Mystery solved? Turin Shroud linked to Resurrection of Christ

Joe Nickell is a geologist and has not published his drivel in peer-reviewed scientific literature, unlike the reputable research on the Shroud.

Sorry, Grey, Joe is not even a scientist... he is a failed stage magician with a BA degree in English Literature...

Assuming the new shroud typifies those used in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, the researchers maintain that the Shroud of Turin could not have originated in the city.

That's an assumption that is based one ONE, count it, one, found full body shroud covering an unclean corpse! To make a generalization that it typified cloths used in the Jerusalem area, when it was made of material counter to the Torah's (!) edict against mixing materials, assumes that Jerusalem, was found in a cosmopolitan trade center with multiple cultures where many people came together with trade goods, and is represents a singular sample in a vacuum of data, is an EXTRAORDINARY leap that no scholar should make. . . Except a biased one with an agenda to denigrate another disputed object!

The facts are that fine woven goods were an EXPORT good of the Jerusalem area, that three over one twill Linen, hank bleached flax yarn was common, and often woven in large sheets on wall looms in the area, all things seen on the shroud of Turin, contrary to the revisionist claims of the skeptics who would have you believe the people of Jerusalem were ignorant unskilled savages instead of a people with an over 90% literacy rate required of their religion!

Ergo, that statement is false. It's based on a very flawed data and it's an "assumption" designed to make an ass out of people who read it! Frankly, I would call it an outright lie, designed to fool people who don't bother to search out the true facts. Why is it a lie? Because the author KNOWS what he wants you to assume is wrong!

I am going to refute your idiot source one issue at a time... it's like shooting fish in a barrel because his "facts" are not facts at all... but falsehoods for the most part.

Strong evidence (sic) against the authenticity of the shroud:

1: Respected, trusted and very reliable scientific carbon dating has placed the shroud's origin around the 14th century, specifically between 1260 and 1390 CE.

Science has moved on since 1988. This C-14 test stood for many years but PEER-REVIEWED science has invalidated it in 2005, when Raymond N. Rogers and two other scientists in separate research from three different approaches PROVED that the sample taken in 1988 WAS INDEED taken from an area of the Shroud that had been patched in approximately 1560 by a well know technique known as "French Invisible Reweaving."
This technique involved matching the color of the original material by dyeing the threads to be rewoven into the damaged area, actually re-twisting the new threads into the old, and then re-weaving the damaged area skillfully to match the original as closely as possible. Since LINEN is very difficult to dye with the dyes available in the 16th Century, the artisans used COTTON... and alaric dyes, They also used mordants and a bleaching technique not available in the 1st Century, or even earlier than the 15th Century, to prepare their threads that they rewove into the original material of the Shroud. These rewoven threads ARE VISIBLE in the photomicrographs that were taken of the Carbon 14 sample before it was burned, AND the center sub-sample C—that was retained as a control—STILL EXISTS and does show that on one side it is Pure dyed COTTON, and on the other side it is LINEN, composed of FLAX.
The change over from original shroud material on the right hand side of the sample, to patch material on the left hand side, varied from a mixture of 40% to 60% new to old the farther you got away from the main body of the shroud. This variation of percentage accounts for the variation of ages the various labs got from their very accurate testing they found when they tested their samples that were cut cross wise across the main sample! This SHOULD have raised a huge RED FLAG for the scientists doing the testing because their raw dating data did NOT show a homogenous dating but ranged from a low of 1260AD at the inner most sub-sample to a high of 1390 at the outermost sub-sample, yet their degree of confidence was plus or minus 25 years! This meant that the test sample could have been created as early as 1235AD or as late as 1415AD! The inner subsamples DID NOT OVERLAP the degrees of confidence of the outermost on either end!!! To any objective observer, the conclusion would have been obvious: the sample was not homogenous from one end to the other but was a melange of differently dated materials. Two different statisticians, writing in scholarly peer-reviewed papers in the 1990s raised these questions and challenged the tests for these raw data alone!
To even GET the dates the labs got, it turns out that the scientists reporting the figures FUDGED their data! For example, the Arizona lab got the pieces from both extreme ends... and to report their data, they AVERAGED them together! WOW! Good thing they left the raw data alone when publishing their reports.
The 1988 C14 sampled area of the Shroud reacted CHEMICALLY and PHYSICALLY differently during the 1978 STURP testing and was the ONE area that the scientist of STURP agreed should NOT be tested in any C-14 test. . . yet that was where the scientists, who were unrelated to the STURP scientists, elected to take their sample.
The Rae's Sample, which is still in private hands, which was taken seven years before the STURP testing from the area to the exact left of the 1988 C-14 sample, was retested and was found to be pure cotton. The rest of the Shroud is pure Linen. Ergo, the C-14 Test of 1988 is invalidated.
When Harry Gove, the inventor of the C-14 method used to test the Shroud was asked what age the ORIGINAL material would have to be when it is 60% contaminated with material of a known date of ~1560 was tested with it that gave a Carbon growth date of ~1350, he did some figuring and came up with, "Give or take 100 years, First Century!"

