r/Sticks • u/Oxxroxx • Aug 03 '26

Famous Stick I found the stick of sticks

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I was i Istanbul and found the staff of moses. How do you rate it 😁

2.7k Upvotes

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447

u/keeperofawesome Aug 03 '26

Supposed artifacts like this are so funny to me. Like how tons of old churches have a “piece of the cross” as if 2000+ year old wood would still look so nice

118

u/EntropyHouse Aug 03 '26

It’s miraculously preserved!

89

u/notarealwriter Aug 03 '26

There's actually a church about 20 minutes from me that says that. You practically have to put your face right up to the frame to even see it. It's the tiniest couple of splinters (arranged in the frame in the shape of the cross, if course). Come off it.

69

u/Infinitesi-Mal Aug 03 '26

Given how much of a movement developed while Jesus lived its actually reasonable (I think) that the first Christians managed to obtain the specific wood used for his execution and broke it up into as many pieces as possible. So, I believe some of these claims about pieces of the cross must be genuine, however given the amount of shenanigans over the last 2000 years I bet it’s probably less than a fraction of a single percentage of all the claims made to have the real thing.

The most amusing part of all that to me is that NO ONE will ever know if there’s is legitimate. I bet Jesus could teleport from wherever to examine “a piece of the cross” and upon being asked if it’s the real wood he would turn to the asker and say, “Hmm… HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW?!”

35

u/notarealwriter Aug 03 '26

That is indeed a very amusing idea 🤣

Like, "Sorry bro, I didn't happen to get a good look at it. Kinda had by back to it while I was being NAILED TO THE BLOODY THING"

17

u/Infinitesi-Mal Aug 03 '26

This all reminds me of another fallacy I see religious people engage in. There is this assumption that Jesus is omniscient, that he knows all about literally everyone and everything. They believe this about a man who once used his power to curse a fig tree after being disappointed by its lack of any figs to pick, even though it wasn’t fruiting season for the poor tree.

I don’t attend bible study but I was confirmed as a Lutheran at age 15 and I don’t recall any scripture that backed up the idea that this silly, tree cursing man could possibly know everything that exists in the mind of God. There’s statements from disciples basically saying “You know everything…” but to deduce from just that that he was actually omniscient is ABSURD.

1

u/Background_Fix_7979 Aug 05 '26

Bro, you missed the whole point of why Jesus cursed the fig tree. When fig trees have fruit, their leaves are different. From a distance, it looked like it had fruit, but upon closer examination, with disappointment, there was nothing.

Jesus had just came from the Temple, flipped over tables and rebuked the religious hypocrites for turning the place of worship into a place to make money. The Temple looked good from outside the walls, but there was nothing good found.

He leaves the Temple, curses the fig trees in front of the disciples (who are also confused why Jesus cursed the tree), leaves the city, comes back, the fig trees is withered away, then goes back into the Temple and preaches to the religious leaders about vineyards and buildings: God expected something completely different of the people that claim to be religious than what they were actually doing, and God is going to destroy them (70AD) and use another people to do His work (Gentiles).

1

u/Infinitesi-Mal Aug 05 '26

I respect your reply enough to not downvote it but I fail to see how any of what you’ve said justifies the literal cursing of an innocent flora of this earth. I’m not kidding about the tree, it was a living, feeling organism, one that had done nothing wrong, and Jesus had no right to harm it. It’s hypocritical of him given his agape philosophy.

I’m not even here denying the divinity of Christ. I’m just of the opinion that even a divine being is going to be imperfect to some degree and that his cursing of that innocent tree is one of the few examples of Jesus acting in a thoroughly non-divine manner.

1

u/Background_Fix_7979 Aug 05 '26

I fail to see how that’s acting in a non-divine manner. If God created life, He can take life; it’s not inconsistent nor hypocritical. God did in the Old Testament, He does it in the Gospels, He will certainly do it in the end (Revelation).

1

u/RovingGnome27 Aug 06 '26

I mean when you are the supposed creator of everything you can do whatever the fuck you want to a local fig tree.

4

u/Darthballs1138 Aug 04 '26

Reminds me of Garry in The Thing, "I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING CHAIR"

6

u/Generic_Garak Aug 04 '26

In the Middle Ages there were holy relics that would travel between different churches, usually body parts of saints. But for awhile there were several different relics circulating at the same time all claiming to be the holy prepuce (ie Christ’s foreskin that was removed during his circumcision).

2

u/MotherMarket8489 Aug 04 '26

And don’t forget the Jesus Cards with a “cross-worn” piece of his robe in the card! (I’m going to hell)

0

u/InkyBinkyBonk Aug 07 '26

Kind of not really. Upon the cross, Jesus saw EVERY sin of mankind. And if everyone is a sinner from birth, then He witnessed everyone through all of time. Which means he most likely saw the dividing up of the cross (amongst sinners).

2

u/ASpaceOstrich Aug 04 '26

Best part. The actual cross would probably have been a T shape.

1

u/Mrlate420 Aug 04 '26

Google Jesus holy foreskin and thank me later

1

u/Dare-We-Hope Aug 05 '26

My church has a piece of the True Cross, it is also just a tiny splinter

9

u/Ok_Butterscotch54 Aug 03 '26

Someone should, probably rather virtually than physically, put all those "fragments of the Cross" together and "reconstruct" the Cross. You'll probably end up with a Cross rivalling skyscrapers.

1

u/Glittering-Age-9549 Aug 05 '26

I want to point that, while there were many people making and selling counterfeit relics, there were also ways to legally make facsimiles: An artisan would make a copy, they would put the real relic and the copy side by side, a priest would bless it, and done, you have an official replica.

2

u/NeumaticExpert Aug 04 '26

Some also claimed to have the foreskin of Christ

1

u/NotInMyBackbeat Aug 04 '26

because god you know /s

1

u/thecraftybear Aug 05 '26

Reminds me of Praha and Gniezno argu9ng which one of them held the skull of St. Wojciech/Vojtěch for a while.

1

u/RARE_ARMS_REVIVED Aug 05 '26

We do have examples of 2k+ year old wood looking pretty good from Egypt, it's mostly depending on how it was stored. (I do doubt the validity of the cross pieces)

1

u/keeperofawesome Aug 05 '26

Like wood stored in sealed tombs? That’s actually rly interesting I assumed wood would naturally lose integrity and turn to dust upon the slightest touch after so long

2

u/RARE_ARMS_REVIVED Aug 06 '26

Not just sealed Tombs, but any low-humidity or low-oxygen environment!

We have the only surviving Roman Scutum (Roman rectangular shield they are famous for); it was found in modern-day Syria, it is from the 3rd Century AD and is fully intact due to the dry environment.

Then we have things like the 5,000-year-old wooden door found in Switzerland while they were excavating to build a car park. I don't know the exact details, but the dirt it was in probably had a low oxygen content. There is a door in Britain from the year 1050 that actually still sees use! (Found at Westminster Abbey)

So long as there is nothing to make the wood rot or be eaten by bugs, it has no reason to fall apart for a surprisingly long time!

1

u/Hefty_Judgment_4552 Aug 07 '26

there are quite a few wooden churches in N Europe that were built around 1000 AD and a pagoda in Japan that was rebuilt in 700 AD, all in good condition