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0. Prefatory Orientations

00. Overview: turning the table on metaphysical-mitochondrial DNA-jargon–– Jacobovici and Pellegrino and “The Jesus Family Tomb” are primarily mentioned on this Website to attract search engines. My presentation is added to the KJSNA-Webpage for equalizing reasons that may become clearer later. It is an attempt to bring stabilization to some possible dysfunctional discombobulating resulting from mtDNA and tomb-book propaganda. It is at least an exercise, and others might participate—particularly if Jaspers relevant.

01. Jaspers’ brief on mtDNA: “Let it be briefly mentioned that today we also know something about the carriers of heredity which are to be found outside the cell-nucleus in the plasma but so far the insights gained do not apply to human generation.” (General Psychopathology—Heredity.) Jaspers is speaking about what has come to be designated mtDNA. His brief statement follows an exhaustive critique of what is known, unknown and unknowable about heredity. His evaluation is meant to prepare the medical student for an informed and methodical approach to the field of psychopathology.

02. The dichotomy--Below, a general medical application of mtDNA is first considered, followed by the prudent and imprudent use in jurisprudence. The text includes interpolations applying Jaspers’ work in psychopathology. It includes an examination of the degenerative misapplication of mtDNA to humankind. The two humane fields of justice and medical care are especially relevant to Jaspers because suffering and guilt dominates his works.  It should be noted that in general, due to the immediacy of pain and suffering, research done in micro-molecular biology is simply understood as valuable and respectable, and should be objective and free of irrelevant and polarizing ontological presuppositions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 (For my non-technical belief in the Resurrection see items 6.f; for a unique approach to “touch me not” see item 2.1.; for Jesus-Mary relationship see item 2.4.

1. Jaspers’ mtDNA brief
    1.2. Meet metaphysical mtEve
    1.3. Back to Eden’s Eve toward many Marys
    1.4. Bitter garden tastes—empty Eve
2. Doctor Luke’s reference to Mary’s discombobulated state
    2.1.Psychic straits and “touch me not…Father…God” advice
    2.2. Reliable Hearsay
    2.3. More than eidetic phenomena
    2.4. Bitter but enlightened carriers, sexual abuse
    2.5. Meaningful associations…Jesus, Ricoeur, Frankl…sublime urges
3. Four judicial teeth put to biologists’ prejudicial tenets and liturgical jargon
4. In limine—leave mtDNA at tombs’ threshold
    4.1. Forced into silence or collusion by a book’s title that begs the question
    4.2. Making sense of what’s known by way of scheme wondering
5. Public appeal for spin on writ of habeas corpus
6. A personal testimony
    6.1. Declaration and proclamation regarding Resurrection ideas
    6.2. Upbringing
7. Apparent difference with Jaspers
    7.1. Some difference absorbed in mutual agreements
8. Micro biologists play deteriorates into inverse resurrection—immanentalism
9. Corporate “Resurrection”.
10. POSSIBLE CONT.: Jaspers on auto and mass hypnosis--reality, real and false hallucinations in society and history…

RESCUING RESURRECTION FROM ABUSE

1. MtDNA applied to medicine (etymology of pain and guilt)

1.1. Jaspers’ brief (01. above) remains accurate, i.e., current mtDNA awareness does not apply to human generation but remains invaluable for contributing to the relief from disorders in the human condition. Promoting research and testing in the field of jurisprudence and medicine to avoid the degeneration of humankind has been contaminated by protagonists’ ontology that polarizes and inhibit meaningful cognizing. The certainty that the axiomatic origin of humankind is not to be questioned has led to unfortunate consequence in generative thinking. This proneness to restraining realistic thinking has always been part of history’s dichotomy. It is evident in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden and now it is being twisted anew in the controversy involving the emotive expoundings about a tomb alleged to contain mitochondrial Eve’s DNA.

1.2. Meet mtEve--Thinkers who are inclined to project ultimate causes in terms of metaphysical entities to avoid uncomfortable deficiencies in certitude have finely screened nuclear DNA information. Not finding a preferred ultimate singularity within the mutually gendered nucleus of the human cell’s DNA, their hopes are now pinned on “mitochondrial DNA” (mtDNA) found outside the cell’s nucleus in the encompassing plasma. One consequence of this monistic aberrant thought process is that the ultimate origin of humankind and the origins of humankinds’ miseries are to be found in mothers who transmit something stable to daughters (cloned and otherwise) including a weakness for mutations (heteroplasmy). By a twisting spin in the quest for certitude, the category “daughters” becomes a wider distributed category of “offspring”, which includes genders in general. This sweeping spin might bring some perverse satisfaction to personalities hostile to the their opposite gender. The verbalization resulting from “evolutionary studies” amounts to a twirling of thought from crooned daughters to offspring beginning with “mitochondrial Eve”.