2: The provenance or history of the shroud can only be traced back to the 14th century. The earliest written record of the shroud is a Catholic bishop's report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing scheme, and that a predecessor had "discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it". In 1390, Pope Clement VII declared that it was not the true shroud.

The first sentence is true... but that is as far into truth the author gets. The rest is false. Bishop Pierrre D'Arcy's draft letter of some 30 years after the shroud's first exposition, exists in the files of the Cathedral at Troyes, but NOT in the Vatican... indicating it was never sent to the antiPope Clement. . . or that the Pope never received it. The Bishop did NOT claim it was a "faith-healing" scheme but more a plan to bring in donations to the little chapel at Lirey. This claim ignored the fact that Geoffroy D'Charney had funded the chapel entirely out of his own family treasury and had NOT asked for donations, and in fact it wound up bankrupting his family. The Bishop's letter claiming that a "predecessor Bishop had spoken to a claimed painter who had claimed he had painted it" is mere hearsay... and actually may have spoken to one of the many painters who were hired to paint copies of the Shroud... of which there are many obvious copies that have been made, none of which are anywhere near what the Shroud of Turin is. Since there is no significant pigment on the Shroud, it is NOT a painting. Pope Clement did NOT declare it was not the true shroud but only allowed that it be displayed as a "representation of the True Shroud of Jesus" the same requirement he required of all the Shroud claimants.
Incidenally, the Pope impressed perpetual SILENCE on Bishop D'Arcy... told him to SHUT UP about the Shroud of Turin. Mostly this was about turf and the fact that pilgrims were going to the little chapel at Lirey to see the Shroud instead of going to the Cathedral at Troyes to see the not-so-impressive relics there, and of course spend their sous with the local inns and hotels!

3: The Bible gives clear details of Jesus' burial cloth — linen strips and a separate cloth for the head — that clearly conflicts with the shroud, which is one large rectangular piece. [Jn 19:40, Jn 20:5~7, Lk 24:12]

Actually, no, it does not; it is very unclear. But the Mishnah—the Jewish body of customs and laws—does give very specific directions... and NO WHERE IN THE MISHNAH does it specify wrapping dead bodies alá mummies! It does specify binding the wrists, ankles, and jaw closed with strips of cloth or bindings, closing the eyes with potsherds or coins, and covering the body, as well as washing and anointing the body... but it also specifies other practices for bodies that have died VIOLENT deaths!
The women were coming on Sunday morning to FINISH what the men who had buried Jesus had left uncompleted because of the coming sabath, which began at sundown on Friday, the day Jesus was crucified, and the day they had not had time to complete all the proper ritual cleansings and anointings. They were in a hurry to cleanse themselves ritually for the sabbath as much as was possible after handling a dead body!
Yes, there WAS a cloth around his face... but it was a cloth rolled and made into a binding that tied his jaw closed—it was ABOUT his face, the other translation of the Greek word—and that cloth exists to this day—It's called the Sudarium of Oviedo—and shows signs of that rolling and tying. It went under his jaw, behind his hair, over his ears, and was tied at the crown of his head, to keep his jaw from gaping open. THAT is the cloth that he pulled off his head and dropped "rolled by itself in a separate place" from the graveclothes.

4: The Bible described 75 to 100 pounds of spices being wrapped in the burial cloth. No traces of spices have been found on the shroud. [Jn 19:40]

