Bloodstains on Shroud of Turin are probably fake, experts say

Fox News ^ | 07/15/18 | Christopher Carbone

[Simon Green]

The Shroud of Turin, which has been revered by some Christians as the burial cloth of Jesus, could be a fake, according to a new forensic investigation.

The investigation into the bloodstain pattern on the cloth was reported Tuesday in the Journal of Forensic Sciences and is apparently the first such analysis of the controversial shroud.

Held in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, the shroud shows the image of a crucified man and has been analyzed and scrutinized for many, many years. The Vatican regards it as an icon, rather than a religious relic—and the church has never weighed in on its authenticity nor officially rejected it.

In 2015, more than 2 million people saw the Shroud of Turin, which is 14-feet-long, 3.5-feet-wide and kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case. The cloth has long been the subject of debate and study.

Researchers concluded that the linen seems to be patched with bloodstains from a standing model, not a crucified man or a facedown corpse, reports BuzzFeed News, adding evidence to claims that it is a fraud.

“This is the kind of forensic work done all the time in police investigations,” Matteo Borrini, a forensic scientist at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, told BuzzFeed News. “Even a crucified or hanging person should leave a distinct blood pattern on the cloth, which would be fascinating information to have.”

[Sontagged]

No, I just did my research on the Shroud at length, because I was tempted by idiotic TBN-type arguments to believe in it in the early nineties.

Jan and Paul Crouch used to push this Shroud business on unsuspecting believers.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"After the Resurrection, He specifically corrected the Disciples, who thought He was a ghost, for them to touch Him and handle His body, because He was flesh and blood and bones."

Exactly. We're in agreement here. This was His true, own, personal body, flesh: but not unchanged.

As Paul explained (1 Cor.15:35-58) it's like planting a seed and then seeing the sprout come up. The seed is wheat. The sprout is wheat. The seed is tiny, hard, dry, inert. The sprout is flexible, green, rooted, juicy, transpiring, growing. They are the same thing --- they have the identical same genome--- but they have different characteristics:

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. 43 It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.

This "spiritual" body is still flesh -- the same flesh that was born of the Virgin, was crucified, sweated and bled and died and was laid in the grave, solid, tangible, wounded, man-flesh, NOT A GHOST --- but flesh now SUPER-alive, perfected and glorified.

[alrea]

I saw the Shroud of Turin on display in Atlanta, Ga around 1980..

I went to the exhibit in Atlanta also and they said it was a replica of the Shroud of Turin

[Sontagged]

Paul is discussing our own resurrection into glorified bodies, after we die and “become as He is” — not Christ’s resurrection, of which John said that “we will become as He is” but we do not know what He is in His glorified state now, “because we have not yet seen Him” in this state.

Two different resurrections.

The “Resurrection of the Dead” is ours, or all believers in Christ.

Christ’s Resurrection is not what Paul is discussing here.

[MHGinTN]

Between the two fo you, maybe you can figure something out regarding the Blood of Christ ... but I am skeptical since you are agreement that the Resurrected Jesus had his bodily life sustained by blood. I wonder, has it yet hit either one of you that ‘something’ from The Power of God raised Jesus from the dead? Was it blood? or the Power of The Spirit of God?

[Melian]

Interesting!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Could He eat? Yes. Did He need to eat? No. Could He breathe? Yes. Did He need to breathe? No. I don’t think His Resurrected Life was dependent on metabolic processes. Did He need hemoglobin? Apparently not. It was His same body, but perfected, glorified, unbound by Time and Space.

[MHGinTN]

Before you continue to agree with Sontagged, know that she is asserting that the resurrected Jesus had and needed blood coursing through his body to sustain the life in His body.

[Sontagged]

Okay, now I understand more of what you were saying before.

It was the power of God, His Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.

Same as Lazarus.

You know despite all of this “sturm und drang” on these posts, I have actually learned a lot from you and the other guys and I thank you.

And believe it or not, I really want His death and resurrection to be really clear in everyone’s mind, because there will be a great impostor, the counterfeit or antiChrist, who will deceive even the elect, if possible, by Satanic signs and wonders, and he might possibly fake his death or do some fake death and resurrection thing... so it's important to me to be on these threads where "iron can sharpen iron".

[editor-surveyor]

.
I don’t forget, you simply fabricate.

[editor-surveyor]

.
This thread is packed with comic book theology.

[Swordmaker]

Camera obscura... technology understood at least 1000 years ago:

It’s not the camera obscura technology, Sontagged, it’s the photography technology that did not exist in the time frame the theorists want to attribute it to existing. They can point to no other examples of renneissance era photography at all. None. Zip. Nada.

