The Shroud of Turin [Archive] - TheologyWeb Campus

Berean

March 20th 2003, 11:34 PM

To Socrates:
The shroud does not cotradict John 19:40 at all. Before we look at Biblical passages, I'd like to make a few points about ancient Jewish burial custom. The position of the man in the shroud is consistent with the way Essenes buried their dead. Archeologial excavations at Qumran have uncovered skeletons of buried dead. They were buried on their backs, elbows out, and hands covering pelvic area (just like the man in the shroud). The Code of Jewish Law in its "Laws of Mourning", instructs that the dead be buried in a single sheet.
The gospels don't say much about ancient Jewish burial custom, but what they do say is consistent with the above. Some details are: cloth placed over face (John 11:44;20:7), and hands and feet bound (John 11:44). Notice the text mentions only Lazarus' hands and feet as being bound. He walked ( waddled? ) out of the cave on his own power, so the idea of a mummy style wrapping is not found here. The Jews did not wrap their dead like mummies, but bound only their hands and feet. This is consistent with the Scriptures and ancient Jewish burial custom as shown by the Essene excavations and the Code of Jewish Law.
John says that custom was followed in Jesus' burial ( John 19:40), so we can expect He was buried the same way. Now, It is true that John 19:40 says cloths ( plural ), but this isn't a problem when we consider each gospel's account.
Mark 15:46 says Jesus was wrapped ( Greek: eneilesen) in a linen sheet. Matthew 27:59 and Luke 23:53 describe Jesus' body as being wrapped or folded ( Gr.:enetylixen ) in linen cloth.
John 19:40 says bound( Gr.:edesan ) in linen clothes.
The verbs( bound, wrapped) are similar Greek words no method is described here. (Remember, mummy-like wrapping is impossible.) The synoptics say Jesus was wrapped in a sindon, a Greek word meaning linen cloth. John says he was wrapped in a othonia, a plural word of uncertain meaning.
It is very likely that othonia in this passage refers to all the grave clothes associated with burial, the sindon ( shroud ), and the smaller strips binding the hands and feet. This is supported by Lukes use of othonia. Luke says that Jesus was wrapped in a sindon (23:53), but later (24:12) he says that Peter saw the othonia. So he refers to the singular sheet and all the grave clothes. John just spoke of all the clothes, there is no contradiction between his account and the shroud.

Berean

March 20th 2003, 11:39 PM

The only way the Shroud could be genuine is if Christ was a European. Look at the shadow...it looks nothing like a 1st century near eastern semitic person, which is what Christ was.
Pigrim, I'm not sure what you mean here by "shadow". If you mean the image as it appears to the naked eye, I may agree with you. But when the image is viewed as a negative, the man has indisputable Semitic features.

Marcus1962

July 27th 2003, 10:57 AM

If you haven't seen the website yet on the Shroud, here is the address. They publish the scientific papers both pro and con among other things.

http://www.shroud.com/

spl_cadet

July 27th 2003, 11:17 AM

I'm a believer in the Shroud myself.
Regarding the multiple wrappings:
http://www.shroud.com/faq.htm#2

Roy

July 27th 2003, 04:14 PM

03-18-2003 @ 09:43 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=39135#post39135)
Socratism:

My take is that the Shroud is a clever deliberate fraud by the brilliant Leonardo De Vinci.

He must have been exceptionally brilliant to have forged something more than 60 years before he was born.

:rofl:

Roy

Marcus1962

July 27th 2003, 08:15 PM

The historical research appears to be connecting the dots from the Shroud in Turin today to Jerusalem in Jesus day. Decide for yourself.

http://www.shroud.com/history.htm

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/markward.pdf

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/scavone.pdf

mossrose

July 28th 2003, 04:50 PM

Know what guys? It really doesn't matter. If it is the shroud of Christ, then the danger lies in those who will want to revere it as any other "relic" has been revered -- taking the focus off of the Lord Himself, and His resurrection.

If it isn't the shroud of Christ, then it is moot.

P.S. Aren't there any girls around here besides me? Or are they all in the crochet room? :smile:

Marcus1962

July 28th 2003, 05:26 PM

mossrose

But if we can view it only as evidence of what The Lord went through for us, then maybe we can better understand the suffering and agony He underwent for us. Who doesn't feel a connection to someone else who sacrifices their life for them.

:ponder:

:smile:

mossrose

July 28th 2003, 05:52 PM

But if we can view it only as evidence of what The Lord went through for us, then maybe we can better understand the suffering and agony He underwent for us. Who doesn't feel a connection to someone else who sacrifices their life for them.

Sure. I have no problem with that. As long as we keep it all in perspective. I have also done a fairly extensive study on the act of crucifixion, and believe you me, that really shows us His agony on our behalf! But, your point is well taken.

gcomeau

July 28th 2003, 10:30 PM

03-18-2003 @ 07:34 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=39018#post39018)
Berean:

I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been discussed yet. I think the shroud is more interesting than the James ossuary, it is definitely more controversial.

What's controversial about it? The dating showed quite clearly that it was from the late 13th - 14th century.

How are people still actually debating this?

-Grant

spl_cadet

July 28th 2003, 10:33 PM

Today @ 07:30 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=161605#post161605)
gcomeau:

What's controversial about it? The dating showed quite clearly that it was from the late 13th - 14th century.

How are people still actually debating this?

-Grant

And the pollen is from first century Israel.
There are several problems with the dating that "established" it to be of medievel origin, which you'd see if you went to the sites already linked in here.

gcomeau

July 29th 2003, 12:33 AM

Today @ 03:33 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=161609#post161609)
spl_cadet:
And the pollen is from first century Israel.

I thought we were talking about how old the shroud was... and where in the world did you get that "first century" part from? I've seen no data whatsoever that said the pollen pointed to any such date.

There are several problems with the dating that "established" it to be of medievel origin, which you'd see if you went to the sites already linked in here.

Yes... I've seen the so-called "problems".

Were there any that you actually thought legitimately altered the dated age by a factor of three?

In case you're thinking of pulling out that "bioplastic coating" argument, think again. It doesn't come remotely close to doing the job... unless of course there was enough of this coating that it outmassed the shroud itself by a factor of 2 to 1 and yet somehow still went undetected by the microscopic examination for contaminants that was performed on the threads during the pre-treatment at all three of the testing labs.

That would be quite a trick.

Nobody actually thinks that any such coating could change the date by more than a century... possibly two at the outside... and that's assuming there was ANY coating at all on the threads tested and ALSO assumes the pre-treatment wouldn't have removed the coating, and that's a big assumption considering the cleaning methods they employed.

That doesn't exactly get the job done.

-Grant

Marcus1962

July 29th 2003, 01:51 AM

I'm looking for an article I read once about C14 dating and textiles. After the Shroud's medieval date came up, a research project tested a linen strip from an Egyptian mummy and a portion of a Andian sacrifice victim's clothing. Both samples from these previously dated samples came back approx. 1000 yrs younger than the dates already assigned to them. I'll post the link once I find it.

Here are some others links about the radiocarbon dating and how it applies to the samples taken from the shroud.

http://www.shroud.com/carr.pdf
The author logically weighs and carefully evaluates the evidence for the Shroud's authenticity from his perspective as a scientist who spent many years in charge of technical laboratories carrying out research and development. This is the first time it has appeared in print.

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/marben.pdf
This article presents carefully documented evidence that the section of the Shroud of Turin from which the 1988 C-14 samples were removed, was in fact, a portion of the cloth that was rewoven and repaired in medieval times. If proven true, this evidence would provide the simplest explanation for the medieval age of the cloth arrived at by the three C-14 laboratories that performed the tests.

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/histsupt.pdf
One of the main criticisms leveled at Marino and Benford's original proposal was the credibilty of their claim that such an "invisible" reweaving method even existed, let alone was good enough to avoid detection by the experts who have studied the Shroud in the last century. Their second paper directly addresses this issue and documents the art of invisible reweaving in great detail.

http://members.aol.com/turin99/radiocarbon-a.htm
The radiocarbon dating performed on the Shroud of Turin in 1988 by laboratories located in Oxford, Tucson and Zurich concluded with a 95% probability that the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin dated from between 1260 - 1390AD. A re-analysis of the data used to derive this range of dates suggests that the statistical tests performed earlier assumed 14C homogeneity in the samples and as a result may have lead to a misleading range of dates. A different series of statistical evaluations has been applied to this radiocarbon date data leading to the conclusion that the Shroud subsamples each contained differing levels of 14C. An evaluation of this conclusion was conducted and found to be statistically supportable. Further analysis revealed that the sample dates observed were directly related to the physical location of the sample on the Shroud linen. This necessarily implies that the linen samples were non-homogeneous as regards 14C and the radiocarbon date derived for the Shroud samples are of questionable validity. The hypothesis of a relationship between the sample location on the Shroud cloth and the date measured was evaluated and found to be statistically significant.

http://www.shroud.com/vanhelst.htm
This is very technical with quite a few mathematical equations. But here is a portion of the conclusion to whet your appetite.
The authors present a series of experiments and a statistical analysis of the Carbon dating that concludes "the C14 content may not be the same over the whole surface of the Shroud" and that "a single radiocarbon dating result... cannot be regarded as conclusive evidence for a mediaeval date for the Shroud of Turin." This article originally appeared in Shroud News No. 100 (February 1997). Remi van Haelst also presented another paper titled "The Lier Shroud" at the May 1997 Nice Symposium.

http://www.shroud.com/scavone3.pdf
The author's perspective on the Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud. Originally delivered at the Texas Medieval Association in 1993.

http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm
This is the paper, reprinted from "Nature," the weekly journal in which it first appeared in February 1989, that concluded the Shroud is of medieval origin and dated the cloth to around 1325 A.D. It has had more impact on Shroud research than any other paper ever written on the subject. When first released, it was given considerable publicity and much of the world accepted its conclusions, virtually bringing all other Shroud research to a halt. In the last few years however, new evidence has suggested the possibility that a contaminant, in the form of a bioplastic coating, might have caused a skewing of the resultant date. Others have criticized the protocol followed by the laboratories, which was changed at the last minute from the one recommended by a panel of experts. Critically absent, according to several researchers, was any chemical analysis of the samples prior to testing. This has led a number of scientists to challenge the conclusions of the paper, which claims a "95% certainty" for the results. They point out that in biochemistry, total chemical analysis of a biological product is the first thing done to assure the reader that you have what you think you have. Anything less than that must be regarded as a preliminary characterization and should be so stated.

http://www.shroud.com/meacham.htm
Even among social and physical scientists, there are numerous misconceptions about the radiocarbon method of dating; among journalists and the general public there are of course many more. But among specialists who frequently make use of the test, it is not considered as a method which produces an "absolute date" for every sample that can be measured. When I wrote in Current Anthropology (1983:289) that C-14 dating could not be expected to settle the matter of the Shroud's age and authenticity because of the possibilities of contamination, there was a storm of criticism -- virtually all of it motivated by ideal sample considerations and obviously not tempered by experience in using the method. Stuckenrath (1966:277) certainly had it right 20 years ago in his remark. That "C-14 dating is, after all, only another tool for the archaeologist, but it behooves us, before attempting to use it, to know which end has been sharpened."