Yes, the author is right about the spices. But NO, he is wrong about there being no traces. There ARE traces of those spices on the Shroud. Dr. Avinoam Danin, the world's foremost expert on herbs, plants, and pollens of Israel area, a JEWISH Professor of Botany, Department of Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel has identified more than 70 different plants on the Shroud has stated:
"Hundreds of images of plant parts, such as flowers, flowering buds, fruits, stems, and leaves were found on high-grade photographs made from negatives by Enrie of 1931. These photographs were enlarged to life size and many were photographically enhanced to show these faint images more clearly. These images are mainly clustered around the head area but also extend down the sides of the upper body and onto the abdomen. They were observed initially by Dr. A. and Mrs. M. Whanger, and were confirmed more recently by me. While the images are of slightly wilted flowers rather tightly clustered together, many of them are quite identifiable even though they are faint, partial, and of low contrast. Experimental studies with corona discharge by physicist O. Scheuermann produced images from flowers similar to the images found on the Shroud. Nearly thirty species have been identified visually from the Shroud images. This correlates significantly with the studies by forensic microscopist Dr. Max Frei, who took sticky tape samples from the Shroud in 1973 and 1978. He found many pollen grains on these tapes, and tentatively identified some fifty-eight genera or species, mostly from plants growing in the Near East. Gundelia tournefortii L., a thorn, is one of the plants whose images I identified near the anatomical right side of the head image. Dr. Uri Baruch, palynologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority who made his M.SC. and Ph.D. dissertations on the flora of Israel, analyzed most of Frei's 1973 sticky tape pollen specimens and ten of the twenty-five 1978 sticky tapes. He examined 165 pollen grains, of which 45 (27.3%) were Gundelia tournefortii. On some of the tapes, he found more than ten grains in an area less than 5x1 cm. When Baruch was collecting "pollen rain" at various sites in the Judean Mountains and Judean Desert, he never found at any site more than 1 or 2 grains of this plant. The images of the plant and the presence of so many of its pollen grains on the Shroud prove that blooming plants were placed on the Shroud, as the pollen grains could not have been deposited by wind. G. tournefortii blooms in Israel from February (in the semi-desert warm parts) to May (in Jerusalem), hence testifying the time these plants could have been placed on the Shroud. G. tournefortii grows only in the Near East; therefore, the Shroud could have come only from the Near East.
"Images of Zygophyllum dumosum Boiss, an endemic plant of Israel, Jordan, and Sinai, do not need any verification of pollen grains, although they are present in Frei's list. Two kinds of leaf images as well as flower images of this plant were identified on the Shroud. The unique leaf pattern development, visible on the Shroud, will be illustrated. Other species of Zygophyllum do not have this morphology. These plant images are observed on both the Enrie (1931), Miller (1978), Pia (1898) photographs, and I saw the large leaf with my own eyes armed with binoculars when visiting Turin June 5, 1998. All these indicate that the Zygophyllum images are not photographic artifacts. The northernmost place on earth where this plant could have been collected fresh is 15-30 km between the Sea Level sign on the road to Jericho and the Jordan River.
"The authenticity of the Near East as the source of the Shroud of Turin is completely verified to me as a botanist through the images and pollen grains of Gundelia tournefortii and the images of Zygophyllum dumosum leaves. Other important botanical findings, such as the images of some 200 fruits of two-three species of Pistacia and the reed Arundo donax, will be described and illustrated by photographs. Using my data base of more than 90,000 sites of plant distribution, the place that best fits the assemblage of the plant species whose images and often pollen grains have been identified on the Shroud is 10-20 km east and west of Jerusalem. The common blooming time of most of these species is spring = March and April."Source

Several of the plants identified by Danin, and verified by palynology (the study of pollens), have been extinct since the 5th Century. How did THEY get on the Shroud???

5: The Bible quotes Jesus as saying there are nail holes in his hands from the crucifixion. By contrast the shroud image has no wounds in his hands but one in his wrist. [Jn 20:24-27]

This author obviously has no medical knowledge and is ignorant of all of the forensic scientists who have experimented on cadavers and crucifixion or he would not state such a "factoid!" The fact is that if one were to place a large nail at the base of one's palm, still in the hand, and drive it in there, the nail passes through a space, hitting the median nerve, causing the thumb to paralyze and flop into the center of the palm, the nail will push aside the bones of the wrist, and the nail will emerge EXACTLY where the wound is seen on the Shroud of Turin! This space that is naturally occurring is called the "space of Destot." The ENTRY wound will be at the base of the palm. It will support the body because it is completely surrounded by the bones of the wrist.

6: No examples of the shroud linen's complex herringbone twill weave date from the first century. However the weave was used in Europe in the Middle Ages, coincidentally when the shroud first appeared.

This is just plain false. Herringbone twill weaves have been found on mummies in Egyptian burials far pre-dating the first century... by 2000 years. It is NOT a hard weave to do. This is a red-herring argument that is based on the premise that these were ignorant peasants who were primitive. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Fine woven cloth was an EXPORT item from the Jerusalem area. There are hundreds of examples of many different weaves from the 1st and 2nd Century... and even some herring bone twill found on Masada.

7:The clear implication of all three synoptic gospels is that the material was bound tightly round the body, yet the Shroud of Turin shows an image made by simply lying a linen shroud on top of the front of the body, over the head and down the back. There is a lack of wrap-around distortions that would be expected if the cloth had enclosed an actual three-dimensional object like a human body. Thus the cloth was never used to wrap a body as described in the Bible. If the image had been formed when the cloth was around Jesus' corpse it would have been distorted when the cloth was sflattened out.

No, there ARE distortions and computer image analysis shows them to be there... but there is no wrap around... because the body was packed with 75 to 100 pounds of plant material around it and the cloth was laid on top of that as well. As to the burial and cloth bindings see the answer to 3 above.

8: There are serious anatomical problems with the image, such as the height of the body, length of limbs, ears missing, front and back images not matching, hair hanging the wrong way etc. (More details further in the article.)

There are no problems with the anatomy of the man in the image. Experts on such have examined the image and computerized image analysis, when the draping of the cloth and calculations made for such, have found the body is a normal human, proportionally configured male, approximately 5 feet, 9-10" tall. The hair hanging the wrong way is caused by the cloth binding forcing the sweat stiffened hair forward on-top of the binding that is under the chin and behind the hair in front of the ears. Experiments have shown this happening multiple times. Only skeptics have come up with figure claiming the image is of a man as much as 6'10" tall (!) by measuring from the tip of the pointed toes to a water stain they claim is the crown of the supine figure's head!

