Posted on 01/21/2004 2:29:31 AM PST by Swordmaker
Raymond N. Rogers
Fellow
University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM, USA
©2004 Raymond N. Rogers
All Rights Reserved
The samples were run at the Midwest Center for Mass Spectrometry (MCMS), University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This is a National Science Foundation "Center of Excellence," and it ranks among the foremost facilities in the world.
Walter McCrone had ignored agreements on how the STURP samples were to be observed, and he contaminated all of our samples by sticking them to microscope slides. All of the fibers were immersed in the tape's adhesive, Joan Janney (now Joan Rogers) laboriously cleaned and prepared Shroud fibers for analysis at the MCMS.
Mass spectrometry is based on the fact that charged particles in motion have their trajectories bent by electric and/or magnetic fields. Molecules in a high vacuum can be ionized (charged) by electron impact or chemical ionization. Chemical ionization uses collisions with excited atoms or molecules to ionize the sample, and it gives a much simpler mass spectrum than electron impact. Since we desired detection sensitivity rather than high resolution, we used a machine with moderate resolution, chemical ionization, and high sensitivity. The method was sufficiently sensitive to detect traces of the low-molecular-weight fractions (oligomers) of the polyethylene bag that Prof. Luigi Gonella had used to wrap the Raes threads.
It did not detect any unexpected pyrolysis fragments that indicated any Shroud materials other than carbohydrates. That is exactly what would be expected from a piece of pure linen. This helped confirm the fact that the image was not painted.
The oldest known paintings appeared in prehistoric times (ca. 30,000 BC), and they are found in the caves of France, Spain, and Africa. They were done in natural materials, e.g., red and yellow ochre and charcoal. There is evidence that the pigments were mixed with animal fat for application to the irregular cave surfaces. Tempera painting appeared early in history. It involves powdered pigments mixed with egg, plant gums, and/or glues. Aside from fresco, tempera was the principal painting medium before the introduction of oil paints.
The Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck are generally (probably incorrectly) credited with the invention of oil painting. Their careers are well documented between about 1422 and 1441. They normally worked on canvas that was made from either linen or a linen-cotton blend. It would be extremely unlikely that oil paints had been used to hoax the image during or before the 14th Century; however, we planned observations that would detect such materials. Oils were the favorite vehicles for pigments during the time of the 1532 fire. They could have been used in an attempt to reproduce the Shroud, if it had been totally destroyed in the fire . . .
. . .The pyrolysis-MS analyses did not detect any nitrogen-containing contaminants. This seemed rule out glair (egg white) as well as any significant microbiological deposits, confirming microchemical tests that were also made. They did not detect any of the sulfide pigments were used in antiquity, e.g., orpiment, realgar, mosaic gold, and cinnabar (vermilion, mercury sulfide, HgS). The Shroud's image had not been painted with any known vehicles and pigments. Many of the pyrolysis fragments observed by pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry would be the same products of thermal degradation whether they came from cellulose, hexose sugars, pentose sugars, or starches. However, the ratios of products can be characteristic and important . . .
The Shroud [all of the shroud except the area where the carbon-14 test material was taken - Swordmaker] is nearly pure linen. Notice that the hydroxymethylfurfural signal at m/e 126 is quite large: the furfural signal at m/e 96 is quite small.
The spectrum obtained for the Raes sample (cut in 1973 from the area adjoining the radiocarbon sample of 1988) shows absolutely no m/e 126 signal: the cellulose of the sample had not yet started to pyrolyze. There is, however, a significant m/e 96 signal: furfural was being produced at this temperature. This proves that the sample contained some pentose-sugar units. This is unique among all of the Shroud samples: no other area showed this pentose signal.
Chemical analyses have proved that the Raes samples are coated with a gum/dye/mordant system that has been used for millennia to color cloth. It is stained with a synthetic system. Apparently the intent was to make these threads look like the old, sepia yarn of the main part of the cloth . . .
. . . Maps of all of the other samples were also obtained. They all showed the same difference in product ratios: the Raes sample was unique. It was contaminated with some material that produced pentose pyrolysis products at relatively low temperatures. . .
Conclusion:
The pyrolysis/MS data confirm the identification of a gum coating on the Raes threads.
---------------------------------------
This is an extract of the information contained in the Rogers report. The entire report (6 pages) can be downloaded at the source. It is a PDF file and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to read. Swordmaker
You are insulting, RaceBannon.
