SHROUD OF TURIN - SKEPTICAL INQUIRER

The true skeptical inquirer knows no certainty: that is his misfortune; he is aware of it, and that is his gift.

Imagine slicing a human hair lengthwise, from end to end, into 100 long thin slices, each slice one-tenth the width of a single red blood cell. The images on the Shroud, at their thickest, are this thin. The faint images, golden-brownish, formed by a caramel-like substance, are wholly part of a super-thin film of starch fractions and sugars. Where this film is not brown, it is clear. Knowing the way certain ancient linen was made, the film covering just some of the cloth's fibers can be expected. And knowing that dead bodies produce gaseous cadaverine and putrescine that react with sugars to form caramel-like substances called melanoidins, the color is not only possible, it is expected. Spectral data, chemical tests and photomicrographs: all this is documented in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The honest skeptical inquirer must wonder, How can this be?

This is an excerpt - See the entire article below. Posted with the permission of the author.

Drammach's opinion is merely that, his opinion.

Yes it is and so is yours. But "Drammach's" is more Socratic.

You like Drammach's reply because it feeds into your beliefs about the shroud even though it is rife with factual errors.

Oh? Do tell! You mean to guarantee that ALL of the "evidence" that you proffer for the shrouds authenticity is factual and completely error free?

...but it is in the proper interpretation of the tests that give them meaning.

Ah yes, I see. The "proper" interpretation is most important. No bias, favoritism, agenda, skepticism, piety, or impiety should be allowed when seeking the confirmation of our previously unconfirmed conclusions. The Wright Bros. would have found you most useful.

You keep harping on the "fact" that the Church history of the Shroud starts after its appearance in Lirey France... again, untrue.

Have mercy, Sir! I yield! One more time, real slow: My....first....introduction....to....the....existence.....of....the ....Shroud....was....during....service college research....regarding....the...military....leadership....during......the Hundred Years War. I was not researching the Shroud. At the time, I thought the Shroud nothing more than a Medieval "Relic", used to sucker poor pilgrims and not worthy of any further regard.

You postulate conspiracies...

I don't postulate any such thing. That the Shroud is a fake, IMHO, is a fact. And that's according to the following scientific "evidence": "According to Dr. Walter McCrone and his colleagues at McCrone Associates, the 3+ by 14+ foot cloth depicting Christ's crucified body is an inspired painting produced by a Medieval artist just before its first appearance in recorded history in 1356.".. (works for me)

We continually provide evidence from peer-reviewed sources to you that refutes your assertions... and you continually return to the same refuted claims.

YOU haven't provided any evidence beyond your opinion of the affirmative. You have an agenda. I have not provided any scientific "opinions" of the Shroud until the above. The science, both yours and mine , are only opinions.

[You].. slander the memory of a knight whose contemporary record was considered above reproach, [Geoffrey de Charny]

Now this is something I do know about. "de Charny" was an incompetent commander, a man who was not of his word (per Calias), a soldier who's mouth was larger than his sword, and a plagiarist. His book that you claim to be the Standard of Chivalry, is nothing more than a collection of the work of others. The "romantic" notion of chivalry actually comes from some verses in the Koran that the Crusaders were exposed to since the millenium. de Charney was not "Noble" in the chivalric sense of the word. If you want more, I've got more?

....I suspect that if Jesus Christ came back, draped the Shroud over his head and said "Perfect fit, although not in as good a shape as I left it." You would still not accept that evidence.

No, I would say: "Dear Lord, I apologize for the abused condition of your shroud. It would seem that there were those more interested in proving that it belonged to you, than they did in continuing doing your work here on Earth. Please forgive them."

"Drammach's opinion is merely that, his opinion."
Yes it is and so is yours. But "Drammach's" is more Socratic.

This is the fallacy of modern education... that ALL opinions have equal value. . . and should be given equal weight. Not true. Some are informed opinions and others are uninformed opinions... or prejudiced opinions. Strange, but I find nothing "Socratic" about Drammach's comments. He made an uninformed statement of fact (which was untrue) and expounded on his opinion. That does not meet the Socratic method to my mind.

Oh? Do tell! You mean to guarantee that ALL of the "evidence" that you proffer for the shrouds authenticity is factual and completely error free?

No, but it is UP TO DATE... and based on the latest peer-reviewed research.

Then... why... do... you... keep... repeating... it... when... we... have... repeatedly... shown... you... it... is... untrue???

And that's according to the following scientific "evidence": "According to Dr. Walter McCrone and his colleagues at McCrone Associates, the 3+ by 14+ foot cloth depicting Christ's crucified body is an inspired painting produced by a Medieval artist just before its first appearance in recorded history in 1356.".. (works for me)

Well, it DOESN'T work for me. . . because I know the problems with McCrone and his work. It also doesn't work with any of the members of the Shroud of Turin Research Project because they knew it was not true. They, not McCrone, had hands on experience with the Shroud doing far more tests than mere optical microscopy and knew there was no paint. It was the FIRST thing they tested for.