9: There is no blood on the shroud: all the forensic tests specific for blood, and only blood, have failed. There is no trace of sodium, chlorine or potassium, which blood contains in high amounts and which would have been present if the stains were truly blood. The alleged bloodstains are unnaturally picture-like. Real blood spreads in cloth and mats on hair, and does not form perfect rivulets and spiral flows. Also, dried "blood" (as on the arms) has been implausibly transferred to the cloth. The alleged blood remains bright red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with age. All the wounds, though according to the Gospel accounts made at different times, appear as if still bleeding, even though blood does not flow after death. A corpse does not bleed.

This, again, is false. Unlike the one scientist, the late Dr. Walter C. McCrone, a Microscopist, who claimed there was no blood and further claimed the blood was merely Iron Ocher and Vermilion pigments, ALL other scientists who have looked at it have found blood... lots of it. These include world rated scientists who SPECIALIZE in blood such as the Late Dr. John Heller MD, former professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Physics at Yale University, Dr. Alan Adler PhD Physical Chemistry, (who is Jewish), Dr. Robert Bucklin, MD, Professor of Pathology and Forensic Patholgist of Los Angeles County, and Dr. Bruce Cameron, double PhD specializing in hemoglobin in all of its forms... all of whom found BLOOD on the Shroud. Blood that that contained bilirubin from extreme trauma that does NOT go black as it ages! These scientists found:

1: High Iron in blood areas by X-Ray fluorescence.
2: Indicative reflection spectra for blood.
3: Indicative microspectrophotometric transmission spectra for blood
4: Chemical generation of characteristic porphyrin florescence.
5: Positive hemochomomegen test for blood.
6: Positive Cyanomothemoglobin test for blood.
7: Positive detection of bile pigments.
8: Positive demonstration of proteins.
9: Positive indication of albumin.
10: Protease tests, leaving no residue.
11: Positive immunological tests for HUMAN albumin.
12: Microscopic appearance as compared with appropriate controls.
13: Forensic Judgement of various wound and blood marks by Forensic specialists.

Only Walter C. McCrone claims there is no blood on the shroud... because he looked through a light microscope and claimed to see pigment. Yet NO OTHER SCIENTIST WHO HAS LOOKED can see pigment! Walter C. McCrone refused to submit his work to peer review. Quod Erat Demonstratum: There is blood on the Shroud of Turin.

The Bible [John 19:40] indicates that Jesus' burial followed Jewish customs. Thus, Joseph of Arimethea would have washed the body. Since he had time to wrap in the spices, he would have had time to wash it. The body shown in the shroud was not washed.

Why were the women returning to the tomb to FINISH THE BURIAL???

Microscopic analysis showes significant traces of what could be paint pigment on image areas.

Patently false. While there are flecks of pigment on the shroud, they are randomly distributed and are not associated with the image or blood areas. They also do not rise to visibility. Far more sophisticated instruments than McCrone's light microscope, such as X-ray microspectrographs, instruments that can tell the composition of the vinyl baggies that samples were transported in from transferred exudation, have FAILED to find any pigments on the Shroud image areas.
In addition, we now KNOW what the image is made of... and it is NOT any pigment. The blood is blood. That has been proved to many times to repeat. The image is made of caramel... a starch fraction in the soapwort left over from the fullering of the linen threads when they were cleaned after bleaching. It is thinner than a soap bubble... and very fragile. It is not any kind of human applied pigment and the coating exists on ALL of the threads of the shroud. But those where the image exist have, for some reason, either turned to caramel or aged faster than those where there is no image... and the image was formed by a vertically collimated "something"... a something that had no horizontal component worth mentioning, that faded to nothing at about 4-5 cm distance from the body the Shroud covered.

I am pinging the Shroud list to return to this topic because of my response in the previous post refuting a source that Jiggyboy was linking to claiming the Shroud of Turin was a 14 century hoax. I thought you all might be interested. I will attempt to post more.

It was, suggests de Wesselow, seeing the Shroud in the days immediately after the crucifixion, rather than any encounter with a flesh and blood, risen Christ, that convinced the apostles that Jesus had come back from the dead.

And then they said, "Hey, what if we were hiding out and worried about the authorities and Jesus suddenly came and stood amongst us and said, 'Hey, it's really me. A ghost doesn't have flesh and blood. Got anything to eat?' You know, ghost, sheet? Let's just write it all up 'as if' because, you know, since we found this thing, it could happen, right?"

Hey, I've got an idea. It was seeing the risen Jesus in the days after the crucifixion that convinced the apostles (and hundreds more) that Jesus had come back from the dead and the shroud was both an attendant circumstance and reminder of the event.