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/textevid.pdf
Rossman found that the non-contaminated end of the thread dated to 200 AD while the starched end dated to 1200 AD.

http://www.shroud.com/vanhels3.htm
Here about 21 % of this age range will be YOUNGER than the HISTORICAL age of 1355 AD. It is clear, that such large errors are unacceptable for the precision claimed for AMS age rc. determinations. (Source Prof. Jouvenoux. University of Marseille-Aix. France).

http://www.shroud.com/grouvil.htm
This article was written by a Catholic priest who is a physics prof. He has a very unique and interesting idea for explaining most of the unique qualities of the Shroud. But how does a dead body release that much radiation?

gcomeau

July 29th 2003, 11:57 AM

Today @ 06:51 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=161747#post161747)
Marcus1962:

I'm looking for an article I read once about C14 dating and textiles. After the Shroud's medieval date came up, a research project tested a linen strip from an Egyptian mummy and a portion of a Andian sacrifice victim's clothing. Both samples from these previously dated samples came back approx. 1000 yrs younger than the dates already assigned to them. I'll post the link once I find it.

You can if you want but I'm already familiar with the dating of mummy sample 1770. I hate to dissapoint you but that doesn't do the job here. In order for the shroud to be authentic the dates of all three labs would have to be off by a factor of 3! I'm getting the impression that a lot of people in this thread just don't grasp how incredibly improbable that is.

Here are some others links about the radiocarbon dating and how it applies to the samples taken from the shroud.

http://www.shroud.com/carr.pdf

"When the testing was complete, the scientist reported their findings in reference 2 giving the age as 1269 to 1390, therefore the cloth was mediaeval. This was the limit to their remit, to date the cloth. But they exceeded their remit by making comments about the nature of the cloth, ie that the shroud was a mediaeval forgery. In making such a sweeping statement, they showed complete arrogance of other disciplines and a blind faith in a piece of technology. No self respecting scientist would be so bold. They ignored, or were ignorant of the wealth of historical information that shows that a cloth of some form has been in existence for many centuries, and it predates the carbon dates. The carbon dating information should have been presented along side all other information, and an objective discussion taken place."

Excuse me?

In order to be authentic the cloth had to be 2000 years old. The dating tests performed by three independeny labs all showed it was not remotely near that old. Therefore: forgery. There is no arrrogance involved in stating the obvious.

"The most comprehensive account of the historical data is contained in Ian Wilson’s recent book reference 3 entitled ‘The Blood and the Shroud’. This has a chronology of all the known historical references to a shroud or cloth, starting at AD
30 and continuing until the present day."

Who cares? The only reliable historical record of the shroud we have in our possession goes back to the 14th century and then it ends. Before that we have tales of a shroud existing... the purpose of the testing was to see if this shroud could be one and the same. It indicated it was not.

His possible sources of error in the dating:

"Bioplastic Coating" - I dealt with this in a previous post.

"Enhanced Carbon 14" - "Now if there is a form of radiation during the formation of a shroud, and if it can effect the level of carbon isotopes, then it immediately renders the the method of carbon dating as inadmissible for dating of shrouds."

This has got to be a joke. During the formation of a shroud the subject becomes radioactive!?!?

I don't suppose Mr. Carr is terribly familiar with nuclear physics or how radiation works... or realizes how much radiation is required to have any distinguishable effect on atomic decay rates assuming anything about the process of wrapping a cloth about a corpse could cause a radiation emission of some kind!!! Either that or he's displaying some impressive levels of willful ignorance.

He included an extract from a nuclear physicist who examined the implications of such a proposal, but apparently he neglected to read it since it says quite plainly that it's ridiculous to consider the idea!

"To irradiate a cloth of 5 square meters (order of magnitude) with a flux of 9.10 ^12 particles/cm2, one needs 9.10^17 reactions (using only a few micrograms of deuterium, a tiny part of the body content ), giving off an energy of 3,.28.10^18 MeV, or 525 kilojoules ( to simplify our point, we neglect in a first approximation the contribution of the highly energetic secondary reactions with reaction products He3 and T ).
Translated in equivalent TNT, this energy amounts to 125 grams of high explosive."

Do you even appreciate how much energy we're talking about here?

"To explain the shape of imprint on the cloth, the source of radiation should be punctual rather than distributed. So, this energy is enough to cause a conspicuous "flash", but also a severe blow to a body already bruised and wounded by the flagellation and the crucifixion. As a standard of comparison, the Israeli secret services burst off terrorist Ayache with 50 grams of explosive concealed in his Motorola phone.
As regards the C14 datation itself, besides the 3 labs officially in charge of the analysis (Oxford, Tucson and Zurich ), a 4th lab got independently the same results (years 1260/1390). I mean the Centre d'Etudes des Faibles Radioactivites ( joint lab CEA/CNRS**), of which one can hardly question the experimental know-how and the scientific righteousness."

Do you understand what is being said here? The energy release would have to be focused and directed to account for the imprint. A focused and directed energy discharge two and a half times more powerful than the explosive detonation used to assasinate, for example, a certain terrorist... The resultant teeny tiny thermonuclear detonation (that's right... if you read the ful article they proposed a fusion reaction in deuterium in the body as having been responsible!) would have done considerable damage to both the body and the shroud. And no... we're not talking about a 'little scorching'.

If people proposing the possibility of tiny spontaneous thermonuclear reactions in the human body in an attempt to avoid the implications of the dating results doesn't give you some indication of how far into the realms of crackpottery we are venturing here then I fear nothing will do the job and continued discourse with you on this subject would be rather pointless.

Of course then the guy goes on to site spontaneous combustion as a possible explanation! So Jesus spontaneously combusted now? And then we get into the conspiracy theories! The Catholic church of all organizations could have sabotaged the test to give a faulty date because they wanted 'a more propitious time' to prove the shroud was authentic!?!? And he bases this speculation on what? His inexplicable assumption that the Vatican must have known what the dating results would be before the tests were ever performed!!!!

How the HECK were they supposed to have had that knowledge? They were running the tests to determine the age in the first place!

This guy is amazing! I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't read it with my own two eyes.

Are you sure this article isn't an april fools joke run amok?

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/marben.pdf

The results are skewed because they could have taken the samples from a repaired section.

Sure.

I mean, it's not as if they had a whole hoard of people there verifying that the samples were NOT taken from repaired section after all... oh wait... they did!

We know where all the repair work was done and the sample was not taken from any of this material. This whole theory rests on the assertion that people doing some completely unknown repair job in medeival times could have flawlessly matched the original composition and weave without any evidence of a transition at the point where new material was joined to old (unlike ALL THE OTHER repair jobs), which is absurd. Their assertion that the samples were atypical of the main cloth is completely unsupported, especially considering that even in this article they admit that the repair areas were easily recognizable!!

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/histsupt.pdf

I only have one thing to say: "Virtually invisible to the untrained eye" and "undetectable by expert examination and microscopic analysis" are not remotely the same thing... and all throughout the entire article they can't stop talking about how on close examination the repair areas are clearly visible!

They're grasping at straws.

And it goes on....

Look: I hate to dissapoint you, but none of the articles you have presented allow for a large enough error in the dating to make the shroud first century... and just FYI, your final linked article by the physicist preist is the same oneCarr included in his article... it clearly says that the process he is speaking of is effectively impossible and that he considers the dating results obtained by the labs to be reliable. IE: forget about it, it didn't happen. Cold fusion does not occur spontaneously in dead bodies!

There is one thing I would like you to consider: the one thing almost all these articles have in common is that they all say "oh, if only we could run the tests again we're sure they would give the results we want!"

If anyone actually thought these people had a legitimate point do you seriously think they wouldn't have the shroud retested?

-Grant

Marcus1962

July 30th 2003, 01:57 AM

gcomeau

Yes I understand the implications of these articles. The unique qualities alone are worth the additional study that has gone into this over the years. Whether it proves to be a fake or not, it is the most interesting and intriguing artifact from the past that I have heard of. :bow:

FIRST, I was trying to provide links to different articles that covered the entire range of study. What good is it to post only one side of the research? It takes both view points to cover all avenues of research. This is a good thing! :poke: :hrm: BTW, I'm new here. I haven't seen the thread that you were referring too. Can you provide a link or the title to the thread? :help:

SECOND, C14 dating isn't a panacea as the articles demonstrated. :shrug: To recap.

A) The chemical composition of the substance needs to be known in order to quality control the results (can't have too much contamination or what good are the results). :shocked:

B) The idea of bioplastic coatings has been investigated more thoroughly than it was prior to the test. It does cause a shift based on the percentage of bioplastic coating versus the intended sample material. :eek: How much was on the sample?

C) Exposure to combustion byproducts alters the age of the sample as well. How much is present in the sample? At what point in time did the exposure occur? How long was the sample exposed? :shifty:

D) Exposure to byproducts from other chemical reactions. :eww: The silver lining of a previous storage case partially melting in a fire.

The list goes on and on. :huh:

THIRD, the point being the Shroud has been exposed to several of these phenomena through its "lifetime". What is the resultant impact on the C14 dating? Has anyone studied the combined effects of all of these influences to determine the resultant change in the decay rate of the C14 present? Is it even possible to determine an accurate date with all of these influences or would the probablity of error be too large to be useful? :brood:

FIRST, if this is a fake I would like it to be discovered. Fake artifacts only profit the manufacturer them and the conmen currently making money off of them. And the faithful who are taken in are hurt by this. :argh:

FIFTH, one of the things I'm curious about is how many other artifacts have been dated by other methods and had a different date by C14? No one has covered that from my limited reading. It would be nice to know for comparasion. :frown:

I thought you would enjoy the radiation article. It makes me smile just reading it. :teeth:

gcomeau

July 30th 2003, 12:26 PM

Today @ 06:57 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=162534#post162534)
Marcus1962: BTW, I'm new here. I haven't seen the thread that you were referring too. Can you provide a link or the title to the thread?