You know, that is extremely funny. You again choose an un-peer-reviewed, and now discredited, "scientific" study done by a guy looking through an optical microscope in 1979 instead of ALL of the rest of the studies in the next 26 years that disprove it. That is NOT following the science. McCrone was not the final word. That is "cherry picking" for the preconceived and prejudicial conclusion you want.

Walter C. McCrone is the ONLY researcher of the Shroud who REFUSED to have his work peer-reviewed despite his agreement to do so in order to be given samples. His ONLY publications on the Shroud were in his own vanity press magazine The Microscopist published by McCrone Research Inc., and sometimes edited by Walter C. McCrone. His findings (the shroud was painted with vermilion [HgS] and red ochre/iron oxide [Fe₂O₃] paint in a dilute egg albumin solution) have been completely DISPROVED in peer-reviewed scientific journals by scientists using far more sensitive instruments that McCrone's optical microscope.

NOT ONE other researcher looking at what McCrone looked at has seen what McCrone claims to have seen. While there are scattered Fe₂O₃ and HgS particles on the shroud, they are randomly scattered, contaminating both image and non-image areas. At no time are there sufficient concentrations of either to rise to visibility.

McCrone sees "paint". This cannot possibly be in agreement with what we now KNOW forms the image:

The substance is a dried carbohydrate mixture of starch fractions and various saccharides (sugars). It is as thin (180 to 600 nanometers) as the wall of a soap bubble. It is thinner than the invisible glare proof coating on modern eyeglasses. . . In some places the coating has turned a golden brown. This is the result of a chemical change: the formation of a complex carbon-carbon double molecular bond within the coating. There are two ways this could have happened chemically: 1) caramelization, whereby heat caused molecular breakdown into other volatile compounds and 2) a Maillard reaction in which a carbonyl group of sugars reacted with an amino group producing N-substituted glycosylamine. An unstable glycosylamine undergoes Amadori rearrangement, forming ketosamines, which then form nitrogenous polymers and melanoidins. Voila, pictures of Jesus.
There is a problem with caramelization. The amount of heat required for browning would also heat the cellulose fiber sufficiently to change its crystalline structure and cause it to change color as well. That has not happened. Where a picture bearing bit of coating is removed, either with adhesive or with a reducing agent such as diimide, the fiber beneath is clear and un-ablated.
A Maillard reaction seems more promising because of the presence of amines needed for a Maillard reaction. Of course, it didn't need to be Jesus; at least chemically. It could have been any recently deceased person.

Ergo, NO paint! This alone discredits McCrone.

Microscopist McCrone claims "No Blood on the Shroud" McCrone goes further and baldly states the "blood stains" are merely a Vermillion (HgS) and Iron Oxide paint mixture. He also states categorically that the Iron Oxide is "earthen" in nature and could not come from blood. Yet world renowned experts on blood, blood fractions, blood remnants, and forensic blood disagree.

Let's look at other tests done by scientists who don't rely on what they can see through a microscope, say the pyrolysis mass spectrometer tests, much more discriminating that what can be seen through a light microscope, that show that what vermillion (HgS) exists on the shroud is again, random, insufficient to be visible, and not associated with the blood stains.

Instead of discredited McCrone, take the testimony of chemist Dr. Alan Adler and biophysicist Dr. John Heller, experts on blood and blood fractions, who state categorically in peer-reviewed scientific Journals, that the blood stains consist of hemoglobin and its derivatives. Aside from light microscopy, Heller and Adler tested for hemochromagen (positive), cyanmethemoglovin (positive), bile pigment bilirubin (positive), and proteolytic enzymes (positive), human specific protein albumin (positive), presence of serum halos around stains (positive), and immunological determination that the blood is of primate origin. Perhaps we should look at Yale University's Dr. Joseph Gall's spectrophotometer tests that showed the blood absorbing light in 410 nanometers... a test that he states is "specific" for blood as "nothing in nature that absorbs light at four hundred ten nanometers that strongly". Or perhaps we should accept the word of Dr. Bruce Cameron, whose "double doctorate is dedicated to hemoglobin in all its many forms", who on reviewing the test results stated "You both should know what it is. It's old acid met-hemoglobin." (a remnant compound of aged blood.)

Ergo, according to some of the world's top experts on blood, the blood stains on the Shroud of Turin, are exactly that... blood stains. Again McCrone's bald statements are refuted. I could also go into McCrone's attempts to sabotage other researcher's work including preventing his own colleagues from having access to the samples of Shroud threads he had.

You want sources?

