What Does The Shroud of Turin Prove About Easter?

What Does The Shroud of Turin Prove About Easter? History Channel's The Real Face of Jesus? by MYRA ADAMS April 4, 2015

Christians around the globe will begin their annual celebration of Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, commemorating what they consider to be the greatest event in human history. The basis for the world’s largest religion is the belief that, in Jerusalem around a.d. 33, an itinerant Jewish rabbi died as a result of crucifixion and after three days rose from the dead, fulfilling his own and numerous other ancient Messianic prophecies found in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament.

Sounding too much like science fiction, this tale is easily dismissed by non-believers. However, millions of Christians firmly believe that material scientific proof of the Christ’s resurrection actually exists today, and that evidence is called the Shroud of Turin.

The Shroud, alleged to be the burial cloth of Jesus, is the most studied, tested, and analyzed religious relic the world has ever known. It is preserved in an underground vault in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. Beginning April 19, the Shroud will be on a rare public display, through June 24. Pope Francis is scheduled to pray in front of the Shroud on June 21, and his visit to Turin will generate enormous global media attention.

The Shroud’s public exposition, highlighted by the pope’s visit, naturally will also generate a debate about the Shroud’s authenticity. If you have read this far, but are laughing at the idea that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus and proof of his resurrection, you should know certain numerous indisputable scientific facts. In fact, they are far too many for this space, but here are some highlights.

One story I read was the body was dusted with iron oxide and the cloth laid on top - but - no matter how carefully you do it you still will move the cloth blurring parts of the contact. The book “Skeleton Key” has a provocative epilog (all points easily refuted.).

There is another problem with the iron oxide theories of image formation. Samples taken from the Shroud have been examined down to electron microscopic levels and Electronmicrospectrometry has been done on those samples. This is a test that is so accurate that it was able to discern the elements that made up the composition of the residue left on the samples from the vinyl baggies the samples were placed in after being taken from the Shroud to the point of being able to tell which manufacturer made the baggies! SkyDancer, there was no Fe₂O₃ Red Iron Oxide, or Fe₃O₄ or Black Iron Oxide, the naturally occurring forms of Iron Oxide, nor was there any Vermillion, HgS, the other red color which those claiming paint or dusting as a pigment on the Shroud, usually for the blood coloring.

While each of these pigments was found on the Shroud, it was deemed environmental contamination, evenly distributed across the entire Shroud with no concentration in the area of image and none rising to the level of visibility. The contamination most likely occurred when painted copies of the Shroud were pressed to it to sanctify the copy. There are at least 30 known copies that may have been sanctified in such a manner and records indicate that at least some of them were sanctified in such a manner.

I have never really studied it but I remember when the first carbon dating was done at Oxford, it seemed to me that they were about as unscientific about it as they could be. The results were preordained.

It was actually tested at three different C-14 labs. Oxford, Arizona, and Switzerland. All three were given samples cut from a single master sample cut from the Shroud in contravention of the agreed protocols that required no fewer than six samples from six different areas of the Shroud. . . but at the last minute, it was decided by one man to cut the sample from the worst possible area of the Shroud, one that had been agreed was probably not chemically the same as the rest in that it did not react physically (it fluoresced under ultra-violet light while the main body of the Shroud did not) and seemed different to the naked eye. The STURP scientists had stated that in their reports that area should be avoided for C-14 testing.

That single sample was a strip about one centimeter wide and about seven centimeters long, stretching from the short side of the end of the Shroud in toward the body of the dorsal side of the image at the lower corner. A portion of the sample toward the end was cut off and discarded because they noticed that some of the threadsdid not match the rest of the threads in the sample, leaving a strip about 1 centimeter by five centimeters. This strip was cut into about five equal sized pieces. For the sake of keeping track of them, let's label them A through E. A and E were sent to Arizona, B to Switzerland, and D was sent to Oxford. C was retained for reference and control. A. B, D, and E would be destroyed in testing.

Strangely, the flawed C-14 test provides evidence of the authenticity of the true age of the main body of the Shroud. When the referees at Oxford reported the results they gleefully reported the average of all three labs' tests as 1350 AD. . . but the Devil was in the details.