I wasn't aware I referred to another thread...?

SECOND, C14 dating isn't a panacea as the articles demonstrated. To recap.

A) The chemical composition of the substance needs to be known in order to quality control the results (can't have too much contamination or what good are the results).

Which might possibly be why all of the samples submitted for dating were:

-Microscopically examined by all three testing labs to identfy and remove any foreign material.

The Oxford lab:
-Cleaned their samples with a vacuum pipette.... then cleaned them in a petroleum ether bath at 40C for 1hr, then treated them with dilute hydrochloric acid at 80C for 2hrs, then rinsed them, then treated them in dilute Sodium Hydroxide at 80C for 2hrs then rinsed them again, then treated them in dilute hydrochloric acid at 80C for another 2 hrs, then rinsed them again, and then two of the three samples were additionally bleached with sodium hydrochlorite for half an hour before being tested!

The Arizona Lab:
- Treated one set of samples with the acid/base/acid treatment Oxford used, and treated the other set of samples with a detergent/distilledwater/detergent treatment... then they were submitted to Soxhlet extraction with ethanol for an hour, then rewashed in distilled water, then submitted to an ultrasonic bath before being tested!

The Zurich Lab:
-Cleaned their samples ultrasonically, then split these cleaned samples in half and then further divided the first half into three more portions. One of these portions received no further treatment, one portion was treated with a dilute acid/base/acid treatment described above, and one sample was treated with a strong acid/base/acid treatment. All three of these portions were then tested... if they showed significantly different dates then thatwould mean there had been some significant level of contamination which had somehow escaped detection under the microscope and which the different levels of cleaning had removed to dfferent degrees... but no such difference was observed! The second half of the samples was then also treated and tested.

This is all detailed in the nature article where the testing results were published

So please understand, anyone who proposes that foreign contamination of the samples could have changed a first century date to a 14th century date is saying that somehow there was significant contamination of the samples... contamination which is somehow invisible under the microscope... contamination which not only survived the pre-treatment procedures of all three labs but survived them all to the same degree.

In other words... magic contamination.

B) The idea of bioplastic coatings has been investigated more thoroughly than it was prior to the test. It does cause a shift based on the percentage of bioplastic coating versus the intended sample material. :eek: How much was on the sample?

Not enough in your wildest dreams even if we generously assume there was any at all.

In order to cause the shroud to date as 14th century if it was actually first century, there would have to have been an amount of bioplastic coating twice the thickness of the threads themselves... and yet somehow it escaped detection during a microscopic examination of those threads. Garza, who proposed the idea, claims that the coating he is speaking of is clearly visible under a microscope even when it is nowhere remotely near that thick (that's how he supposedly found it after all). This is a little detail you never see mentioned in the papers trying to claim that the coating could be a valid reason for thinking that the shroud could actually be first century. You'll often see declartions that it could have resisted the treatment methods, but you'll never see them mention the insignificant fact that these threads were also microscopically examined by all three labs and yet aparently this "easily detectable under a microscope" bioplastic coating was invisible at all three sites even though it had to have been present in quantities many times thicker than what Garza claims to have observed in order to invalidate the tests!

C) Exposure to combustion byproducts alters the age of the sample as well.

Only if the samples aren't cleaned. Surface deposits of such byproducts cannot survive the cleaning methods. The only way combustion could have skewed the date is if the threads they tested had been burned themselves, which they were not.

How much is present in the sample?

None after cleaning.

D) Exposure to byproducts from other chemical reactions. :eww: The silver lining of a previous storage case partially melting in a fire.

Again, a proposal put forward only by people who either don't understand the testing process or who are depending on the people reading it not to understand the testing process and thus believe them.

You're speaking of course by the claim put forth by Kuznetsov that if the shroud were heated to 1500 degres in a silver container it somehow increases the C14 content of the fabric via some kind of isotropic exchange... which several labs have tested and found to be completely without any support.

The list goes on and on.

Yes I know, and it goes on and on in similar fashion. One unrealistic attempt to triple the age obtained by the testing following on the heels of another.

THIRD, the point being the Shroud has been exposed to several of these phenomena through its "lifetime". What is the resultant impact on the C14 dating?

After proper pre-treatment and removal of contaminants... none. It doesn't matter how long they've been sitting on the thing.

Has anyone studied the combined effects of all of these influences to determine the resultant change in the decay rate of the C14 present?

The effect would be: zero!

C14 decay is not influenced by "contamination". It's an atomic process!

FIFTH, one of the things I'm curious about is how many other artifacts have been dated by other methods and had a different date by C14? No one has covered that from my limited reading. It would be nice to know for comparasion.

By what oher methods?

That aside: They dated three other artifacts of independently known ages as controls when they dated the shroud! (Another little fact you're not going to see widely advertised by people trying to discredit the test results)

They were designated samples 2 through 4:

Sample 2. Linen (sample QI.T/32) from a tomb excavated at Qasr Ibrîm in Nubia by Professor J. M. Plumley for the Egypt Exploration Society in 1964. On the basis of the Islamic embroidered pattern and Christian ink inscription, this linen could be dated to the eleventh to twelfth centuries AD.

Sample 3. Linen from the collection of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, associated with an early second century AD mummy of Cleopatra from Thebes (EA6707). This linen was dated in the British Museum Research Laboratory using liquid scintillation counting, giving a radiocarbon age of 2,010 ± 80 yr BP (BM-2558). This corresponds to a calendar age, rounded to the nearest 5 years, of 110 cal BC - AD 75 cal at the 68 per cent confidence level 5 (where cal denotes calibrated radiocarbon dates).

Sample 4. Threads removed from the cope of St Louis d'Anjou which is held in a chapel in the Basilica of Saint-Maximin, Var, France. On the basis of the stylistic details and the historical evidence the cope could be dated at ~ AD 1290 - 1310 (reign of King Phillipe IV).

What were the results?

Sample 2: All three labs dated it between 927 (Arizona) - 941(Zurich) yaers old... with a margin of error of =/- about 30 years. So... 11th century.

Sample 3: All three labs dated it between 1940 (Zurich) and 1995 (Arizona) years old... with a margin of error of +/- 30 to 45 years. Matches up quite nicely with the date provided by the British Museum.

Sample 4: 685 (Zurich) - 755 (Oxford) years old with a margin of error of +/- 30 to 45 years. Right where it's supposed to be.

Aparently only the shroud is subject to a 200% innacuracy in it's dating.

-Grant

Socratism

August 2nd 2003, 09:16 AM

To be upfront I will state that after examining all of the evidence my conclusion was that the Shroud was a clever fraud.

That being said my purpose here is to comment on the following statement:

I'm looking for an article I read once about C14 dating and textiles. After the Shroud's medieval date came up, a research project tested a linen strip from an Egyptian mummy and a portion of a Andian sacrifice victim's clothing. Both samples from these previously dated samples came back approx. 1000 yrs younger than the dates already assigned to them. I'll post the link once I find it.

My comment is that it may be misleading on two separate grounds to use examples of other "known" discrepancies in C-14 dating.

1. The further back one goes in time the less reliable are dates from conventional archaeology. MidEast dates prior to 1000 BC are poorly established and dates in the Armericas are undoubtedly much poorer established even in much more recent times due to having far fewer written records.

2. C-14 dates have wider error margins the further back in time one goes due to the exponential decay phenomenon and hence the more difficult it is to measure the declining amount of the radioactive material and convert this to a "tight" date range.

Thus, it would be helpful in regard to other examples of dating difficulties to include information on the actual C-14 dates obtained as well as the "known" date information methodologies, rather than just mentioning an absolute date error of say 1000 years.

spl_cadet

August 2nd 2003, 07:12 PM

What of the fact that there have often been repairs to the shroud, and it's quite likely that the C-14 sample used one of the linen from that time?

There's also the fact that two Roman coins of the first century are on the eyes.
http://www.shroud.com/lombatti.htm

gcomeau

August 2nd 2003, 07:33 PM

Today @ 12:12 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=165780#post165780)
spl_cadet:

What of the fact that there have often been repairs to the shroud, and it's quite likely that the C-14 sample used one of the linen from that time?

I mentioned that already. Great care was taken to ensure the sample was NOT taken from a repaired section.

There's also the fact that two Roman coins of the first century are on the eyes.
http://www.shroud.com/lombatti.htm

I don't know about you, but I've seen the shroud images they say are of the coins and they bear all the resemblance of a rorschacht test to the coin they're trying to claim it is an image of... and other researchers who have looked at the images they presented can't see anything but a blur.

http://www.studium.com/graphics/8/turinshroud.gif

If you follow the little arrows the final image is what the coin is supposed to look like.

The power of suggestion is an amazing thing, isn't it?

-Grant

fd10801

September 16th 2003, 12:46 AM

I was privileged to see an exhibition about 20 years ago of a life-size duplicate of the Shroud. The way the exhibit was set up, you walked by photographs of statues Of Christ as He would have appeared after each of the things that were supposed to have happened to Him were done as <i>depicted on the Shroud</i>. It brought home to me, in a horrifying way, what happened to the "man in the shroud", as Sindonologists call Him. As Father Adam Otterbien said to me, when I went to the Holy Shroud Guild in Esopus, NY, "Why would anyone make a forgery? What purpose would it serve?"
The Shroud can be traced to Turin in the 14th Century. No one at that time knew that you could not drive a nail through a man's palms to perform a crucifixion. The Romans knew it, but the knowledge had been lost. The "man in the shroud" has nail wounds through his wrists, in a perfect space to support a grown man's weight on a cross.
More importantly, the "forgery" had to be done before it materialized in Turin, without a clue as to its origin. There is no possible forger, no witness, no record of it being done.
Please see
http://www.sindon.info/EN/introduction.htm
http://www.sindone.org/en/welcome.htm

DivineOb

September 16th 2003, 01:37 AM

And Fermat couldn't possibly have had the necessary math knowledge to prove his last theorem. Yet there it stands, plain as day in his own writing. Ergo, what, exactly?

fd10801

September 16th 2003, 09:00 AM

Despite the diversionary nature of your post, I will answer you. Fermat said of his theorem, that he had a proof for it that wouldn't fit in the margin. The fact that it was proved later doesn't prove his proof was found, only that a proof was found.
My point was that for thousands of years, Jesus' crucifixion was depicted with nails through his palms. Why? I don't know. What I do know is that is impossible to crucify a man by nailing his palms to a cross.

