Knights Templar hid the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican

Times Online ^ | 04/05/2009 | Richard Owen

[BuckeyeTexan]

Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said today in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years.

The Knights Templar, an order which was suppressed and disbanded for alleged heresy, took care of the linen cloth, which bears the image of a man with a beard, long hair and the wounds of crucifixion, according to Vatican researchers.

The Shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral, has long been revered as the shroud in which Jesus was buried, although the image only appeared clearly in 1898 when a photographer developed a negative.

Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives, said the Shroud had disappeared in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and did not surface again until the middle of the fourteenth century. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Dr Frale said its fate in those years had always puzzled historians.

However her study of the trial of the Knights Templar had brought to light a document in which Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who entered the order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times.

[Swordmaker]

Because you guys have re-activated this thread, I am pinging the Shroud of Turin Ping list group to it for discussion if they choose to participate...

---

Well, I'd say that Swordmaker has selected his data rather carefully, since the usual numbers for the Shroud range up to 6 ft 2 inches.

The only "researchers" who claim a 6 ft 2in height for the image on the Shroud are skeptics who have exaggerated the measurements and who haven't bothered to investigate the actual science that has been done and instead prefer to just toss pot shots at the Shroud.

Several peer reviewed examinations done by forensic pathologists have placed the height of the man on the Shroud as just slightly above the 176±2 cm (or 5 foot 9 3/10±1 inch) average height that a recent survey of male skeletons found to be the case in data from the excavations collected from all 1st Century Palestinian Jewish cemetery Ossuaries, That's science, not speculation; not cherry picking. Cherry picking is what the skeptics used. The ROMANs were 5' 6±1 inch average height according to data from their cemetaries... not the people of the Palestine province.

B) the average Semitic male in 1st century Israel was about 5 ft 10 inches tall.

I did not "argue" that the average Semitic Male of 1st Century Israel was 5' 10" tall. That is a strawman you just tossed in, hinting it is not a fact. I provided the accurate data from archaeological scientific journals that FOUND that to be the case from examining actual skeletons in (I think it was six) 1st Century Jerusalem cemetaries. Meacham's data I quoted in 133 was accurate for the (6) cemeteries in Jerusalem that had been surveyed, but later data from cemeteries from throughout the Holy Land area have reduced that finding from 178±2 cm or approximately 70±1 inch average height to 176±2 cm or 69 3/10±1 inch, including the data from the Jerusalem cemeteries. Most current anthropology charts put the height of the average 1st Century Jewish men at only 1/4" to 1/2" shorter than the height of the average American man.

In post 133, I quoted the literature as follows:

"The height of the Man of the Shroud turned out to be 174±2 cm (Emphasis mine—Swordmaker), the rotation angle of the knee (β+γ) equal to 24±2° and the rotation angle of the foot δ equal to 25±2°. "

That's the science. That's what was actually measured from the shroud. No speculation, no guessing. No arguments. No strawmen. Measurements. FACTS. DATA. No opinion. Do you understand the difference?

That would put the calculated height (based on the measured tibio-femoral index, a standard measurement used by anthropologists around the world) of the man on the Shroud at 174±2 cm or approximately 5 ft. 7.25 inches to 5 ft. 9.25 inches tall well within the normal range for men of 1st Century Israel.

You use a toss off one line from Wikipedia, which can be edited by any schmoe who chooses to change it, as your evidence of 6' 2", while I provided a complete quotation from TWO peer-reviewed scientific papers to establish my facts which complete refute that claim, and do so with evidence.