Those who do espouse such early photography without any evidence to back their claims, attribute such an ability to Leonardo Da Vinci as the one who created this miraculous photograph (who never used the technique ever again lest someone figure out what he had done) but also ignore the fact he’d have to also have to have had invented a time machine as Leonardo’s era began approximately 100 years after the first European exposition in Lirey, France, of what would later be called the Shroud of Turin.

It was also quite a number of years beyond the first exposition of the Shroud in Constantinople on August 15, 944 (10th Century) when it was described in the Sermon of Gregory Referendarius, the Arch Deacon of the Haggia Sophia, on the arrival of the Image of Edessa’s arrival there as a double image, both front and back, of our Lord.

“This reflection, however – let everyone be inspired with the explanation – has been imprinted only by the sweat from the face of the originator of life, falling like drops of blood, and by the finger of God. For these are the beauties that have made up the true imprint23 of Christ, since after the drops fell, it was embellished by drops from his own side. Both are highly instructive – blood and water there, here sweat and image. Oh equality of happenings, since both have their origin in the same person. The source of living water can be seen and it gives us water, showing us that the origin of the image made by sweat is in fact of the same nature as the origin of that which makes the liquid flow from the side. This is just like a spring pouring out fresh water as it were from two vessels, which water the tree of life and divide it into two streams, recording the same God and man, one marvellously producing something praiseworthy and superhuman, the other in bringing about a defined likeness of a man, declaring with clear words with which colours the image and likeness should be adorned. And for the prototype to be transferred to the likeness, he does this himself with the sweat of the human form he deigned to bear, and as befits the divinity he decreed that the intellectual image in us, the one we had breathed into us by the first life-giving visitation of the spirit as a good gift, should not be formed from another source, just as he did not form his own image from anywhere else, but rather from a human nature, as it were from the sweat of the form he had taken on, with exactly the right colours. And what is this nature? Purity, calmness, rejection of all evil and whatever else belongs to this class of things, through which similarity to the divinity is formed. Indeed, an image not formed by such things is not like the prototype, and is called something else, not an image.“

Gregory makes other mentions and references throughout his sermon clearly referring to an entire body imprint, and its reflection, such as “flanks” and “form” and only refers to “visage” when he clearly is referring to the inage’s face, but describes the blood flow on the side above which is the only location of the Shroud where the blood stains are obviously separated into blood and sera (clear, watery appearing) stains matching the Biblical descriptive flow of blood and water when the body was pierced by the lancia of the Roman soldier.

[Sontagged]

That's interesting, and seems to be an addition to the knowledge available pre-Internet, which is the last time I really researched this idea.

However, since the Image on the shroud is never discussed or mentioned in Scripture, (though it does mention that the head linens were separate pieces of cloth from the body linens wrapped around Him), I have no real use for it, as my belief that He is come in the flesh and is raised from the dead... Halleluia!

But thanks for sharing, it is interesting in terms of Church history...

[Sontagged]

Mmmkay.

[Swordmaker]

and this is most likely why the Shroud has a slit on the neck for the head and the body... “photos” taken at two different times with two different perspectives.

That "slit” is an artifact of the modern photography, a shadow of a fold that has collected dirt over the centuries, which disappears when the cloth is stretched in that area. SHEESH! You skeptics stretch anything to deny facts that are easily checked.

The perspective, detail, and resolution of the face is no greater or less than the rest of the image. The only ones who claim that are ignorant skeptics who have not actually done the experiments on actual bodies as REAL scientist working within their fields of expertise over the last 120 years have done.

The skeptics are led by the Joe Nickell, a failed stage magician, who has a degree in English Literature. Their primary scientist has a degree in GEOLOGY. . . Yet these two are challenging the findings of people with multiple doctorates and who publish their findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Nickell claimed that three world class experts in hematology and blood fractions mistook the blood stains on the Shroud, after over forty specific scientific tests returning positive tests for human blood descendent materials, for what Nickell says is mere Tempera Paint made with chicken egg albumin and red ochre with some vermillion paint (mercuric sulfide). . . completely ignoring the fact that extremely accurate electron micro-spectroscopy had been done on the Shroud image and blood stains and found no mercury from mercuric sulfide or iron from red ochre, especially in the blood areas. . . But there was iron in the blood area which was identified as iron naturally occurring in hemoglobin and homoglobin descendant fractions.

