Independent carbon dating of bone fragments extracted from traditional tomb consistent with traditional martyrdom.
There is a reasonable probability that the remains are those of the Apostle Paul.
In the time of Pius XII the possible remains of the Apostle Peter were found where they were supposed to be, beneath the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica on Vatican hill in Rome. And then lost in a Vatican storeroom. And then rediscovered in the time of Paul VI. Interesting book about it: "The Bones of Saint Peter".
There is an interesting biblical parallel between the lives of Daniel and his three friends in Babylon near the time of the destruction of the first Jerusalem temple. And the traditional martyrdom of leading Apostles in Rome near the time of the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple.
From my comment on a Daily Mail .co .uk article, Have we found the body of St Paul?, article excerpts below:
I report and link. You decide. - J:)
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. - 2nd Corinthians 2:14
Excerpts from a Daily Mail .co .uk article, Have we found the body of St Paul?
:
Have we found the body of St Paul? [/] By A N Wilson Last updated at 2:43 AM on 30th June 2009 [/] Ruthless, half mad, he stoned Christians to death. He also founded modern civilisation. And until yesterday, his fate was one of history's great mysteries...
Deeply moved, the Pope delivered the news on Sunday that fragments of bones found in the tomb traditionally considered to be that of Saint Paul did indeed date from the first or second century. [/] Which means that, in all likelihood, they are the bones of the Apostle Paul - bones that have lain there for 1,950 years yet, astonishingly, have only been discovered in our time.
You might say, so what? Aren't Roman Catholics always making claims about bones and relics? Was it not said that if you measured all the bits of the True Cross venerated throughout the world you could build a bridge to the moon? Yes, yes. [/] But this is slightly different, and it is very exciting. The Pope was not saying that he revered some relics as a matter of faith. He was saying that scientists, by carbon dating, have come as close as possible to identifying the very bones of St Paul himself.
Why is he so convinced? Though the carbon-dating experts knew nothing of their origins, the bone fragments were recovered after a tiny probe was inserted into the tomb which lies in a crypt beneath the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls in Rome - a church long held to have been built on the site where Paul was buried.
It was only three years ago that the tomb itself was discovered by Vatican archaeologists. [/] The fact that it was positioned exactly underneath the epigraph Paulo Apostolo Mart (Paul the Apostle and Martyr) at the base of the altar convinced them it was Paul's tomb. [/] Now backed by the evidence of his carbon-dated bone fragments, the Pope has announced: 'This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that the bone fragments are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul.'
What makes the discovery all the more exciting is that the last days of Saint Paul have always been a bit of an historical puzzle. [/] To understand why this news is being treated as such a sensation, we have to examine his life - an extraordinary and dramatic life which, it is no exaggeration to say, changed the course of the world.
[…] You can tell from his letters that he is a driven, hyperactive genius of a man - more like a half-mad poet, I have often thought, than a clergyman. [/] His great flights of beautiful prose-poetry about the nature of love, or about the consolations of faith, echo down the ages to inspire new generations of readers afresh. [/] 'Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword?'
Paul was the first great theologian, insisting that we are forgiven not because of our good deeds, but solely because of God's love for us. He was the prime influence on all the great Christian philosophers and thinkers from Augustine to Luther.
But what happened to him in the end? We never knew. We know from the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible that he was arrested for causing an affray in Jerusalem, when Jews set upon him for preaching Christianity. [/] We're told that, as a Roman citizen, he made an appeal to Caesar's supreme court in Rome, living for two years under house arrest. But then his story fizzles out. [/] Now, it appears that the aural tradition, passed on by word of mouth since the second century, that he had suffered martyrdom and was beheaded for his faith, is true.
[...] Historical research alone will never produce faith. But it has always been part of the Christian claim that it was historically rooted. The ministry of the Church - its bishops and priests - goes back, as far as the West is concerned, in an unbroken line to the martyrs of Rome in the early days of Christianity. [/] These were men and women who were alive during the lifetime of Jesus, and their lives had been turned around by their beliefs concerning his life, death and resurrection. To all the apostles, therefore, the Church owes an historic debt.
But to none more so than Paul, who opened up to the Gentile world the inexhaustible riches of the Jewish spiritual tradition which culminated in Jesus Christ. [/] A.N. WILSON is author of Paul: The Mind Of The Apostle. [My ellipses and emphasis]