Adler, Alan. "The origin and nature of blood on the Turin Shroud" in Turin Shroud - Image of Christ? William Meacham, ed. (Hong Kong: Turin Shroud Photographic Exhibition Organising Committee, 1987), 57-9.
Adler, Alan." Updating Recent Studies on the Shroud of Turin" Archaeological Chemistry: Organic, Inorganic, and Biochemical Analysis, American Chemical Society Symposium Series No. 625, Chapter 17 (1996), 223-8.
Ford, David. "The Shroud of Turin 'Blood' Images: Blood or Paint? A History of Science Inquiry" University of Maryland Baltimore (2000), PDF file, "http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ford1.pdf", 2/17/2005. Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin", Applied Optics 19:2742-4 (1980).
Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin", Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal 14: 81-103 (1981).
Porter, Daniel. "The Chemical Nature of the Shroud" http://www.shroudstory.com/faq-chemistry.htm/ (2005), 2/17/2005.
Rogers, Raymond N. "New Tests Prove 1988 Carbon 14 Dating Invalid: Shroud of Turin Shown to be Much Older". Thermochimica ActaVolume 425: 189-194, (2005).

There are a lot more but these should be sufficient.

Again, you impute motives to people you do not know. Assumptions. Judgemental.

If the "Shroud" is a copy of a presumed, "authentic" Shroud, it is, well, only a copy. If its a copy, it's a "fake" by definition.

Fair enough. But a replica is a very different kind of fake than a total fabrication from nothing.

This implies that you believe that Christ was the only person crucified by the Romans in this manner. Given the Romans brutality, I doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was the only person so crucified in the same manner during the over 1000 years of Roman history.

Do you understand what "this manner" means? Yes, the Romans crucified plenty of people. No, they didn't jab them all with a spear and put a crown of thorns on their head. And as the Bible account itself points out, if they wanted someone to die more quickly, they didn't jab their side with a spear. They broke their legs, which they didn't do in the case of the image on the Shroud.

As well, you note that there are some added; " anatomical details not found in the Biblical narrative (e.g., the nails through the wrists instead of the palms)". This would hint at Medieval embellishment indicating forgery rather than some esoteric detail incidental only to Christ's crucifixion. On one hand it is, on the other hand it's not and on both hands it could or couldn't be so.

Not true at all. The assumptions about the Biblical account are minor differences that could easily be caused by the language used and the translation of that language, especially given that the Gospel accounts were transmitted orally before being written down. And studies, because of the Shroud, suggest that the wrists are the logical place to nail someone to a cross.

Given the nails in the wrists and the folded hands, it makes sense to assume that the Shroud depicts an actual crucifiction victim. What makes me think it isn't a Medieval forgery is that it would require a great deal of knowledge about actual crucificiations, which weren't very common in the Middle Ages, to my knowledge. So the question becomes, "How did a Medieval forger get so familiar with crucifiction to get the details right?" As I said earlier, if this is a forgery, then someone died in order to make it.

As for "Medieval embellishments", do you have any evidence that the images of the wounds and the blood were added as an artistic addition?

Yes, I know (sigh). These same reasons are used by both sides when arguing the merits of "Evolution" vs "Creationism".

Which is why it's absurd to ask for 100% certainty. There is a reason why we don't ask for that in courts. Very little in life is 100% certain. So we deal with the proponderence of evidence. From all of the Medieval history that I've read (and I took college classes dealing specifically with Byzantine history and the Crusades), the Shroud simply does not strike me as the sort of artifact that would be produced if a Medieval forger sat down and said, "I want to create the burrial shroud of Jesus". They just were not that good. See the Spear of Longenus if you want to see a real Medieval forgery. Or see this painting of Veronica's Veil if you want to see what Medieval people had in mind for this sort of relic. The wouldn't have sat down and created an image that was barely visible to the naked eye yet produces a perfect photographic negative image of a body using a technology that was not yet created.

More than likely, especially for a fake. If I were to counterfeit $20 dollar bills, I would not put the Queen of England's portrait on them.

But that still points to the fact that either (A) it's a fake or (B) if it's the authentic imprint of a crucified man from the first century AD, it's likely to be Jesus. And that leads us back to looking at how old the cloth is, how the image got on the cloth, and why it's depicted in the way it is.

Remember, the point I was specifically addressing was the idea that this was simply the burrial shroud of J. Random Victim who was crucified and through some natural process left his image on a burrial shroud. My argument is that the wounds don't suggest J. Random Victim but a very specific victim -- Jesus.

If that's your best argument in favor of the shroud being authentic, then I am not impressed.

Fair enough. But it's a judgement call either way.

Uh Huh. So a fabrication, from "nothing" as it were, is a different kind of fake (good fake, bad fake, real fake, fake fake?), than a replica. Interesting. Especially the fabricating something from nothing. However this could apply to the Shroud, as a phrase for a manufactured falsehood is often referred to as "something made from whole cloth". The only difference between a fake and a replica is the veracity of the fabricator.