I also point out that your cartoonish Barney Rubble, deer-in-the-hearlights, picture above, also prepared by skeptics, would be argued against be experts, and was, vehemently so, when first published by Popular Mechanics, which is hardly a scientific journal, and certainly is not peer-reviewed. In post 133, I pointed out that again experts have identified the man on the shroud as an archetypical ethnic. As I quoted to you, even in modern times, you will find many similar body types in Israel and the middle east, again from a scholarly report:

Anthropologists will disagree with you. "Carleton Coon (quoted in Wilcox 1977:133) describes the man as "of a physical type found in modern times among Sephardic Jews and noble Arabs." Curto (quoted in Sox 1981:70, 131), however, describes the physiognomy as more Iranian than Semitic." ibid Meacham."

Again, that is peer-reviewed Anthropological science (although, I have to admit that I would have to call that informed opinion), not just the uninformed opinion of some one who looks at it and says "Gee, that doesn't look like a semitic person to me," based on your prejudices.

In addition, you have to account for the background noise of the matrix on which the image is imprinted. When you removed that background noise, you find a somewhat different image. The Shroud was hank bleached, meaning the spun flax was draped as hanked yarn over bushes in the sun, a common practice in the 1st Century, instead of being bleached as a finished cloth, which was the practice in medieval times. As a result of that bleaching technique, the warp threads are variegated due to different exposure times and some groups are darker than those groups next to them. The groups on either side of the face on the Shroud are much darker than those on the face or toward the shoulders. When one adjusts the tones of the background with a computer to compensate for that difference, one can see the hidden portion of the image that was not visible before. The results are a bit startling because the image is not the same:

. . . . .
L: Normal negative image of face on the Shroud
R: Image adjusted to remove variation of background threads.

Not quite so "North European" now looking is it?

You can choose to ignore the science in favor of the non-science, but you do so without support or evidence to back up your position. . . and you can only do it by mis-representing my arguments and my evidence.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[JoeProBono]

[csense]

bkmk

[Wpin]

You are kidding right? You actually believe the crap you are spewing? I realize from reading your posts that you are not able to discern something like positive evidence...

Listen silly man, the science that was presented in a documentary shown on Discovery Channel was very strong in favor of the Shroud of Turin being authentic. The imagery has never been replicated by nature nor by man. The science that would be involved in doing so accurately from a forensic point of view was not available at any time in the medieval period. The part of the cloth that was sampled for the Carbon 14 test was a repaired section from the middle ages. Your ridiculous speculation regarding height and the “Jewish Look” (hahahaha) is truly laughable.

Bet you don’t know that during the bronze age Greeks were taller than modern day Greeks...but in any event I have read Swordmaker’s remarks regarding Jesus’ height estimation from the Shroud of Turin. I think his is much more detailed and accurate.

I saw the website you probably got your information from...it was also laughable. Just a bunch of garbage being spewed by brainless atheistic morons who clearly have too much time on their hands.

I especially enjoyed your “proof” of the Northern European look...the picture from a modern movie...that really was perfect!

Perhaps you will find the truth in Monty Python’s movie The Holy Grail or whatever the title is...

In any event...have a fun rest of your life, I have to tell you I hope to see your posts in the future...I love a good laugh.

[aruanan]

Thanks for the ping. It’s not surprising to see skeptics now clutching at anything to disprove what they want to avoid when there were folks at the time who refused to believe the eyewitnesses.

[Swordmaker]

That picture proves nothing. Here's one of a Noble Arab:

[Swordmaker]

Thanks, JoeProBono, for a more contemporary picture of a Knight Templar (although I think that one is from the 19th Century)... but that picture is trumped by this collection of Sephardic Jews, many of the same ethnic type that were present in 1st Century Israel:

Note, BroJoeK, these ARE from a wikipedia source. However, they share the same ethnic archetype as the "Noble Arab" and certainly do not look like your cartoonish "Barney Rubble" caricature that the skeptics trot out claiming it's what Jesus must have looked like, as though that somehow invalidates the image on the Shroud.

However, both Joes, they too probative of nothing about the image on the Shroud except that it could possibly be a Semitic person of that particular ethnicity, nothing more.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

I notice that few have commented on the significance of the source article. The biggest problem with the provenance of the Shroud is how the Edessa relic got to France. The Vatican research provides a possible explanation and also explains the head the Templars were accused of worshiping.

