Posted on 02/16/2009 10:55:31 PM PST by Coleus
Benedict XVI’s announcement will allow millions of people to see the linen cloth that according to tradition was wrapped around the body of Jesus after his death, showing that “mysterious Face, which silently speaks to the hearts of men, inviting them to see in it the face of God.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – For 40 days in the spring of 2010 it will be possible to see the Shroud of Turin which, according to tradition, is the cloth in which the body of Jesus was wrapped after his death and which shows the marks of the Passion and Crucifixion as told by the Gospels.
Benedict XVI, who owns the Shroud, made the announcement yesterday when he met the participants to the pilgrimage organised by the Archdiocese of Turin led by the local archbishop, Card Severino Poletto, who is the custodian of the Shroud. The Pope spoke about to the display in relation to the diocese’s pastoral journey, which in 2010 will be devoted to a “closer contemplation of the mystery of the Passion of Christ.”
“In such a context I am happy to fulfill your great expectations and accept your bishop’s wish, allowing the Shroud to be solemnly put on display in the spring of 2010,” said the Pope. “It will be a most propitious occasion, I am certain, to contemplate that mysterious Face, which silently speaks to the hearts of men, inviting them to see in it the face of God.” For the Church the Shroud is not a “relic” since it has never actually said whether it is the linen cloth in which the body of the dead Christ was wrapped or not.
At the time of the last display in 2000 (previous ones took place in 1973 and 1998) John Paul II referred to it as “icon”. At the same time though, the Church has never denied that the linen cloth might be the one the Evangelists talk about in the Gospels. On several occasions the Church has allowed the Shroud to undergo scientific tests, with contradictory results that are still source of great debate among scholars around the world.
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If this doesn't qualify as idolatry, I am not sure what else does.
“In 1988, three reputable laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson carried out radiocarbon tests on the cloth and declared it a brilliant, medieval fake produced between 1260 and 1390.”
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/21/shroud-turin.html
Reverence and Idolatry are two different things. The failure to recognize the distinction led to the MUSLIM directed Iconoclastic Heresy in the Byzantine Empire.
Those test results have long since been discredited and you know it.
Dp you happen to have any scientific evidence that proves the Shroud to be authentic?
But the carbon 14 tests WERE flawed and the mechanism by which the image was transferred to the Shroud has never been adequately explained.
It's funny; I have a theory as to how the image might have been formed naturally through long proximity to a prototype that was originally made from rock bearing sizable amounts of naturally-occurring radioactive materials. Both sides of the authentic/inauthentic crowd have given me grief over it. Both want it to be one thing or the other, and both seem to have a great deal of emotion invested in their respective beliefs.
What bothers me is that the carbon-dating, “medieval fake” crowd can do pretty good until you ask them to explain how it was made if it’s a fake. I have yet to see anyone explain that. I did see one bozo come up with a pretty good theory one time on “educational” TV. He took a bronze bust into a Domino’s Pizza place, put a cloth over the bust and baked it in a pizza oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. It was pretty hilarious. I can’t say it was a perfect replica of the shroud as he was claiming but the cameraman said it sure did smell good.
I am Catholic and have faith. However, when an artifact is presented, the best science must be used to prove the artifact to indeed be authentic.
Thus far, I have seen no scientific evidence that would prove or even indicate that that Shroud is authentic.
This is by no means a doubt in my faith or the Church but rather my defense of my faith as to not have that Faith corrupted by a hoax.
1) History of the Shroud
2) Palynology
3) Weave of cloth
The evidence indicating it is NOT a forgery is the above, plus
1) The degree of anatomical accuracy - beyond what anyone other than a modern could have known
2) The failure to explain the method of production of the image
3) The uncanny close correlation between the wounds on the dead man and the story of Christ's Crucifixion.
I'm NOT a Catholic, but I believe the circumstantial evidence is such that explaining it is NOT what it is purported to be would have to be even more convoluted and unbelievable than simply believing the obvious.
The three C14 labs were accurate on what they tested... a medieval repair. Essentially, because of sampling error and the breaking of the agreed protocols for taking the sample from the Shroud, the 1988 C14 test has been invalidated. This has now been conclusively proved, chemically, physically, and photographically, in peer-reviewed work published by the late Raymond N. Rogers in Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 425, Issues 1-2, 20 January 2005, Pages 189-194 in 2005. Independent researchers under Dr. John .L Brown, using different techniques from Rogers chemical analysis approach, including electron microscopy, confirmed Rogers findings in 2005, Microscopical Investigation of Selected Raes Threads From the Shroud of Turin. In mid 2008, Dr. Robert Villarreal, et al, using entirely different approaches, confirmed the finding that the C14 sample used in 2008 was a melange of mixed original material and skillfully re-woven material probably from the 16th Century "Los Alamos National Laboratory team of scientists prove carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin wrong".
Rogers work, attempting to FALSIFY the repair theory, instead confirmed it. Rogers now confirmed findings showed that the 1988 test sample was approximately 40-60% dyed COTTON, which contains approximately 2% aluminum from an alum mordant used to adhere the dye to the cotton, intermixed with between 60-40% original Shroud material (depending on location on the sample)... the main body of the Shroud is Linen, which is made of Flax, is not dyed, contains no aluminum, and contains no cotton.
The test proposed by Dr. John Jackson in your linked article is not related to the proof that the 1988 C14 sample has been proved, with independent confirmation, to have been falsified because of sampling error. The Jackson theory, that Ramsey is going to test on NON-Shroud material, has to do with an atom substitution theory. This theory is moot because of the prior work proving that what was tested was not exemplar of the Shroud.
Authentic what? A cloth that shows the inexplicable image of a crucified man that bearing wounds that indicate the man the cloth covered experienced beating and execution in a manner that matches the supposed unique manner that the person Jeshua Bar Josef experienced approximately 2000 years ago? Yes.
Authentic in that scientific evidence shows that this Shroud is the shroud of one Jeshua Bar Josef and no other? No.
The carbon 14 test were discredited based on the sampling methods and the issue of bioplastic. Since the Shroud was damaged in a fire and subjected to recent carbon 14 contamination in the Middle Ages from that fire, a false recent date would be expected anyway.
And of course, they didn't have Pizza ovens in the 1300’s.
The Shroud, when folded for storage, presents the face of the image forwards. The individual who originally brought the Shroud to the attention of the Medieval World was Geoffrey De Charney. He was related to an officer of the Knights Templar who was martyred under Philip the Fair. One of the charges against the Templars by Philip was they worshipped the image of a face. And the Templars of course were involved in the Holy Land going back to the 1100’s as well as in the capture of Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperors were pretty active collectors of religious relics - fraudulent and genuine.
ALL of this creates very compelling circumstantial evidence regarding the authenticity of the Shroud.
But the circumstantial evidence is simply overwhelming.
Even the FACE on the Shroud is very similar to the face presented as Christ's in Byzantine Icons and paintings going back to early Byzantine times. The likelihood that such a shroud would be carefully retained by Christ's early followers is not an unreasonable one.
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