Shadow Shroud

The Shroud of Turin has long confused, amazed, and befuddled both its critics and proponents. There are many issues surrounding the Shroud and the debate over its authenticity. This site will avoid most of those issues. This site contains the results of a crude experiment that could potentially explain how the Shroud was produced. For centuries no one has been able to explain how a photonegative image of a man could be three-dimensionally encrypted onto linen by medieval forgers unable even to appreciate the completeness of their own art. The Shadow Theory postulates that such an image could be created using only painted glass and sunlight.

While pursuing graduate studies at Liberty University in the year 2000, N. D. Wilson first encountered the Shroud of Turin in a lecture by Dr. Gary Habermas. Using the solution patterns of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, Wilson attempted to work through a "paradigm shift" in the world of current theories of Shroud forgery. Such theories simultaneously fail to account for the complexity of the image and the simplicity of technique required for a forgery to be believably attributed to a medieval.

The image on the Shroud is dark on a light background. Previous theories had all attempted to explain how linen could be darkened without the use of chemicals, stains, or paints. Wilson wondered if it would be possible to lighten the already dark linen, leaving only a dark image behind.The simplest means of lightening linen, available to all men throughout time, is to bleach it with sunlight. Wilson believed that if an image of a man were painted on glass with a light shade of paint, placed over darker linen, and left beneath the sun, a dark image would be left on a light background. More importantly, he believed a dark and light inversion would take place, creating a photonegative. Wherever light paint had been used, the linen would be shaded from the sun and left dark and unbleached. Wherever the darker shade of linen had been left exposed, the sun would bleach the cloth light. In addition, it was also believed that because the sun would be exposing the linen from approximately one hundred and eighty degrees, a crude three dimensional image would be created.

Several years later he decided to test his theory, so he met with Dr. Scott Minnich, a scientist friend, for advice on structuring the experiment.

A line-up of faces would be painted on glass with white paint, placed over linen and exposed beneath the sun for differing periods of time. Different artists and non-artists would paint the faces and various paint thicknesses would be used. The goal for this phase was to select a single painting to be used to produce several images for comparison. A window painted in less than an hour by David Beauchamp, a non-artist, was selected. It initially produced an image while aligned parallel to the sun’s path and exposed for ten days.

The Beauchamp painting would expose two additional images. The first image would be exposed perpendicular to the sun’s path. As temperatures had dropped, and the summer was fading, it would be left exposed for fifteen days. The second image would be exposed beneath a stationary sun lamp for approximately 140 hours.

All of the images created would be photographed in the studio of Mark Lamoreaux for comparisons of the negatives. The three-dimensionality of a faux-shroud would be compared to that of the Turin Shroud.

It was found that even a crudely painted piece of glass could produce a photonegative image three-dimensionally encoded onto linen. The images produced by the Beauchamp painting did not match the finesse of the original, but aptly demonstrated the viability of the technique.

We're supposed to believe, paradoxically, that medieval artists already knew this?

We are supposed to believe that not only did this hypothetical artist already know this, but that he used it only once and never used the technique again.

I will be the first to grant admiration to alchemists... it is they who established the modern science of chemistry and the experimental model. They were the first to start sharing techniques, reporting what did and didn't work, and what results they got trying various things. They systematized the naming of chemicals (at least they had to agree what ingredients they were using)... but I sincerely doubt that any of them had the polymath abilities and range of knowledge that must be attributed to the hypothetical creator of the Shroud of Turin.

The motives of those who seek to "discredit" the shroud or to prove it a "forgery" are varied.

Some are Christians who fear having their belief that Faith without proof is enough or that it is somehow superior to belief because of proof. . . and that any offering of proof will diminish the value of their belief. Still others are of the opinion that the Gospels they are reading in English have been translated from the Greek by God... and that the more precise meanings of words in Greek that have no English equivalent can be ignored in favor of their colloquial understanding of English. As a result they believe that any Shroud that is not as described exactly as it is in THEIR version of the Bible, it must therefore be a fraud... and a temptation of the Devil. Anything they can do to prove it a fraud is fighting Satan.. . and a good thing.

Others fear that ultimate proof that a man named Jesus did indeed live and suffered the indignities and death described in the Bible would then require them to reconsider their cherished unbelief in any Biblical report. Even the proof of Jesus' historical existence is threatening to those who prefer not to be judged by any ultimate authority.

Some, like John Dominic Crossen and the other members of the Jesus Project, are self styled deconstructionists who have convinced themselves that their opinions are far superior to the literal words of the Bible. They prefer to place their arrogant intellectual opinions of Biblical events on a pedestal as an example of modern critical thinking instead of what they actually are: a house-of-cards exercise in nose-picking. A Shroud that show them to be blow-hards would upset them immensely, and probably force them to find other productive work... for which they are uniquely unsuited.

It is amazing to see supposedly sane, open minded "scientists" abandon proper scientific procedure and choose to ignore peer-reviewed work published in scientific journals in favor of popular books written by non-scientists (Joe Nickell) and the old discredited work published unethically in vanity press magazines (Walter C. McCrone) simply because it disturbs them that something religious just might have some validity. They will accept almost any explanation, regardless of logic, if it meets their prejudices.

To show it could have been created by any means at all that is non-miraculous, diminishes the possibilities of all of the above.

From your comment, it appears you have abandoned your position as a shroud critic... I am curious... how and why did you change your position?

My position changed instantly the first time I saw the
-positive- image.
Bam!...just like that.
No scientific tests or empiric evidence necessary.
I -felt- it.
[gee, that's just *so* illogical, isn't it?]

It's not that hard to learn to read Greek.
I spent a couple of years with a Greek NT and a massive NT Greek lexicon *and* a "regular" Greek lexicon.
I was amazed at the things I read.
I've also devoted a lot of time to studying Jewish historical context and linguistic idioms in order to better understand the Bible.

[so I take up weird hobbies...sue me]...;))

For me, it doesn't matter if/when it's proved "real" or "fake".
I will continue to believe in Christ, regardless.

I'm not a member of any denomination so I have no dogmatic ax to grind, no agenda and no dog in this fight.

I do believe that if it is indeed real, just maybe God let it be found to confound the endless parade of "experts".
Not a day goes by that some archaeologist or another digs up yet another shard of "proof" of what I already know.

It may be that I have a perverse sense of humor, but I enjoy watching wise men making fools of themselves, nearly nonstop....:)

Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe.

"Some are Christians who fear having their belief that Faith without proof is enough or that it is somehow superior to belief because of proof. . . and that any offering of proof will diminish the value of their belief."

Some people worry too much about being "righter/better/holier" than the next guy.

God is.
Christ is.
The end.

What more is there to *really* know?

Unbelievers will never rest in their efforts to "disprove" what they secretly -fear- is true.
If they truly did not believe, why would they waste their time convincing themselves?

That's their problem.

The Word of God is my "infallible mediating institution".

But the Bible didn't drop from the sky at Pentecost. It was brought to you by the Catholic Church. Reject the Church, and you reject the New Testament.

A. The Formation of the New Testament Canon (A.D. 100-220)
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council...
...As for Protestantism, the Anglicans and Calvinists always kept the entire New Testament But for over a century the followers of Luther excluded Hebrews, James, Jude, and Apocalypse, and even went further than their master by rejecting the three remaining deuterocanonicals, II Peter, II and III John.

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