[Swordmaker]

I notice that few have commented on the significance of the source article. The biggest problem with the provenance of the Shroud is how the Edessa relic got to France. The Vatican research provides a possible explanation and also explains the head the Templars were accused of worshiping.

The members of the 4th Crusades, impatient with waiting in Constantinople to head off to re-take the Holy Land from the Muslim hordes, after four years, instead attacked their hosts and sacked Constantinople. The English and the Germans grabbed the wealth, the French took the sacred relics. Later, the Knights Templar, when they were destroyed by King Philip the Fair (anything but fair) and the anti-Pope in Avignon, the remnants of the Templars went into hiding... and the treasures of the Templars were never found. One strange coincidence gives us a clue, from an early post of mine in this thread:

King Phillip order four men executed on March 14 (1314): Templars Jacques de Molay, Geoffroi de Charnay (Grand Preceptor of Normandy), Hugh de Peyraud (Visitor-General), and Guy d’Auvergne (Grand Preceptor of France). 40 years later, the Shroud would be put on display in a little wooden chapel in Lirey, France, by one Geofrey de Charney, King John II's Standard bearer, author of the French Code Of Chivalry, and thought to be either de Charnay's great nephew or grandson. The differences in spelling in those times was a matter of opinion. So there certainly appears to be some connection to the Templars.

I think that makes a very strong connection...

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

The Venetians also did some looting from their former Byzantine overlords, e.g. the Horses of Saint Mark.

[AnalogReigns]

The provenance of ANY relic nearly 2000 years old would be expected to be imperfect, and the Turin shroud is no exception. No doubt before it landed in Constantinople (one of the 5 historic centers of ancient Christianity) it would presumably have been passed on to various faithful disciples, and given the times....not have been always recorded.

One physical clue, that has never been explained (and there are many) is the presence of Palestinian pollen on the cloth...of a kind that went extinct after the 1st Century.

The Shroud has been called THE most studied object from antiquity. Various different scholarly papers have been written concerning its provenance—before the 1300s, and, the evidence is shadowy, but, it is there too. If you are really curious you can look it up—much of the evidence is openly available through the Internet.

I recall reading some article that there is a very early (pre 12th C.) description that accurately describe the current shroud—and these are long before the radio carbon dating from one place (provably a patch...) showed 13th C. origin. I believe they even have medieval miniatures paintings of the cloth, BEFORE the 13th C.

[BroJoeK]

Swordmaker: "Because you guys have re-activated this thread,"

Sorry pal, I didn't intend to "re-activate" anything. Merely responded to some inaccurate insults from Wpin. Wpin, in turn noted that this thread was listed in the "Popular Articles" block (not there this morning), and I further noted nearly 12,000 views. Why Wpin felt compelled after nine months to insult me... well we can only guess.

Swordmaker: "The only "researchers" who claim a 6 ft 2in height for the image on the Shroud are skeptics who have exaggerated the measurements and who haven't bothered to investigate the actual science that has been done and instead prefer to just toss pot shots at the Shroud."

[snip]

Swordmaker: "You use a toss off one line from Wikipedia, which can be edited by any schmoe who chooses to change it, as your evidence of 6' 2", while I provided a complete quotation from TWO peer-reviewed scientific papers to establish my facts which complete refute that claim, and do so with evidence. "

I note your criticism of Wikipedia, and report to you that in this particular case, it is unwarranted.

• The article references as it's source for the Shoud image's height this site: How Tall is the Man on the Shroud?
  
