Documentary Claims Jesus Was Married

[Cypros]

Half-semitic, don't you mean? We don't know His Father's race.

No, I meant semitic. I am willing to bet that Jesus' father was a Semite. :angel:

Cypros, do you have an answer to accord's questions above about the use of racial typing in forensics? I don't think I responded too clearly. I understand (and agree with) the argument against the broad, racial categories we were taught when I went to school. (As with sexual orientation and so much else, it's the social constructions that govern our thinking and lives, not the biology.)

But without those, how would we communicate concepts such as "people most at risk for cycle-cell anemia"?

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Wait, I think I can answer my own question. We would still have "people of African descent" and "people of European descent", etc., even after we stopped classifying them as different "races."

I have heard claims of identifying "race" through DNA but I have never seen any explanation how this could be done and I have not looked into it. Sorry.

In anthropology today, we avoid the use of the term "race" and refer to ethnicity which includes heritage, language, culture --- and your suggestion of "african descent" is another way to do it. Being PC can be complicated!


Thank you for those links, LP. These are all useful sources even if somewhat outdated. The concept is there.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

Thank you for those links, LP. These are all useful sources even if somewhat outdated. The concept is there.

Cypros, will I be currently PC if I can grasp the concepts in those links?

 

[narlacat]

I don't know much about the field of race concept and categories beyond what I was taught in high school and college, and DNA wasn't included 'way back then'. I think the research and philosphy is fascinating, although I need layman's explanations in order to follow along.

I find this article useful and informative: Race Without Color- Basing race on body chemistry makes no more sense than basing race on appearance--but at least you get to move the membership around. http://discovermagazine.com/1994/nov/racewithoutcolor444 but it is a 1994 date, so the info may have been since updated to conflict with this author's explanation.

This 2003 article might? incorporate the theory/study mentioned in other posters' previous posts about genetic global mapping: Genes generate a map, Study tracks human evolution, migration - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/09/MN52597.DTL&type=science

As best I can tell the Bible doesn't describe distinctive human races, but only people groups in regions with different languages (per the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11:1-9). Except maybe the mention of the Nephilim angels (also in Genesis and in Enoch) who mated with women which resulted in the birth of giants.

Those giants should have had some interesting DNA, too, huh?!

Don't read any Zecharia Sitchen then LP lol - but if you are interested in all that stuff, his books are a good read.

 

[Peter Hamilton]

This article is a couple of years old, but these numbers surprise me.

Most Americans Take Bible Stories Literally

An ABC News poll released Sunday found that 61 percent of Americans believe the account of creation in the Bible's book of Genesis is "literally true" rather than a story meant as a "lesson."
Sixty percent believe in the story of Noah's ark and a global flood, while 64 percent agree that Moses parted the Red Sea to save fleeing Jews from their Egyptian captors.

The levels of belief in the stories, however, differed among Christians.
The poll found that 75 percent of Protestants believed in the story of creation, 79 percent in the Red Sea account and 73 percent in Noah and the ark.
Among evangelical Protestants, those figures were 87 percent, 91 percent and 87 percent, respectively. Among Catholics, they were 51 percent, 50 percent and 44 percent.

--That's surprising and I am impressed that the Catholics seem to have a more realistic view of those particular "events"--I'm Protestant and believe that God created the universe but I don't believe any of those aforementioned Bible accounts--most of my personal interests in life involve the physical sciences--meteorology,astronomy,volcanology,tsunami's,and earthquakes---btw I am very impressed with all the posters on this thread--well done everyone

 

[BeeBee]

Please go to Part 2. Thanks