1.3. Back to Eden’s Eve and onto many Marys’ bitter lot--Protesting that spin’s appeal to generally accepted bias we find ourselves back in the Genesis Garden of Eden better armed with terms of engagement. We come now with terms like ontologism, certitude, traditional and nontraditional heredity, DNA, nuDNA-mtDNA-numtDNA, and heteroplasmy. Such sophisticated stylistic nomenclature alerts us to the need to enhance sensitivity toward any gender-bias snaking itself, sidewinder like, amidst suggestive terms. We dare protest. The creators of mitochondrial Eve are not excluded as donors for originating and transmitting infected theories about DNA. Of course that is tit-for-tat bit of overkill, a nip at buds to cut to the root of ontological fixations; but it’s confrontationally worth saying. Confronting gender-bias is in retaliation for the adulterated exploitation of sacred writ’s use of the name of Eve. Circumventing of the bible to establish a prehistoric mother of man and mother of God should have been predicted.  The bitter consequences, the suffering and death resulting from the attitude that one gender must suffer the consequences of an assumed singularly known fateful immanent origin is comparable to unbiblical original-sin-guilt thinking. The Eve of the OT is erroneously superseded and identified through mtDNA as complicit with mtEve and absolutely presumed guilty of transmitting limitations through nutrition. And this brings us to a NT reemphasize on mothers’ bitter (note the word) situation. Etymologically and historically the emotion behind the word ranges from obstinacy to bitterness. I chose to spin-off “bitter”. We now change from the use of Eve’s bitter womb suffering to the Marys’ (note the plural possessive) bitter tomb sufferings relative to the crucifixion and resurrection event.

1.4. Bitter tasting garden fruit; empty Eve--So we leave metaphysical-mitochondrial Eve’s garden of judgmental bitterness. It was and is a fictitious place anyway. To write emptyEve for meta-mtEve is tempting, but that paronomasia will be avoided--hereafter.  Back in contact with literary historical reality (where prehistoric conflict come to light), we acquire unassuming and traditional inheritance gathered from the primordial Garden of Eden where God remains judge. Critical thinking ends rather than begins on turf demarcated with graffiti like MBNB, abbreviation for the liturgical ditty “Most biologists now believe” in mitochondrial Eve. But protestors believe Genotypical and phenotypical heredity, including cultural heritages, are not subject to general conclusions derived from crooning female birds. We protest the “nontraditional inheritance” terms used by evolutionary biologists who take comfort in belonging to “most biologists now believe.” Upon that tenet we now return to the meaningfulness of…biblical faith from a “resurrection” perspective.

2. A Physician’s (Luke) account of a once diseased reliable person’s testimony––Standing with others some distance from the crucifixion scene was a person named Mary. There seems to be seven distinct “Marys” in the NT (six or seven). Perhaps naming a daughter “Mary” avoided any illusions that the bitterness of life’s psychic and emotional storms could be too easily avoided. The name might be a paronym to suffering Miriam, the sister of Moses. She gave life to her infant brother by arranging for proper nutrition. The name “Mary” could have been a constant reminder that suffering and the subtle rebelliousness to endure it all are unavoidable.  Any popular use of the biblical name “Eve” (meaning “life giving” plus the suffering) could suggest a degree of disrespect for sacred literature. It is not unusual though for some to popularized the name of Jesus without having some appreciation of its unique value in the transformation of humankind. This Mary was fitly named, though perhaps the name was discombobulating to the personality due to the many Marys. Luke let’s us know that she once had seven devils and that Jesus returned her to a stable state. It is interesting that seven devils and six or seven Marys are found in the NT. Knowing several Marys may have been too much for the self-image of one with special brilliance so difficult to repress to deal with life’s stresses. Reality though was not avoided though perhaps overwhelming. The torture that Jesus was being subjected to must have been challenging to Mary’s state of health.