The difference is that a fake means that someone read about the story of Jesus in the Gospels and tried to create some proof out of wholeclath. A replica means that there really was a cloth with Jesus' image on it that may have helped promote the Gospel version of events that we no longer have. If you can't see the significance of that distinction, and I can imagine why you won't, then let's just drop the subject.

Which is exactly what a forger would want to accomplish, a creditable fake, with as much detail as possible, not a reasonable facsimile.

You are playing the deconstruction game here by ignoring the context of the original comments. My original comments were made with respect to claims, which you apparently supported but are now ignoring, that the shroud could be an authentic burrial shroud but simply show some J. Random Victim of crucifiction rather that Jesus. The fact that the image on the Shroud depicts distinctive wounds that would be either rare or specific to Jesus disputes that particular claim. It doesn't prove that the Shroud is real, nor was it meant to. Please play your game of ignoring the context with someone else. I'm not playing.

Though the Middle Ages are considered to be an age of ignorance, it was not a time totally absent intelligent, cunning and greedy persons. To assume that persons of high office, both religious and political, as well as craftsmen with the necessary talents were intellectually and materially incapable of fabricating the Shroud and its myth is hubris.

Not at all. It's called "familiarity with the age in question" and the question is not only whether they could have fabricated the Shroud but how likely it was that if they did have the technology, it would look like it did.

The Dean of the church at Lirey simply predated Jim and Tammy Faye Baker by a good 600 years. Today we build amusement parks to accomplish what the Shroud was manufactured for.

Just because 99% of all Medieval artifacts were fabricated fakes does not mean that this one was. I'm not claiming that there were no fake Medieval artifacts. Of course there were, and there was certainly motive to fake them. But most of those fakes are trivially easy to identify as fakes. They used the bones of pigs as the bones of saints. They used Medieval weapons and wood and so forth. Why? Because they didn't have to face modern science and, as their paintings of Biblical scenes with Medieval trappings show, lacked the same sense of history and changing technology that we have. Does the Shroud deserve some skepticism? Of course. But skepticism and other cases of forgeries do not prove that this particular shroud is a fake.

But, hey, believe whatever you want. It's clear that you care more about assumptions than evidence and have no interest in an objective assessment of the details. How do I know that? Because you have utterly failed to address any detail and prefer, instead, to deal in sweeping statements that contain little or know factual information.

And in terms of ulterior motives for having strong feelings about the shroud, I'd say that those who insist the shroud is a fake have far more at stake than those of us who think the shroud is real. If the shroud is fake, that doesn't really prove or disprove anything about Jesus. If the shroud is real, then atheists are sure gonna have alot of 'splainin' to do.

Your referencing Veronica's Veil caused me to do some internet searching... and found the following information and images:

Here is a photograph of the newly re-discovered Veronica image from the Monastery in Manoppello, Italy, about 60 miles North of Rome. This is apparently the original Veronica that was stolen from St. Peter's Basilica in the early 1600s. Tradition has it that "angels brought it to the monestary" but it is suspected that a few demons (theives) were mixed into the pot.

This image is pictured THROUGH the veil from the back.

This image also appears (according to several articles) to not have any pigments. It is impressed on a diaphonous material called byssus:

(Called) the gold of the seas . . . (Raw byssus) shine like bronze in the sun. The material is produced from threads a certain kind of sea mussels (“pinna nobilis”) generate to cling to the (sea bed). (divers dive) five meters deep in the sea to collect and harvest them – (then) the (threads) are combed, then spun and woven into a most precious fabric.
Byssus was the most costly fabric in the ancient world. It has been found in the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs, and it is mentioned often in the Bible, where it is said to be obligatory for the carpets of the Holy of Holies and for the "Ephod", the vestment of the high priest. Steeped in lemon, it becomes golden. In former times, soaked in cow's urine, it became paler and brighter.

The image itself is said to be visible from both sides of the nearly transparent cloth, but only appears when the light falls on the cloth correctly, fading to invisiblity at some angles of light. It almost reacts like a hologram. The facial measurements exactly match those of the face on the Shroud of Turin.

The following image is from Barrie Schworz's Shroud.com website and is the regular "negative" image of the Shroud of Turin face:

The final image is the Veronica image superimposed atop the Shroud image . . . note the faint blood "3" on the forehead...

I think Veronica's veil, however it was created was an early copy of the Shroud image... but what happened to the moustache?

They used the bones of pigs as the bones of saints. They used Medieval weapons and wood and so forth. Why? Because they didn't have to face modern science and, as their paintings of Biblical scenes with Medieval trappings show, lacked the same sense of history and changing technology that we have.

But the fabricator of the Shroud had to face his own contemporary science, such as it was, and knowledgeable laymen. Though it was a superstitious time, there were still persons capable of rational skepticism. Therefore, I doubt many butchers were taken in by "the bones of pigs".You are making the assumption that no one else, save personages of church and castle were intelligent ( or honest).