From "A DOCTOR AT CALVARY"
by Dr. Pierre Barbet

The Nailing

An assistant holds out one of the arms, with the palm uppermost. The executioner takes hold of the nail (a long nail, pointed and square which near its large head is 1/3 of an inch thick), he gives Him a prick on the wrist, in that forward fold which he knows by experience. One single blow with the great hammer, and the nail is already fixed in the wood, in which a few vigorous taps fix it firmly...
With one blow of the hammer, the nail is driven into the middle of it (between the second and third metatarsal bones).

at http://littlesoul22.homestead.com/passion.html

His point, and mine, was that this physiological information for was not known for more than a thousand years after the end of the Roman Empire. Yet here it was on the Shroud, despite the fact that the crucifixion had never been depicted this way before

Socratism

September 16th 2003, 09:30 AM

First let me say that I do not know whether the Shroud is a forgery or not, but I will say that if it is then the most likely candidate for the task of creating it would be Leonardo da Vinci, who of all people living in that time period might possibly have possessed the knowledge and skill to pull it off.

There is also some indication that there were links between him and the family which was involved in its being "rediscovered".

fd10801

September 16th 2003, 11:47 PM

The Shroud was on exhibit at least as early as 1347, and no later than 1355. see here:
http://www.sindon.info/EN/shroud.htm
Numerous attempts have been for dozens of years to duplicate the qualities of the image on the Shroud. No one has successfully imitated the Shroud's image. Leonardo da Vinci may have had the knowledge to create the Shroud's image with its unique qualities, but he wasn't born until April15, 1452 see here:
http://www.kausal.com/leonardo/anchiano.html
If the the 1347 - 1355 time frame is incorrect, and the Shroud was made during the lifetime of Leonardo da Vinci, then the following questions require answers:
1) How does one account for the presence of substantial
qualities of Middle Eastern varieties of pollen?
2) Could Da Vinci, or any other renaissance scholar have
sufficient knowledge of Roman history, Jewish burial
practices and Biblical exegesis to have reproduced such
accuracy of detail, e.g., the dumbbell shape of the scourge
tips; the differing directions of the flow of blood,and non -
blood body fluids; and the nailing of the "man in the
Shroud's" wrist bones, instead of his palms?
3)Most importantly, as I mentioned above, why would
anybody want to do such a thing? What would they have
to gain? Whatever they had to gain, wouldn't the notoriety
of the object have somehow "reflected" back on its creator?
One of the first books I read on the Shroud years ago was written by someone who expected that he would prove it to be a forgery. He concluded that (I paraphrase) it would more unlikely that the Shroud was a Renaissance forgery than that it was what most believers say it is -- the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

Roy

September 17th 2003, 08:39 AM

Yesterday @ 02:30 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=212879#post212879)
Socratism:

First let me say that I do not know whether the Shroud is a forgery or not, but I will say that if it is then the most likely candidate for the task of creating it would be Leonardo da Vinci, ...

... who was born after the shroud was first displayed.

This has been pointed out to you before.

Roy

Socratism

September 17th 2003, 09:48 AM

Today @ 08:39 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=213584#post213584)
rthearle:

... who was born after the shroud was first displayed.

This has been pointed out to you before.

Roy

Yes, I am well aware of that. I was interested in finding out when the "switch" was made, and it appears that 1516 is the most logical date, for accounts of that time record that this is when a copy of the shroud was made and stored. By this time Leonardo had completed his experiments on giant round mirrors, which conceivably could have increased his knowledge of optical systems or even been used in some process to create the image on the cloth.

The impetus for this alternate theory has to do with the technical difficulty of creating the image on the current shroud and the lack of any suspect who could possibly have done it at the time of the cloths first appearance 150 or so years earlier.

So it all boils down to whether one believes that the current shroud was fabricated by some Middle Age genius. If so then Leonardo is the obvious suspect, and this requires that a switch was made, probably around the time indicated above.

Didaktylos

September 17th 2003, 11:16 AM

... what if the one that now exists is a replica/replacement of a lost original?

fd10801

September 18th 2003, 09:19 AM

Socratism and Didaktylos: Have you not heard of Occam's Razor: "Of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred." See: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor
Socratism, are you suggesting that in order for Leonardo da Vinci to prepare the Shroud there is required "that a switch be made" ? :shocked: I thought better of you. You might as well say he found the Shroud in an alley! :rofl:
Didaktylos: I will concede that it is always possible that anyone on earth could have produced the Shroud, but we do know for sure that no one in modern times has been able to figure out how. So, to answer both of you: there is a documented history of the existence of Shroud from 1350 to the present. There is no evidence that Leonardo was ever in Turin, so we have no evidence that he brought a shroud to Turin or (to Didaktylos) could have taken away an original, after making a duplicate.
Circumstantial evidence points to, IMHO, the idea that the radioactive dating is faulty, and the Shroud comes from somewhere in the Middle East during the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. Socratism, I know you started a thread on the Shroud's radioactive dating, but It was closed before I joined TheologyWeb. Does that make it the burial cloth of Jesus? Not necessarily. In one of the many shows about the Turin Shroud, Father Peter Rinaldi, a world-renowned Shroud expert until his death, remarked (I paraphrase) that one's belief in the Shroud has to do with your own faith. It was not the reality of the Shroud, but what it meant to you. It serves as a "documentary" record of what Christ suffered for us on His way to Calvary, and after. It need not be the "real" Shroud to serve that purpose.
I digress slightly to say that Mel Gibson's "Passion" hopes to accomplish the same thing, and noone will think that James Caviezel is Jesus.
http://www.themoviebox.net/trailers/moviebox_trailers/passion_tr_page.htm

Pilgrim

September 18th 2003, 09:37 AM

there is no documented history that is primary however. The shroud, using Occams Razor as the measure, must indubitably be fraudulent.

Socratism

September 18th 2003, 12:41 PM

FD,

Socratism and Didaktylos: Have you not heard of Occam's Razor: "Of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred." See: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor
Socratism, are you suggesting that in order for Leonardo da Vinci to prepare the Shroud there is required "that a switch be made" ? I thought better of you. You might as well say he found the Shroud in an alley!
Didaktylos: I will concede that it is always possible that anyone on earth could have produced the Shroud, but we do know for sure that no one in modern times has been able to figure out how. So, to answer both of you: there is a documented history of the existence of Shroud from 1350 to the present. There is no evidence that Leonardo was ever in Turin, so we have no evidence that he brought a shroud to Turin or (to Didaktylos) could have taken away an original, after making a duplicate.

No need to get cute about the shroud being found in an alley. I will summarize my main points:

[1] I do not know whether the shroud is authenic or fraudulent.

[2] Following the fraudulent possibility one looks for a possible suspect of what most think would have been a fraud of major proportions.

[3] Leonardo had the knowledge and skill above all persons of that time period.

[4] Many shrouds were known to have existed and been exhibited prior to Leonardo's birth.

[5] If Leonardo created the one that is currently "The Shroud" then obviously it must have been substituted for a previous one at some point.

[6] Leonardo experimented with huge round mirrors late in his life as well as photographic processes using sunlight.

[7] He travelled and settled in France around 1516.

[8] History records that a copy of the shroud was made in 1516 and sent to Lierre, Belgium and kept in a church there.

[9] Examining a map of Italy and France one notes that Milan, from which Leonardo started his jouney to France, is not far from where the Shroud was kept at that time, Chambery, France (also not far from Turin for that matter)

[10] When travelling in those days the distance covered in a day was not that great. A place to stay at night was a necessity.

[11] Leonardo was world famous and had friends in high places.

[12] His mission to France (where he died 3 years or so later) was to design a building for a famous lady of Savoy, who is also mentioned in connection with well known exhibits of the shroud.

[13] Earlier, some church figures prohibited the exhibiting of the shroud because they considered it fraudulent.

[14] I believe that it was monetarily lucrative to run exhibits of the shroud.

Putting all of this together caused me to feel that the family of Savoy asked their friend Leonardo to make a copy of the shroud, and he did such a superb job, using some sort of photographic process on which he was then experimenting, that it was decided to replace the older shroud with the new and better one and to send the old one far away to Belgium, probably so that people who had seen the old one in years past would not be able to compare them side-by-side and would have only their previous memory to go by.

Just a wild theory, but who other than Leonardo would have been able to create such a masterpiece without use of paint?

On the other hand perhaps it is genuine.

(BTW, I feel that Occam's Razor is way overused for the simple reason that who is to say when "all other things are equal?")

NeilUnreal

September 18th 2003, 01:42 PM

In other words, the shroud, using Occams Razor as the measure, must indubitably be fraudulent. :)

-Neil

Bill the Cat

September 18th 2003, 01:47 PM

I was under the impression that the shroud was already proven false and the image was more European than Semitic :huh:

Pilgrim

September 18th 2003, 01:54 PM

Today @ 01:47 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=214686#post214686)
Bill the Cat:

I was under the impression that the shroud was already proven false and the image was more European than Semitic :huh:

Your impression is right and that fact is the biggest blow to the whole idea. I mean, the image on the shroud is clearly not semetic. It's not even mediteranian.

Bill the Cat

September 18th 2003, 01:58 PM

you mean Jesus was not a white guy with sandy brown hair and beard and he didn't look like Jim in the third pew?

I saw a special on PBS about it and the Xray showed the image in the shroud was clearly European (Probably Nomadic German from what I recall)

DunnySaze

September 18th 2003, 03:05 PM

This "wild theory" of yours is actually very similar to one expounded upon by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince in their book, Turin Shroud: In whose image? The shocking truth unveiled., published in 1994. They said that the Shroud of Turin, which has existed there since 1578 is not the same as the Shroud described to exist at Lirey, which was there from ca. 1357-1418, that there was a switch. They said this switcharoo happened in 1492, and set out to prove this by comparing pre-1492 descriptions with the cloth itself to show discrepancies. They also cite Leonardo as the perpetrator of the current shroud, using a technique more like photography than painting. You might find this book interesting.

