The Shroud of Turin: A Mystery Across the Ages

Pravoslavie ^ | 08-29-2015 | Fr. Alexey Young

[Swordmaker]

Carbon dating of textiles has had problems with accuracy: an Egyptian mummy-wrapping (Manchester mummy collection) showed an age 700 years younger than the body.

Yes, I know. . . and I told you why. The cloth of those wrappings were inextricably covered and penetrated with contamination from various ages of bacteria, lichen, mold which, when taken in total, had an average age far younger than the original pristine cloth of the wrappings that covered the mummy. When the cloth of the wrapping was dated, they dated the melange of cloth, dead bacteria, dead lichen, dead mold, etc., which was unremovable from the wrappings, because over the years, they had become part of the wrappings. They got a correct age for the AVERAGE of everything in the mixture collected over several thousand years of accumulation.

Now, what part of, "we know exactly why the 1988 C-14 test was skewed," is it that you fail to comprehend? Is it the three "independent, peer-reviewed, published in scientific journals" studies, that proved the tested samples were contaminated with a "sixteenth or seventeenth century cotton patch" equal to forty to sixty percent of the tested weight, exactly proportionate to the tested origination dates? Or perhaps it's the fact "we still have the fifth unburnt sub-sample which is cotton patch" on one side, and original Flax Linen on the other side? Is that it? What are you failing to grasp that causes you to reach back repeatedly to an already falsified hypothesis?

[Nabber]

You have me confused with someone else.

I’m totally on your side.

I think you are spot on, plus I think textiles in general have had problems such as you have specified.

[Swordmaker]

Keep in mind, Nabber, that I post replies to answer questions for the lurkers. Sorry about the means, but I run into some who will worry the same issue to death. Sometimes I have to beat them over the head like that. . . GRIN. Note my reply to the fellow making the links to the skeptical sites.

Thanks for your support. It’s a never ending battle with the people who don’t understand that once science has answered the question, there’s no need to revisit the same issues again and again. Only the skeptics keep bringing up such things. . . because they are preaching to people who are looking for excuses to deny reality.

[Oatka]

I've been studying the Shroud scholarship and the science attached to it for 44 years.

And you still believe it to be a holy relic? You've wasted your time. It is an artifact made by a human ingenuity that has yet to be explained.

All too often when humanity runs into something it can't explain, it is interpreted as being godlike. The Shroud is a good example. "The guy looks like Jesus, we can't discover how it was made, ergo it is a miracle." Please.

The "nuclear flash" is just one of the lunacies the Shroudies put forth.

Haven't heard much about that after the "hinged effect" was pointed out,destroying the idea it was a burial shroud.

That "water stain" looks suspiciously like the remains of the head, backing up the hinged opinion.

Nice try. You stick to your "scientific" theories and I'll stick to my (sneeringly, according to you) "popular delusions".

[Swordmaker]

That "water stain" looks suspiciously like the remains of the head, backing up the hinged opinion.

What "hinged effect" there is a good six to seven inches between the two images, unless the man on the Shroud is a cone head. Did you ever study anatomy? The heads are NOT butted together. That exists only in Joe Nickell's and other skeptic's imaginations. Here I will show you on your own example:

The dark blue lines are the tops of the shoulders of both the dorsal and frontal images. Light blue lines are the crowns of the dorsal and frontal images' heads. I've circled the face of the front face, outlining where the skull and maxilla would be, excluding the hair and beard. Using the same oval from the face, i've move a copy and oriented it with the dorsal image crown of the head, and then altered it for the rounder shape of the rear of the skull. Note the HUGE gap between the two head images. There is no hinge effect.

The water stain IS a water stain from the fire of 1532 and is well documented and is matched by the water stains to either edge of similar shape. Look you will see them.

[Swordmaker]

Nice try. You stick to your "scientific" theories and I'll stick to my (sneeringly, according to you) "popular delusions".

Another example of the techniques used by the desperate skeptics: misquoting what their opponents say and calling them lunatics. I did not say "popular delusions." The skeptics are not popular. The merely make there false claims in the popular press, not in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

[Oatka]

First off, I back down from the "sneering" comment. As soon as I hit the "Post" button (dammit) I realized that was out of line. Your "but they being ignorant, like you, of the science and scholarship" came off as a presumed intellectual and moral superiority.

Time after time one would read about new "scientific proof" and think, "Well, they finally got it." only to see it disproved as sloppy science at best or outright juggling the numbers.

I've seen some of the "research" by the Shroudies, their repeated demand for carbon dating - and when they didn't like the results, they wanted another test. I suspect the Shroud would look like Swiss Cheese until they got what they wanted. Then there was the "3-D effect" where some guy "proved" the image was of a real person - and they the fact that his numbers were "rounded up" disproved that one. Next was the "seeds from the Middle East" found in the cloth, which was then exposed as selective as foreign ones weren't counted.

Too much of that "science" you worship smacks of the "proof of Global warming" pseudo science. God knows (no pun intended), the disbelievers come up with some beauties as you have pointed out, but they are not alone. When a group sets out to prove a point their "findings" always tend to reinforce their point of view even when they profess to be open minded.

I take it you still believe that the cloth is the actual burial cloth of Christ and not some man-made artifact that no one has figured out how it was done?