Did boy Jesus look like this? Forensic experts use computer images from Shroud

While no one knows for certain, forensic experts are now using computer images from the Shroud of Turin along with historical data and other ancient images to make an educated guess.

In a documentary called "Jesus' Childhood" airing Sunday night on the Italian TV station Retequattro of the Mediaset Group, police artists use the same "aging" technology employed when searching for missing persons and criminals.

"In this case the experts went backwards. Now we have a hypothesis on how the man of the shroud might have looked at the age of 12," Mediaset said in a statement. "While some features, such as the color of the eyes and the hair's length, cut and color, are arbitrary, others come directly from the face impressed on the shroud."

The group points out the facial proportions between the nose and eyebrow, as well as the shape of the jaw are identical to those on the shroud, which is a piece of linen some believe to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus after he was crucified.

The resulting image shows a fair-skinned child with blond, wavy hair and dark eyes.

"We made a rigorous effort based on the Shroud of Turin, but it's clear that the data at our disposal were limited," police official Carlo Bui told the Italian paper Corriere della Sera. "Let's say we have made an excellent hypothesis."

The Bible itself gives little information as to the specifics of what Jesus looked like during his ministry.

It does say he was a descendant of King David, who may have been fair-skinned with a reddish tint to his face and hair. The Old Testament notes David as a youth "was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to." (I Samuel 2:16)

Others have argued Jesus was more olive or dark-skinned being from the Middle East.

The book of Isaiah gives what many believe to be a prophecy about Jesus' appearance as a human being, noting there wouldn't be any features out of the ordinary:

When asked by Discovery News about the latest computer-generated image, Prof. James Charlesworth, an expert on Jesus research and the Gospel of John at Princeton Theological Seminary, said, "Too many Christians look down the well of history, seeking to see Jesus' face, and see the reflection of their own image. Those who follow Jesus find him attractive and thence always tend to portray him as a very attractive male, as in this new image."

"It shows clearly an Aryan Jesus, just like the Nazis proclaimed. Jesus was a Jew, looked like a Jew, and followed Jewish customs," he said.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the Shroud of Turin itself has been mired in controversy for centuries, with some maintaining the image on the linen is that of the crucified Jesus, while others reject it as an elaborate hoax.

In the 1980s, three international laboratories were selected to run the newly refined accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) method of carbon dating on the shroud, to help determine its time of origin. The labs, including one at the University of Arizona at Tucson, all concurred the shroud was dated 1260-1390 AD.

But many have since questioned the reliability of the carbon-dating process which fixed that time period.

In 2000, millions of people turned out to view the controversial fabric during a rare public display.

The New Testament does refer to linens in connection with Jesus' burial, recounted when Jesus' disciples went to his tomb:

While some think the "napkin" that was on Jesus' head casts doubt on the whole shroud theory, others believe it helps validate the shroud as authentic.

A relic called the Sudarium of Oviedo is claimed by some to be the actual cloth around Jesus' head.

The cloth is impregnated with blood and lymph stains that match the blood type on the Shroud of Turin. The pattern and measurements of stains indicate the placement of the cloth over the face.

Juan Ignacio Moreno, a Spanish magistrate based in Burgos, Spain, asks a critical question:

"The scientific and medical studies on the Sudarium prove that it was the covering for the same man whose image is [on] the Shroud of Turin. We know that the Sudarium has been in Spain since the 600s. How, then, can the radio carbon dating claiming the shroud is only from the 13th century be accurate?"

"This is false..."

"The matter is settled, scientists told us; long awaited Carbon 14 dating tests proved that the Shroud is a 14th century fake.

For years, the Vatican had resisted submitting the Shroud to Carbon 14 dating because it had required cutting away too much of the linen. But Rome relented in 1988 after newer techniques were developed which required only tiny fibers.

Three laboratories were chosen to do the tests of threads from an 8-millimeter strip of linen cut from bottom left hand corner of the Shroud. One test was done at Oxford University, another at the University of Arizona and the last at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. All three reported that their tests showed the Shroud to date back only to medieval times (between `1260 AD and 1390 AD) and that was that. The world at large lost interest in the relic.