2.1. Undifferentiated psyche straits and the need to hear “touch me not”--Mary previously had a condition we could classify as schizophrenia (as a catchall classification) and concomitant personality straits reflected and synthesized that annihilated her from the normal community. She was smart, and at least late hung out with other smart ones of her gender, and these could afford to support Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps the first Christian Women’s Aid Society. Schizophrenics’ experiences can include reality and unreality simultaneously and might assume whatever role makes life’s variables tolerable—roles especially unstable and confusable in a terrorizing environment—real or imaginary.  Unless dumbstruck into withdrawal due to anxiety and other handicapping disability, an unusual keenness at describing personal phenomenal experiences are invaluable for the empathetic and sympathetic comprehension and possible understanding—such as Jaspers’ application of the phenomenological method in his General Psychopathology.  Soon this Mary and the other onlookers will be scrutinizing the empty tomb. Attuned to both real and unreal worlds, in a state of health, her clear differentiations would be important. There outside the tomb she heard Jesus say words she personally needed to hear without succumbing to the paranoid idea that all this was done for her alone. And she heard that she had to put her mind to a mission: to immediately go and report the experience to the disciples. She needed to hear there is a source more real than can be touched, a source Jesus referred to as “my father and your father” but more than that “his God and her God”. Mary needed to hear that then and there to maintain hold on her basic personality, i.e., authentic selfhood. The concept of Transcendence and omni-presents is involved here and related to mental and emotional health. (For the clinical-empirical base for my expounding see 443f, 599f Gen. Psychopathology, U.C Press, Eng. Trans, 1963) It is noteworthy that tradition associates our Mary with prostitution but there is no biblical basis for this if one keeps an open mind. The Greek word used for sin in the text relating to the woman who dried the feet of Jesus with her hair carries the idea of a disturbance in thinking, an error of the understanding, including thoughts and feelings omitted from action or committed in action.

2.2. Reliable hearsay—The physician Luke’s record might be considered hearsay, and that qualifies it for tenet-of-faith status. But it is professionally recorded testimony. Luke’s account includes that one person some might think was having a psychotic relapse. Of course the account records that more than three looked and saw that Jesus was no longer entombed. Upon a look-see principle Mary was found really quite correct. Based on what the physician says, we do not have to depend on the testimony of an individual that had been so well known as having been disturbed. But and moreover, upon reflection, the testimony becomes all the weightier because the person knew the difference between reality and unreal realization, but was aware of it thanks to Jesus. However, the demands of critical thinking leads us to wonder whether remission was not something to consider—thus the value of the physician Luke. Integrity alone requires Luke to report that the first one at the tomb while it was still dark would be the first to see and hear Jesus a little later in the dawn early light.

2.3. More than eidetic--For our inspirational interpretation the Bible reveals that at or around the tomb’s threshold, several witnessed two in shining garments (Luke: 23 and 24). The four gospels are not in conflict on these descriptions if one engages the faculty of giving the benefit of trust more than the benefit of doubt. For a while, one from the group was alone (John’s record) in some relative sense. That one (who once had the known medical condition) upon stooping down and looking through tears perceived two in white sitting there, had an auditory experience too, and then, turning, at least eidetically perceived Jesus…outside the tomb. The phenomenal experience, we as wondering analysts might guess, also involved at least auditory-hallucinations, i.e., Jesus spoke. At the very least, both the auditory and visual phenomena are simultaneously clinically demonstrable. If we want to, we can, as essential critical evaluators, question the reliability of this witness. But if we take at face value the accounts and believe them, this was no meaningless Jesus-hallucination for she was in the mode of wondering where his body was, and she did not recognize Jesus at first (according to John 20). And there were other witnesses perceiving Jesus, and at times his identity was initially hidden, and then revealed. Of course this is all due in large part to our faith now but we have already introduced faith into life’s phenomena when we saw how puffed up some biologists get when they belong to what most “believe.” (See GP, Normal Mechanisms p. 369, calm women during earthquakes; war experiences; see also psychic epidemics In Society and History 735f.)

2.4. Bitter but enlightened carriers, sexual abuse--Bracket in mind that during our current “evolutionary” pandemic that women are allegedly the only carriers of mtDNA some heredity stuff. Biblically, even some objective apostles thought these carriers were inherently prone to fantasying. These men, these materialistic empiricists, did not believe that Jesus was seen alive. Two ran to the tomb, John outrunning a scared Peter, to see if someone had taken the body. But then these biased but objective and scared-to-death critics also perceived Jesus with some if not all the senses on at least two other occasions.

These were stressful times. Wartime statistics indicate that in general psychopathic conditions do not increase during wartime trauma; that contact with reality is a good defense. Balanced people somehow maintain buoyancy during psychic turmoil, often especially mothers. Stress can actually ground the normally ungrounded idealist. Those never experiencing abnormal existence but analyze out of their uninhibited comfort zone, and judging from personal and preferred drives, might feel less guilty if creative urges dominated the Jesus scene, e.g., that Jesus took advantage of one with a precarious personality state, this one Mary during the Mary-naming epidemic. (As an experiment I Internet searched one ethnic last-name-lineage, and immediately found that a father and mother Alejandro and Maria Josefa between 1830 and 1849 named three children Mary, and six children Jose. I was inclined to do this research because of an acquaintance with a physician named Jesus Gonzales.)

