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Apparently Vatican archaeologists have discovered bone fragments in what is traditionally believed to be the tomb of St. Paul. Pope says bone fragments found in St Paul's tomb What would be really cool is if they could somehow scientifically verify whether the remains belong to St Paul for certain. Unfortunately, we will probably never know for certain. That is where faith comes in. It is nice to see archaeology back up a tradition that is almost 2,000 years old.The one thing that makes kind of doubtful is the finding of golden cloth in the tomb. St. Paul was martyred in A.D. 65, I question whether early Christians were rich enough to afford gold cloth. The only explanation for that is that he was reinterred later. the story says the sarcophagus dates from the 4th Century, which could explain the presence of gold cloth.
That is cool. I'm not sure how they'd be able to scientifically verify that it is St. Paul….it's not like they could do DNA analysis if they don't know who may be a living decedent of a relative. I suppose they could narrow it down to determine where in the Mediterranean the body is from.And yeah I'd say that the bodies of early Christian martyrs would have been tracked after his death, making it possible for the gold-lined cloth to have been added later on in the 4th century or so.
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