Socratism

September 23rd 2003, 11:25 AM

09-18-2003 @ 03:05 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=214790#post214790)
DunnySaze:

This "wild theory" of yours is actually very similar to one expounded upon by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince in their book, Turin Shroud: In whose image? The shocking truth unveiled., published in 1994. They said that the Shroud of Turin, which has existed there since 1578 is not the same as the Shroud described to exist at Lirey, which was there from ca. 1357-1418, that there was a switch. They said this switcharoo happened in 1492, and set out to prove this by comparing pre-1492 descriptions with the cloth itself to show discrepancies. They also cite Leonardo as the perpetrator of the current shroud, using a technique more like photography than painting. You might find this book interesting.

Actually, I read this particular book some years ago and it started me thinking about the subject. My idea does differ from theirs in the area of when the switch was made. I believe that Leonardo had not completed his experiments with mirrors and photography until well after 1492, which is why I prefer the later date, which corresponds to the historical record that a copy was made of the Shroud around the time Leonardo left Milan and travelled to France. It is probable that he carried his version with him and left it at Chambery (which could easily have been on his route), where the shroud was kept at the time.

Interestingly, I spent the past weekend with my daughter in the Detroit area and reborrowed the book in question from her again. Have any of you ever been to a Renaissance Festival? We went to the one north of Detroit on Saturday and it was quite a treat.

Roy

September 24th 2003, 06:55 AM

09-18-2003 @ 05:41 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=214638#post214638)
Socratism:

No need to get cute about the shroud being found in an alley. I will summarize my main points:
...
[2] Following the fraudulent possibility one looks for a possible suspect of what most think would have been a fraud of major proportions.

[3] Leonardo had the knowledge and skill above all persons of that time period.

[4] Many shrouds were known to have existed and been exhibited prior to Leonardo's birth.

[5] If Leonardo created the one that is currently "The Shroud" then obviously it must have been substituted for a previous one at some point.
...

Your argument can be reduced to
(i) The shroud is the work of a genius
(ii) Leonardo was a genius, and he lived in the right area
(iii) Therefore Leonardo made the shroud.

This is dumb. I hope you aren't involved in law enforcement.

Roy

Socratism

September 24th 2003, 11:00 AM

Today @ 06:55 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=219114#post219114)
rthearle:

Your argument can be reduced to
(i) The shroud is the work of a genius
(ii) Leonardo was a genius, and he lived in the right area
(iii) Therefore Leonardo made the shroud.

This is dumb. I hope you aren't involved in law enforcement.

Roy

And considering your brilliant "summary" of my evidence I would hope that you are not a journalist.

runtmc2jc

July 28th 2005, 08:56 PM

for an interesting insight into the dating of the shroud may i suggest "The DNA of God" by Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes.

Rowland

July 28th 2005, 11:21 PM

For awhile I believed that the Shroud was authentic and was therefore a bit disappointed when I recently saw a TV documentary on the Leonardo Davinci theory. The theory looks pretty convincing to me; I wish it didn't as I too have a hard time walking by faith and not by sight.

Rowland

shunyadragon

July 31st 2005, 11:43 PM

Pigrim, I'm not sure what you mean here by "shadow". If you mean the image as it appears to the naked eye, I may agree with you. But when the image is viewed as a negative, the man has indisputable Semitic features.

Actually a very comprehensive computer study of the image has determined that the image is anatomically incorrect and is a distorted image of what would appear on a cloth placed as a shroud. I personally doubt Leonardo painted the image.

NeilUnreal

August 1st 2005, 12:13 PM

I'm conflicted re. the Shroud. On the one hand, I'm irritated that people don't recognize it as an historically significant piece of art, and that they fail to appreciate the talent of the artist who made it. On the other hand, the fact that people still think it's authentic over half a millenium later is a profound testimony to it's power as a work of art.

I agree with shunyadragon: probably not Leonardo, probably the artist identified as having made it by a Bishop, contemporary to its first recorded appearance.

-Neil

Teallaura

August 1st 2005, 05:40 PM

Gotta have links! :teeth:
(Actually, these were quite interesting.)

Http://www.shroud.com/menu.htm

Http://www.historian.net/shroud.htm

Http://www.factsplusfacts.com/

Http://www.historicaljesusquest.com/

Http://www.shroud2000.com/ArticlesPapers/Article-MedicalForensics.html

Okay, does anyone have a link to the ethnicity study? I can't find any such controversy.

runtmc2jc

August 2nd 2005, 10:13 AM

shunyadragon

August 3rd 2005, 09:54 PM

as far as i know, there is no evidence whatsoever that the shroud has been 'produced' by some unknown artist. just a theory, as is the theory that the image was produced by the energy of the resurrection.

There is evidence that it is produced by an artist. Recent analysis revealed pigments, and the computer analysis is strong evidence that it is not an image of a real body. There maybe a third explanation, but I have not heard of one.

Jasta

August 8th 2005, 03:09 AM

there's something critical that rarely comes up when people discuss the shroud.

For reference, here's the shroud:
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1470/shroud8oa.jpg

The shroud is an image produced by the projection of an image on a flat surface. An image on a shroud WRAPPED around a body would have to look something like this:
http://img344.imageshack.us/img344/156/skinwrap4tq.jpg

(both images also attatched to this message i hope)

In other words, it wouldn't/shouldn't look like a picture of someone, it would look like a peeled orange pressed flat on the table, distorted (or more likely broken by folds) like a map of the globe.

For this image to have happened, you would have had to suspend the shroud OVER Jesus' body and have had "the light/energy of his assumption" burn through the cloth like light striking a flat photographic plate. The shroud was AROUND his body, it would have caught an image of his whole body, like you see in the distorted face picture above.

NeilUnreal

August 8th 2005, 10:01 AM

Olethros

August 9th 2005, 04:12 PM

Yep. Thanks for pointing that out and supplying the images, Jasta. Neither the form of the image nor the present and missing details make sense for either a wrapped nor a draped shroud. In fact, one of the pieces of evidence most cited as evidence for the shroud – the supposed 3D data “encoded” in the image – also implies the shroud could not have been wrapped or even draped over the body.

The shroud is art, art, art!

-Neil

If it's art then how would you explain the following:

1) Second face found on the Shroud -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3621931.stm
Professor Fanti has dismissed claims that the image on the back confirms that the shroud is a fake - with paint soaking from the front to the back.

"This is not the case of the shroud. On both sides, the face image is superficial, involving only the outermost linen fibres," he said.

"It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features."

This was published in the peer reviewed Journal of Optics.

2) The physical shroud itself is OLD, very OLD:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4210369.stm
A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.

..........

"The radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than the main part of the shroud relic," said Mr Rogers, who is a retired chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US.

Again, this was published in a peer reviewed journal of science.

See a pattern here? To date these findings haven't been disputed (by any peer reviewed publication).

NeilUnreal

August 9th 2005, 10:16 PM

As far as there being an image on both the front and the back of the shroud surface, this is perfectly consistent with either a wet or a dry pigment. I think the idea that no pigment exists within the fibers is inconclusive, given the lack of invasive testing, but even so, it’s not necessarily a major problem.

It’s possible the pigment originally saturated the fibers, but the image has only become fixed on the outer layers. This could have happened if the original image was set (or even partially created) by heat. It could also be the result of oxidation and other processes after creation, affecting the outer, more exposed layers. If the image was created using dry pigment, it will penetrate the cloth, but more likely adhere to surfaces where the pressure is the greatest, i.e. the front and the back. Etc., etc., etc.

Letting modern research laboratories have samples would give us a definitive result about pigments, but it’s unlikely that will happen. For shroud believers it would be desecrating a relic, and for art historians it would be damaging a work of art.

With regard to the dating issue, the answer is simple. Let the authorities in charge of the shroud supply new samples for testing. They can be quite small and unobtrusive. Until then, the fact that the radiocarbon date uncannily matches the date when the shroud was first recorded to have appeared (and recorded as a fake even at that time), will have to stand.

Which is not even to mention that the shroud has the perspective and appearance of a painting. There is no explanation that gets an image as it appears if the shroud was anything other than stretched out flat. And even then, it’s hard to make the front and back come out correct at the place where the top of the head wraps around to the back.

The findings haven't been disputed for a reason mentioned twice above: science works with data. It's not like the shroud went missing or anything, it exists, the data is right there. If samples are allowed, the disputation will occur and definitive conclusions will probably follow. Until then, it's going to be tough to get many serious scientists interested in arguing over decades old data and speculation.

-Neil

Jasta

August 10th 2005, 02:56 AM

The findings haven't been disputed for a reason mentioned twice above: science works with data. It's not like the shroud went missing or anything, it exists, the data is right there. If samples are allowed, the disputation will occur and definitive conclusions will probably follow. Until then, it's going to be tough to get many serious scientists interested in arguing over decades old data and speculation.

-Neil

What's frustrating to me is that one can always find (pay) someone to come up with whatever scientific result you need. People decide what they want to believe with uninformed emotional decisions, then justify their positions by choosing to believe whoever has the "facts" to make them feel good about their decision. No matter what side of any issue you're on, there are manufactured facts to be found that you can emotionally stand on... in defiance of all logic.

NeilUnreal

August 10th 2005, 10:01 AM

What's frustrating to me is that one can always find (pay) someone to come up with whatever scientific result you need. People decide what they want to believe with uninformed emotional decisions, then justify their positions by choosing to believe whoever has the "facts" to make them feel good about their decision. No matter what side of any issue you're on, there are manufactured facts to be found that you can emotionally stand on... in defiance of all logic.

This is true to a certain extent. Even in pure science, non-scientific motives will enter in. That is one of the main reasons why as much data as possible needs to be used. The more data available, the more difficult it is to slant spurious results, argue from ignorance and personal opinion, etc.

The frustrating thing about the shroud is, it's right there! All the data we need is most probably right there! However, even if one doesn't believe the shroud is a holy relic, its historical and artistic importance are reason enough to limit testing that might damage it. Still, more could be safely done than has been done.

Right now, shroud arguments are like arguing about the contents of a locked box that we've only had a peek or two into. All the subsequent arguments are merely about what we saw when we took those peeks. We can solve the mystery by unlocking the box and taking a good look. A lot of scientists would be more than happy to do this. Until then, most scientists will ignore the issue.

The results based on the current data are to me definitive: the shroud is a 14th century work of art. That's the best conclusion based on the current data. It's going to take more and better data to convince me otherwise, not just more argument.

-Neil

runtmc2jc

August 15th 2005, 03:09 PM

NeilUnreal

August 15th 2005, 09:21 PM

this last quote sounds like if repeating it over and over will make it true. is there some kind of fear attached to its possible authenticity?

No fear at all. I repeated it out of frustration.

