Posted on 10/08/2009 11:35:33 AM PDT by Nikas777
Teacher Has Theory on the Shroud of Turin
Thursday March 24, 2005 1:46 PM
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press Writer
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Nathan Wilson is an English teacher with no scientific training, but he thinks he knows how Jesus' burial cloth was made and he thinks it's not a physical sign of the resurrection.
In other words, in Wilson's estimation, the Shroud of Turin is a fake - produced with some glass, paint and old cloth. And that theory, especially with Easter this weekend, has so-called ``Shroudies'' a buzz.
``A lot of religious people are upset,'' said Wilson, 26, who teaches at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.
Wilson is himself an evangelical Christian but said his views on the shroud don't change his faith.
``I'm a Bible-believing Christian who believes in the resurrection completely without a doubt,'' he said.
The English instructor believes a medieval forger could have painted the image of a crucified man on a pane of glass, laid it on the linen, then left it outside in the sun to bleach the cloth for several days. As the linen lightened, the painted image of the man remained dark on the cloth, creating the equivalent of a photo negative.
Wilson wrote his theory in Books and Culture, a magazine for Christian intellectuals. It was picked up by several Web sites and is being debated in shroud circles. Wilson's Web site received more than 100,000 hits from 45 countries in the first week of his article's publication.
Shroud expert Dan Porter said that while Wilson's theory is ingenious, it does not produce images identical to those on the 14-foot-long, 3-inch-wide strip of linen.
``It is not adequate to produce something that looks like the shroud in two or three ways,'' said Porter, who lives in Bronxville, N.Y. ``One must produce an image that meets all of the criteria.''
Porter contends sun bleaching cannot have produced the image, which he and many others say is the result of chemical reactions on the cloth.
``A problem with Wilson's hypothesis is that sun bleaching merely accelerates bleaching that will occur naturally as the material is exposed to light,'' Porter wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. ``Eventually, Wilson's sun bleach shroud image will fade into the background as exposure equalizes the bleaching.''
The shroud has often been displayed, sometimes in bright sunlight for days at a time, and no such image fading has occurred, Porter said.
Porter and others also question whether panes of glass at least 6 feet long were produced in medieval times, as Wilson's theory would require.
Radiocarbon tests of the Shroud of Turin were done in 1988, and dated the cloth at A.D. 1260 to 1390. But Raymond Rogers of Los Alamos National Laboratory recently argued that the tested threads came from later patches and might have been contaminated. Rogers calculated that the shroud is 1,300 to 3,000 years old and could easily date from Jesus' era.
Wilson said he wants to write a novel about his theory. The forger or perhaps forgers, Wilson theorizes, probably robbed a grave and pulled the aged shroud off a body, then crucified someone to obtain the blood and study the wounds of Jesus.
``Most likely it involved some real wicked people,'' Wilson said.
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On the Web:
Wilson's Web site: http://www.shadowshroud.com
The Shroud is in the news today and I referenced this article it in a post reply so I also posted it as well. I hope it’s OK?
Most so-called athiests are like the man who is morally opposed to breakfast, but who, just to drive his point home, insists on urinating in your oatmeal.
As Garrison Keillor (in his younger, less bitter days) once said: "He was the kind of a man that struck you wouldn't learn another thing until the day he died, but who, about fifften minutes after that, was in for quite an education."
STURP found the image was not just a negative image, but a 3-D negative image. This method would not meet that criteria.
Yes, I'm sure they had 'panes of glass,' especially large ones, during that period...
Who is "this man"? The teacher who ran the experiment? The article calls him a man of Christian faith.
``Most likely it involved some real wicked people,'' Wilson said.
I'm sorry, but this guy is the same kind of filth that passed along "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as being true.
"You know, those Christians bake those 'hot cross buns' on Easter using the BLOOD OF PAGAN BABIES!!!!!!!!!!"
http://www.shadowshroud.com/faq.htm#faq9
2. The Glass Questions
a. How big was medieval glass? Could they make big pieces, or were they all little like those in stained-glass windows?