• That site references FOUR different studies which range as follows:
  1. Isabel Piczek, artist specializing in human anatomy. 5'11½" - 6'1"
  2. Fanti, Marinelli, Cagnazzo (tibio-femoral indices calculations) 5'8" - 5'9"
  3. Luigi Gedda (sagittal plane of face applied to anthropometric ratio) 6'0"
  4. * Picknett and Prince (simple assumed face ratio) 6'8" - 6'10"
  5. Picknett and Prince (corrected for logical fallacy) 5'9" - 6'1"
• The very top figure of 6'2" comes from Isabel Piczek:

  "I have approached the question of height from the design point of view - an image which describes a 3D object and vice-versa, including the problem of foreshortening. I have also analyzed body type, muscle structure and proportion.

  "I determined the height to be 5'11½" to 6'1", give or take 1" for linen stretch and shrinking, both of which are possible. Because of the body type, even with shrinkage, the man cannot be under 5'11½". I lean more towards 6'0".

  "Whether Jews in Jesus's time were smaller or larger is not relevant here. Jews were not small to start with, judging by the finds in the 1st century cemetery excavated near the wall of the Temple in the sixties."

In summary: Wikipedia's source here is entirely friendly to your side of the debate. It reported the facts as they are.

Swordmaker: "I did not "argue" that the average Semitic Male of 1st Century Israel was 5' 10" tall. That is a strawman you just tossed in, hinting it is not a fact."

In truth, it is NOT a "fact," but rather an argument -- a sound argument, but only up to a point. The logic of your argument is the following:

Since the average height of 1st century male skeletons analyzed in Jerusalem was 5' 10", therefore the average height of ALL Jewish males of that period was 5' 10".

I would simply point out that those Jews wealthy enough to receive an expensive burial were very likely healthier and therefore taller than your average man on the Jerusalem street. So which category did Jesus belong to -- wealthy, healthy and tall, or poor and significantly shorter?

swordmaker: "That's the science. That's what was actually measured from the shroud. No speculation, no guessing. No arguments. No strawmen. Measurements. FACTS. DATA. No opinion. Do you understand the difference?"

Indeed.

swordmaker: "Anthropologists will disagree with you. "Carleton Coon (quoted in Wilcox 1977:133) describes the man as "of a physical type found in modern times among Sephardic Jews and noble Arabs." Curto (quoted in Sox 1981:70, 131), however, describes the physiognomy as more Iranian than Semitic." ibid Meacham." ."

Pal, I noted this very carefully the first time you posted it. And it seemed to me the conclusion here was so obvious it did not need further amplification from me. Indeed, your willingness to post this particular data convinced me that you (unlike some others) are an honest person.

But apparently I was wrong about the need for amplification: "Curto... however, describes the physiognomy as more Iranian than Semitic." You know, of course, that Iranians / Persians are not Semitic, they are Indo-Europeans, aka Aryans.

And what historical or biblical evidence do we have that suggests Jesus may have come from Aryan ancestry? None that I know of.

swordmaker: "Not quite so "North European" now looking is it?"

Indeed, it's amazing what computer enhancement can do for photographs these days. So I guess the question is: who am I going to believe -- your computer or my own lying eyes? ;-)

swordmaker: "You can choose to ignore the science in favor of the non-science, but you do so without support or evidence to back up your position. . . and you can only do it by mis-representing my arguments and my evidence."

That's odd, because I remember our previous exchanges as being both polite and informative -- decidedly lacking in the all-too-frequent insults or disparagements from other posters. And I don't remember writing anything to bring on the current blasts you guys are throwing around.

[BroJoeK]

"You are kidding right?"

"You actually believe the crap you are spewing?"

"you are not able to discern something like positive evidence..."

"Listen silly man, "

"Your ridiculous speculation regarding height and the “Jewish Look” (hahahaha) is truly laughable."

"I saw the website you probably got your information from...it was also laughable. Just a bunch of garbage being spewed by brainless atheistic morons..."

Here's my question, pal: do you understand the difference between insults and logical arguments? Do you see any of the latter here?

[annalex]

Thanks for the ping.

Why is the height of the man on the Shroud a valid argument against authenticity even if it is taller than most contemporary Jews?