I almost made a career out of art, and I love the study of art history -- you can't really understand history until you understand art, and you can't really appreciate art unless you understand history.

The continued insistence that the shroud is an improbable relic keeps large numbers of people from appreciating what it actually is: a very beautiful, well-crafted, and historically significant work of art. This I find frustrating.

-Neil

shunyadragon

August 15th 2005, 11:18 PM

this last quote sounds like if repeating it over and over will make it true. is there some kind of fear attached to its possible authenticity?

What is your motivation for insisting on the shrouds 'possible authentisity', despite the overwhelming evidence that it is a historically significant piece of art?

runtmc2jc

August 16th 2005, 10:29 AM

What is your motivation for insisting on the shrouds 'possible authentisity', despite the overwhelming evidence that it is a historically significant piece of art?

from my study, there is much documentation supporting it's authenticity versus it's being a piece of art. the major sticking point was the date, which has been shown to still be up-in-the-air. (see - The DNA of God)

runtmc2jc

August 16th 2005, 10:31 AM

No fear at all. I repeated it out of frustration.

I almost made a career out of art, and I love the study of art history -- you can't really understand history until you understand art, and you can't really appreciate art unless you understand history.

The continued insistence that the shroud is an improbable relic keeps large numbers of people from appreciating what it actually is: a very beautiful, well-crafted, and historically significant work of art. This I find frustrating.

-Neil

as far as i know, that would be a piece of art that nobody knows how it was produced.

NeilUnreal

August 16th 2005, 12:35 PM

...as far as i know, that would be a piece of art that nobody knows how it was produced.

By and large, the people making the claim that the shroud would be impossible for an artist to produce are not themselves artists. For example, the "mysterious" three dimensional data "encoded" in the shroud is not at all difficult to reproduce, and would be produced by a number of techniques even where such encoding was not planned.

Even scientifically, traces of pigments and binders from the Medieval era have been found on the shroud.

Historically, the shroud was recorded as having been produced by an artist shortly after its first documented appearance.

But the best evidence that it is a work of art and not produced from a body is what is apparent and easy to see:

1) The face and body proportions are visually good, but anatomically slightly distorted. However, the ways in which they are distorted are common in art.

2) The join where the shroud wraps around the head is wrong for a real shroud but looks good as an artistic front and back iconic image.

3) The image is a projection onto a flat surface -- exactly what an artist would produce. It could not possibly have been produced on either a wrapped or draped cloth, either by contact or projection.

-Neil

shunyadragon

August 16th 2005, 10:57 PM

from my study, there is much documentation supporting it's authenticity versus it's being a piece of art. the major sticking point was the date, which has been shown to still be up-in-the-air. (see - The DNA of God)

This should not be a major sticking point. The shroud is there and may be tested in any manner that will bring it down-to-earth.

All the other evidence is not up in the air.

runtmc2jc

August 18th 2005, 12:15 AM

By and large, the people making the claim that the shroud would be impossible for an artist to produce are not themselves artists. For example, the "mysterious" three dimensional data "encoded" in the shroud is not at all difficult to reproduce, and would be produced by a number of techniques even where such encoding was not planned.

Even scientifically, traces of pigments and binders from the Medieval era have been found on the shroud.

Historically, the shroud was recorded as having been produced by an artist shortly after its first documented appearance.

But the best evidence that it is a work of art and not produced from a body is what is apparent and easy to see:

1) The face and body proportions are visually good, but anatomically slightly distorted. However, the ways in which they are distorted are common in art.

2) The join where the shroud wraps around the head is wrong for a real shroud but looks good as an artistic front and back iconic image.

3) The image is a projection onto a flat surface -- exactly what an artist would produce. It could not possibly have been produced on either a wrapped or draped cloth, either by contact or projection.

-Neil

we don't really know what the mechanics of the resurrection involved, so it would be difficult to say what position the shroud was in at the time of imprint. there's a lot of supposition going on to assume the shroud had to be in a particular position at the time of the image being 'burned' on the cloth. (i am arguing from the position of authenticity for the sake of the argument - even though i do lean that way in my own belief).

runtmc2jc

August 18th 2005, 12:17 AM

This should not be a major sticking point. The shroud is there and may be tested in any manner that will bring it down-to-earth.

All the other evidence is not up in the air.

last i read, the vatican had to give permission for the test, and they weren't exactly in the mood to do so.

shunyadragon

August 18th 2005, 06:31 AM

last i read, the vatican had to give permission for the test, and they weren't exactly in the mood to do so.

True, and as per previous post, we would not know the mechanics of resurrection if it took place, but the presence of pigments, and the fact that the image is not anatomically correct would indicate that it was a painting.

runtmc2jc

August 22nd 2005, 01:05 AM

True, and as per previous post, we would not know the mechanics of resurrection if it took place, but the presence of pigments, and the fact that the image is not anatomically correct would indicate that it was a painting.

if it was a 'painting' wouldn't there be evidence of 'brush strokes' and what are the evidences of the materials used for the actual representation of the body?

shunyadragon

August 23rd 2005, 04:16 AM

if it was a 'painting' wouldn't there be evidence of 'brush strokes' and what are the evidences of the materials used for the actual representation of the body?

Brush strokes are definitely not necessary if a technique was used applying the paint using only the tips of the brush. The tests of what was supposedly blood revealed the red pigment used at the time, I think ochre and vermillion. Some tests revealed both blood and pigment in the areas considered blood stains, which is a possibility that some blood was used in the paint, but the latest research disagrees with this possibility.

See http://www.mcri.org/shroudupdate.html#anchor577043

and http://www.mcri.org/Shroud.html for further comments on pigment and C14 dating.

runtmc2jc

August 28th 2005, 09:52 PM

Brush strokes are definitely not necessary if a technique was used applying the paint using only the tips of the brush. The tests of what was supposedly blood revealed the red pigment used at the time, I think ochre and vermillion. Some tests revealed both blood and pigment in the areas considered blood stains, which is a possibility that some blood was used in the paint, but the latest research disagrees with this possibility.

See http://www.mcri.org/shroudupdate.html#anchor577043

and http://www.mcri.org/Shroud.html for further comments on pigment and C14 dating.

i checked the link and was the substance ever tested chemically? i note that his conclusions seemed to be based on magnified comparisions of blood and a 'pigment'. was there any discussion of the 'bioplastic' coating as discovered by Garza-Valdes. if not, i wonder if such a coating could alter the color from brown to red. unless i did not understand, he's comparing modern blood on a textile, with an ancient sample, and then saying because they don't look alike under magnification the shroud sample must be paint. is that a proper reading on my part?

runtmc2jc

August 28th 2005, 09:58 PM

shunyadragon

August 29th 2005, 01:18 AM

i checked the link and was the substance ever tested chemically? i note that his conclusions seemed to be based on magnified comparisions of blood and a 'pigment'. was there any discussion of the 'bioplastic' coating as discovered by Garza-Valdes. if not, i wonder if such a coating could alter the color from brown to red. unless i did not understand, he's comparing modern blood on a textile, with an ancient sample, and then saying because they don't look alike under magnification the shroud sample must be paint. is that a proper reading on my part?

The tests for the pigment were chemical and not observations.

I will have to check more on this 'bio-plastic' claim by Garza-Valdez.

shunyadragon

August 29th 2005, 01:23 AM

kinda like how the group who tested the shroud samples and dated it to 1200 (or thereabouts) almost leapt for joy and threw a party at their (skewed) conclusions. since the dating method did not discount the bioplastic coating, their date was off considerably. i wonder what would cause 'scientists' to be so joyful when they act to deny the authenticity of some relic?

Based on what reference do you cite to conclude the scientists 'almost leapt with joy and threw a party at their conclusions'. Reading all the research I have been able to find, there is no witness recorded of a celebration.

I checked the article that claimed bioplastic coatings, and i will have to check further to comment more. The article supported the shroud's authenticity. My objections are not based on 'radiometric dating', but presence of paint pigments, incorrect anatomy, and the history of the shroud.

runtmc2jc

August 30th 2005, 12:59 PM

Based on what reference do you cite to conclude the scientists 'almost leapt with joy and threw a party at their conclusions'. Reading all the research I have been able to find, there is no witness recorded of a celebration.

I checked the article that claimed bioplastic coatings, and i will have to check further to comment more. The article supported the shroud's authenticity. My objections are not based on 'radiometric dating', but presence of paint pigments, incorrect anatomy, and the history of the shroud.

i probably exaggerated, but there was a sense of joy/relief i picked up, probably from Garza-Valdes' book 'The DNA of God.' Garza-Valdes is an expert on ancient textiles, previously doing most of his work in south america. he got involved in the testing of a sample of the shroud and was the one to discover this 'coating.' the coating will skew test results for age unless it can be stripped off. unfortunately for him, the substance he used to accomplish this was carbon-based and still skewed the results, although his sample dated much earlier than that of the 'official' published date of the shroud.

shunyadragon

August 31st 2005, 10:08 AM

i probably exaggerated, but there was a sense of joy/relief i picked up, probably from Garza-Valdes' book 'The DNA of God.' Garza-Valdes is an expert on ancient textiles, previously doing most of his work in south america. he got involved in the testing of a sample of the shroud and was the one to discover this 'coating.' the coating will skew test results for age unless it can be stripped off. unfortunately for him, the substance he used to accomplish this was carbon-based and still skewed the results, although his sample dated much earlier than that of the 'official' published date of the shroud.

Are you aware that many authorities at the time the existence of te shroud was first recorded considered it a fake.

runtmc2jc

September 6th 2005, 10:04 AM

Are you aware that many authorities at the time the existence of te shroud was first recorded considered it a fake.

no, i wasn't aware of that. i don't base my salvation on the authenticity of the shroud, but then again, i wouldn't be surprised if the l-rd allowed certain relics (shroud, ark of the covenant, noah's ark, etc) to be 'discovered' before the end of the age as a final testament to unbelievers.

dtotire

September 10th 2005, 01:00 PM

You all might be interested in what the Catholic Encyclopedia has to say about the Shroud. The article is skeptical about its authenticity. The image was quite vivid in the early 15th century, but afterward faded quickly. It questions why the image stayed brilliant for 1500 years, but then faded. This is the link:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13762a.htm

YeshuaMarine

August 13th 2006, 11:55 AM

I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been discussed yet. I think the shroud is more interesting than the James ossuary, it is definitely more controversial.
I am generally skeptical of claims made about "relics", but I lean toward the shroud being genuine.
Any comments, friendly or otherwise, are welcome.