If you can't see the significance of that distinction,

You have clarified your definition. When I had a racing shop, I used to "fabricate" copies of English Formula Racing Cars suspensions and even whole chassis's. Though they were "replicas", they were not fakes by virtue that they were mechanically and materially true to the originals that I copied. After a while, my copies became superior to the originals to the point that originals, to the uninitiated, seemed to be poor replicas. Why did I commit this unlicensed forgery? Because the English chassis makers charged $3,000 through their American distributor and I could produce the same or better for $1,800. The doctors and lawyers that bought my parts and chassis' considered themselves astute for saving the money. Later on, they would attempt to sell these cars as "originals". I always remained silent.

I belive the Shroud was manufactured under similar circumstances.

(Ah,Hah! She thinks, now we have the motive for "elbucko's dispute of the shroud, he's a bloody forger his' self").

Not so, I prefer Craftsman and "Replicator". Forgery is dishonest.

You are playing the deconstruction game here...

No I'm not. You present contradictions, such as:..."The fact that the image on the Shroud depicts distinctive wounds that would be either rare or specific to Jesus disputes that particular claim."

The; "that would either be rare", contradicts "specific to Jesus". Furthermore, I doubt that in the long history of the Roman Empire that Jesus of Nazareth was the only person that was ridiculed with a crown of thorns or had his side pierced with a lance and legs left un-broken. Especially if it was late in the day and the crew wanted to go for beers. I believe this treatment was more common than supposed. That the records come down that this was done to Christ is not proof that it was done only to Him.

It's clear that you care more about assumptions than evidence and have no interest in an objective assessment of the details.

I beg your pardon, but the assumptions are that its authentic, whereas objective science, that is science without an interest in the conclusion, suggests otherwise. As well, the Shroud is always in the custody of those who have an interest in maintaining the mystery (and therefore the interest). Would the Catholic Church turn the Shroud over to the National Institute of Science for analysis, the results would be more credible. As it is now, the evidence has the veracity of O.J.Simpson's hunt for the "real killers' of Ron and Nichol.

If the shroud is fake, that doesn't really prove or disprove anything about Jesus.

True, but it will raise many questions about the nature of man and what he is willing, in the name of whatever, to believe. From "Get Rich Quick" schemes to the promise of 72 Virgins.

If the shroud is real, then atheists are sure gonna have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

I am not an atheist, far from it. But I am a skeptic. Sorry to disappoint you.

To a large degree, what I was referring to was the depiction of Veronica's Veil, which is what a lot of people were expecting to see during the Middle Ages, not the necessarily the faint images. I honestly don't know enough of Veronica's Veil but your information is certainly interesting.

I got that, Q_A.

I was intrigued by the announcement that they had FOUND Veronica's veil... the real thing, not another painted copy.

Here is a picture of the "Veronica's Veil" that is kept in St. Peter's Basilica...

The Veil in St. Peter's is now thought (although not admitted by Church officials) to be a poor copy of the veil that was stolen in the early 1600s.

It is known that the glass covers of the reliquary which held the Veronica and which dated from 1350 were broken, according to documents, before 1618. These glass covers were two parallel pieces of glass, that undoubtedly enabled the image of the Face of Christ to be seen from both sides of the Cloth. One bit of evidence in favor of this hypothesis concerning a theft of the image is contained in the chips of glass which can be identified on the lower edge of the Holy Face of Manoppello.
There is also iconographic proof: Before 1616 all the copies of the Veronica had, as does the Holy Face (the newly rediscovered veil) , its eyes open, while the few images which have come to us after this date show the eyes closed. Those few in the twentieth century who have been able to examine the cloth preserved in St. Peter’s, in the little chapel which opens up above the statue of Veronica - at the column southwest of the cupola - affirm that it is a square cloth, bright in color, not transparent, on which no features can be made out. (7) This is another element that leads one to think that the original is no longer there. After all, the last public showing dates back to the years 1600-1601. Following that, Pope Paul V (1604-1621) and Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) prohibited all copies. What is more, in 1629 Pope Urban decreed the destruction of all existing copies.

However it was noted that the Vatican's "Veronica's Veil" no longer looked like the copies. It had always been noted that Veronica's Veil was an image of "no colors" yet the Veil now on display in the reliquary was a brilliantly colored image. Over the years since then, the colors, like almost all early tempera paintings, have blackened to obscurity. The theory is that the veil was stolen and the Vatican replaced it with a copy so as to "not disappoint the pilgrims who came to venerate it" and make donations...

The image you linked to is most likely what the fake Veronica's Veil retained in St. Peter's Basilica once looked like... note the patterns of the hair and the beard compared to the cut-out gilt masking above, and more importantly the bright lifelike color, that was NOT on the original.