There are reasons to discard the argument from Popular Mechanics face even if the face on it is taken for granted.

Individual faces inside an ethnic group vary; it is simply an arghument of the kind “Jesus was not average”.

The bias against traditional Jesus imagery is evident in the artistic rendition, that has nothing to do with ethnic traits. Average 1c Jew has eyes of different sizes? Had constantly frightened (deer in headlights, as you put it) facial expression, with the brows raised? Never groomed his facial hair, but had the habit of cropping it? These are all arbitrary effects that the artist created, in order to cast a psychological impression of a confused and slightly funny, inattractive man, — in other words, to point away from the traditional perceptions of the character of Jesus. Anyone who did portrait art would know how subtle variations is the curve of the lip or eye lid or shape of strands of hair alter the psychology of the image, while referring faithfully to the same anatomy. That is not simply an Iranian, but a caricature Iranian.

[annalex]

carbon 14 dating is not indisputably established

It probably cannot be, so it is not an argument either way. The shroud indisputably passed through many hands, was rescued from a fire, is certain to have been exposed, being an object of veneration, to centuries of burning incense.

What is indisputable is Palestinian pollen. That it has medieval admixtures is just consistent with its manner of storage.

[Swordmaker]

One physical clue, that has never been explained (and there are many) is the presence of Palestinian pollen on the cloth...of a kind that went extinct after the 1st Century.

Another is the presence of Travertine Aragonite Limestone that was chemically identical only to Travertine Aragonite Limestone found just east of Jerusalem.

Joseph Kohlbeck, Resident Scientist at the Hercules Aerospace Center in Utah, and Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, examined embedded dirt particles taken from the Shroud’s surface. The dirt was found to be travertine aragonite limestone. Using a high-resolution microprobe, Levi-Setti and Kolbeck compared the spectra of samples taken from the Shroud with samples of limestone from ancient Jerusulem tombs.

The chemical signatures of the Shroud samples and the tomb limestone were identical except for some minute fragments of organic cellulous linen fiber that could not be separated from the Shroud samples. Kolbeck acknowledges that this is not absolute proof that the Shroud was in Jerusalem and that there might be other places in the world – though none are known and it is statistically unlikely any will be found – where travertine aragonite has the identical trace chemical composition.—Source

Various different scholarly papers have been written concerning its provenance—before the 1300s, and, the evidence is shadowy, but, it is there too. If you are really curious you can look it up—much of the evidence is openly available through the Internet.

Many of these are available on Barrie Schwortz's website, Shroud,com. And fellow Freeper Shroudie's websites, HistoricalJesusquest.com and Shroudforum.com" has many in a more paraphrased, more readable form for the science challenged among us.

I recall reading some article that there is a very early (pre 12th C.) description that accurately describe the current shroud—and these are long before the radio carbon dating from one place (provably a patch...) showed 13th C. origin. I believe they even have medieval miniatures paintings of the cloth, BEFORE the 13th C.

There are some silver medallions from the 11th C. that show the Shroud, and the 12th Century Hungarian Pray Codex both of which pre-date the earliest dates from the 1988 C-14 test ranges.

[Swordmaker]

• The article references as it's source for the Shoud image's height this site: How Tall is the Man on the Shroud?
  
• That site references FOUR different studies which range as follows:
  1. Isabel Piczek, artist specializing in human anatomy. 5'11½" - 6'1"
  2. Fanti, Marinelli, Cagnazzo (tibio-femoral indices calculations) 5'8" - 5'9"
  3. Luigi Gedda (sagittal plane of face applied to anthropometric ratio) 6'0"
  4. * Picknett and Prince (simple assumed face ratio) 6'8" - 6'10"
  5. Picknett and Prince (corrected for logical fallacy) 5'9" - 6'1"
• The very top figure of 6'2" comes from Isabel Piczek:

Ah, no, that site does NOT reference four different "studies" about the height of the man on the Shroud... it references five different conclusions about the height. There are actually only true three "studies"... and four conclusions with correction to one conclusion that made a basic mistake in fact known to almost every art student.