It is you, Race, who is reading into words in the New Testement meanings that ARE NOT THERE. It is you who is confabulating Egyptian burial practices with Jewish. It is YOU, Race, that is making an extraordinary claim. It is you who is claiming, against all Biblical scholarship, that the Christians who for 2000 years have observed Good Friday as the day of Jesus's crucifixion, are wrong. It is you who insists on applying a Western mind set to an inherently Eastern document. It is you who idly sweeps aside 100 years of scholarly research on the Shroud, dismissing it as Jesus's Shroud, merely on YOUR interpretation of words in an ENGLISH Bible. It is you who ignores the fine work of many centuries of scholars and hoist your own viewpoint above that of any other. It is you who fails to understand.
I suggest that while you know all about your opinion, you do not know all about the subject. Neither do I. It is you, however, who is absolutely certain that your opinion is the correct one.
As for your insulting and absurd claim that I was unaware that the Jewish Bible is written in Hebrew...
I know full well that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Technically, most of it was oral tradition that was finally put into written form fairly late in the history of the Jewish people. If you want to be technical, the Jews do not refer to their Holy Writings by the name of "Bible" except as a Christian era common reference. It is most commonly called the Tanakh.
Did you see me, anywhere in this thread, refer to Old Testement writings? No, you don't. You are just attempting to disrupt the conversation here... and you have succeeded.
WE were talking about CHRISTIAN BIBLES. Bibles that are used by Christians in the Roman Catholic Church were written in LATIN... not Hebrew, not Aramaic, not even in Greek (The Eastern Orthodox Church uses Greek from its very beginning). Race, SHOW ME A ROMAN CATHOLIC OR PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN BIBLE THAT HAS THE OLD TESTEMENT IN HEBREW! I doubt you will find one outside of a "Jews for Jesus" meeting hall.
But all of that is irrelevant to the discussion that was taking place on THIS thread. WE WERE NOT TALKING ABOUT JEWISH BIBLES!
I did you the courtesy of assuming you had a reasonable degree of understanding of the topic on the table... Bibles that Christians use... and the fact that the Western Church Bibles, up until the Reformation, were written in LATIN, the official Church Language. I did not think it necessary to explain what we were NOT talking about. If I were to include everything we are NOT TALKING ABOUT in every reply and about every topic, this thread would be extremely LONG.
Pardon me for my mistake. I gave you too much credit: You do not understand what we are discussing. In fact, you are UNreasonable. in the truest sense of the word.
If you want to believe in your own little religion based on your personal research and opinion, that is fine with me. You will be alone in your worship as the majority of Christians believe that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, that the Last Supper was a Passover, and any who bother to do the research will find that the burial customs of Jews did not require them to swath the entire body in cloths or to wrap it up like a mummy.
No one here CARES about your pet theory that, contrary to 2000 years of tradition, and tons of scholarship, Jesus was crucified on Wednesday. No, in your mind, you are 100% right.
I have shown you the usage. I have shown you the original Greek. I have posted the Greek definitions and implications... Yet YOU insist on returning to an outdated, but poetic, KING JAMES BIBLE as though it is the original source document. It is not. It is merely one of many flawed translations of the original source documents... flawed because the Language it was written in, at the time it was written, lacked certain equivalent words to accurately translate the original Koine Greek (a somewhat non-Greek form of Greek that developed as a "linga franca" for trade and popular usage).
When your argument fails, you insult people. That is rude. When they disagree with you, you imply they are ignorant. I am tired of your petty insistance on YOUR interpretation of a word that does not carry the connotation you want give it no matter how much you rant and rave.
The "obvious," Race, is in YOUR opinion... and I am not ashamed to disagree with your parochial viewpoint.
"The original books of the Bible were written in Greek..." should have read:
"the original books of the Bible's New Testement were written in Greek..."
But you should have caught that from the context of the discussion.
Wow. The story of two Jewish men, as recorded in the Bible, are actually EGYPTIAN?? Jesus was buried according to EGYPTIAN custom? Lazarus, too?
It is YOU, Race, that is making an extraordinary claim. It is you who is claiming, against all Biblical scholarship, that the Christians who for 2000 years have observed Good Friday as the day of Jesus's crucifixion, are wrong.
No, they didnt observe this for 2000 years at all.