Statistical analysis of actual data data from each lab found that devil. The scientists conducting the tests accurately tested the samples given them and each lab got varying dates from 1260 AD to1390 AD each with a degree of confidence of plus or minus 25 years. Notice that the date of 1390 AD, minus 25 years is 1365 and that 1260 AD plus 25 years is 1285. They don't overlap! Now add in the fact that the lab who dated both of those samples was the SAME lab, the Arizona C-14 lab. In fact, not a single sample, not A, B, D, or E, over lapped the adjacent sample within the 25 year plus or minus degree of confidence. This should have been a humungous, gigantic red flag to the referees running the tests that the samples being tested were not homogenous with one another!

This statistical anomaly gave rise to many theories how this could possibly happen from fire changing the nature of the C-14/C-12 mixtures, to deliberate cheating on the tests, to bacteriological contamination from bacteria poop from 2000 years of microbes eating the linen and excreting the waste (ignoring the fact that if they are eating C-14/C-12 from the Linen, it would still have the same C-14/C-12 ratio in the bacteria poop as the Linen), to radiation from the Resurrection changing the amount of C-12 to C-14 by irradiation. All of these failed for various reasons. The prime one of contamination being that to skew the date from 1st Century to 14th Century requires more than HALF of the tested material has to be contamination, and the tested samples obviously did not have 50% plus contamination! Or did they?

Fourteen years later, Susan Benford and Joseph Marino proposed that the reason the C-14 test had come up with a date that seemed so conveniently medieval, when all other evidence pointed to an older creation date was that it was a patch made with a technique called French Invisible Reweaving. This seemed like a "Hail Mary" play to many, including Pyrolosis Chemist Raymond Rogers who thought it would be easy to falsify.

Rogers got hold of threads from Sample C from the guardian of the Shroud, the control from the 1988 Carbon test, and started looking at it under a phase contrast and polarized microscope and found, much to his surprise, the Benford and Marino theory was correct! Threads from the C sample showed that the threads on one sid'e were distinctly different from the threads on the other side. On the right side (as they would have been oriented originally on the Shroud) they were original Linen. On the left side, they were cotton which was never used in the middle east, dyed to match the original Linen with a madder root Alizarin dye, retted with Alum (an aluminum compound used originally from the 1200s on), and the dye fixed with a plant gum arabic, all late 16th century technics used in the French Invisible reweaving. This was all reported in the Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin" — Thermochimica Acta 425 (2005) 189–194, a peer reviewed Scientific Journal.

Another scientist confirmed the findings working with a thread from the Raes sample taken in 1984 from the same area. . . that thread fell into two halves where it had been skillfully intertwined into a single thread. One half was dyed cotton, the other half original Flax Linen.

The conclusion of this is that the bifurcating line between the two types of material on the samples ran at a slight angle through A to B, through C, D, and E, with A having about 60% cotton 40% Linen to E with about 40% cotton 60% Linen. Sample A was the sample that test at 1390 AD, the youngest of the samples, the sample with the greatest proportion of newly added cotton, while Sample E which had only 40% cotton reported the 1260 AD date, the oldest of the samples, and therefore the most original Shroud Linen. . . cotton that was estimated to have been added about 1652 AD. Thus the Benford and Marino theory was probed true and accounted for the contamination of 50% by weight to skew the date to the 14th Century from the 1st Century.

Harry Gove, the inventor of the C-14 testing method used on the Shroud samples, when asked what date the original material would be if contaminated with 1650 AD material at 50% to return a 1350 result, did some calculations and came up with FIRST CENTURY give or take 100 years, given the lack of precision.

As I said when I started this treatise, the C-14 test actually provided evidence for the age of the main body material. Ray Rogers also proposed another test that proves the Shroud is at least 1300 years old. . . because the vanillin in the plant fibers in the Shroud's flax is entirely missing. Vanillin has a known half life. The cotton fibers vanillin was present in the expected amounts for a 1650 harvesting. All vanillin in a plant material will have been absorbed into the atmosphere by the time 1300 years have passed. . . but not by 700. Ergo the Shroud could not have been made from Flax harvested in 1350.

