This article introduces a major update in Barrie's website Shroud.com done on July 31, 2007. Barrie's website is indispensable for students of the Shroud of Turin. It is the primary clearing house of scholarly and scientific articles published about the Shroud around the world.
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Mercat wrote:
It was interesting until they spent the last 20 minutes on the German guy’s conspiracy theory. But then it was all explained because this conspiracy is consistent with the Koran... like that made it okay. I must admit, it was scary to me.Shock from the scourging would most likely have been sufficient to kill more than 75% of the people who were so whipped. In fact, history reports that is why Roman citizens were routinely given only 40 strikes... to limit the possibility the victim would die before the actual crucifixion.
The German theorists proposes a conspiracy that has too many IFs. Most importantly, his theory lacks a "WHY." Why would the 1st Century conspirators do what the German's claim they did?
I made a Roman flagrum... and used it both on wood and on a side of meat. The lead balls of the ends imbedded themselves over a half inch deep in a pine board... and gouged out large chunks of skin on the meat even when used with just moderate force. I demonstrated this before a class at my church and it opened up an awareness of how brutal what most people thought was just a light lashing, really was. Too many forensic pathologists have examined the Shroud and declared the body "dead" to accept this novelists conspiracy theory.
What surprised me most was the remarkable lack of science in the National Geographic program. Ray N. Rogers' peer reviewed proof that the C-14 test samples were not physically, chemically or texturally consistent with the rest of the Shroud, thus proving the C-14 tests totally invalid, which is among the most recent findings, was totally ignored. Nor did they include the scientific evidence that shows what the image is actually made of... melanoidal by-products of starch fractions perhaps combined with putrecine and cadaverine, two gases emitted by dead bodies shortly after rigor mortise passes. This finding, also by Ray Rogers, proves that the image forming portions of the shroud fibers are definately NOT finely ground rust, Cinnebar, Red Ocher, Silver Oxide, Silver Sulfide, or Silver Nitrate, or any other man made pigment.
They did NOT refute the absurd, unduplicated assertions of "millions paint flakes" (vermillion and Red Ocher in egg white "10% collagen solution") claimed to be seen by Microscopist Walter McCrone. No one else has seen the quantities that McCrone claims exist on the samples he examined... nor have they been found in any much more critical scientific tests such as microspectrophotometry, Electro-spectrometry, X-Ray fluorescence photography, Electron-microscopy, etc.
No, the sceptics like Joe Nickel repeatedly mis-represent the actual peer reviewed research in favor of outdated findings of people who published in non-peer reviewed journals such as McCrone's self edited and self published vanity magazine The Microscopist. After a scientist states that the blood stains on the Shroud had passed over a dozen specific tests for human blood they present Joe Nickel, a stage magician and professional sceptic, saying they made heroic efforts but failed... which is totally false. They left Joe Nickel's lie as the final word on the research on the blood, ignoring recent work by the world's top experts on blood, blood porphoryns, Haemoglobin, blood by-products, and ancient blood research that has been published in rigidly peer-reviewed scientific journals and replicated.
"Regarding the ‘blood,’ (Dr. John H.) Heller and (Dr. Alan A.) Adler 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, and use of proteolytic enzymes on ‘blood’ material, leaving no residues." . . .
". . . Heller (suggested), “Let’s chec 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 (a blood derivitive - Swordmaker) . 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 Adle shook hands after smiling at each other."
- The Shroud of Turin’s ‘Blood’ Images: Blood, or Paint? A History of Science Inquiry," by David Ford.Then to add injury and insult to ignorance and poor research (I could list quite a few errors of fact from the number of C-14 samples to the assertion the DeCharney family GAVE the Shroud to the Chapel in Lirey) they mount an obvious and un-countered attack on Christianity's entire belief base... that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the Dead. Not ONCE was Holger Kersten, the German writer, rebutted by anyone... including by any of the forensic pathologists or medical doctors (which the German writer is not) to refute the absurdities of healing by aloes and myrhh he spouts... or his assertion that the scourging was merely "superficial..." At least during the first 40 minutes, the did a point-counterpoint presentation. When the Kersten segment came on, no authoritative voice was presented to refute his web of conspiracy and inanities... and the narrator seems to agree with everything Kersten says.
Kersten also mis-quotes the Bible in his arguments... the Biblical "flow" of water and blood becomes a "trickle"...
All in all, I'm disappointed.
...a theory often referred to as the “swoon theory,” ...
Covered in the 1960’s by the book The Passover Plot.
I taped the show but lost interst rather quickly when this ‘new’ theory was advanced. It reminded me of the ONION article recently which advanced the theory that JFK wasn’t shot at all - his head simply exploded from too much MSG...
Congressman Billybob