2.5. Meaningful associations in an Angst environment, Jesus, Ricoeur, Frankl, and suppressed procreative urges--Now, that person among others standing afar off while torture was being inflicted, was at least peripherally perceiving the disturbing and incomprehensible. It must have been challenging to a courageous effort to maintain a healthy direct focus on life while it was so disturbed. Life was being tortured from this exemplary one that had spoken therapeutically and whose steadying words, touch, had brought her to the best potential selfhood. Fair thinking about the inhibiting situation of those times and places leads us to some witnesses to death-camp experiences. We find that normal procreative urges are suppressed, perhaps even sublimated. It is an unworthy hypothesis that in such regimented group-captivity a normal person would take advantage of one emotionally and psychologically challenged. The suggestion does not reach propositional status either, for examples: while a prisoner of war Paul Ricoeur studied the philosophical works of Jaspers. Personages of professional character in confinement pursued intellectual studies (and also see Viktor Frankl’s From Death-Camp to Existentialism). I mean, their attention was not erotic but on basic and immediate physical and emotional and mental survival needs. (See, GP, In Society and History, “Times of security, revolution and war” and impotence in war prisons Abnormal Mechanisms)

2.6. Avoiding traumatic social situations to clobber the character of Jesus--It’s perverse to think that Frankl, Ricoeur, or Jesus would take advantage of one well known to have been mentally ill, and it is even a greater violation of reason not to at least link Jesus--and the traumatic times of his ministry--to that level of uprightness during wartime stress. Those of that caliber would avoid offspring under the calculation that psychopathic illness might have some genetic-heredity connection no less than did Jaspers (medical condition) and Gertrude (sibling’s mental condition). There is no reason to believe that Jesus and Mary had an affair of any sort, except the reasoning proceeding out of a personal preference for erotic urges.

3. Putting judicial teeth into “most” biologists’ prejudicial tenets and liturgical jargon––nuDNA, mtDNA, and unmtDNA in forensics; a four-case judicial review with a view toward translocating jumping genes

3.1. United States of America vs. Coleman, et al. (Case No. S2–4:01CR296. 202 F. Supp. 2d 962, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12563)

Bare forensic fact--Disposition: Defendant’s request to exclude Dr. Terry Melton’s “expert” testimony concerning mitochondrial DNA analysis was denied. The judge decided that in this particular situation any unfair prejudice did not outweigh the probative value of mtDNA analysis. The analysis was not excluded. The results were that mtDNA analysis did not exclude one known contributing defendant’s DNA; it showed that one defendant could not be excluded and others could not be included as contributors. The presumption of innocence was not conclusively affected by mtDNA evidence alone.

Expert evolutionary ontology sneaks in--DNA analysis is “generally accepted within the scientific community, particularly the forensic scientific community.” In my judgment the “forensic” part is proper, but the former part was demonstrated to be improper when the expert argued it was valuable because used in “…the study of human evolutionary history…” The argument that the analysis was used in the identification of World Trade Center victims was reliable, admissible, and relevant. Another problem with the expert testimony is that Dr. Melton stated that mtDNA applies to persons with the same maternal lineage; when coupled with a metaphysic of origin regarding human evolutionary history, it leads to conclusions that traditional nuclear inheritance is less clear than mitochondrial DNA. And lastly, references to small mutational changes (heteroplasmy) were statistically irrelevant and could be prejudicial through an association with Darwinian evolutionism. All three of these problems were irrelevant to the particular case and could prejudice by overstatements and confuse by expressions of certitude by an expert.

3.2. State of Delaware v. William Hammons, I.D. No 9809019760, Superior Court of Delaware, New Castle, Date of decision and written opinion March 28, 2002

The spirit of a motion in limine--In this case the defendant filed a motion in limine seeking the admission of mtDNA analysis to show he could be excluded as a donor to rootless hair. The motion in limine for admission of mtDNA was granted, i.e., mtDNA was determined scientifically reliable and relevant. The court granted the defendant’s motion in limine.

Problems addressed--This case implicitly addresses the problems of the earlier case above. The focus of a validity-assessment of mtDNA must be solely on principles and methodology, not on the conclusions they generate. It seems to relate to expert Melton’s inappropriate mention of general acceptance especially with regard to popularity within “evolutionary history.” The admissibility of DNA expert testimony depended on five clearly stated evidentiary rules, one being that unfair prejudice and confusion of issues might mislead the Jury. My opinion is that if the acceptance of an analysis is in a major premise way affirmed by an expert to rest on human evolutionary history, it could prejudice and mislead the Jury. 

