I guess they’re using the rest of the thorns collected by medieval relic-hoarders to built a replica of Noah’s ark in Kentucky. Oh, wait — I got the thorn mixed up with pieces from the cross.
At least this piece of paleo-nonsense involved a journalist who has grown enough of a conscience to tell us that, “while no one can doubt the item’s rich history, there is less evidence to support the claims of its provenance.” No kidding. What has the British Museum come to?
My thanks to Melania for this!
I don’t see that much of a problem with it so long as the exhibition (as it sounds), is taking a sort of social history of religious artefacts approach. Obviously they will have to make it really obvious that the provenance is highly dubious.
Crusades! A brilliant example of what NOT to do in God’s name, Thanks for the smear campaign Vatican 😉
Agree w/ Richard; this thorn is in many ways an important part of Christian history, even Christian theological history — if not necessarily the history that the museum signs indicate. The shysters of the Middle Ages are most famous but any visit to a European Catholic church older than, say, a century or so will reveal a collection of sometimes ghastly relics, semi-preserved human body parts or artifacts connected to some local saint’s life that seem to serve as a physical, tangible bridge between the spiritual and physical realm, between the canon of Christian stories and today, between life and death. The level of reverence shown for these objects still today by faithful Catholics can be astounding.
lol, there is no need to use the crusaders as a smear campaign against the vatican, the inquisitions
were just enough..and then in today’s time the actual pope is the best example.
I am not sure what remains holy at the vatican..
RBG and LostAngel,
The vast majority of ‘history’ regarding the crusades and the inquisitions is incredibly biased, and in many cases more fiction than fact. I would be willing to wager that a large percentage of what you think you know about both topics is largely the product of anti-catholic bigotry, beginning with so called ‘enlightenment’ historians and being carried on by protestant and secular academic communities since.