What about the C-14 debate?

Tladatsi

August 13th 2006, 04:12 PM

What about the C-14 debate?

The problem is contamination. Fungus, bacteria, or just atmospheric deposition add more recent carbon-14 to an object, skewing the results. Carbon-14 only works if the subject being tested has been sealed away newer C-14 sources.

NeilUnreal

August 13th 2006, 05:22 PM

We have documentary evidence from a Church source that the Shroud is a fake, contemporary with the Shroud's first uncontested appearance. The date of that evidence and the carbon date correspond almost exactly. The carbon date of 1260-1390 is entirely consistent with the presumed age of the cloth if the Shroud was created as an artwork c.1357.*

Sometimes even a very dull version of Ockham's razor shaves pretty clean.

-Neil

*That the Shroud is an artwork is also made evident by the fact that the image has the form of a planar projection. That is, it shows what the eye sees when looking at a person, not what would appear when contact-printed or projected onto a draped cloth, regardless of the nature of that contact or the angle of projection. It is barely possible that it was made by contact with a low relief sculpture, but a painting is more likely IMHO.

Tladatsi

August 15th 2006, 12:31 AM

If it is a forgery, and it may well be one, it is not a medieval forgery. There are certain details a medieval forgery would never have made.

1) If the shroud had been marked by the image of a dead body, say by embalming oils, the image produced on the shroud would have been a negative image of the original body. When photographed and a negative produced, the negative image of a negative image should produce a positive image. This is how film photography and lithography both work. This exactly what happens with the shroud.

2) Most people when they look at photographs of the shroud, they are looking a negatives of the actual image, rather than normal positive image. Normal positive images of the shroud are not very life-like and is difficult to make out. Negative photographs of the shroud are much clearer and more life-like. It is difficult to imagine any forgerer coming up with a technique that would produce this effect or would imagine a reason to produce such an effect if it were possible. A painted forgery would not produce this effect.

3) The image in the shroud that of a naked man. No medieval forgerer would have thought to portray Jesus naked. All images of Jesus either on the cross or after death show him with discretely placed loin clothes. It would have been sacrilegious. More importantly, it would have gone against the expectations of the target audience. Forgerers don’t make forgeries for fun but rather for profit. Offering a forged shroud with a naked Jesus would not have been good marketing.

4) There is a clear wound and blood stain (which is human blood) on the right wrist (the left wrist is not visible). The Romans often did not drive nails through the flesh to hold their victims in place. A common practice was to use leather thongs or ropes. This actually prolonged the suffering as it minimized bleeding. However, when they did use nails, they drove the nails through the wrists and ankles or heels, not the palms and flat surface of the foot as is universally portrayed in medieval art. No medieval artists would have known this and even if he had, it would have again been poor marketing to portray Jesus so.

http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/pathol11.gif

5) No images of the ankles retained on the shroud. The image of the bottom of the feet suggest that there was bleed from the heel of the foot. It is not clear if the blood is coming from a wound on the bottom of the heal or the side of the ankle. This would completely inconsistent with medieval images of Jesus being nailed through the flat top of the feet. There is only one known skeletal remain of a man who was crucified. It was recovered from an ossuary found at Givat ha-Mivtar. It shows the nail through the heel bone.

http://home.hetnet.nl/~shroud_turin/010Feet%20Back3.jpg

http://home.hetnet.nl/~shroud_turin/008Feet%201BackLeg.pos.JPG

http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/pathol14.jpg

6) There are small blood stains around the head of the man in the image. The blood is all over the top of the head. This is often presented as blood from the “crown of thorns”. In medieval art, the crown resembles medieval crown of European kings, a band of metal the goes around the sides of the head. However, in the ANE, crowns were not of this fashion. They were inverted cups which covered the entire head, not just a band around the sides. The blood stains are consistent with the bonnet like crowns of the ANE, not the medieval crowns one would expect a medieval forgerer to portray.

On the other hand.

7) The biggest problem with the image is that it is the image of a man who was alive when he was wrapped in the linen. People only bleed because the heart is pumping. Once the heart stops pumping, people don’t bleed except where the fluids settle in the body, such as the shoulders, buttock, back of the legs and heels (if they are laying on their back). However, the wrist and head wounds were still flowing blood when the man was wrapped, the same with the wound on the side between the rips even though it is clear that the man in question was supposed to be laying on his back. This could only have happened if the man were still alive.

8) The other big problem with is it’s very existence. The whole point of crucifixion was to produce a punishment that was so horrible no one would risk breaking the law to receive it. While the hanging naked from a cross in public before ones countrymen, and potentially friends and family, is unimaginably painful and humiliating in its own right, The ultimate aspect of the punishment however was the fact that the Romans did not allow for proper burial. Bodies were simply cast into a pit to allow the carrion eaters (crows, ravens, vultures, dogs, worms, etc) to have their way. In the ancient world, a proper burial was one of the most important things in life and to be denied that was as great a punishment as crucifixion itself, if not worse. The Roman crucified tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, yet only one body has been recovered. Since ossuaries were a sign of wealth, it was obviously someone with some powerful connections. The Romans would never have allowed a proper burial of a rebel who was nothing more than a common working man. You don’t get and maintain empires by being nice.

9) The shroud had been around for much longer before it showed up in Turin. It have been in Constantinople for many centuries before that. A French knight Robert de Clari reports seeing it on display in August 1203 in a church called Our Lady Holy Mary of Blachernae. He reports it was on display every Friday and says that “the figure of our Lord could clearly seen”. It had been on display in Edessa for many centuries (called the Mandylion) but was moved to Constantinople in August 944 by the Emperor Romanus I (Lekapenos).

Given the documented history of the shroud / Mandylion and the fact that it is historically accurate in details that no medieval forgerer could have known or would have reasonably used had he known, it is entirely unlikely that it is the work of a medieval anybody. Given these facts, it would seem to me that the shroud is more likely, an ancient forgery, not a medieval one.

We have documentary evidence from a Church source that the Shroud is a fake, contemporary with the Shroud's first uncontested appearance. The date of that evidence and the carbon date correspond almost exactly. The carbon date of 1260-1390 is entirely consistent with the presumed age of the cloth if the Shroud was created as an artwork c.1357.*

Sometimes even a very dull version of Ockham's razor shaves pretty clean.

-Neil

*That the Shroud is an artwork is also made evident by the fact that the image has the form of a planar projection. That is, it shows what the eye sees when looking at a person, not what would appear when contact-printed or projected onto a draped cloth, regardless of the nature of that contact or the angle of projection. It is barely possible that it was made by contact with a low relief sculpture, but a painting is more likely IMHO.

NeilUnreal

August 15th 2006, 01:38 PM

Good arguments tdlatsi, however, I believe there are a lot of arguments for why the Shroud is likely to be a medieval forgery.

…the image produced on the shroud would have been a negative image of the original body…

First, a “negative” image is not at all unlikely in a medieval forgery. If a forgery, it is not a painting of a figure, it is a forgery of an impression; the artist is putting it forward as a relic, not a painting. Whether that forgery was made by application of pigment (as I believe*) or by some process such as pressing and scorching the cloth on a hot, low relief, the result will be something that looks like a negative. The original artist need not have thought of this at all, it simply follows from trying to forge an impression. The fact that it appears “more natural” in the negative is an artifact of a later process (photography), unrelated to why the reason why the image appeared negative to begin with. It is like noting the improbability of a particular statistical outcome and arriving at a flawed post hoc conclusion about the genesis of the outcome.

All images of Jesus either on the cross or after death show him with discretely placed loin clothes.

Again, the forger was not producing a painting, he was simulating a relic. The hands are discreetly placed and detail appears excluded from the groin area, thus serving the purpose of a loincloth while seeming more appropriate for a relic.

There are various explanations for why the details of blood, etc., in the Shroud could have been produced by a medieval artist, or why they could be simply later ideas being read eidetically back into a blurry image.** The supposed oddities in the cloth coloration which make up parts of the image are not necessarily mysterious. We don’t really know what to look for in a 650 year old artifact produced by unorthodox means.

As for the provenance, any dates for the Shroud itself before 1357 are highly controversial and circumstantial. By contrast, near the time of the Shroud’s first appearance, we have documentary evidence that it was considered a forgery even then, and the carbon-14 dating matches this known provenance almost exactly.

However, to me the most important aspect is this: All claims as to why the Shroud is not a painted work of art have to explain the geometry of the image itself. Regardless of the nature of the image or the details, there is no conceivable process which could result in such an image of this geometry on a draped piece of cloth. Even if one postulates some kind of mysterious energy or unknown chemical process, on has to account for the undeniable fact that the image is a projection onto a flat piece of cloth. Also, there does not appear to be sufficient room across the top of the head in the image to have allowed the Shroud to have contacted the body ventrally and dorsally as it appears, and particularly not if one makes the (ad hoc) assumption that the Shroud cloth was somehow stretched flat before the image was formed.

And if the Shroud is a painted artwork, it seems within the talents of the medievals, perhaps using techniques such as those in my footnote below.

It could, as you say, be an earlier forgery, but I think the knowledge and techniques are not beyond a medieval artist, just atypical. Additionally, the known provenance and carbon-14 date make a medieval origin somewhat more likely in my opinion.

-Neil

*I think the Shroud was produced by this method:

1) The artist, or more likely a model, was used to roughly proportion the image by contacting a stretched piece of cloth. The overall proportions may have been traced, but most likely the “raised features” were transferred by dusting the model with pigment and allowing contact transfer to taken place. During this process the model shifted the body and head slightly top to bottom and side to side to insure good contact, but with minimal “rolling.” This process explains oddities in proportion that are difficult to explain by either projection or draped contact (whether artificial or not), the so-called three-dimensional aspects of the image, and the negative effect.

2) The artist then enhanced the contact image and created the other parts of the image by a combination of direct painting and applying dry pigment.

3) The original artist (or possibly a later artist or assistant), painted the bloodstains or perhaps applied them by pouring liquid directly onto the cloth.

4) Age and time did the rest.

** The details of the crucifixion wounds, IMHO, are the best evidence Shroud “believers” have in their favor. However, some authorities believe that the idea of impalement through the wrist, rather than the palm, was not completely unknown in medieval times.

Tladatsi

August 16th 2006, 10:44 AM

Neil,

You are missing however the fact that the Shroud has a "paper trail" that goes back to the late Roman era. The Shroud has a documented history of presence in Constantinople back to the nineth century and in Edessa back to well before 600 AD (when it was known as the Mandylion). It cannot be a medieval forgery as it has existed before the medieval era.

