Posted on 06/22/2005 9:55:20 AM PDT by aculeus
A FRENCH magazine has said it had carried out experiments that proved the Shroud of Turin, believed by some Christians to be their religion's holiest relic, was a fraud.
"A mediaeval technique helped us to make a Shroud," Science & Vie (Science and Life) said in its July issue.
The Shroud is claimed by its defenders to be the cloth in which the body of Jesus Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion.
It bears the faint image of a blood-covered man with holes in his hand and wounds in his body and head, the apparent result of being crucified, stabbed by a Roman spear and forced to wear a crown of thorns.
In 1988, scientists carried out carbon-14 dating of the delicate linen cloth and concluded that the material was made some time between 1260 and 1390. Their study prompted the then archbishop of Turin, where the Shroud is stored, to admit that the garment was a hoax. But the debate sharply revived in January this year.
Drawing on a method previously used by sceptics to attack authenticity claims about the Shroud, the magazine got an artist to do a bas-relief - a sculpture that stands out from the surrounding background - of a Christ-like face.
A scientist then laid out a damp linen sheet over the bas-relief and let it dry, so that the thin cloth was moulded onto the face.
Using cotton wool, he then carefully dabbed ferric oxide, mixed with gelatine, onto the cloth to make blood-like marks. When the cloth was turned inside-out, the reversed marks resulted in the famous image of the crucified Christ.
Gelatine, an animal by-product rich in collagen, was frequently used by Middle Age painters as a fixative to bind pigments to canvas or wood.
The imprinted image turned out to be wash-resistant, impervious to temperatures of 250 C (482 F) and was undamaged by exposure to a range of harsh chemicals, including bisulphite which, without the help of the gelatine, would normally have degraded ferric oxide to the compound ferrous oxide.
The experiments, said the magazine, answer several claims made by the pro-Shroud camp, which says the marks could not have been painted onto the cloth.
AFP
congrats - you made it in by the third post. I wonder if Jesus thought that the material world had no bearing on living with God. Let's see - did he come as a ball of light or as a human being? Do I remember him scorning the silly rituals of Passover too?
Actually, Twain was exagerating a bit... a recent inventory of "pieces of the True Cross" found enough wood volume to account for about two-thirds of the patibulum (the cross piece).
What Biblical record is that?
I don't care about relics, but I'm interested in archelogical finds regarding the Bible when they are found. If an archelogist uses the Gospel of John to locate The Pavement where Pontius Pilate tried Jesus (which happened) I find that interesting.
As for the Shroud, I find it intriguing that represents a crucifixion method that is contrary to that believed in the 13th century. I'm intrigued by the 3-d imaging of the image on the shroud. I'm intrigued that a "negative" would be a worthwhile hoax in the 13th century.
I don't think this magazine has proved anything...even that they can make a shroud.
The new stuff is the textile analysis by a non-Catholic, and the dsicovery that the C14 samples were taken from a piece of mended material added in the Middle Ages aftre some damage and not from the original cloth.
There is also the palynologists' evidence.
Of course that's true... why I have a copy of the Mona Lisa. The creation of this copy PROVES the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre is a fake!
Ah, yes, the 'one true church' baloney again. The ONE true church is the Body of Christ worldwide.
Will it be donated to a museum?
I'm inclined to doubt the Shroud but I've always enjoyed the puzzle it presented, and, no, the French have no proved or disproved anything at least judging by the article.
that's right. God is not interested in religion, He wants relationship.
"As for the Shroud, I find it intriguing that represents a crucifixion method that is contrary to that believed in the 13th century."
And one that is workable whereas the Medieval Representation is not.
I KNOW the Shroud very well COULD be the burial Shroud of Christ. I BELIEVE it is because of overwhelmig circumstantial evidence.
But like you, I am interested in archaeology and ancient history.
Many folks are religious and go to church, take the sacraments, all the rites of the church, etc. but have no idea what a relationship with Jesus Christ is really all about. He loves us and wants us to love Him back. He's not interested in sacrifice. He wants our hearts.
I didn't stipulate that their faith was based on relics, I just said that it may bring them some comfort and a sense of being closer to God. How can you pronounce their faith as a sham, without even knowing them, or knowin what their faith is based on?
No, we don't know the provenance. It did indeed surface in Lirey, France, in ~1350 AD but we have tantalizing clues from much earlier including an 11th Century medal depicting it, a sermon from the 10th century describing it, and inventories from the 6th century including it.
POW! That was almost a knockout punch. The only you thing left off your list was denim skirts. :)
Just because the second cloth is not mentioned there does not mean that it does not exist. They would have used a number of embalming materials which are not listed in detail in any of the Gospels. When examining scripture, alway examine the context - what does the Bible say about itself. The Bible, being the inerrant Word of God, is the only valid measure.
Mr. Natural had a sort of similar response to that same question...
No, everyone does NOT know that. And YOU know that, Hank.
No. Not all Catholics are Christians and not all Christians are Catholic.
No, Aquinas, the images are not a scorch... the chemistry of the image is now well understood and it is neither a scorch nor a daubing or a painting. It is a coating on the uppermost fibers of the image area composed of starch fractions and saccharides:
. . . the Shroud of Turin's images are the result of a very natural, complex chemical reaction between amines (ammonia derivatives) emerging from a body and saccharides within a carbohydrate residue that covers the fibers of the Shroud of Turin. The color producing chemical process is called a Maillard reaction. This is fully discussed in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Melanoidins, a journal of the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities (EU, Volume 4, 2003).
If they were scorches they would fluoresce just as the scorches from the 1532 fire flouresce.
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