Could Scientists Track Down the DNA of Jesus and Clone Him?
With the approach of Easter Sunday, the airwaves are again filling with stories about Jesus—some inspirational, some historical, and some others of the eccentric type to say the least.
This Sunday, April 16, History Channel is premiering "The Jesus Strand," a documentary that it says will trace the search for the DNA of Jesus Christ.
Metro notes that the show comes at a time when "various oddballs have claimed to be on the verge of cloning Jesus Christ – despite the fact that no one has cloned a human being yet, never mind the Son of God."
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The news site asks the stunning question: "But could we track down the DNA of the Messiah?"
On its website featuring "The Jesus Strand," History Channel says, "for the first time in history a man of faith and a man of science are teaming up to search for Jesus' DNA."
The search is led by Oxford University geneticist George Busby and biblical scholar Pastor Joe Basile, who are also investigating famous holy relics including the Shroud of Turin, The Sudarium of Oviedo and the newly discovered bones of Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist.
"By extracting and analyzing samples of each of these holy relics they hope to retrieve a sample of DNA that possibly belongs to Jesus or a member of his family," History Channel says.
"They believe that if they can find a strand of Jesus' DNA it could help identify who among us today are descendants of Jesus and provide us with new insight into the man many consider to be the most important person in history, Jesus," it adds.
Writing for The Conversation, Busby said a Bulgarian archaeologist named Kasimir Popkonstantinov discovered in 2010 what he believes to be the bones of John the Baptist.
"The finding is hugely important, partly because John the Baptist was both a disciple of Jesus and his cousin – meaning they would share DNA," Busby said.
At the same time though, Busby admitted he was skeptical that the discovered bones would yield John the Baptist's DNA.
"For a start, no DNA test can prove that these were bits of John the Baptist, Jesus or any other specific person," he said. "We can't extract and analyse an unknown DNA sample and magically say that it belonged to this or that historical character."
History Channel is not the only media organization that is trying to ride on the Jesus bandwagon this Easter.
CNN is showing the finale of its "Finding Jesus" series also this Sunday. The show, which reportedly is the network's highest rated production to date, examines ancient Christian relics and, "week by week, demonstrates that they have little or nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth," according to J. Warner Wallace in an op-ed piece for The Christian Post.
Wallace noted that although the major networks and news outlets are willing to talk about Jesus at this time of year, "few of them are willing to take Him seriously."
He said "television productions demonstrate a principle guiding the major media outlets in our country: You can write an article or produce a series about Jesus, as long as it doesn't claim anything about Him is true."