Traditional and nontraditional heredity problematic--Here too the court considered that mtDNA is not as good an identifier as nuclear DNA “because it is shared by individuals within a given maternal line.”  This clearer statement is more cautious while not precluding critical thinking by some ontological preference on origins. It avoids controversial conclusions and leaves open the tension regarding heredity; traditional DNA has been essentially modified by a generally popularized nontraditional mtDNA. Because of the popularity of “evolutionary studies”, mtDNA has a growing pseudo integrity over traditional DNA. The traditional mutual interchange via two-way path for translocating jumping genes can question the maternal-line argument. But it does not change the application of statistical probability relative to real-time particular cases.

Success and failure--In this case the “motion in limine” to include mtDNA successfully excluded the defendant from being the donor of rootless hair, but could include the victim as a possible donor. The mtDNA could not determine the hairs’ donor’s (s’) gender.

One important description from this case is that mitochondria are visualized as powerhouse compartments because they provide energy to the cell. This pap-like nurturing visualization and verbalization could be the nominalistic basis for tracing lineage to a definite time and space in “evolutionary” unrealistic time.  The problem is that both DNA nucleuses at some point lose dichotomous interaction.

Reverting back to the problem--The trouble with this case is it shows a reverting to the problem of traditional and nontraditional inheritance in that it puts a kink in forensics; it speaks of  “the fact that mtDNA is inherited solely by the mother”. This is metaphysically fascinating but philosophically the lesser part of wisdom. The court-case here reaffirms that brothers and sisters cannot be distinguished by DNA sequences unless there is an identifying mutation. I take this to mean, for instance, that identical twins (uniovular) could be identified as distinct especially if one were obviously (soma) different and that difference did not match the nuDNA.

Procedures and contamination--This case itemizes the procedure for analysis of DNA. It also addresses the problem of contamination, and points out that contamination would not cause a false inclusion but rather a possible false exclusion. 

Most significantly, this case points out that previous case trials “essentially eliminated general acceptance as an absolute prerequisite to admissibility, and replaced it with the requirement that the trial Judge must ensure that any and all scientific testimony or evidence is not just relevant, but also reliable.” What this does is question whether general acceptance is the sole criteria without proper regard for reliability and relevance. My opinion is that the “evolutionary” study of human heredity in history may be popularly and generally accepted—Vatican sanctified––but its relevancy in trials is not admissible scientific evidence. And, in this case, the standard of general acceptance by the scientific community is not an absolute prerequisite to admissibility. This case focused on validity-assessment; that the focus “must be solely on principles and methodology, not on the conclusions that they generate.”

3.3. Mark a. Reid v. State of Connecticut et al. CV020818851, Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Hartford, at Hartford. Decided May 14, 2003

In this case a motion for a new trial was granted because mtDNA was not used in 1997. In this case a Dr. Melton again stated that only maternal lineage exhibits the same mitochondrial profile. Melton stated that neither the gender nor the race of a possible contributor could be determined by mtDNA testing. The original case involved hair that the prosecutor identified as of the same race as the petitioner, and a new granting could, and did, exclude the petitioner but could not exonerate. It showed that mtDNA could not be used to identify race. The victim was not of the same race as the defendant. Here again is the proper application of the maternal lineage exhibited by mitochondria; nothing was suggested here about the primordial origin being prior to the dichotomous DNA interchange of both genders.

3.4. Paul Gregory House, Petitioner v. Rickey Bell, Warden, No. 04-8990, Supreme court of the United States, 126 S.  Ct. 2064; 165 L. Ed. 2d 1; 2006 U.S. LEXIS 4675; 74 U.S.L.W. 4291; 19 Fla. L. Weekly Fed S. 229; Decided June 12, 2006.

Habeas denied--This case does not involve mtDNA but involves a petition for reexamination of a denied habeas. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was made in part because nuclear DNA was not used and the petitioner claimed incarceration and simple innocence could have resulted from DNA analysis that was relevant, reliable and admissible.

A writ of habeas corpus granted--The judgment denying habeas corpus was reversed because DNA was not used or usable at the time of the trial. The case was remanded. The analysis of the DNA excluded the petitioner as donor, but the DNA test was not sufficient to exonerate. What I want from the case is simply to show that the application of poor procedure due to contamination, inadmissibility, and irrelevance of mtDNA propaganda has led to the entombment of Jesus in the psyche of much of the public and an appeal for habeas corpus applies.

