You are missing a very important fact.
The imprint on the shroud is discussed by scientists as being formed in certain ways (light as he was rising, etc). These ways would not have caused the imprint for a brief moment on a veil of Veronica.
Therefore, whatever imprint, should it have been of Jesus - would be a intervention of God. Who is to say it has to be exact????????????????????????????????????????
There are similarities that go above matching just any man INCLUDING Raphael. Show me a self portrait of Raphael with a forked beard or even a thin wispy mustache.
Tell me why the images on the Manoppello veil do not mirror each other on each side - such as the lock of hair?
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/jaworski.pdf
I cannot find a single reference about a letter that Raphael wrote saying he was doing a self-portrait transparent painting on Byssus as the term is used today or cambric. Many many art historians have written about Raphael. The only reference you remember is from a book in 1936. Why does no one else reference this exchange of letters about the technique- not even the book by his student Romano????
I can imagine Raphael getting a painting from Durer done just as the examples I have shown that are still in museums.They don’t look like the Veil. I can also imagine Raphael being so impressed with it that he attempted the technique himself. . I cannot imagine Raphael experimenting on a piece of cloth so rare that it was reserved for royalty and sending it to Durer. Who would have given him such a thing just to experiment on a self portrait?? The Catholic Church, perhaps. But perhaps he experimented on the more generic term used for byssus which meant a fine cloth.
That is still not to say that someone didn’t paint this on byssus as the term is used today but it is important to be as accurate as possible. I can’t imagine a self-portrait on a cloth that is as expensive as you say being sent to Durer. And I sure can’t find a forked beard on Raphael. Btw, he was a better painter that what is on the Veil.
As for pigment, again NOT EVERY RESEARCHER AGREES ABOUT THE PIGMENT...including the chemical analysis that I posted that was one on byssal strands.
I can’t find a single portrait of Raphael that has that wisp of hair at the top. Interesting enough, Durer looking like Jesus self portrait does have a wisp at the hair line.
This is an interesting sysnopsis of the various viewpoints of the Veil. Note that an expert that was consulted in Naples mentions nothing about letters from Raphael stating he was experimenting on Durer’s method.
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/roberto.pdf
It does have various views about the pigments.
Note it says Vigo said the material is cambric. I believe this is not true. She said it was byssus with the use of the term as we know it today.
Look, RummyChick. You obviously have an agenda here. I do not. I have told you the facts. I follow the science. I don't GIVE A DAMN that not every researcher agrees about the pigment. You can SEE THE DAMN PIGMENT on the photomicrograhps! That does not require that ANY RESEARCHER AGREES!
I have no difficulty with the fact that the differences of the images from one side to the other because there ARE differences of the pigments on the cloth and not all of the image is transparent. . . and that which is not, including much of the hair, whites of the eyes, teeth, etc. is PAINTED on both sides of the cloth and simply does not register with the other side, which, frankly, is evidence of it being an artifact of artistic creation, rather than a miraculous creation of Jesus on the way to the Cross. It is irrelevant if it's Byssus (and your red herring about other cloths being called by that name is just exactly that, a red herring, and whether Raphael, would have had access or not to such a costly material — like all artists, he had a wealthy patron to provide his supplies) or cambric pales in the light of the fact that it is a PAINTING! That's what the most recent science says. That's conclusive. It is not a miraculous image. That the Pope made a pilgrimage is also irrelevant.
Your question about God not providing an exact image puts the whole debate into the realm of fantasy!!! That means ANY old thing could be a relic of Jesus, regardless of logic, science, or proof, because God could do anything, make anything, regardless of how absurd it looks because YOU WANT it to be true! In this instance you want God to create a wispy bearded image sans mustache, without wounds, no blood, that has only passing resemblance to the Shroud image, the same passing resemblance it has to every other male face AND create it on the most unlikely of cloths. All logic argues against your thesis... and science and scholarship says your wrong. . . And you want me to prove a negative. I am not going to spend the time to repeat the research I did to find the translation of those letters in that book. Why aren't you finding it? You are reading old commentaries. I had to dig to find it. Trust me. It exists. I'm not even going to find it on FreeRepublic where I posted all of it including links to the original data in 2006.
It's NOT necessary. Since I did that research, the photomicrographic pictures of the Manoppello veil have been taken—photos that anyone can look at—clearly showing pigments, proving it's not miraculous image. Case closed. It's a work of art.