Now, compare the iconic image to the newly re-discovered byssus veil from the Sanctuary of the Sacred Face, in the monestary in Manoppello, and note that the icon could most likely have been copied from that veil.

And, from the sublime to the totally ridiculous... as long as we are talking about millieus and artistic expectations, I thought I might include a modern iconic rendering of Veronica's Veil... by Artist (?) David Gilhooly:

I think you are assuming a level of scientific knowledge that they simply didn't have. A lot of what we now take for granted is unknown, including the scientific method itself. There wasn't rational skepticism in most cases because there wasn't rationality as we know it. In my Medieval history classes, I heard all sorts of accounts that simply sound absurd by modern standards. Look at how they responded to the plague. Look at other forged artifacts. They have, in fact, found non-human bones that were considered the bones of saints. It's not a matter of intelligence, per se, but understanding how the world works and knowledge. The experiences of most people didn't extend beyond a few miles of their home and even minor things that we take for granted, like exact birthdates, what year it was, and such, were often unknown unless they fell on a major holiday.

Americans are used to questioning everything around them but that's not a given or even the norm throughout much of history. If you want to experience a taste of that today, try going to Japan. In Japan, things happen simply because that's the way they've always been done. And, often, they simply never get questioned seriously. For example, I'd often ask my co-workers a fairly basic question when we went out to eat -- "What's in that?" Often they'd struggle to answer the question becuase exactly how their food is made or exactly what's in it doesn't really matter to them. In fact, the foreigners who ask the most questions are the ones who go crazy in Japan because there often aren't answers readily available to satisfy the rational skeptic.

I belive the Shroud was manufactured under similar circumstances.

I think that's also a possibility. But I think that without an original, the Shroud wouldn't look the way it does. And the presence of an original, even if we don't have it, is also significant. A lot depends on how the image was placed there. If it's paint, then I think it's a copy. If it's not paint, and there is plenty of evidence that it isn't, then I think it could very well be legit.

(Ah,Hah! She thinks, now we have the motive for "elbucko's dispute of the shroud, he's a bloody forger his' self").

Not so, I prefer Craftsman and "Replicator". Forgery is dishonest.

I'm a "he", by the way. That's fine. A lot of ancient "craftsmen" weren't trying to be dishonest, either. But I think you should look at the relicas that are known to exist from that period to see the sorts of replicas that Medieval craftsman would normally produce.

No I'm not. You present contradictions, such as:..."The fact that the image on the Shroud depicts distinctive wounds that would be either rare or specific to Jesus disputes that particular claim."

The; "that would either be rare", contradicts "specific to Jesus".

I wrote, "that would either be rare or specific." Where is the contradiction. These wounds are either specific to Jesus or, if they happened to others, would be rare.

I don't. Those wounds are explained to the circumstances of his death.

Especially if it was late in the day and the crew wanted to go for beers. I believe this treatment was more common than supposed.

Again, we are back to belief. Do you have any evidence to support your belief?

Remember, the purpose wasn't to hang them on a piece of wood and have them die quickly. The whole purpose was a slow death. That Jesus was speared and taken down quickly had to do with the Jewish holidays and the circumstances of that particular corner of the Roman Empire. There were plenty quicker ways to kill people if speed was the objective.

That the records come down that this was done to Christ is not proof that it was done only to Him.

I agree and I've said as much. But I don't agree they were common, either. Basically, the Shroud was either Jesus or someone crucified like Jesus. Jesus received a quirky crucifiction so then we're left having to explain why someone else received a similarly quirkly crucifiction. At some point, Occam's Razor starts to rear its head.

It's clear that you care more about assumptions than evidence and have no interest in an objective assessment of the details.

I beg your pardon, but the assumptions are that its authentic, whereas objective science, that is science without an interest in the conclusion, suggests otherwise.

Objective science, so far, has been inconclusive. If there were any slam-dunks, we'd know about it. Science doesn't claim that we have to assume it's fake or real. Science says that we should come up with a thesis and test it. One can't do that without looking at the details and you aren't dealing with the details. You are dealing in guilt by association.

As well, the Shroud is always in the custody of those who have an interest in maintaining the mystery (and therefore the interest). Would the Catholic Church turn the Shroud over to the National Institute of Science for analysis, the results would be more credible. As it is now, the evidence has the veracity of O.J.Simpson's hunt for the "real killers' of Ron and Nichol.

They won't turn the Shroud over to be chopped up and dated for the same reason the Egyptian Museums won't allow them to chop up Tutankhamen's mummy to find out if he's been murdered or not. That doesn't mean that either group is tryign to hide something. If the Shroud was so important to the Church, they'd certainly utilize it a lot more. To the contrary, they've pretty much kept it under lock and key. There were also plenty in the Church who seemed more than happy to accept the Medieval dating and the Church isn't what's driving continued interest in it. Looking for the same sort of suspicious self-interested angle that you are, I'm just not seeing it.