But not everybody agreed with the test results. Some quoted Professor Giovanni Riggi, the man who cut the sample from the Shroud, as saying that he trimmed the specimen "due to contamination of the cloth with threads of different origins" -- a factor that cast doubt on the dating. Critics also said the threads were considered border material that may have been sewn onto the original Shroud.

Samuel Pellicori, an optical physicist and member of the scientific team that studied the Shroud in 1978 said the test sample was cut from an area which "showed discoloration due to contamination."

Archeologist William Meachem expanded on the contamination of the Shroud, noting it contained oils, wax, soap, deposits from open wounds, saliva, sweat, preservatives, image enhancers, oil lamp smoke and wood cellulose.

Moreover, the British scientist who headed the test project violated the scientific integrity of the test when he gave the three laboratories the dates of the first and 11th century supposedly-blind samples used in the test.

Even the man who had invented the accelerated mass spectrometer (AMS) method used by the three labs criticized the manner of testing used, insisting that another time-tested method, the decay-counting method should also have been used. Henry E. Gove had written a letter to the British Museum in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with the way his testing method was being used. He said it had "become a somewhat shoddy enterprise." He recommended using different technicians and the use of a total of seven laboratories to perform the tests in order to "make them as credible as possible.

Ian Wilson chimed in by warning: "Few realize that instead of being totally dispassionate scientific institutions, the AMS laboratories are involved in an all-out war with their competitors."

And there the matter rested until the intrepid Dr. John Jackson, a member of the original Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) and the director of the Turin Shroud Center in Colorado Springs joined forces with a renowned Russian researcher Dr. Dmitri Kousnetzov, the director of Moscow's Sedov Biopolymer Research Laboratory. Jackson concentrated his efforts on the effects of temperature on the "yellowing" of the linen while Kouznetsov researched the exchange of carbon isotopes with linen. Their joint efforts, they revealed, cast serious doubt on the 1988 carbon 14 dating tests.

The fire in 1532 in the Sainte Chapelle at Chambery damaged the Shroud which was encased in a wooden box covered with silver. Silver mixed with an alloy melts only at temperatures above 200 degrees F and drops of the molten metal fell on the linen and burned holes in the corners of the folded Shroud and almost ignited the whole relic. Kouznetsov cites a process known as biofractionalization and the possibility of extraneous carbon having chemically bonded to the Shroud as factors that cast extreme doubt on the 1988 test results. He insists that if you make allowances for the damage done to the relic by the fire you must conclude the Shroud is "not less than 1800 years old."

The Russian researcher took a linen cloth that came from Israel and had been carbon 14 dated back to 200 AD and tested it under the conditions that existed during the 1532 fire. After the cloth was exposed to the same kind of temperature and molten silver, it was subjected to another carbon 14 dating test.

The new tests showed the cloth to be 1400 years younger!

According to a recent report by Rev Fr. John Kennington published in the November 25, 1995 Holy Shroud Newsletter, Dr. Kouznetsov and his colleague Dr. Ivanov tested linen wrappings on a mummy known to date back at least 2,000 years. Tests showed the wrappings to be younger than the mummy inside. The two scientists explained that when flax fibers are made into linen thread, their chemistry is changed to such an extent that carbon 14 dating is unreliable.

Kouznetsov recently revealed that a piece of modern linen was exposed to a devastating store fire. Carbon 14 dating of the linen showed it had not yet been made, giving it an origination date in the future.

Last January, Dr. Gove, the inventor of the AMS dating test used on the Shroud in 1988 recently said: "A scientist, Dr. Leoncio A Garza-Valdes M.D. of San Antonio, Texas has produced strong evidence for a type of modern carbon contamination on Shroud threads produced by a certain type of bacteria that the cleaning procedures of the three C14 testing labs may not have removed. Depending on how thick the coating is, it can cause the date published by the three laboratories to be too young."

It would seem the matter is far from closed!"

The above is quoted from http://www.pvbr.com/Issue_1/sindone.htm
written by Philip Brennan

Before discounting these comments, go to the source and read it. Worthwhile reading, from any perspective regarding opinions we might have about the shroud's authenticity.

G'GPa

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