Good arguments tdlatsi, however, I believe there are a lot of arguments for why the Shroud is likely to be a medieval forgery.

First, a “negative” image is not at all unlikely in a medieval forgery. If a forgery, it is not a painting of a figure, it is a forgery of an impression; the artist is putting it forward as a relic, not a painting. Whether that forgery was made by application of pigment (as I believe*) or by some process such as pressing and scorching the cloth on a hot, low relief, the result will be something that looks like a negative. The original artist need not have thought of this at all, it simply follows from trying to forge an impression. The fact that it appears “more natural” in the negative is an artifact of a later process (photography), unrelated to why the reason why the image appeared negative to begin with. It is like noting the improbability of a particular statistical outcome and arriving at a flawed post hoc conclusion about the genesis of the outcome.

Again, the forger was not producing a painting, he was simulating a relic. The hands are discreetly placed and detail appears excluded from the groin area, thus serving the purpose of a loincloth while seeming more appropriate for a relic.

There are various explanations for why the details of blood, etc., in the Shroud could have been produced by a medieval artist, or why they could be simply later ideas being read eidetically back into a blurry image.** The supposed oddities in the cloth coloration which make up parts of the image are not necessarily mysterious. We don’t really know what to look for in a 650 year old artifact produced by unorthodox means.

As for the provenance, any dates for the Shroud itself before 1357 are highly controversial and circumstantial. By contrast, near the time of the Shroud’s first appearance, we have documentary evidence that it was considered a forgery even then, and the carbon-14 dating matches this known provenance almost exactly.

However, to me the most important aspect is this: All claims as to why the Shroud is not a painted work of art have to explain the geometry of the image itself. Regardless of the nature of the image or the details, there is no conceivable process which could result in such an image of this geometry on a draped piece of cloth. Even if one postulates some kind of mysterious energy or unknown chemical process, on has to account for the undeniable fact that the image is a projection onto a flat piece of cloth. Also, there does not appear to be sufficient room across the top of the head in the image to have allowed the Shroud to have contacted the body ventrally and dorsally as it appears, and particularly not if one makes the (ad hoc) assumption that the Shroud cloth was somehow stretched flat before the image was formed.

And if the Shroud is a painted artwork, it seems within the talents of the medievals, perhaps using techniques such as those in my footnote below.

It could, as you say, be an earlier forgery, but I think the knowledge and techniques are not beyond a medieval artist, just atypical. Additionally, the known provenance and carbon-14 date make a medieval origin somewhat more likely in my opinion.

-Neil

*I think the Shroud was produced by this method:

1) The artist, or more likely a model, was used to roughly proportion the image by contacting a stretched piece of cloth. The overall proportions may have been traced, but most likely the “raised features” were transferred by dusting the model with pigment and allowing contact transfer to taken place. During this process the model shifted the body and head slightly top to bottom and side to side to insure good contact, but with minimal “rolling.” This process explains oddities in proportion that are difficult to explain by either projection or draped contact (whether artificial or not), the so-called three-dimensional aspects of the image, and the negative effect.

2) The artist then enhanced the contact image and created the other parts of the image by a combination of direct painting and applying dry pigment.

3) The original artist (or possibly a later artist or assistant), painted the bloodstains or perhaps applied them by pouring liquid directly onto the cloth.

4) Age and time did the rest.

** The details of the crucifixion wounds, IMHO, are the best evidence Shroud “believers” have in their favor. However, some authorities believe that the idea of impalement through the wrist, rather than the palm, was not completely unknown in medieval times.

Pilgrim

August 16th 2006, 01:10 PM

NeilUnreal

August 16th 2006, 02:01 PM

You are missing however the fact that the Shroud has a "paper trail" that goes back to the late Roman era.

I’m not ignoring it, its just that for me, the balance tips the other way. The documentary and C14 evidence for the cloth we called the Shroud of Turin having been produced c.1357 is stronger than the inferential links to earlier shrouds. So I would say that those earlier shrouds probably represent other earlier forgeries rather than earlier mentions of the Shroud of Turin.

-Neil

Tladatsi

August 16th 2006, 08:25 PM

The Mandylion was supposed to be an image of Jesus captured on a piece of folded cloth which was enthroned in Edessa between 100 - 900 AD. It was copied hundreds of times by painters during that period, before it was transfered from Edessa to Constantinople, where it was copied again many times. If you don't believe me (and why should you?) compare the images of the face on the Shroud with the images of Manylion (the internet has plenty). We have later accounts (see above) of European travelers seeing what they were told was Jesus burial shroud in Constatinople before it was plundered by maurading crusaders.

The shroud did not show up in Europe (not later than 1357 in Liery France) until after the plundering of Constatinople (1204). The shroud had been in Constatinople until the pilaging of the fourth Crusade. As late as 1201 Nicholas Mesarites, the curator for a church in Constantople recorded the presence of a sidones which was supposed to be Jesus' burial cloth. Three years later, Robert de Clari reported seeing on display in Constatinople. The trasfer of Mandylion from Edessa to Constantinople was a bid deal, full of public celebration and was well documented.

There of course a great deal more documentation but this is just quick posting. It might be wrong, but it is hardly a simple guess.

And you're missing the point that no one is sure it the paper trail you talk about is correctly attached to the thing we currently call the "Shroud of Turin" or not. It's simply a guess.

Tladatsi

August 16th 2006, 09:36 PM

Your point is well taken. Just for fun, here is a painting of the Mandylion of Edessa. It is a copy of an image "not made by human hands" and is presented as being preserved on a piece of cloth.

http://www.hellenic-art.com/painted/mandylion.jpg

Here is a copy in a mosaic from the Cathedral at Cefalu

http://www.maranatha.it/Miscel/volto/volto0Pc.jpg

Here is another two Greek ikon copies of mandylion

http://www.saintmarymagdalen.com/eileen/images/e_icon58.jpg

http://ca.geocities.com/ikoner2003/sv/bilder/galleri_alexander/The_Mandylion_sm.jpg

If you compare the negative image of the shroud with the Mandylion you can see several similarities.

http://www.sspx.ca/Angelus/Images/1978/November/Shroud_of_Turin_face.jpg

You will note some common features:

1) Rather long nose

2) A divided or forked beard below the chin

3) Two strands of hard hanging from where the hair is parted.

4) No or little facial hair between the lower lip and chin.

5) A deep shadow below the lower lip.

6) Large, owl-like eyes

7) High arched eyebrows far above the eyes.

I’m not ignoring it, its just that for me, the balance tips the other way. The documentary and C14 evidence for the cloth we called the Shroud of Turin having been produced c.1357 is stronger than the inferential links to earlier shrouds. So I would say that those earlier shrouds probably represent other earlier forgeries rather than earlier mentions of the Shroud of Turin.

-Neil

Pilgrim

August 17th 2006, 09:20 AM

The Mandylion was supposed to be an image of Jesus captured on a piece of folded cloth which was enthroned in Edessa between 100 - 900 AD. It was copied hundreds of times by painters during that period, before it was transfered from Edessa to Constantinople, where it was copied again many times. If you don't believe me (and why should you?) compare the images of the face on the Shroud with the images of Manylion (the internet has plenty). We have later accounts (see above) of European travelers seeing what they were told was Jesus burial shroud in Constatinople before it was plundered by maurading crusaders.

The shroud did not show up in Europe (not later than 1357 in Liery France) until after the plundering of Constatinople (1204). The shroud had been in Constatinople until the pilaging of the fourth Crusade. As late as 1201 Nicholas Mesarites, the curator for a church in Constantople recorded the presence of a sidones which was supposed to be Jesus' burial cloth. Three years later, Robert de Clari reported seeing on display in Constatinople. The trasfer of Mandylion from Edessa to Constantinople was a bid deal, full of public celebration and was well documented.

There of course a great deal more documentation but this is just quick posting. It might be wrong, but it is hardly a simple guess.
The interesting other point no one has mentioned is that the documentation of earlier "shrouds" comes almost exclusively from the middle agesl. That is to say, the stories do mention and earlier shroud, but the documents that mention the earlier history don't appear until the middle ages.

It would be like me writing an article and mentioning that I hear tell that 100 years ago such and such a thing happened. It's still just me asserting heresay and is not a primary source document from the time.

Tladatsi

August 17th 2006, 05:36 PM

Except for the Mandylion, which was a long piece of cloth folded into a square with the face of Jesus preserved on it that happens to look very much like the face of the man in the Shroud of Turninl

The Mandylion was first recorded in writing in about 400 AD in "Doctrine of Addai" which recounts the apostle Thaddeus (Addai) bringing an amazing protrait to King Abgar who is the first King to convert to Christianity. The Mandylion as such is first recorded as by Evagrius Scholasticus in is Ecclesiastical History. He claims that Mandylion was re-discovered in 544, after it had been hidden from the Pesians, who had conquored Edessa many years ealier. He said that the image was "created by God, and not produced by the hands of man (acheiropoietos). There are many copies of the Mandylion in mosaics, coins, and other imagry which date back to not before 400 AD.

Here is a very early painting of Jesus for catacombs of Rome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Good_shepherd_02b_close.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ChristAsSol.jpg

You will not how it looks nothing like the traditional images of Jesus. He has a triangular face, no bread, short hair, no long distinct nose, nor owl-like eyes. This was typical presentation of Jesus up until the the popularization of the Mandylion. After the Mandylion was found, the image Jesus was transformed into the one almost universally shown in Christian art. This is perhaps the oldest surviving image of Jesus as we know Him today, older, beareded (except between the lower lip and chin), long hair, long narrow face, long narrow nose, large owl-like eyes, high arching eyebrows, hair parted at the center with some strands hanging down, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Christ_with_beard.jpg

So there are plenty of pre-medieval copies of the Mandylion. We know the Mandylion was moved from Edessa to Constantinople and that it disapeared from Constantinople in 1204 when the French cursaders pillaged that city and that it showed up in France not more than 150 years later.

The interesting other point no one has mentioned is that the documentation of earlier "shrouds" comes almost exclusively from the middle agesl. That is to say, the stories do mention and earlier shroud, but the documents that mention the earlier history don't appear until the middle ages.

It would be like me writing an article and mentioning that I hear tell that 100 years ago such and such a thing happened. It's still just me asserting heresay and is not a primary source document from the time.