That Electron micro-spectroscopic analysis is so accurate it can tell the analyst the specific manufacturer of the vinyl envelopes the samples were placed in before testing. Yet Nickell, in his pan-authority and amazing expertise, claims these scientists mistook Tempera Paint for human blood stains? Pardon me if I drip derision on Nickell.

[Sontagged]

I guess it just boils down to the fact I believe John 20:7 more than I believe an artifact? And the fact that Lazarus had been wrapped in the same way, with a head binding and a body binding?

“Nonnus says it is a common word with the Syrians, and the word is used in the Syriac version; and which he renders,”the girdle, or binding of the head”, for with this the head and face of the dead person were bound; see John 11:44.

Now Peter, by going into the sepulchre, and looking about him, and examining things more strictly and narrowly, observed that which neither he nor John had taken notice of, when only stooping they looked in: and that is, that this head binder, or napkin, was not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself: and was plainly the effect of thought, care, and composure; and clearly showed, that the body was not taken away in a hurry, or by thieves, since everything lay in such order and decency; and which was done, either by our Lord himself, or by the angels.”

New International Version

as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.

New Living Translation

while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings.

English Standard Version

and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

Berean Study Bible

The face cloth that had been around Jesus’ head was rolled up, lying separate from the linen cloths.

Berean Literal Bible

and the soudarion that was upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but having been folded up in a place by itself.

New American Standard Bible

and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.

King James Bible

And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

Christian Standard Bible

The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself.

Contemporary English Version
He also saw the piece of cloth that had been used to cover Jesus’ face. It was rolled up and in a place by itself.

Good News Translation

and the cloth which had been around Jesus’ head. It was not lying with the linen cloths but was rolled up by itself.

Holman Christian Standard Bible

The wrapping that had been on His head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself.

International Standard Version

and that the handkerchief that had been on Jesus’ head was not lying with the linen cloths but was rolled up in a separate place.

NET Bible

and the face cloth, which had been around Jesus’ head, not lying with the strips of linen cloth but rolled up in a place by itself.

New Heart English Bible

and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

And a grave cloth, which had been bound about his head, not with the linens, but as it was wrapped and set on the side in one place.

GOD’S WORD® Translation

He also saw the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. It wasn’t lying with the strips of linen but was rolled up separately.

New American Standard 1977

and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.

Jubilee Bible 2000

and the napkin, that had been placed over his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

King James 2000 Bible

And the cloth, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

American King James Version
And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

American Standard Version

and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.

Douay-Rheims Bible

And the napkin that had been about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place.

Darby Bible Translation

and the handkerchief which was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a distinct place by itself.

English Revised Version

and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.

Webster’s Bible Translation

And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

Weymouth New Testament

and the towel, which had been placed over the face of Jesus, not lying with the cloths, but folded up and put by itself.

World English Bible

and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.

Young’s Literal Translation

and the napkin that was upon his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but apart, having been folded up, in one place;

[Sontagged]

The “slit” I referred to was what I recalled from that decades old research... on the neck. Not the more diagonal slash across the chin.

Anyway, the Word says there were two separate wrappings of linen clothes.. one on His face and one for His body. Same as Lazarus.

[Sontagged]

This is a pretty good article that I pretty much agree with.

Lazarus walked out of the tomb, and he apparently was bound the same way Christ was; and this was not indicated with the huge one-piece of cloth for the Shroud.

And the Shroud does not provide for the 70 tp 100 pounds of spices that were put on Christ’s body, according to the Bible.

So, how would you guys defend your belief in the Shroud against this article?

Swordmaker certainly knows more of the written history of the Shroud than I do...so what would you say here?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kermitzarleyblog/2015/03/the-shroud-of-turin-is-not-jesus-burial-clothes/

[Swordmaker]

It has been suggested that some lost type of photographic technology must have been applied before 1357: the Shroud of Turin contains an image that resembles a sepia photographic negative and is much clearer when it is converted to a positive image. The actual method that resulted in this image has not yet been conclusively identified. It first appeared in historical records in 1357 and radiocarbon dating tests indicate it was probably made between 1260 and 1390. No other examples of detailed negative images from before the 19th century are known.

Sorry. It has been conclusively proved by three different scientist using three different approaches, that what was tested in the 1988 C-14 test of the sample taken from the Shroud of Turin was hopelessly flawed from the beginning by the breaking of the sampling protocols when instead of taking the samples from several areas of the Shroud, at the last minute one person decided to cut a single master sample from a single area and distribute THAT to the three C-14 labs.