I am not an atheist, far from it. But I am a skeptic. Sorry to disappoint you.

I'm not disappointed. I'm also what would probably be considered a heretic by many of the Christians here and have spent plenty of time looking at historical Jesus literature, including the skeptical sort. I can appreciate skepticism. But there is an interesting book by Timothy Luke Johnson about the Historical Jesus search called The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels in which he makes a fairly important point. Discussing the skeptics who claim that Jesus was just a human (with plenty of variations on that theme) he points out that if you automatically discount all of the miracles in the Gospels as an embelishment or lie, don't be surprised if you find a Jesus that is just a man. You've basically excluded all of the evidence, out of hand, that could prove otherwise.

Similarly, if you start with the assumption that the Shroud can't be the product of a miraculous event, you'll of course be left with the conclusion that it's a fake. But even if I do that thought experiment, the idea that it's a wholly original fake (i.e., someone simply decided to create a fake shroud without anything to work from other than the Gospels) just does not fit with what I know about Medieval science, craftsmanship, and relic forgeries. Contrary to what you seem to think about the Medieval mind, they weren't rational skeptics in the modern sense. If they were, they wouldn't have believed the Earth was flat, that bleeding people with leeches could cure them, or believed that throwing a suspected witch into the water to see if she'd drown after having stones sewn into her clothes was a good way to tell if she was a witch or not. They simply didn't question the world around themselves the way we do and a Medieval forger would not have had to do such a good job, if they wanted to fake the burrial shroud of Jesus, that it contains features not readily explainable even with modern science.

But the mustache didn't go away with filtering.

I have often wondered why the moustache on the shroud is so pronounced. The color density of the image is quite high in the moustache, more so that almost every other part of the image.

I have a moustache and mine is far below the tip of my nose. My moustache lies 2 cm below the tip of my nose, which, on the shroud, is halfway to the point of image disappearance. A cloth draped over my face would hit the tip of my nose and span to my chin... never touching my moustache except on the extreme ends above the corners of my mouth. Yet on the facial image on the shroud, the moustache density is equal to or greater than the tip of the nose which was probably touching the shroud.

WHAT IF what we thought was a moustache is merely the pattern showing the flow of gases constantly escaping from the nostrils???

If it is, then the greater density in the image in this area would be expected.

Let's do a little thought experiment on this.

The latest scientific opinion on image formation is that gases from the natural processes of putrefaction emitted by a dead body (Putrecine and Cadaverine) combined with the sacharides and starch fractions left on the Linen by the retting process chemically created the image by way of a maillard reaction.

If this is true, there would be some areas of vapor ourflow where the gases would be stronger than elsewere. It strikes me that one of these would be through the nostrils. The large area of the dead lungs ( ~100 M²) would provide a natural fermentation area for putrecine and cadaverine to be generated and/or escape from the body. The lungs are have 50 times more area than the skin.

These gases would then find the natural passageway to escape through the nostrils, slowly seeping out as more and more putrecine and cadaverine are fermented. These gases escaping through the nostrils in a higher concentration than through the skin or other bodily openings (the mouth is strapped shut) would show up as a darker area on the shroud because of the higher concentrantration of gases mixing with starches and sacharides in the Maillard reaction. This darker area would be mistakenly interpreted to be a body part... or a moustache.

Perhaps there IS NO MOUSTACHE on the Shroud! The appearance of a moustache is an artifact of the modality of image formation!

It also may explain one other inexplicable thing about the shroud... the higher detail of the facial image compared to the rest of the body. This higher detail has been one of the reasons some have postulated the face was a photograph taken apart from the body images and composited on the shroud later. However, if the greater amounts of outgasing putrecine and cadaverine from the lungs through the nostrils, were more prevalent in this area (a natural consequence of this thought experiment) then the higher detail would be expected.

It would be interesting to see if any threads from the moustache area are available for examination. I would expect, if my theory is true, to find that MORE of the fibers are involved and that the involved fibers would appear deeper in the thread.

Shroudie, in your filtered pictures (by the way, excellent work), the moustache has changed shape from the original which is much more rectilinear... and as you noted, the nose is more natural looking (to my eye, less flattened with a much more pronounced septum)... but of importance to my thought experiment, there is a distinct V shaped division between the nostrils and the moustache. This may be a product of the gas flow. The prominence of the bifurcated beard below may also be a product of these gases being captured in the beard on either side with less concentration making its way to the middle...

A consequence of considering natural openings providing egress for putrefaction gases requires us to consider the other natural bodily openings. The mouth as I noted was strapped shut. That leaves us with the anus and the urethra. It has been noted that the hands share, with the face image a noticable greater detail than the rest of the body. The hands are crossed over the crotch. It is possible this greater hand/wrist detail is also due to the greater concentrations of these gases because of the close proximity of the anus and penile opening.

Another thought... are cadaverine and putrecine heavier than air?

