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 Cthat was retained as a controlSTILL 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 Mishnahthe Jewish body of customs and lawsdoes 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 closedit was ABOUT his face, the other translation of the Greek wordand that cloth exists to this dayIt's called the Sudarium of Oviedoand 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.