More refutal of the idiot skeptic.

Weak evidence (sic) put forward for the authenticity of the shroud:

12: 'The shroud's image appears to show a crucified man'. This is true, but then magicians appear to cut people in half too. Appearances can be deceptive. Even if this was truly a crucified man, there is no way you could prove it was Jesus.

Multiple pathologists and medical doctors have examined the image on the shroud and are agreed it is the image of a dead man who was crucified. They do not doubt that he was dead, that he was human, and that it is a real body. They will agree that they cannot prove he was Jesus of Nazareth, merely from the image.

13: 'There is the exact number of lashes from a whipping on the back as stated in the Bible'. Nowhere in the Bible is the number of lashes that Jesus received mentioned. Thus it is impossible to say that the shroud wounds match that of Jesus. This is pure invention.

It is true that the Bible does not cite the number of lashes Jesus received. However, the traditional number was 39. The sentence was usually 40, but the Jewish tradition was to stop at 39, in case the count was mistaken to avoid over punishment. But, it was a ROMAN soldier—in fact the evidence on the Shroud indicates two Roman soldiers, one on each side, one slightly taller than the other—administering this lashing, so there might be no such compunction to stop at 39 or even 40. The estimates of lash marks on the image of the man on the shroud vary from 110 to 120. A Roman flagrum had three thongs with two lead or bronze balls or cubes at the end of each thong to rip and tear the skin. Assuming three wounds from every strike, and 110 to 120 wounds, then the traditional number of lashes in the scourging is what we would expect... and conforms to the Biblical description and historical accounts.

14: 'The image on the shroud matches the Biblical account of Jesus' crucifixion'. As detailed above, the Bible completely conflicts with the shroud image, so use of this argument is dishonest.

Actually, his details above are NOT accurate and his claim is the dishonest one. The man on the Shroud DOES indeed match the death described in the Biblical account of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in almost every detail. His arguments in most instance are simply wrong or mistaken, both willful or ignorantly.

15: 'We can also see a large blood stain and elliptical wound on the person's right side (remember, in a negative imprint left and right are reversed)'. No, they're not. Left and right are reversed in a mirror image, but not in a negative image. This confusion aside, the Bible says that Jesus was pierced with a spear, but it does not say which side. Thus arguments that attempt to say it does and that this matches the shroud are false.

This is a false dichotomy about mirror and negative imaging... the image is a reversal... with the transfer being a mirror of the original. It is a red herring argument. Think of taking your wristwatch and transferring it from the arm it is on, onto an exact picture of you on the wall... on the SAME SIDE it is on ... so that the watch will now appear to be on the RIGHT WRIST, not the left. Ergo the image is mirrored.

16: 'The shroud shows one wound in the wrist, not the hand. Research has show that this is correct since nails through the hands would not have been able to support a body on the cross. Medieval artisans would not have known this'. It is pure arrogance to assume that medieval artisans wouldn't have known this. They were a lot closer to crucifixion times than we are. Even though artists generally painted Jesus with nails through the hands, they were probably just depicting what was described in the Bible. If the shroud is correct about the wrist, then the Bible is wrong. An authentic shroud means a false Bible. Remember also that artists always depicted Jesus with his genitals covered (and Adam and Eve with fig leaves) when everyone agrees that they were naked.

Artisans? ARTISANS? I think he means artists. He is wrong about artists always depicting Biblical figures as covered. Adam and Eve were often shown nude... it was later that prigs and revisionists and iconoclasts came along and painted or added carved fig leaves on the artwork.
See my response to his claims about the nail wound in number 5 in the previous post above to find out how wrong he is about that "factoid."
Medieval artists did indeed paint or carve the nail holes in the middle of the palm of the hand and out the back of the hand. It matters not how much closer they were to the times of crucifixion they lived... They painted what they thought was being described and would have placed it in the same location on a hoaxed creation such as the Shroud.

17: 'The shroud image is naked, as Jesus would have been, whereas medieval artisans never depicted Jesus naked'. This is true, but as discussed above, the image hides his nudity by adopting an unnatural posture. He is effectively clothed, whereas a dead body wrapped from head to toe in an opaque cloth wouldn't be concerned with modesty.

No, the body is in rigor mortis. It is bent and the body is not completely flat. This has been demonstrated numerous times by SCIENTISTS using both computerized modeling and actual humans "assuming the position." In that position, the hands easily fall where they are in the image on the Shroud.
In addition, the genitals ARE indeed visible on the man on the Shroud. Barrie Schwortz, the principal light photographer of STURP (a Jew)—apparently one of those devout CHRISTIANS that the author claims every member of STURP is, except for one Agnostic (McCrone, who was actually a self-acknowledged Atheist and not an agnostic!)—told me that under computer enhancement, the genitals of the Man on the Shroud are just barely visible below the hands and that he is circumcised.