And only one of the studies is truly a "scientific" study, the one done by Fanti, Marinelli, et al. You might argue that Gedda's study could be science... but it lacked too much really to be science to my mind: the data was a little too "fuzzy" for the conclusion to be reliable. More "scholarship" than science. The Fanti study is reproducible and testable.

Let's look at them.

I know Isobel Piczek and have spoken to her at conferences. I have attended a couple of her lectures on the Shroud. While she is a theoretical physicist. In her work on the shroud, she is mostly an artist and an Art Historian. I would not classify her work on this as "science," it is "scholarship." Her training in Anatomy is as an artist, not as a scientist. However, the thrust of her Shroud research has not been human anatomy. She approached the Shroud image assuming a photographic, optical light approach and attempted to adjust the height by assuming a flat focal plane of the shroud and unfolding object of the body, thus stretching the length of the subject.

Her hypothesis and work, while good, has been found to be not the case when subjected to peer review and testing, was falsified by later science. Your conclusion of 6'2" from Piczek is from the EXTREME top of the range of possibility and is extrapolated from her "give or take 1 inch" for linen stretch and shrinking" to her estimated range: "I have also analyzed body type, muscle structure and proportion. I determined the height to be 5 foot 11½ inches to 6 foot 1 inch" which are all very arty, touchy-feely, very subjective... as opposed to the much more scientific and accurate methods used by Fanti, Marinelliet al., which falsified her hypothesis, presented new facts, and superseded her work. That's the way science works.

You will not find her claiming 6'2"... She says she leans toward 6'. Only the skeptics use the 6'2" figure... and they trot it out regularly to denigrate the Shroud, especially when they use the 5'4" "average height of Jews of the period" canard.

Dr. Luigi Gedda, a Professor of Anatomy, who concluded a 6' height, did his study in 1939, used photographs taken by Secondo Pia from a distance in 1898, and photos taken, also from a distance, by Guisseppe Enrie, as references to make his estimations. The Shroud was, both times was hung with unknown amount of stretch and measurements taken from both sets of photos don't match. They have variations of up to 3% in various directions including lengths of various parts that are attributable to draping, focal length, distance, etc. The measurements were at best estimates and were inaccurate... His work was falsified by accurate measurements by the 1978 1:1 photographs by Barrie Schwortz of STURP and actual contact measurements of all physical points of reference on the Shroud to the best ability of numerous scientists including forensic physicians.

Neither Lynn Picknett nor Clive Prince, authors of a Shroud book that theorized that Leonardo da Vinci created the Shroud of Turin, are scientists... or scholars. They are charlatans. They refer to themselves as "historians." One is a fiction writer. They even fail at that being historians. I'll give them fiction writers. Their absurd theory is patently false since Leonardo was born in 1452, 100 years AFTER the Shroud was first exhibited c. 1352. Their website paints them as "conspiracy theorists" who believe along with Dan Brown in the Priory of Sion, and Da Vinci's membership and Grandmastership as motives for faking the Shroud. They hint that the Shroud's head is "oversized" to indicating the decapitation to point to the priority of John the Baptist over Jesus... Right, sure. Their calculations originally put the height of the Man on the Shroud at 6'8" to 6'10" tall. They are skeptics, hewing to the hoax/skeptic school of thought.

None of Picknett's or Prince's work has ever been submitted for peer review. If it had, everyone of the reviewers would have picked up on the error they made of using a 1:9 head to body ratio to calculate their height. I learned, just as I believe every student who has taken art learned, that the human body average ratio of head to body is approximately 8 to 1.

"They arrived at this height by assuming that the head height to body height ratio on the shroud was 1 to 9 rather than the average 1 to 8. So they multiplied their height of the head measurement by nine."

