Last Updated By Bill's Bible Basics :
February 16, 2017
In addition to reading and studying all of the information which is available in this section of the Bill's Bible Basics website regarding the Shroud of Turin, and the Sudarium of Oviedo, please also consider reading my article entitled "
Faith and the Shroud of Turin" in order to gain a full perspective regarding this issue.
Maranatha Christian News Service
November 4, 2000
NEW YORK, NY (MCNS) -- A secretive group called the Second Coming Project, apparently foreseeing Jesus's second coming happening via a petri dish and modern technology, intends to one day clone Him.
Fox News reports that the 13- or 14-member alliance hopes to obtain a small DNA sample from one of the historic artifacts that some people trace to Christ's body, perhaps the Shroud of Turin. The resulting cloned fetus would be placed in a female's womb.
"I'm hoping it will bring world peace," said a source within the group. "Not some Armageddon as a tremendous battle where everyone dies, as some people believe."
The female mother would not have to be a virgin, but it would be an immaculate conception. December 25, 2001 has been targeted as the day the cloned baby would be born, Fox reported.
The infant would appear like any other baby. He would not be raised in a lab nor would he be inculcated with beliefs, the group's spokesperson said.
"If this child is what we hope he is, he won't need to be raised that way," the spokesperson added.
Questions encircle the historic artifacts from which DNA would have to be pulled, perhaps a sample of blood or a hair. The authenticity of most of these relics, including the Shroud of Turin, has been challenged by scholars. Furthermore, it is not known if 2,000-year-old DNA samples can be cloned.
"Any damage to the DNA would likely result in damaged, deformed or just non-starting cloning material," Biologist Arthur Caplan, director the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told Fox.
Aside from the scientific problems, established religious groups do not buy the idea. Bill Merrell, vice president of convention relations for the Southern Baptist Convention, told Fox the project is "the height of foolhardiness," "the highest silliness in the category of neither science nor religion" and "perfectly reprehensible.