The Friday before Easter, the day in the Holy Week on which the yearly commemoration of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ is observed. As early as the 2nd century, there are references to fasting and penance on this day by Christians, who, since the time of the early church, had observed every Friday as a fast day in memory of the Crucifixion. In the Roman rite of the Roman Catholic Church, the liturgical service for Good Friday has been in approximately the same form for centuries, the notable difference since 1955 being the communion of the people. The liturgy, now celebrated after 3 pm, consists of three distinct parts: readings and prayers (including the Passion according to St. John), the veneration of the cross, and the communion (in place of the Liturgy of the pre-sanctified which developed in the Middle Ages). Non-liturgical devotions such as the Way of the Cross, and the Three Hours Service were introduced in the Roman Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation and are still observed in some places. The Three Hours Service is a three-hour-long service consisting of sermons, hymns, and prayers centered round Christ's "seven last words on the Cross." It takes place from 12 noon to 3 pm on Good Friday.
It is the Friday before Easter that was always a fast day, but it was NOT always the day that was observed as the day of the Crucifixion.
It is you who insists on applying a Western mind set to an inherently Eastern document.
No, I apply the known, proven definition of the word, something quite simple actually.
It is you who idly sweeps aside 100 years of scholarly research on the Shroud, dismissing it as Jesus's Shroud, merely on YOUR interpretation of words in an ENGLISH Bible.
No, I just apply simple Biblical logic to the fairy tale that this piece of cloth which is nothing ore than an archaelogical oddity that many people have been foolish to believe is a relic similar to the other relics of a particular faith.
God very many times in the past destroyed certain people's bodies to prevent the use of the bones as relics, such as Moses. To then take whatever you can and somehow apply it to Jesus makes those items an idol, and people go and worship it as something that is supposed to help them build up their faith.
That is what an idol is.
Ah, I see, You are a "True Believer" which means that no amount of evidence, no level of proof will sway you from your creed. Good enough.
Did I say that? No, I did not. I said that YOU were confabulating (that means combining one thing into another) Egyptian burial practices with Jewish to come up with things like extra cloths, etc. The Egyptian mode of burial is the source of the idea that there were MANY cloths involved with the burial of Jesus. I have had this same discussion with others before, some of which claim the Bible says that Jesus and Lazarus were wrapped up in bandage like strips.
This is another example of you reading something into words that is not there.
Your little Good Friday cuts and pastes are interesting... but irrelevant to this thread, except for YOUR attempts to hijack this discussion to YOUR agenda. I read your thesis and found very little in it of value. I certainly did not want to discuss your errors in depth here. This is not about RaceBannon's pet theory of "Good Wednesday;" it is a thread about the Shroud of Turin."
God very many times in the past destroyed certain people's bodies to prevent the use of the bones as relics, such as Moses. To then take whatever you can and somehow apply it to Jesus makes those items an idol, and people go and worship it as something that is supposed to help them build up their faith. That is what an idol is.
Do you see anyone here "Worshiping" the Shroud of Turin? I don't. We are having a discussion on the possible provenance of the Shroud. I do not worship it... I worship Jesus Christ.
God very many times in the past destroyed certain people's bodies to prevent the use of the bones as relics, such as Moses.
Again, you read things that are not there... and now you claim to know God's motives. Amazing.
Excuse, but this mantra of yours, that I am ignoring your false evidence that I have clearly disproved, rings hollow, as you have not countered any Biblical fact I presented, and observers can see that.
Now you are calling me a liar. Nothing I have posted on here is "false," Race. I can provided source material for everything I have posted... and have done so. Your "disproving" consists of your one note repetition of your OPINION and YOUR interpretation of the facts... without supporting material. That disproves nothing... it just proves you are not willing to consider anything other than your opinion.
I have shown you the words in the Koine Greek original texts... you have shown me the King James Bible. I have shown you the various interpretations possible of the Koine Greek words in the original texts... you have shown me the King James Bible.
I have shown you the most common ENGLISH definitions and usages of the words you are reading in the King James Bible and you insist on narrowly defining them using tertiary or even quaternary meanings to get the interpretation YOU WANT IT TO BE. This is contrary to all rules of exegesis. If you want to believe that your ENGLISH LANGUAGE Bible is the most accurate source of what happened in the first Century AD that was first recorded in Koine Greek writings, I will not argue with you any further because your mind is completely closed.
If you want to argue Good Wednesday, go start your own thread about it. Don't hijack this one. Good bye.