Fellow Freeper Shroudie, who wrote the article you are referencing, properly corrected Picknet and Princes sophomoric conclusion of 5.8" to 6'10" body height to a more reasonable 5'9" to 6'1".—Source

That's odd, because I remember our previous exchanges as being both polite and informative -- decidedly lacking in the all-too-frequent insults or disparagements from other posters. And I don't remember writing anything to bring on the current blasts you guys are throwing around.

It's "impolite" to point out that you are misrepresenting the argument when you do? The evidence is overwhelming that Jews of the 1st Century were NOT 5.4" tall which you were arguing then, which I refuted with evidence... and which you again were arguing again without proof yesterday, even though I had presented the facts last April that refuted that as untrue. You presented as truth, as though a 5'10" Jew from the 1st Century were somehow an impossibility, making the case that man on the Shroud could not be from that area, despite being presented with the scientific facts before. That shows willful intent to ignore the evidence in favor of untruth. you even posted that clownish picture from Popular Mechanics that was shot down by Anthropologists when it was first published as proof claiming the short stature. I have provided even more confirming data about the stature of 1st Century residents of Israel... but you choose to make assumptions based on unproved non-science. I am still being polite to you. I am attacking your posts, not you.

By the way, the thread was re-activated, no matter what the reason, and the points were interesting. That's why I Pinged the Shroud list.

[BroJoeK]

swordmaker: "It's "impolite" to point out that you are misrepresenting the argument when you do?"

But I did NOT misrepresent your arguments. I said -- correctly, accurately and truthfully -- that you have carefully selected your data, and that most studies of the Shroud image's height show a wider range -- up to 6'2".

Your response here defending your careful selections is 100% appropriate. Your criticism of me for "misrepresenting" you is not, pal.

swordmaker: "Your conclusion of 6'2" from Piczek is from the EXTREME top of the range of possibility and is extrapolated from her "give or take 1 inch" for linen stretch and shrinking" to her estimated range"

The following is quoted from Isabel Piczek:

"To my knowledge, in Shroud studies only three researchers addressed the question with solid authority:

"In the early 1960's, Professor Lorenzo Ferri studied at length and in depth the question of the height of the Man of the Shroud. He spent decades with these studies and created, with special permission of the Vatican, a full size statue of the Shroud which is very correct. He has been quoted as saying that "The body of Christ could not have been fully stretched out in burial." And again, "The measuring of the body (by scientific methods) did not allow for the body being in a slightly hunched position."

Professor Ferri held that the man of the Shroud was 6'1" to 6'2". Professor Ferri looked at this problem from the structural-sculptural point of view.

"Dr. Robert Bucklin, M.D., spoke on television and elsewhere about the height of the Man of the Shroud. He gave his opinion as a medical expert, not as a forensic pathologist. He judged the man to be 5'11½".

"The third person to study this problem with authority is myself...."

So, by my count, this makes six who have in one form or another "studied" the question of the shroud's height:

1. Isabel Piczek, artist specializing in human anatomy. 5'11½" - 6'1"
2. Fanti, Marinelli, Cagnazzo (tibio-femoral indices calculations) 5'8" - 5'9"
3. Luigi Gedda (sagittal plane of face applied to anthropometric ratio) 6'0"
4. Picknett and Prince (corrected for logical fallacy) 5'9" - 6'1"
5. Professor Lorenzo Ferri 6'1" to 6'2"
6. Dr. Robert Bucklin, M.D., 5'11"

For whatever it's worth, the average of these numbers is around 5'11.5".

swordmaker: "The evidence is overwhelming that Jews of the 1st Century were NOT 5.4" tall which you were arguing then, which I refuted with evidence... and which you again were arguing again without proof yesterday, even though I had presented the facts last April that refuted that as untrue."