4. First spin: Motion in limine: leave mtDNA at a tomb’s threshold—Motion in limine is a legal phrase and is applicable conceptually to the assault on Jesus via the current tomb-propaganda. The Latin term “in limine” means “at the threshold”, and in litigation it means to move for avoiding the introduction into evidence the mere mention of which would tend to prejudice the jury. It seems to be used also to admit evidence that had retrospectively been unavailable. A move to limine, or eliminate, is too late once it has been introduced in a trial even though the judge might order the jury to disregard the effort. My spin here is a motion in limine, to eliminate mtDNA, because it would be a miracle greater than the resurrection if after two millennia at least one cell or organelle had not contaminated this tomb area. The effort to introduce mtDNA for social digestion reflects against the integrity of the disciplined archaeological efforts relative to this tomb.

4.1. Forced into collusion--One has to be prone to hallucinations or fantasizing to see anything here in the mtDNA results. The irresponsibility is comparable to not only begging the question but also graveling for it in the title of a book that if one merely refers to it (“The Jesus Family Tomb”) one becomes complicit to graveling for acceptance. One is forced into collusion. Let’s face it; the worldwide Internet of accessible information has placed book production in a disparate position of having to apply metaphysics to physics and micro-molecules to create a market. So the gavel of social justice should warningly come down of graveling for perverse attention.

4.2. Conspiracy twist, making sense out of what we know—Worthy of mention are the conspiracy thrusts institutional forces initiate to maintain momentum against affronts. Fourth estate Journalists and wanna-be-archaeologists can get caught up in third-world force-surges. The polemic forces are real and competing for the modern minds’ apparent aversions to the mysterious but also for the prehistoric-modern mind’s constant reversion to making more rather than less of material experience. It relates to Christianity (and Nietzsche was more right than wrong when he said Jesus was the only Christian) because it is impossible to compete with the power of the Crucifixion except to make it fiction, or to fictionalize science. To soak up the current propaganda, even to dispute it, the public must buy the book or pay taxes so a public library can stock it. My alternative is to review it without reading it risking less because of the prevailing forces making the book marketable. These forces are accessible. The most effective way to do this is to draw attention to something absurd to positivists, materialists, something like the Resurrection. If the Resurrection is effectively discredited, the protestant standard is shaken, and that would be a possible boom for Catholicism, which has no need of bibles. Catholicism can compete with Islamic forces perhaps even more equally without the resurrection faith. The most difficult thing about maintaining confidence in the Resurrection is that in doing so one contributes to establishmentarianism’s mistreatment of the phenomenon. In the face of all the abuse of it we have to risk believing it too, and that is one argument for the quick return of the Lord. Awareness of religio-politico forces is one reason archaeological sites are protected from amateur contamination and misinterpreted. Political forces are so unstable and explosive that artifacts need to be most objectively and mutually approached and studied free of ontological presumptuousness.

5. Second spin: A public appeal for a writ of habeas corpus—An in limine public appeal here is too late to avoid mass appeal. Propaganda has already entombed Jesus in many minds by the misuse of mtDNA. MtDNA is procedurally impossible to use in this case for identification. So we have a body incarcerated by insufficient evidence except the prevailing materialistic assumption that a corpse cannot rise. Because there is no proof that this is a tomb in which DNA can include or exclude the biblical Jesus as a donor, no one should be financially profiting from sales regarding an incarceration (entombment). Jesus should be free without prejudice. It is unfortunate that character assassination and crucifying-afresh charges can’t be countered to avoid financial gains via defamation. So, a philosophical petition for a habeas corpus writ regarding the metaphysical entombment of Jesus seems in order and the reference for it is: The US Constitution provides protection for the presumption of innocence where incarceration or threat of incarceration is due to evidence or non-evidence available but not properly considered. (My interpretation, Section. 9. Clause: 2.) In this case the evidence can be presumed contaminated and the procedure for proper testing violated to say the least.

6. Personal Testimony

6.1. Declaration and proclamation regarding the resurrection––My heritage makes it easy to believe the biblical testimonials relative to the suffering, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I make no apology about the Church-history rationale for proclaiming the Bible of my heritage as the best standard for behavior--while applying rational critical processes starting with one’s self, often the nemesis to the biblical standard. Unless the cross too is taken up one qualifies at least in part for anti-Christ status. The risk of lesser sacrifices includes a healthy fearful looking forward to judgment and the consequential need to work out salvation. Here, if it were not for the current defamation on the character of Jesus and biblical writers, it would be best that unworthy persons be silent. But then no one not nailed to a cross or burning at the stake would be communicating. Jaspers said, “Nietzsche himself stopped short (an astonishing fact! [Parenthesis is Jaspers’]) before the figure of Jesus”.  My natural inclination and comfort with phenomenology in methodical thinking also makes it easy to believe in the resurrection, for there is more or less, and more than less to every simple or complex we make of complexity.