You are clearly delusional. There it is in your statement that you are calling Scriptural accounts of Lazarus and Jesus being buried with a swarthing cloth an Egyptian Practice!
Those are your words. Not mine. Your words.
You keep proving my point. Now, go away.
No, What I cut and pasted, on the posts of the individual words, are from the Greek Text, with the Strongs Word associated with what was being defined. I posted the full definition of the word FROM SCRIPTURE FROM THE GREEK. Yet you refuse to admit that for some reason.
You keep sticking your foot in your mouth with false accusations, again and again.
You also are the one who continued my singular comment on Wednesday being Crucifixion day, which I was only going to mention once, but YOU harped on.
So, I defended myself, and you can ignore it all you want, yet I have not seen you address any points I made, while I have clearly shown from Scripture that Jesus and Lazarus BOTH had a KERCHIEF around their head, and that this kerchief was a FULL WRAPPING around the head, and that is what th word is IN THE GREEEK AS I POSTED WITH THE STRONGS WORD ASSOCIATED WITH IT, not KJV as you falsely claimed!!
You need to relax, you found someone who doesnt believe and showed why and all you do is make false accusations! It makes you look bad!
You use this to make the case that the napkin was wrapped around the head vs. placed over the face. And possibly the fact that it was 'still rolled up' lends credense to the argument. I.E; the Lord, having left it untounched ,would result in it's remaining in its origional shape and purpose.
However (and on an issue not necc. relevant to the 'rolled around' vs placed over' the face) - the fact remains from the text it was 'in a place by intself' - or physically away from the shroud if but a few inches to a few feet..
Therefore - thinging THROUGH the transformation causing the image on the shroud, one would conclude the Lord did not transform directly from the body out of the tomb in an instant. Else the burial napkin would NOT have 'been in a place by itself, but rather within the shroud itself in its origional place mirroring its placement in relation to the shroud at burial.
Therefore a conclusion is: a transformation causing the image, but with the risen body remaining for a brief time in the tomb; removing the napkin and placing it 'in a place by itself'. (Who else would be there to take that action)
While this is slightly extracirricular to the case of autenticity - do you know of any disscussion or theory, regarding transformation, regarding the physical seperation of the two pieces?
What does "swarthing" mean, Race. I cannot find it in any dictionary. Perhaps you mean "swathing"?
And we're back to you citing the King James version of the Bible as an original source. The Greek in BOTH Lazarus's and Jesus's burial does not use the Greek term for "swathing". Let's look at the Greek text, this time for John 11:44:
44 kai exhlqen o teqnhkwV dedemenoV touV podaV kai taV ceiraV keiriaiV kai h oyiV autou soudariw periededeto legei autoiV o ihsouV lusate auton kai afete upagein
John 11:44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
In fact, the only words that are shared between the two passages "kai" a connective such as "and" and "soudariw" and "suodarion" which are not even the same form. In addition, in Jesus's burial the Greek word "epi" meaning "on" was used while here with Lazarus we have "peridedeto" from the Greek "peri" ("around") and "deo" or "dew" meaning "to bind (in various applications, literally or figuratively):--bind, be in bonds, knit, tie, wind," which would give us "bound around." This distinctive word and phrase is not found in the text about Jesus's burial.
Another word that was used to describe Jesus's burial is missing from Lazarus's burial. That word is "sindone" which means a large sheet or shroud (the word is derived from the Greek word for "sail").
Why is this significant?
Cloth was expensive... and large cloths were VERY expensive. A shroud or "sindon" was a piece of cloth represented many, many hours of hand labor in cultivating, harvesting the flax, spinning and weaving the linen, and finally fullering it for suppleness. Only the very rich could afford a shroud. In fact, up to the invention of machinery to make cloth, clothing, linens, and other cloth items were extremely valuable and were part of the assets of any estate.
Lazarus was given a lower or middle class burial which means the preparers would have to use what they had at hand. The poor and artisan class used household cloths or small cloths that they could afford to buy. This would mean they would probably use a "napkin" or a "kerchief" to cover the face of the deceased because they could not afford a large cloth shroud. They might use strips of torn cloth to make bandages to tie them on and tie the hands and feet together. The likelyhood is that Lazarus did not have the luxury of a full body shroud.
On the other hand, Jesus was being given a "Rich man's burial" and Joseph of Arimathea bought a new shroud for the purpose.
The burials were not equivalent. The descriptions in Greek are completely different.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.