Wilson’s answer:
When I first presented the Shadow Theory, tentatively, to the student body of New St. Andrews College, I did not know the answer to this question. A member of my audience, however, did. As she had worked a great deal within an artisan glass shop that still used medieval technique she was able to describe the method for blowing a sheet and told me that sheets measuring 6’x8’ were fairly common. When I looked into her explanation, before experimenting, I found that she was absolutely right. Throughout the thirteenth century glass blowers were capable of creating large sheets. They would blow cylinders, up to nine feet or more in length and then, while the glass was still molten enough, they would cut off the bowls that formed both the top and the bottom and slice the cylinder lengthwise, unfolding it into a sheet. The sheets would be cut into small pieces for use in leaded stained-glass windows, or painted while large.
As the Shroud is roughly fourteen feet in length, two pieces of glass would be necessary, both at least six feet long. The image of the front of the man would be produced beneath one and the back of the man beneath the other.
When Dr. Antonio Lombatti, Fellow Researcher in Medieval Church History at the Deputazione di Storia Patria in Parma, Italy was recently asked about the availability of glass large enough to produce the Shroud, he responded, “Of course a medieval artist could have enough glass to produce that relic.” He pointed out that six foot painted glass windows were not uncommon, and also mentioned that the length discrepancy between the front and back images of the man in the Shroud (1-2 inches) suggests two different phases of production.
From this article:
``A lot of religious people are upset,’’ said Wilson, 26, who teaches at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.
Wilson is himself an evangelical Christian but said his views on the shroud don’t change his faith.
``I’m a Bible-believing Christian who believes in the resurrection completely without a doubt,’’ he said.
I didn't see in the article where he ran an experiment, just that he has a theory. I'd like to see him recreate the shroud his way. I would be a lot of money he can't.
Newbies....
Oldies.....
I like word association games.
I must have misread the article...I thought he was trying to persuade me that the shroud was a hoax. As a Christian myself, I am ever ready to be persuaded in favor of God's miracles, and don't go out of my way to make others question theirs.
If a significant sub-section of my faith derived hope and reassuance from believing that one specific location in Bethlehem was the offical, true, exact and guaranteed location of my savior's birth, I would have to be a very self-centered and immature Christian to stand across the street and yell, "WHooboy! Are YOU ever wrong!" (Especially if I was trying to make money selling tickets to MY official offical, true, exact and guaranteed location of my savior's birth, which, incidentally, you can read all about on my website, and I'm writing a book, and I want to get a big movie deal like that Davinci Code guy.
[/SARCASM]
Seriously, it sounds to me like the guy stands to make some significant money for himself selling the idea the shroud is fake, and thereby saddening the faith of many people who believe the Shroud is genuine. Real or not (I side with real) I think it is mean to set out to put bolders in the path of new Christians who might be given hope in their growing faithwalk by the Shroud, and I wouldn't want to be the one who had to stand up in the afterlife and tell the God of All Creation "Yeah, I went out of my way to injure the faith of other Christians, what about it?"
The Shroud of Turin should not be linked to your faith since faith does not require physical evidence as Jesus told Thomas. Your ancestors did not need to to accept Jesus and neither do you.
TYPO ON MY PART CORRECTED TO READ:
The Shroud of Turin should not be linked to your faith since faith does not require physical evidence as Jesus told Thomas. Your ancestors did not need THE SHROUD to to accept Jesus and neither do you. (Your ancestors I assume accepted Jesus without ever hearing about the Shroud and the Catholic Church never has said this the authentic shroud so it violates no principal of faith to doubt the authenticity).
This kind of debunking is appropriate for situations where there is at best anecdotal evidence of a purported event, and so only auperficial, hand-waving "reconstructions" of gross features are sufficient for debunking.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed jack is king.
But the actual Shroud itself, has been available for scientific study from a variety of disciplines. All concurring lines of reproducible evidence are consistent with its being genuine.
Cheers!
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