What do you think???

The; "that would either be rare", contradicts "specific to Jesus".

Actually, no it is not contradictory. Why? Because some things we see on the shroud are common to most crucifixion victims, some are rare, and some, as near as we can tell, are unique to the crucifixion applied to Jesus. There are many aspects of crucifixion... the combination of what we see compounds the likely-hood that this crucifixion was unique.

Furthermore, I doubt that in the long history of the Roman Empire that Jesus of Nazareth was the only person that was ridiculed with a crown of thorns or had his side pierced with a lance and legs left un-broken. Especially if it was late in the day and the crew wanted to go for beers. I believe this treatment was more common than supposed. That the records come down that this was done to Christ is not proof that it was done only to Him.

The crowning with a crown of thorns was because he had been called KING... so they crowned him. How many other criminals would have been mocked in that manner? Breaking the legs to hasten the death of a crucifixion victim was such a standard thing they had a word for it... "crucifragium"... and even crucifragium was unusual because the vast majority of crucifixion victims were left to suffer and die of exposure - many of them lasted for days. The Romans did not care whether their victims were dead before they went home for beer. The three crucified men on the particular day that Jesus was executed were granted a degree of leniency in consideration of the upcoming Jewish holy day. The two thieves, being still alive had their legs broken... Jesus was already dead, but to assure that, Longinus stabbed him with his lancia.

Let's say for the sake of argument that, yes, there were a couple of other crucifixions that duplicated the torture exacted on Jesus... The odds that ANY other crucified man was even buried are slim to none (we know of only one other than Jesus... Jehohannon) because the bodies were left on the crosses as examples of what happens to people who flout the Empire... it was NOT ALLOWED except in special circumstances. Now we have to have the John Doe crucifixion victim, having been treated exactly the same as the Biblical record of Jesus of Nazareth, being most unlikely buried according to Jewish funereal rites IN a TOMB with Travertine Aragonite Limestone (which only is found outside the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem) in an expensive cloth that probably represented a month's worth of individual labor, AND the body removed from the cloth prior to any important putrefaction occurring AND this bloody (Read ritually unclean) cloth is saved for some unknown reason... all so that the Shroud of this John Doe comes down to us today to astound us and confuse us. You know, Bucko, there comes a point at which the concatenation of improbables becomes so drawn that THEY, THEMSELVES, constitute a miracle. Just as if we agree the Shroud IS a 14th Century fraud, the creation of such a hoax by an unknown genius demonstrating polymath abilities in numerous disparate fields, to include so many inexplicable things, that is unduplicatable 700 years later is ALSO miraculous. In fact, it may be even MORE miraculous to ascribe the Shroud to an unknown artist of the medieval world than to ascribe it to a man already associated with miracles.

At some point Occam's famous razor just won't cut anymore...

I beg your pardon, but the assumptions are that its authentic, whereas objective science, that is science without an interest in the conclusion, suggests otherwise. As well, the Shroud is always in the custody of those who have an interest in maintaining the mystery (and therefore the interest). Would the Catholic Church turn the Shroud over to the National Institute of Science for analysis, the results would be more credible.b

Elbucko, EXACTLY what "objective science" suggests otherwise? Discredited and totally outdated McCrone? The the now discredited 1988 Carbon 14 tests? AGAIN you refuse to follow the science, ignoring peer-reviewed research in favor of "science" that WAS done with an agenda (McCrone) or "science" that at the last minute discarded the agreed and accepted protocols, ignored their own criteria, ignored "red flags" in the results (results from four tests from a single sample, none of which were within the degrees of confidence of any other result), and which has now been proven to have sampled THE WRONG THING (the C14 test).

You accuse the Catholic Church of not "turning over the Shroud to the National "Institute" of Sciences" yet the did essentially that on October 8 - 13, 1978, when they allowed an international team of top scientists including atheists, Jews, Protestants, Agnostics, and Catholics to have unfettered access to the Shroud for a total of 120 hours, taking samples, photographing (visible, ultra-violet, infra-red) , X-raying, spectroanalysing, and a host of other tests. YOU choose to ignore ALL of the findings brought about by this team of scientists... in favor of what? McCrone???? PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE OF THIS "OBJECTIVE SCIENCE", Elbucko... and McCrone is not acceptable. Nore is non-scientist Joe Nickell.

As it is now, the evidence has the veracity of O.J.Simpson's hunt for the "real killers' of Ron and Nichol.

And what exactly do you FAIL to understand about peer-reviewed science? The evidence has been checked. Its veracity is not in question. The findings are true. You would have voted with the OJ jurors and ignored the DNA... irrefutable evidence that showed OJs blood on Ron Goldman... and acquitted.

Why not admit that you do not have an open mind. It has become quite apparent that regardless of the scientific or historical evidence, if it doesn't fit with your prejudices, it will be totally ignored.

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