Unfortunately, he chose to cut that master sample from the one area the scientists involved in the 1978 examination of the Shroud (STURP) all agreed should be avoid due to the observed fact that area was both physically and checally DIFFERENT than the main body of the Shroud in that it fluoresced under a black light (the main body did not), showed an inconsistent weave, tested chemically different, and reflected visible light differently (had spectroscopic differences).

"Ultraviolet and x-rayphotographs taken in 1978, before the carbon 14 dating samples were removed, indicated that there were chemical differences between the sample area and surrounding areas of the cloth. Moreover, Alan Adler, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Western Connecticut State University, had found a significant quantity of aluminum in yarn segments from the general area of the sample. It is not found onother samples from else where on the shroud. Alum, an aluminum compound, the common mordant used with Madder root dye, was certainly an explanation."

The main body of the Shroud is 100% Linen made from Flax. It is not dyed. It was hank fullerene and bleached which was by a soapwort plant, consistent with middle eastern practices of the first century.

The main sample was cut in five pieces, A, B, C, D, and E. A and E were sent to the University of Arizona, the C-14 lab which had invented the technique which was to be used by all three labs. B was sent to Zurich, Switzerland, C was retained as a control, and D was sent to British Museum lab at Oxford, which was in charge. They only announced the averaged results: 1340AD.

However, the devil and his statistical red flags were in the actual results each lab reported for the supposedly homogenous pieces of the master sample they tested. None of the four tested sub-samples agreed!

Sontagged. . . they SHOULD HAVE AGREED! It wasn’t even close. Each of these tests had a range of confidence of plus or minus twenty-five years, yet not a single one of the supposed homogenously composed samples woven from plant materials, assumed to have been harvested at the same time, even over-lapped the fifty year range of confidence of another! That’s not possible on a test that is generally accurate to the around 3% experimental error. Remi Van Haelst, a Belgian Statistician, was the first to publish a credible mathematical challenge to the C-14 results in 1997.

"CONCLUSION :
Facts :
The Arizona error was arbitrary enlarged from 17 to 31. The Wilson & Ward mean 689-+16 was replaced by the UNWEIGHTED mean 691-+31. The multiplying t-factor for 95% confidence was enlarged from 1.96 to 2.6. The claimed "at least 95 % confidence" for the medieval dating of the Shroud is NOT supported by statistical analysis. One may wonder, why these OBVIOUS facts, were not spotted by the "team of peers" who judge all papers before publication in Nature. Even stranger is the FACT, that Prof. Bray of the "Istuto di Metrologia" of Turin, confirmed that the results of the 3 labs were mutually compatible, and that, on the evidence submitted, none of the means WERE questionable. Prof. Bray declared not to be at liberty to answer any questions. His answer was : "On the evidence submitted, no averaged results APPEAR questionable. The scatter for sample 1 is about equal to the limit." The only possible explanation is, that NOT all evidence was submitted to Prof. Bray. Prof. Bray refused to comment on the "combination from EIGHT to FOUR Arizona dates. I asked the editor of Nature, to compare my calculations with the results given by Damon et al. Following Dr. Laura Garwin (Physical Science Editor) : "You are asking me questions that are beyond my ability to answer. The Damon et al paper was refereed by qualified referees and no dissatisfaction was raised with the assignment or errors." I also asked the advice of Prof. Bene (University of Geneve). "I would like to congratulate you for the quality of your work. You established definitive evidence, that the measurements made on the linen of the Shroud are NOT homogeneous and that they should be rejected." Prof. Jouvenoux (University of Marseille-Aix) : "Van Haelst was probably the first to question the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud in a scientific way."

Examination of the three labs results shows the further from the edge sub-sample resided, the older the test sub-sample results reported. Shroud researchers Sue Benford and Joseph Marino, noting this discrepancy, discovered a sixteenth century technique used to repair expensive tapestries and wall hangings called "French Invisible Reweaving" in which skilled artisans dyed threads and not only wove them into a cloth needing repair but spliced the new thread to original old thread invisibly. Benford and Marino hypothesized that the 1989 C-14 test had accurately dated a melange of original Linen Shroud material with a sixteenth century repair to a corner frayed from centuries of handling and hanging from that corner.