Simple test:
1. Put color on your face. Paint. Sweat. Tea. Whatever.
2. Cover your face and head with a towel, rag, cloth. Whatever.
3. Remove the cloth.
4. Look at it.
5. It doesn’t look like a face.
6. Paintings are a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object from a fixed point.
7. Your experiement produces a two-dimensional representation of a three dimensional object from an infinite number of points, where each point on the cloth matches a distinct point on your head.
8. The shroud matches #6.
9. Your test cloth matches #7.

The shroud is a painting.

The Shroud image is not a contact transfer. We know this from over 117 years of scientific examinations and studies. The Shroud is the single most studies object in history. The image was created by a force that was vertically collimated both upwards and downwards to a degree that is amazing.

The image exists only on the surface of the fibers and does not penetrate the fibers. We know exactly what the image is. It is a caramelization of the hydrocarbon starch and saccharide fractions of a coating which is about the thickness of a soap bubble (200 - 800 nanometers) that was left on the individual fibers of the Flax Linen when it was retted (washed) in a soapwort like plant extract and sun bleached in hanks laid over bushes before it was woven into cloth, a technique not used in medieval times.

The caramelization can occur by several means including age. All of these processes are melanoid processes. The Linen of the Shroud itself is caramelizing to the color of the image as it ages due to that process. Other means are heat, light exposure, chemical exposure such as exposure to the gases of decomposition Cadaverine and Putrescine , radiation, electrical phenomenon, and potential unknown modalities. However, all of those do not work in the collimated modality from every portion of the body we see in the Shroud of Turin.

Radiation might be the closest, but the radiation would have to attenuate in just 4-5 centimeters and then not penetrate the coating of the fibers. The image density is directly proportional to the distance from the body. i.e. the closer to the body, the darker the image, or the greater the caramelization of the coating. . . but the degree of resolution detail obviates any spill over due to spreading that any radiative source would have had. The only source that could have had such a form would have been a coherent light from each point on the body only upward toward the zenith and only downward toward the nadir with absolutely no degree of divergence, fading quickly with rapidity to nothing within a very short distance. We know of no such extremely short wave coherent radiative source.

Incidentally, the image is a radiograph as well. The image shows the teeth in the mouth, the carpal bones of the fingers and the orbits of the eyes, as well as shadows of other bones in the body that are close to the skin. What ever source caused the image came from inside out. No painting or man created object would have such a feature.

Also there is no image underneath the blood stains. In other words, the blood stains existed prior to the image.

They then tired to figure out how the image might have been created. The washcloth over the face didn't do it. A single point of light (like a flash photography) didn't do it. It turned out that a regular copier machine scanner with a flat edge of light taken of a 3D image would create the image shown on the shroud.

There never was a "washcloth over the face". It was a sudarium, a "sweat cloth", about the face, which better translates as around the face. Jewish burial customs required that the jaw be bound closed with a rope, twine, or rolled cloth to keep the mouth shut in death. This would be tied under the jaw, around the face, behind the ears, and over the crown of the head where it would be tied.

The Sudarium of Oviedo, the cloth thought to have covered Jesus head on the Cross, and while he was being carried to the Tomb, now kept in the Cathedral in Oviedo, Spain, shows signs of being rolled diagonally into a kerchief like rope, just ideal to make such a face tie to go around the face to bind the jaw closed. It would have been handy for Joseph of Arimathea and the other men involved in the quick burial to have pressed into service as one of the bindings along with the wrist and ankle bindings to keep the body from flopping akimbo.

The claim of it being "out of proportion" has also been disproved. Some of that comes from the elongated fingers. . . but those are artifacts of the x-ray nature of the image because it shows the carpal bones of the hands which the people seeing them mistake for too long fingers. Another is the claim the head is too big for the body size. Bent legs, held in place by rigor mortis shorten the leg length and also cause a distorted idea of disproportion. When all of these things are adjusted in a computer reconstruction, the image is not at all disproportionate. All of these are based on the presumption of 2D projection. . . and do not account for the facts. Your scanner point of view is more correctly explaining the differences seen.

Did they do a serum test?