6.2. Upbringing--I have been taught and influenced since consciousness that the Bible is the standard for church patterning. The small country church during a major part of my upbringing was the Coe Church of Christ, Shepherd Michigan. During my father’s ministry there it was known as the “lighthouse on the hill” (though on quite level ground). Each Sunday the elders and deacons would gather at the communion table and quote verbatim I Corinthians 11:23-26: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, ‘Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me’. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, ‘This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come’”.  Then the elder’s prayers would be a thanksgiving for the…emblems… Such an upbringing makes it easy to comprehend Jaspers use of the word cipher.

7. The difference with Jaspers––Jaspers’ father wanted to clear the books so to speak to show his disapproval of his Church experiences so he actually withdrew his membership shortly before his death. My father was devoted to the church till death, but his membership was not in the corporeal church’s register. He hoped it was in the “Lamb’s book of Life”.  He would never obviously judge anyone at the funeral or gravesite. If he were presiding over the funeral services, say, for Jaspers’ brother who committed suicide, my father would never have said anything judgmental because to do so would not be biblical. Moreover he felt that until one had walked in the shoes of another we’ve no right to judge. So, to avoid even judgments insinuated in the suggesting we must not judge, the reading of biblical passages regarding the resurrection was emphasized. But his performance fell short of the NT church: my mother was critically alert enough that when from the pulpit he confused GOD with the GOP she reminded him in her spiky way that he had vowed never to do that. I hope for membership in the invisible church. Jaspers said “I consider myself a Protestant, I am a church member…guided by the Bible and by Kant.” (Debate, p.78) I too am a protestant in the same vein, and owe Kant’s Critique of pure reason for a conversion experience in reason, prior to my awareness of Jaspers.

7.1. Difference absorbed in mutual agreement--I would not say that a corpse couldn’t rise, as did Jaspers. He said it to dig up a point of agreement with a prominent theologian (Bultmann) who did not, like too many Protestant leaders, believe in the resurrection. Saying that, to me, is phenomenologically disingenuous. Obviously he did not want to display philosophy as a romantic metaphysic and wanted to rescue protestant theology from romantic materialism. However, interesting, the belief in the resurrection becomes the central point in the debate, and begins on page 5 where he clears the historical air:

“The Resurrection [Jaspers is referring to Jesus]…was as implausible to the contemporaries of Jesus as it is to modern man…Thus, materialism and a naturalistic realism have always been with us…man’s disposition to believe in the absurd is as unchanged as ever, no less strong today than it was then”

Jaspers is not challenging humankind’s timeless predisposition to hypothesize. We need to emphatically add that in those times the Resurrection was believed. Jaspers, aware of humankind’s disposition to believe in the absurd, knew that something believed could easily become something naturalistically believed. He warned more vividly in the Conclusion of the Debate that if Protestants lose the biblical standard, naturalism in the form of Catholicism would step in or be there to take the place of faith in the Resurrection. Now we know how appropriate the warning was: a Vatican could sponsor a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences followed by a “Papal” proclamation to meet the mass need for something absurdly materialistic to believe in that would be more naturalistic than the Bible’s standard.   Here is what Jaspers said later in the Debate:

…[M]y insufficient pneumatic powers…[prevents]…me from interpret[ing]…Biblical passages for you [Bultmann]. [Jaspers was speaking about Bultmann’s struggle with the words of Paul regarding resurrection in general.] I may add this much: I would not leave out even resurrection of the dead…[etc]…if I could deal with these myths in such a way that it would occur to none of my listeners that they are empirical realities, and if they illumined something that would remain lost without such images. (Debate, Issues Clarified)

To fundamental biblical conservatives this statement could be disturbing. But the use of the term “myth” is not simply being conciliatory to Bultmann or to his Jewish relatives. “Ciphers” or the word “mysteries” would have been better than the unfortunate word “myth”. But myth needs to be seen as used here similarly to how we would say: my inferior or superior self-image is a myth. But, be that as it may, Jaspers is defending the undeniable mysterious part of existence. Jaspers’ whole purpose is to show that if the biblical mysteries are reduced to an ontology of science (reduced to myth that can be demythologized as Bultmann did), its pneumatic force is threatened. The materialistic reductionism of the resurrection by Bultmann’s demythologizing could lead to the exclusion from three millennia of writings one of the most irreplaceable of works, which is the Bible.  Jaspers said despairingly “Today the Biblical faith is doubted by millions of people. To millions of others it is becoming ever more unfamiliar”. (Ibid.) Disapprovingly he continues: “The Protestant opposition to myth and imagery, to the celebration of life in all its phases, results in weakening the hold of Protestantism on the masses” He is warning against a course that “would lead ultimately to union with the Catholic Church.” (See his Conclusion.)