In 2005, chemist Raymond N. Rogers, a retired chemist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, decided to falsify the Benford/Marino hypotheses by looking at the remaining C sub-sample. Instead, Rogers, found the remaining sub-sample proved that Benford and Marino were absolutely correct! The side of the sample toward the left edge of the Shroud was composed of dyed European Cotton, not the in-dyed Linen which composed the side toward the right main body of the Shroud. Rogers identified Alizarin dye from madder root and alum mordant and the S twist cotton threads on the portion that were obviously added. These threads were, on average, smaller in diameter than the Flax Linen thread into which they were spliced. The cotton had a high vanillin content while the Flax had zero vanillin, indicating great age (over 1600 years).

"If the cloth had been manufactured in1260, the earliest date suggested by carbon dating, it should have retained about 37% of its vanillin. (But since the Linen has none at all—Swordmaker) Paraphrasing Rogers, Ball writes, “Let’s call it somewhere around the middle of that range, which puts the age at about 2,000 years. Which can mean only one thing…”

Even during the C-14 testing, some of those involved noticed something awry, but did not speak up when they should have:

"Edward (Teddy) Hall, head of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, had noticed fibers that looked out of place. A laboratory in Derbyshire concluded that the rogue fibers were cotton of “a fine, dark yellow strand.” Derbyshire's Peter Southwrote: “It may have been used for repairs at some time in the past…”

And

"Giorgio Tessiore, who documented the sampling, wrote: “…1 cm of the new sample had to be discarded because of the presence of different color threads.”

Oops!

Then there’s this:

"Alan Adler at Western Connecticut State University found large amounts of aluminum in yarn segments from the radiocarbon sample, up to 2%, by energy-dispersive x-ray analysis.Why aluminum? That was an important question because it is not found else where on the Shroud.”

Following up on the statistical analysis ov Van Haelst, Bryan Walsh, an expert in C-14 statistical analysts confirmed the sample was not homogenous, an absolute requirement for accuracy in such testing.

"Bryan Walsh, a statistician, examined Van Haelst’s analysis and further studied the measurements. He concluded that the divided samples used in multiple tests contained different levels of the C14 isotope. The overall cut sample was non-homogeneous and thus of questionable validity. Walsh found a significant relationship between the measured age of various sub-samples and their distance from the edge of the cloth. Though Walsh did not suggest invisible reweaving, it is consistent with his findings.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory Tests

"In a presentation the Ohio State University’s Blackwell Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) chemist, Robert Villarreal, disclosed new findings showing that the sample of material used in 1988 to Carbon dating could not have been from the original linen cloth because it was cotton. According to Villarreal, who lead the LANL team working on the project, thread samples they examined from directly adjacent to the sampling are awere “definitely not linen” and, instead, matched cotton. Villarreal pointed out:the [1988] age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry, that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three threads amples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case.Villarreal also revealed that, during testing, one of the threads came apart in the middle forming two separate pieces. A surface resin, that may have been holding the two pieces together, fell off and was analyzed. Surprisingly, the two ends of the thread had different chemical compositions, lending credence to Rogers’ finding in Thermochimica Acta by the late Raymond Rogers.

There are a lot more than three definitive falsifications of the 1988 C-14 test of the Shroud due to sloppy science and confirmation bias in the managers and testers playing statistical games to hide the glaring RED FLAGS that, had it been any other artifact they were testing, would have caused them to STOP and say, "these samples are hopelessly compromised with something making them not homogenous." But because they were WANTING to prove it a hoax, the did many impermissible things and cur corners such as averaging results that just did not make sense until they kinda fit. . . But the statisticians caught them at it because the numbers don’t lie.

[Swordmaker]

Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–80) discovered silver nitrate and noted that it could blacken skin. Silver nitrate would later be used as a light sensitive material in the photographic emulsion on photographic glass plates and film.

Georg Fabricius (1516–71) discovered silver chloride, later used to make photographic paper...

There is no silver on the Shroud of Turin to hold an image.

The real problem with the photography theory is it cannot account for the terrain map 3D data encoded in the image. No mere photograph does. Physicists who study light have found no light artifacting on the Shroud which would exist were it a photograph. It only appears to be a photographic negative, but it isn’t. The data is distance encoded representing distance a body part has to the surface of the cloth. I.e., the closer the body part, the more intense the image gradient. The image disappears to the naked eye by about 2.5 to 4 centimeters, light does not work that way. That’s why attempts to replicate the Shroud using photographic techniques never look like the Shroud in detail, failing in significant ways. . . Primarily because light doesn’t care about distance. . . It’s affected by shadows and highlights.

However because there is no shadowing on the Shroud, computer enhancement does bring out body details at greater distances than the human eye can discern, for example, Barrie Schwortz told me that it has been determined that the Man on the Shroud was circumcised.