Let me suggest to you that this is very important question, going right to the heart of much modern scholarship. My hobby, my "thing" if you will, is history and have several books here (authors: Sanders, Borg, Yancy, Crossan) addressing the question: historically speaking, who was Jesus?

The answer, in short, might be summarized by the phrase "marginal Jew," meaning someone from outside the "mainstream" of 1st century Jewish culture (a man from Galillee) and also marginal economically. For example, the word usually translated "carpenter" actually means anyone involved in construction -- from day laborer to contractor.

Now, life today is tough enough for those who live at the margins economically. In ancient times it was literally a daily struggle for existence. For such people, the question of "our daily bread" was a matter of life and death. So, did Jesus the man live this life, or did he somehow look down on it from above?

Many modern scholars suggest that Jesus lived the marginal life, which means that he did not always receive his "daily bread," which further suggests that whatever the "average" height of ancient Jews may or may not have been, Jesus would fall at the lower end of the range.

Therefore, if we see evidence that Jesus was not only average in height, but above average, it raises questions about: just how economically "marginal" Jesus' early life really was?

A relatively tall, robust & strong Jesus makes sense in terms of someone who could be imagined by his contemporaries as a "King of the Jews." But it also suggests that Jesus' early life may not have been quite as marginalized as some of our modern scholars have concluded.

swordmaker: "You presented as truth, as though a 5'10" Jew from the 1st Century were somehow an impossibility, making the case that man on the Shroud could not be from that area, despite being presented with the scientific facts before. That shows willful intent to ignore the evidence in favor of untruth."

You misread my words.

I have not challenged your report of "...5 foot 9 3/10±1 inch... average height that a recent survey of male skeletons found to be the case in data from the excavations collected from all 1st Century Palestinian Jewish cemetery Ossuaries..." -- even though I haven't yet google-found the confirming data.

What I have argued is:

• These skeletons are most likely far from "average," but rather represent the wealthiest Jerusalem residents who could afford expensive burials likely to survive to modern times.
• The vast vast majority of 1st century Jews were economically marginal, meaning poorly fed and frequently on the verge of starvation.
• Jesus was one of these "marginal Jews," and so quite unlikely to have been as tall or robust as the "average" skeletons in your study.

swordmaker: "you even posted that clownish picture from Popular Mechanics that was shot down by Anthropologists when it was first published as proof claiming the short stature."

Not as "proof," but as evidence that not everyone agrees with you, pal. The question I addressed by that "clownish picture" is: what did a typical 1st century Semite look like? It allows us then to compare all the various images of Jesus and ask, how likely is this image correct?

Of course, I am no artist, but it seems to me that any artist worth his or her salt could easily take that "clownish picture" and convert it into one which looks as heroic or saintly as you might like. The important point would be to retain its "Semetic appearance." The question then remains: does the Shroud image look more Semitic or is it as "Curto ...describes the physiognomy as more Iranian than Semitic." ".

Are you willing to argue that an Iranian - Persian - Indo-European - "Aryan" Jesus is even possible? I'm not.

[BroJoeK]

BJK: "carbon 14 dating is not indisputably established."

annalex: "It probably cannot be, so it is not an argument either way."

I think current state-of-the-art carbon 14 dating technology could overcome most or all of the problems you mention. Indeed, in an earlier post Swordmaker himself suggested that unofficial carbon 14 tests had been done on tiny tiny samples, indicating a very early Shroud age.

So, the real problem is not technology, it's the Church not allowing more tests. This naturally raises suspicions that the Church might be afraid of results.

Suppose, for example, tests indicated the Shroud originated in ancient Israel, but not in the 1st century AD -- say in the 1st century BC, or the third century AD. Now we'd have a case of "close but no cigar."

And even if the Shroud were reliably dated, what "chain of custody" proof do we have it was in any way related to the death of Jesus?

So, far too many questions about the Shroud have not been, or can not possibly be, answered for anyone to claim it's authenticity is "proved," much less to justify name-calling and disparagement of those who doubt it.