The tests on the blood stains on the Shroud have been tested far more than just a simple serum test. Two of the world's top experts on Blood, Blood fractions and blood descendant compounds did extensive work on the blood stains. The Late Drs. John Heller and the Late Dr. Alan Adler

Heller and Adler (hereafter H&A) concluded that it was actual blood material on the basis of physics-based and chemistry- based testing, most tests of which will be discussed, specifically the following:

detection of higher-than- elsewhere levels of iron in ‘blood’ areas via X-ray fluorescence,
indicative spectra obtained by microspectrophotometry,
generation with chemicals and ultraviolet light of characteristic porphyrin fluorescence,
positive tests for hemochromagen using hydrazine,
positive tests for cyanmethemoglobin using a neutralized cyanide solution,
positive tests for the bile pigment bilirubin,
positive tests for protein,
use of proteolytic enzymes on ‘blood’ material, leaving no residues.
The tests and data not discussed are the

reflection spectra indicative of bilirubin’s32 and blood’s presence,33
chemical detection of the specific protein albumin,34
the presence of serum halos around various ‘blood’ marks when viewed under ultraviolet light,35
the immunological determination that the ‘blood’ is of primate origin,36
the forensic judgement that the various blood and wound marks appear extremely realistic.37

After isolating old methemoglobin from sample from the Shroud, after already proving it was blood, they wanted a second opinion. The called Dr. Bruce Cameron, who holds a double doctorate specialized in hemoglobin in all its forms. They submitted their findings to him. . .

Upon returning to the New England Institute, Heller ran in and seized Adler. After the coordinates had been plotted on graph paper, Adler observed, “John, this is hemoglobin. It’s the acid methemoglobin form, and it’s denatured and very old.” Heller “beamed” before noting, “But Al. We don’t have the requisite fine structure,” to which Adler replied, “Fine structure, my foot! Do you think this is the spectrum of sauteed artichoke hearts? Don’t be ridiculous.” Suggested Heller, “Let’s check with at least two other top hemoglobin hotshots and see if they are as sure as we are. Pick anyone you want.” Adler’s choice gave the answer of old acid methemoglobin. They then spoke via speakerphone to Bruce Cameron, “whose double -doctorate is dedicated to hemoglobin in all its many forms,” and upon receiving and plotting the numbers, Cameron said, “You both should know what it is. It’s old acid methemoglobin. I don’t know why you wanted to bother me with something you know as well as I do... Hey, wait a minute. Are you two idiots working on the Shroud of Turin?” At this point, Heller and Adler shook hands after smiling at each other.108 The Shroud of Turin’s ‘Blood’ Images: Blood, or Paint? A History of Science Inquiry
David Ford — University of Maryland Baltimore County—10 December 2000

In the mid 2000s to 2012, more immunological studies have been done on the blood from the Shroud and it has been proved to have been Primate blood. . . but is it human?

These studies confirmed that among the anthropoid apes, only orangutans and gibbons express both A and B antigens, similar to humans. Chimpanzees do not express the B antigen and gorillas lack the A molecule (75). Thus, forward typing studies would effectively exclude all nonhuman primates as a possible source of red blood cell membrane AB antigens on the Shroud, except for possibly gibbons and orangutans. In addition to ABO molecules, approximately thirty other blood group antigens are expressed on the surfaces of human red blood cells. One such group of blood molecules, the M,N, and S antigens, has been examined on blood- stained Shroud fibers using immuno- histochemistry methods. MN antigens are found on red blood cells of all anthropoid apes, but the S antigen is only expressed in humans (76). Bloodstained fibers were positive for expression of M, N, and most importantly, S antigens, ruling out a contribution of (nonhuman) primate blood (77). Blood on the Shroud of Turin: An Immunological Review — ©2012 Kelly P. Kearse

If you really want to read some dense biological science, the the link that block quote above was cut from will keep you occupied, and perhaps in a dense cloud of scientific prose for a long time. . . but it is very interesting.

Essentially, the immunological study of the blood shows that the stains on the Shroud are human blood.

No amount of obfuscation and denial from the skeptical community's non-specialists who raise questions of egg Albumin and tempera paints that sound erudite in non-peer reviewed popular press can even approach the peer-reviewed work done by these scientists published in qualified scientific journals and replicated by experts working IN their fields.

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