Sunday, May 28, 2023

Emma Thorne on the Blood Relic of St. Gennaro


Atheist Witnesses a Miracle! | Blood of San Gennaro Explained
Emma Thorne, 20 May 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItezDBMiqPk


5:49 Whom are you going to trust on Napolitan history?

Napolitan tradition?
Modern scholarship?

What you "looked up" is arguably modern scholarship.

Most of it is either Protestant or Atheist and either of these have a clearly vested interest in the relics not being real. Jews have less of that, but more of a general prejudice in anything Christian being bogus.

6:11 "mixed with legend"
Means what in this context? Legend basically means hagiography. Legenda means "things you are supposed to read" and that being hagiography.
6:13 "in a very idolising kind of way"
Idolising is an obvious jab from a Protestant ... I didn't quite think of you as Five Point Calvinist or High Church Anglican - and the latter would not even agree, but the Low Church Anglicans would.

Is a particular style of writing a reason for you to doubt historical facthood?

That in and of itself would leave only Modern Scholarship, written in much dryer styles than most styles of history writing, still available to you as "reliable" because "not tainted" ...

7:04 305 AD fact, 6th C AD text.

Like between Alexander and Arrian?

9:05 If you look at the Magna Charta in a museum, what is your "hard" evidence that you look at the paper that King John Lackland actually signed?

Relics, like San Gennaro's blood and like the Holy Cross, like Magna Charta or Declaration of independence are literally the hard evidence, but the hard evidence is only meaningful because of the soft evidence, the story surrounding it.

Rene Jean
Documents and 'magic blood' are hardly comparable. Not the same thing at all. Not all evidence is equal.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Rene Jean The point was not that it was, but that the difference is established by what one could call "soft evidence" - i e reasoning.

Your view on the relative merits of San Gennaro's relic and of the Magna Charta belongs to the class of "soft evidence" or reasoning (some people reason with brains that seem very soft, either way an inequality in the force is a factor of "soft" compared to hard).

It is therefore misguided to ask "where is the hard evidence that this piece of hard evidence is also good evidence" you need to ask where is the reasoning that this piece of hard evidence is good evidence.


10:00 Santa - pronounced KeeAHrah.

Without the H, Italian would have pronounced it like "CHAHrah"

19:21 Oh, I will.

The pizza should be phenomenal, tradition has it what we now call pizza comes from Naples.

The exact claim that they are not making about fish and chips.

But presumably your generalised scepticism prevents you from believing fish and chips comes from England as well, doesn't it?

[separate comment]

Finally, Thixotropy.

How does this not explain the non liquefication at outbreaks of Vesuvio, World War II and COVID-19?

[separate comment]*

This reminded me, I had been hasty in pretending there was no precedent for "Saint John Paul II's" blood relics to go to Lourdes.

This is a precedent.

Well, San Gennaro's blood liquifies itself. Karol Wojtyla's blood liquefied the countryside, like Lourdes was flooded after the arrival.

* The previous one actually was final when watching. This last one was added on Pentecost Day.

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