Replies

Well, the problem with detecting fraud is that you need professional skeptics to do it. I used to be a professional skeptic of sorts (an arson investigator) and I was often impressed by the ingenuity and diligence of the subjects. If some of them had decided to use all that brain power and hard work in an honest job, they could have avoided all that prison stuff . . .

Many "respected scientists" were fooled by Uri Geller, for example -- it took a skeptic and professional illusionist to unmask him.

I remember reading an article in Popular Science by a fellow (Walter somebody?) who used an iron oxide powder and wrapped fabric around a 3-dimensional model. What he got was pretty close. You'll never have an exact duplication at this far a remove (fabric, chemicals, etc. are so different now).

What it boils down to is the burden of proof. The burden lies on the advocates to support their somewhat improbable conclusions -- not on the skeptics to prove that the shroud is a forgery. So many people look at it the other way around -- and award a "tie" to the advocates of the shroud.

I find it interesting, but it has no effect on my faith in Christ either way. The Sacrifice and Resurrection are what's really remarkable here.

The problem with a three dimensional model is that features from the side of the head would be wide when you straightened the fabric - you wouldn't have a face five inches wide, you'd have one ten inches wide.

The shroud is like a photograph, not like a draped sheet.

Now if you had a something like a bas-relief, distorted to give the correct proportions when the sheet was flattened - that would be intriguing. Coming up with the proportions by trial and error - very challenging. You could do it with a computer, sure.

Were there pictures in the Pop. Science article?

Mrs VS

Walter Mccrone was a scientist who said he had microscopic evidence that the shroud was painted with vermillion and red ochre in a collagen medium in the 14th century. He didn't recreate it with a 3D model - I think some French guy claimed to do that. I couldn't find a Popular Science shroud of Turin article.

I don't think 14th century portrait painters EVER got a face so realistically proportioned - so perhaps we're back to draping a sheet over a 3D model rubbed with paint - and back to the 3D to 2D proportion problem.

Mrs VS

Here is a interesting line from a preacher I read and copied... and it does not pertain to the shroud, but, he was talking the Gospel, were Paul was talking about in Galatians.. not THE Gospel, but, another Gospel.

" The success of an illegitimate coiner depends largely upon how closely the counterfeit resembles the genuine article." .. Sir Aurthur Pink "

Could there have been another shroud ?
What has become of the original burial cloths of Jesus Christ ? does anyone know ?
Would his followers might have saved them knowing the significance of his claims and resurrection ? and the historical matters towards his resurrection ?
Are these legitimate questions to ask ?
I am on the side of believing that those cloths are authentic, but, I am open to proof and evidence that can either prove it is authentic,, or that it is not authentic,,,, however ? my faith does not depend on it otherwise.
However, I do not believe that they ( those people 500 or so years ago ) had the means, and technology to produce something like that.
In some TV show I have seen , that process by which that image was put on the Shroud of Turin would have be liken to the same effect of Hiroshima Japan blast....
I am not saying the image was produced by a devastating atomic blast ( or some kind of radiation ) but, the means ( some kind of light source, energy source ) when after it happened, there were human shadows on walls from the light and radiation from a atomic blast.
I am not trying to criticize what you have said,,, your argument does hold weight, but, just like the things in the Bible that we know about God, and man's understanding of God, and God's ways are not fully understood, nor is it complete ( I mean, our understanding of him ) .....
In other words, the jury is still out and need to think outside of the box.
Yes, I tend to lean on the side that it's authentic, and yes, I do hold out the fact that some could have faked the shroud of Turin, but, the jury is still out, and not all the facts have come to light...
As to our understanding of it, or the Bible, there is still more things that God himself will bring to light, and reveal to us on things about the Bible, and history, new discoveries ( not this one in the news ).
For example,,, the traditional view of were mount Sinai is was in the Sinai peninsula, but ? even Paul said that mount Sinai is in Arabia ( read the book of Galatians chapter 4 verse 24 ).

( http://www.arkdiscovery.com/red_sea_crossing.htm )

( http://www.melted.com/atl/crossingredsea.htm )

( http://www.versebyverse.org/doctrine/redsea.html )

Could have historians and tradition been wrong all along about the Red Sea crossing, and were mount Sinai was ?
I was always thought that it was in the traditional view of were mount Sinai was.

I remember reading an article in Popular Science by a fellow (Walter somebody?) who used an iron oxide powder and wrapped fabric around a 3-dimensional model. What he got was pretty close. You'll never have an exact duplication at this far a remove (fabric, chemicals, etc. are so different now).

The article was in Popular Photography and the image Joe Nickell produced was only superficially similar to the image on the Shroud. The modern "reproduction" used iron oxide dust but the image it created shows myriad particles of iron oxide in the image areas. There is no visible iron oxide or any other pigment on the Shroud. This has been proved by scanning electron Microscopy, Microspectrometry, and a host of other very discriminating tests and reported in peer-reviewed journals.

We now KNOW what the image is made of... and it is not pigment.

A clear polysaccharide residue coats the outermost fibers of the cloth. In selective places that residue has changed to a brown, caramel-like substance. That brown substance forms the images we see.
The residue is apparently a soap residue. It appears to be from washing the cloth in suds of the soapwort plant, a natural soap containing saccharides like glucose, fucose, galactose, arabinose, xylose, rhamnose and glucuronic acid. Washing to remove starch used as a lubricant during weaving was the final step in the production of linen in the first century.

The process that turned the coating into the carmel-like substance is a chemical reaction between the starch fractions and gasses, Putrecine and Cadaverine, that exude from a newly dead body.