[Salman]

What is notable about this: The discoverer is not someone who set out to debunk anything.

I realize there will be no minds changed.

[yarddog]

Does no one recall that the Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus” Robe and that it was considered valuable as it was made from a single piece of cloth?

A wealthy man made his tomb available for Jesus. Is it not reasonable that his burial shroud was of good quality?

I have no opinion on the shroud of Turin, my best guess is that it is not that of Jesus but this is hardly evidence.

[SamuraiScot]

a type of cloth not known to have been available in the region until medieval times

Really? Let's see. Twill plaids have been found in tombs of Celts in China from 2000 B.C. Meanwhile, the Holy Land was the trading capital of the world in Jesus' time, as it had generally been for a millennium or two, thanks to the Phoenicians. No, I'm sure the primitive, ignorant, unlettered Jews (who wrote the Scriptures) couldn't weave worth a darn, and furthermore, had no access to trade, and therefore had no way of wrapping their wealthy dead in anything nicer than burlap or cheesecloth. If they tell me they found a man as rich as Joseph of Aramathea buried in a tuna-can, maybe I'll pay attention.

The problem with academic Marxists (such as the National Geographic Society) is that they measure the value of their research by how much more worldly and cynical it shows them to be than their embarrassing grandparents. The scientific method, starting with asking some dumb-obvious questions, seems to take a back seat to this ambition. I don't know how they can get this adolescent drool published.

This story reminds me of other ignorant things that have been said, especially among some Shroud researchers, because they didn't think to bring in a textile expert when researching the origin of a textile product. It was a textile expert—a woman, and not a Ph.D.—who finally pointed out, after the "medieval" carbon date came out some years ago, that the sample had been taken from an outer part of the Shroud that plainly had been grafted onto the central part later. They hadn't tested the part of the Shroud that had the image on it. Duh.

[GloriaJane]

"In all of the approximately 1,000 tombs from the first century A.D. which have been excavated around Jerusalem, not one fragment of a shroud had been found" until now, said archaeologist Shimon Gibson, who excavated the site for the Israel Antiquities Authority."

One! Just one? 1 shroud out of approximately 1,000 tombs and they're ready to claim that the shroud of Turin is not Jesus's because one.... just "1" single shroud that exists is different? One shroud? Like everybody had to use identical shrouds. Oh please!

Well, come to think of it, the science we get today is, make it up as you go along and see how many people you can fool with it type science.

[Western Phil]

National Geographic’s yearly treatment of the “Jesus Myth”.

[Publius6961]

The perverts have taken over National Geographic too?

That's the only organized advocacy group which gets excited about publishing any story that puts Christian churches, generally, in a bad light; doubt, confusion, chaos, whatever.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Neat post.

Some straw on the “less likely to be real” side of the scale, in that:

(1) it survived (common argument being the mere survival of the SOT is a miracle) and

(2) it is consistent with the argument that the fabric of the SOT was not in use at the time in question.

But, just some weight and not conclusive.

I agree — in matters of religion (in particular, denominational arguments among Christians), there is increasingly little room for logic on any side.