18: 'The image of the shroud obviously portrays Jesus'. Rubbish. No one has any idea what Jesus actually looked like. The Bible contains no hints — short, tall, fat, skinny, long hair, bald etc. No details at all, so how can anyone say that an image resembles him? A dishonest argument.

This is indeed a circular argument... as the image on the Shroud is thought to be the source of our idea of what Jesus looked like! If, as is now thought, it is the Image of Edessa, found in the sixth Century when a wall collapsed in 544AD and revealed where it had been placed for safe keeping from iconoclastic movements in Turkey, it would explain the sudden change in all Jesus iconography that exploded from that time onward with many points of congruence with the image of the Shroud.
It is, however, a chicken and egg argument... which came first, the Shroud as source Jesus Iconography, the egg? Or the Shroud as result of a thousand years of iconographic development of Jesus depiction, the chicken? Most scholars who have studied issue believe the Shroud is the source document of fifth Century onward Jesus iconography. Prior to that date, Jesus was pictured as a short haired, beardless youth, often carrying a lamb... post that period, he is as we picture him today, a bearded mustached, man with long hair.

19: 'The apparent bloodstains contain real human blood'. This is contradicted by other scientists who insist that all the forensic tests specific for blood, and only blood, have failed. While there are traces of iron, proteins and porphyrins which are found in blood, these are also found in artists' pigments. However, as already stated, there is no trace of sodium, chlorine or potassium, which blood contains in high amounts and which would have been present if the stains were truly blood. It's also important to realise that even if there was blood on the shroud, whose blood was it? How old is it? Medieval perhaps? The existence of blood proves nothing as we don't know Jesus' blood group nor do we have a sample of his DNA to compare it with.

Piffle. The "other scientists" consist of Walter C. McCrone, a microscopist and chemist, and two police forensic specialists who do not have scientific degrees. They failed to get the blood to dissolve, a difficult task on blood as old as the blood on the Shroud. There IS Potassium, and Sodium on the Shroud as shown by very sensitive tests... Chlorine rapidly disappears into the atmosphere with the presence of any water vapor over time. This is to be expected with old blood... but even it is there in trace amounts. The TRUE scientists are SPECIALISTS in medicine and forensic work who have worked with blood that is over 100 years old before and know how to get it into solution to properly test it. THEY found that it was indeed blood. Look at answer 9 above showing the specific tests done by REAL scientist who worked with the Shroud samples using proper equipment and tested for things like HUMAN immune reactions, and HUMAN Albumin, and Primate hemochromogen tests... and see if you find those in Tempera paints like English Literature graduate Joe Nickell claims you do! Keep in mind these are scientists publishing in PEER-REVIEWED scientific journals IN THEIR FIELDS of blood related study... not popular skeptical journals

20: 'Pollen from Palestine is found on the shroud'. This claim has been discredited as "fraud" and "junk science". The person who originally claimed to have found the pollen on the Shroud was Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist. However the pollens were very suspicious, as pollen experts quickly pointed out. First of all, they were missing the most obvious pollen you would expect, which would be from olive trees. 32 of the 57 pollens allegedly found by Frei are from insect-pollinated plants and could not have been wind-blown onto the exposed shroud in Palestine. Similar samples taken by STURP in 1978 had comparatively few pollens. Also cloth was often brought to medieval Europe from Palestine, so there is no strong support even if pollen was found.

The Max Frei work was only "discredited" and called a "fraud" in skeptical journals. No where else. His work was published in peer-reviewed journals. The claims of discrediting was not. It has later been reviewed and found to be validated by the World's foremost expert on plants of the Paletinian area, Dr. Avinoam Danin, Professor of Botany of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. See My answer #4 in the previous post to see his commentary on what HE found and his claims. He is Jewish.

21: 'Coins dated to the early 1st century are seen over the eyes of the shroud image'. This claim was originally made by Father Francis Filas after examining a 1931 photograph, yet the coins can't be seen in better quality 1978 photos. We are expected to believe that poor quality photos showed not just coins, but enough detail to determine when they were minted. Another problem with the coins is explaining why they were placed on the eyes. There was no such Jewish custom in 1st century Palestine. The claim of some believers to see coins must be weighed against the claim of others to also see nails, a spear, a sponge on a reed, a crown of thorns, a hammer, scourges, tongs, dice, flowers etc on the shroud. Even most shroud researchers reject these claims as simply an example of an overactive imagination, as do I.

I too doubt the nails, spear, sponge, crown of thorns (some say there are two) and other things some claim to see... including a death certificate. It's getting mighty crowded on the Shroud.
However, there is other evidence that the coins are actually there. The Pontius Pilate Lepton on the left eye was reported to have CAESAR misspelled with a C instead of the more correct KAESAR that was expected when Father Filas first reported the coins. Others looking at the enhanced photographs also saw the C as well and decided, because of the misspelling, it was an imagination created coin. However, years later, six Pontius Pilate Leptons, struck in AD29 were unearthed in Jerusalem with the MISSPELLED word exactly matching the coin that is apparently on the eye on the Shroud. Note these coins were found AFTER the discovery on the Shroud... and matched what was seen on the Shroud. There is no doubt about the authenticity of the Leptons. Later a lepton with the same misspelling was found to have existed in the collection of the British Museum for over 100 years.

