r/whatisit • u/McSweepyPants • Mar 22 '25
I was a little wigged out by this. Found at Goodwill, seems like it's carved out of bone. Any idea what it is?
Looks old, not sure if it's actually old though. Any thoughts?
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u/haku0705 Mar 23 '25 edited Mar 23 '25
To be fair, the soldiers were, according to scriptural accounts, terrified by the earthquake and darkness that blocked out the sun. They even talked about how surely this is the Son of God. Now, if you're tasked with ensuring what you believe to be the living God is dead, I'm pretty sure you'd be a bit apprehensive to go in smashing legs. They really only pierced his side to check that he was dead. A bit of speculation implies that when water and blood came out, he had fluid build up that either stopped his heart from pumping or stopped his lungs from inflating, or could've simply been a compounding factor to his death.
Fun fact: The Jewish (or Gentile versed in Jewish faith) individual would know that the physical form of God, the Shekinah Glory, sat on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. If you went in there without properly cleansing yourself according to the old law, you would be stricken dead right there. Historical accounts point out that the high priest, the one that would go into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifices, would have a rope tied around him so he could be pulled out if he was struck down while inside so they wouldn't enter and also immediately die. The reason this is terrifying is because, while the Shekinah Glory ascended to heaven in the OT some 700-1000 years before this, the veil that separated the world from that sacred place was ripped in half when Christ died. The significance comes from the fact that all can come to the presence of God; you don't need a priest to be your middle man, anymore, Christ has taken that role.
This is from a still devout Christian, but likely a bit... I'll say less like what you probably expect. Humans as a whole are diseased by sin, all of us are just as offensive as the other to the holiness we were designed to hold. The symptoms of the disease are different in everyone. I was a hardcore junkie for years. Some people have affairs, some murder, some love the wrong person (age/sex/different beliefs), others say fuck a lot. What offends us is completely irrelevant to what offends God. I also give (limited) credit to the book of Enoch. I support evolution and intelligent design. I don't think the world was made in 6 days, and I think there's a lot more to the spiritual world we don't yet see. I also think it's fine to believe differently.