Pythagoras. He was and is indeed the Savior of Mankind in that he had sacrificed his Ego or "Immortal I " in order that the Christ Being could incarnate into the earthly sphere.

At the Baptism of John the Christ Being incarnated into the body (s) of Jesus of Nazareth and worked within the earth for three (3) years, was crucified, therefore going through death (that to which only human beings go through to this point) rose again and became the Spirit of the Earth within the Hearts of All Men. The phusical body was left in the earth but the soul/spiritual being of Christ, that to whom was known as Vishva Karmen in ancient India, Ahura Mazda in ancient Persia and others..that God of Light incarnated within an earthly body in order to bring the human soul back to the spiritual world as independent beings, that to which they had fallen from; known as the Fall of man. And no, the Christ Being incarnated only once n a human body and will not do this again. He will and has become present within the souls of Men during our times within the Etheric realm, which is supersensible and another story. Dealing with the human being the considerations of physical, etheric, astral and Ego bodies have to be understood and known in order to reach to being of Man.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/...009_index.html

It's been so long since I posted regularly here, I can't remember if you're a creationist. Do you really believe the literal account of Adam & Eve and that the earth is in the thousands of years old? I didn't think you did, but I may have forgot.

Anything goes if you don't accept science. You could just as easily say Jesus was a unicorn in human form and who could argue with you? However, I think most educated Christians reject the Adam & Even story and accept that the earth is old. If so, then the human form of Jesus must have been made up of cells, which contained genes and DNA. These are hereditary and must have come from somewhere. I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask from where.

Unicorns did exist!

More here with pics:
http://www.britam.org/unicorn.html#1

indeed! unfortunately for christians, asking themselves to deeply consider this and other reasonable scientific questions can only lead down a path into darkness, so they usually refrain from considering these questions too deeply.

"there's no answer, so i'd rather not think about it" is the best you can hope for.

science depends on the idea that there is a way things work. laws and truths and such. theism depends on the idea that science is currently completely and utterly blind to the actual truth of the universe.

if jesus didn't have a human father, science truly knows almost nothing about DNA.

Creationism and an old earth are not mutually exclusive. The site I linked promotes "progressive creationism". We are old earth and universe but believe man was specially created. But even if this is wrong, the birth of Jesus was a miracle, he had no human father, and so there's no way to intelligently speculate on his DNA, which I believe he had. It didn't have to "come from somewhere" anymore than the universe requires a material source.

and there you have it!

someone call francis collins and tell him though we appreciate his efforts, genetics is essentially meaningless since it's possible for our genes to come from nowhere. and we can't even begin to figure that out.

time for him to pack up, go home, and read his bible.