22: 'STURP scientists authenticated the shroud'. Unfortunately almost all of those that made up this group were deeply religious, and many were not specialised in the field they investigated. The group consisted of 40 US scientists, made up of 39 devout believers and 1 agnostic. The makeup of this group is stacked and very biased towards authenticating the shroud, and therefore their claims must be taken with an extremely large grain of salt. In fact the STURP scientists made some of their "authenticity" statements that people quote from the media before they had even examined the shroud. However they were unable to date the shroud. Even if their conclusions, given the scientific tools they had available at the time (1978), were beyond reproach, science has advanced greatly since then. Carbon dating in 1988, a more invasive and accurate test, dated the shroud to between 1260 and 1390 CE. STURP's results have been superseded. That is the nature of science.

This is a total fabrication. I know of NO ONE IN STURP that has "authenticated" the Shroud of Turin. NOT ONE. The claim that the scientists who made up STURP were 39 deeply religious and 1 agnostic is a lie as well. There were agnostics, atheists, Jewish and Christian, Catholic and Protestant members of STURP. For example Dr. Alan Adler and John Heller, were both Jewish, as was the group's main photographer Barrie Schwortz. According to Barrie, and he has said this many times, the group went with the intent to investigate and falsify the claim it was the Burial Shroud of Jesus Christ. They expected to find pigments. They did not. But they DID NOT FIND any pigments that were present in visible concentrations or that were associated with any image areas.

23: 'The shroud contains a negative of the image, and medieval artisans knew nothing of photography'. The shroud image is NOT a true photographic negative but only an apparent one — a faux-photographic negative. The "positive" image shows a figure with white hair and beard, the opposite of what would be expected for a Palestinian Jew in his thirties. Medieval artisans need know nothing of photography since it's not photographic.

This is a false equivalence. The image is not a negative. It appears to be one but it is not. It is a Terrain Map with three dimensional data encoded in it according to density of the image. The author is erecting a straw man merely to shoot down what is not claimed.

24: 'It's impossible to reproduce an image with shroud-like qualities'. False. Joe Nickell constructed one using a rubbing technique on a bas-relief model, using the pigments, tools and techniques available in the Middle Ages. The statement that we cannot make such an image is simply false propaganda. Faux-negative images are automatically produced by an artistic rubbing technique. Also as noted in the following section of this article, scientist Luigi Garlaschelli made a very convincing reproduction of the shroud in 2009.

No, it is true that no one has made an image that contains ALL of the qualities of the Shroud of Turin. NO ONE. Joe Nickell's bas Relief rubbings is laughable in its primitiveness... as are all the other attempts. None equal or even approach the Shroud. None make the image in the same way as we now know the image is composed on the Shroud. It is NOT a rubbing or any thing similar. To duplicate the Shroud, to reach that level, one must duplicate it in ALL of the aspects, not just one superficial form. None of the attempts have been even partially successful.

25: 'The image contains 3D information'. The quality of this information is often exaggerated or misinterpreted. Also if the image was produced using a bas-relief method, 3D information would be expected.

This is false. The data is neither exaggerated or misinterpreted. The data is there. The image itself is a 3D terrain map, somewhat distorted, it is agreed, but within its limits, extremely accurate. All attempts to get 3D data from bas-relief created methods of been abysmal failures.

26: There are no brush strokes on the image'. Probably true, but if the image was produced by rubbing as for a bas-relief, then there wouldn't be.

It is true... and true also for bas-relief created attempts. But since we know it was not created by bas-relief dabbing, irrelevant.

27: 'The blood flows and anatomical details are accurate and beyond the knowledge of medieval artisans'. On the contrary, as described above, there are serious anatomical problems with the image. Also as detailed above, the blood flows are completely unrealistic. Blood does not flow from a corpse and real blood spreads in cloth and mats in hair. Also medieval artisans would have been intimately familiar with blood and dead bodies compared to the sheltered life that we in the 21st century lead. The Black Death occurred during the 14th century so blood and death would have surrounded those living during this time.

Back to the misuse of the word "Artisans." Medieval art of the period did not use realism at all. The Renaissance artists were yet to make their appearance and Leonard Da Vinci with his detailed study of the human body and muscle groupings was yet to be born (101 years after the appearance of the Shroud)... and art of the period most resembled cartoons, with little anatomical accuracy. The realism of the Roman period was long past.
Contrary to your claim, blood does indeed flow from dead bodies for some time... YOU are the one who apparently has never handled dead bodies. I have... as has anyone who has worked in the medical field. We know better. Blood pools and will flow. Blood that has bilirubin in it also will continue to flow and will not clot for a lot longer than you think.
You claim the blood flows are completely "unrealistic," yet forensic scientists, specialist in blood flow, have tested these exact blood flows and stated they are exactly correct... and when blood, real human blood is placed on both cadavers and living volunteers, it is found to flow in exactly that manner and positioned exactly where it does on the image on the Shroud. That means you are guessing and the science trumps your guesses.

