Shroud of Turin tests miff scientists, religious scholars

AP Online ^ | 8-21-02 | ROXANA M. POPESCU

[Conservative til I die]

Old post I know, but I had to respond. The carbon dating has been shown to be highly flawed, and to be a little unscientific in my choice of words, a complete joke.

[Conservative til I die]

Gcruse, let's just assume for argument's sake that the new testing, done by esteemed scientists and skeptics, proves that the carbon date tests were flawed, and the Shroud really dates to the 1st Century. Will you believe it? Or still say "BINGO?"

[Conservative til I die]

I hate to continue jumping in so late on this, but gcruse, carbon dating is known to be flawed. It is very good, I will readily and happily admit, when the item that is being tested is mostly contaminant-free. However, not only with the Shroud, carbon dating has been known to provide wildly divergent results. One example I remember seeing on a documentary was some sort of mummified person or animal from ancient Egypt which, archaeologically speaking, is known to have originated sometime around the 15th Century BC. They tested both the body and the wraps that encased it. The body dated correctly to around the 15th Century BC. The wraps (mind you, the wraps that are literally touching this body) dated to either the 2nd Century BC or 2nd Century AD (I forget which). Either way, that's over one millennium's difference! Why? contamination! And these weren't people with an agenda, trying to think up some hokey excuse to prove the Shroud true.

[Conservative til I die]

Wait a sec. So this is the "only" remaining example? Isn't this sort of a convoluted means of extrapolating here? "Well, we've found one and none other. So therefore there must be many of them that existed -even though we can't prove it scientifically and never will be able to- and this is the only one left! This must be!" Seems to me they are arguing from a point of ignorance.

[Conservative til I die]

Interesting, I did not know about the UCAI finding.

[Conservative til I die]

oh really? And "linen cloths", means what to you?

It means more than one. Might mean two. There is allegedly also a head cloth that is a companion to the Shroud. That would fit the definition of "cloths."

BTW, it's not in the Bible. Neither are instructions on how to pee.

[gcruse]

Gcruse, let's just assume for argument's sake that the
new testing, done by esteemed scientists and skeptics, proves that the
carbon date tests were flawed, and the Shroud really
dates to the 1st Century. Will you believe it? Or still say "BINGO?"

New testing, done in secret, by a lab chosen
solely by the Vatican?    Sure, I'd believe their
results as strongly as I did those of the lab
results in the mid-nineties that showed after
almost infinite dilution, wherein it was impossible
any molecules of the original material could
be left in the water, that traces of the
previous presence remained.  Was I surprised
to find, much later, that the tests had been
sponsored by a homeopathic company
in France that sold highly diluted elixirs
on the theory that 'like cures like?'  Heh, no.
Science not done openly or peer
reviewed is usually not science at all.

[Nebullis]

Old post I know, but I had to respond.

You're pretending that darning style analysis is more accurate than contaminated carbon dating. It may be easier to redo the carbon dating on several sections of the cloth, including the newer patches.

[Conservative til I die]

I think yes, they should redo the carbon dating, but do it in a scientific manner. From what I've read, the scientists basically did their test on the one piece, found a number, it was the number they wanted to find, and that was it for the testing.

[ALS]

Thank you. It's nice to see someone think instead of crawl in lockstep for a change.

[Swordmaker]

bump

[crystalk]

The Koran contains enough on that, for BOTH books.

[crystalk]

Ho, hum, here I will have to post again that this linen is NOT a shroud, nor any kind of garment. It is a flat sheet in an unusual long, narrow shape.

It is very unlikely that this was ever intended to be the permanent wrapping of a body to remain forever with it, while it decomposed, nor to remain with it even until the bones were gathered to put in an ossuary.

This is the moral equivalent of throwing an airline or bus blanket over a crash victim, to cover him up for decency, perhaps conserve body heat were he still alive.

Remember, the women were coming Sunday Morning to do the real burial wrapping, whatever was done in haste Friday night was never meant to be final.

If we are to assume that the account in John has scientific precision, and is not just a good story, we might suggest that further work WAS done between the few moments after he was taken down, and the John account...in which case, this sheet would have been taken off by Joseph or someone as a souvenir perhaps, as it was not needed for the final burial... and the "cloths" of John, then, WERE the final ones...

but just as easily, this was just the light wrap laid over the body, and other blankets and cloths MIGHT have been over that, and those are what Peter and John saw.

[AmericanVictory]

There seem to be equally credible refutations. The matter is hardly settled.