If I am going to think in biblical resurrection terms, the biblical standard comes into my cognizing, and Jesus exemplifies most what that meant and should mean in regard to how one should conduct thought and attitude openendedly. The virgin birth of Jesus (Mary’s Mother’s immaculate conception is not a biblical conceptualization) and resurrection is conducive to open ended thinking. Empirically I have never experienced, i.e., recognized, a resurrection since my father lifted me at around three to see a corpse. I have never witnessed any rising that I could identify. Nor have I seen alive my brother and sister who passed before I was born, nor the rising of my recently deceased sister. And in the spirit of consistency and methodic phenomenology I, whatever stage of selfhood, have not witnessed my own invisible becoming, or going--yet. But, then, I might simply be a fortunate victim of the relatively comfortable naturalistic side of a purer dimension of being. In the tougher times of overpopulation and common-sense global warning, there might be a pandemic jump from the 9-1-1 like fires toward the other dimension.

8. Play deteriorates into inverse resurrection’s immanent dogma--It is alleged to be fact that my mtDNA is somewhat like an inversed bacterial resurrection, via the long way back thoroughly through the pneumatic mitochondria of my most recent common ancestor (mrca). “MRCA” is the beggars’ creedal placard everyone must parade behind. If not participating in the religious procession one must plead to be ignorant or have mental deficits that prevent joining the religious procession. One then can stand by the wayside and idiotically grin in approval. Under subtle threats we are expected to not show signs of protesting the reductionistic play, nor appear perplexed over infinite possibilities of heredity and other possibilities larger than even what is admitted phenotypically. We are not expected to disclose that we know about genetics and that the attempt to measure the same escapes into uncertainty, e.g., subatomic physic’s fundaments on the corporeal side of humankind. Measuring the spirit of a human soon exhausts in fatalism, suspends in nihilistic uncertainty, or sublimates into wonderment and amazement. In view of the limits of our knowledge about life, to lean toward the corporealization of humanity and rest on imagined skeletal remains turns thinking off or shifts thought into neutral. Leaning in the other direction toward the less apparent but no less real we finds traction in complex, conglomerated reality. Reductionism is worst while leaning toward the corporeal. Finding nothing to apply a litmus test too, it is a mistake to conjure from the periphery (mtDNA) of the quantum corporeal and then irresponsibly mistake one’s unavoidable cell’s food source (mtDNA) for an other’s identity (“MCRA”) and then conclude that the ultimate source of one’s own selfhood has been found. I am playfully fooling myself to think I cannot be distinct from my mother and I am fooling myself when I think I am, but that includes my siblings and my father, and others for that matter. Within the unavoidable discomforts of the ambiguousness life, “Evolutionary biology” would like to take credit for micro-molecular medical successes in the alleviation of pain and suffering. Soon an applicant for relief from pain may be required to sign an affidavit, a sort of “test-act” affidavit agreeing to taxation for funding an allegiance to the ontologism, or be refused EMS.

9. Corporate Resurrection--Finally, I do not want an authoritative institution claiming to be the corporate body of Jesus in the world to replace the freedom to biblically read and integrate for myself the biblical account of the suffering and resurrection of Jesus. Nor does the world need a vatic oriental or occidental ecclesiastical complicit court to cope, scoop, and re-appropriate inappropriately what “most scientists believe”. We must not be naive; the threat of being classified a scientific heretic is as real today as when the religious establishment classified an apparent poor phenomenology as “docetism” (an emphasis on appearance over matter). The early centuries controversy over the suffering and resurrection of Jesus may have been a poor accounting of the real issues. It may have been a poorly applied phenomenological method because it is alleged to have limited the effectiveness of the suffering of Jesus. But then it was inevitable that there would be a reaction, albeit insufficient, to the corporeal establishment’s abusive exploitation of the suffering of Jesus; a reaction too to the misappropriation of the resurrection for institutional gain amidst perceived forces. Having said that, reaction to the misuse of suffering and the Resurrection must not get bogged down in mere recalcitrance. The hope for Biblical enlightenment is the protesting critical spirit.

10. Jaspers on auto and mass hypnosis, real and false hallucinations, and their possible meaning for us in society and history.

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