28: References to the shroud can be found prior to the Middle Ages'. This claim usually refers to the 'Image of Edessa', a holy relic allegedly found in 554 CE in Edessa. It was a square or rectangle of cloth on which it was alleged the face of Jesus was imprinted. Some try to claim that the shroud and the 'Image of Edessa' are one and the same. Yet it did not contain a full body image, only the face, and this legend actually began when Jesus was still alive, so it can't be referring to the shroud. Another image in the Hungarian Pray Manuscript is equally problematic. There are no reputable shroud references that don't conflict with what we know about the shroud, prior to 1355 CE.

The Image of Edessa was described as being Tetra Diplong... double folded in four... when you double fold in four the Shroud of Turin, only the face shows. . . and the creases still existing on the Shroud show that was the way it was once folded for a LONG time. Put a frame around it, and you have the Image of Edessa, the Mandylion, which disappeared when the Image of Edessa was transported to Constantinople in 944... and the Sermon of Gregory Referendarius, the ArchDeacon of the Hagia Sophia was given on the day the "Image of Edessa" arrived in Constantinople and he described the full naked body of the savior on it... with his wounds showing in his blood! That was on August 15, 944, a full 408 years before it was put on display in Lirey, France, by Geoffrey De Charney!

Even though artists generally painted Jesus with nails through the hands, they were probably just depicting what was described in the Bible. If the shroud is correct about the wrist, then the Bible is wrong.

The Greek word, xairos, for hand doesn't mean "palm of the hand" but referred to the entire distal portion of the arm.

Worse and worserer for him, then. :-)

(Posted from another hotel. On the road again.)

Cheers!

I appreciate your work, Sword, but after a time, as Winston Churchill reminds us, "there's no point in making the rubble bounce."

Jiggy is -- on this topic -- a troll.

Haven't read his posting history on anything else to make any declarations there.

Cheers!

Thanks so much for the ping. Saving this for when I can read it slowly and then read the #48 iterations of idiocy.

I appreciate your work, Sword, but after a time, as Winston Churchill reminds us, "there's no point in making the rubble bounce." Jiggy is -- on this topic -- a troll.

Oh, I know that. I did not prepare this for Jiggy. It's been some time since we've had a good rebuttal to the nonsense from the skeptics that Jiggy was citing as authoritative source material, so I thought the ping list members could use a good set of point-by-point refutations using accurate up-to-date scholarship and science, not the innuendo and outdated crap the skeptics keep trotting out. I prepared it for them.

a bit of a sidebar, Swordmaker; A friend of mine sent me a youtube vid... Prophecyinthenews interviewing LA Marzulli... within the body of the interview, Marzulli touches upon the Shroud, and makes some rather extraordinary accusations concerning a 'restoration' which has taken place, significantly ending any credibility wrt new forensic evidence. Do you know what he is speaking of? Here is a link to the vid starting time-wise at the pertinent passage: Clickety-click

Yes, I know what they are discussing. In 2002, under the advice of a self-styled textile expert, Madame Mechtild Fluery-Lemberg, the Shroud was cleaned, vacuumed (removing any in situ evidence of where the shroud had been in the past), stretched and steamed the material to remove wrinkles (all evidence of previous foldings and handling), and the scorched areas were trimmed away (because according to the self-styled expert, the scorched area from the 1532 fire "were still burning"(!), contrary to all scientist's statements to the contrary), and the patches added along with the Holland Cloth backing that were added to repair the Shroud after the fire by the Nuns pf Poor Clare were replaced with modern materials. Finally, the Shroud was placed on—her ill considered advice—into a new reliquary filled with a hydrocarbon atmosphere intended to prevent pests and micro-organisms from future damaging the Shroud but has the unintended effect of suffusing the Shroud with unknown amounts of modern Carbon 14, completely distorting any future attempts to accurately date it.

This was all done in secret and was presented as a "restoration," after the fact, to all Shroud scholar's and scientist's horrified reactions! No peer-reviewed input was requested or desired in advance of the "restoration." It was purely done between non-scientist Fluery-Lemberg and the non-scientist custodian of the Shroud.

OMG!!! ALL THAT??? What were they thinking? That cannot be anything but an intentional destruction of evidence!

Thank you for clearing it up for me, sad as it is. What tragic news.

OMG!!! ALL THAT??? What were they thinking? That cannot be anything but an intentional destruction of evidence!

It was sheer stupidity...

As a scientist and one who likes history, that really makes me sick. Puts a halt to a whole lot of study. Sad. I’m a Christian as well - but it doesn’t bother me in that regard.

Great post #63!