Posted on 04/13/2004 2:52:34 PM PDT by shroudie
The most definitive evidence yet that the Shroud of Turin is not a medieval fake-relic. This is big stuff, published on a highly respected scientific organizations website, the Institute of Physics, a 37,000 member organization of physicists. Their journal is an ethical journal of peer-reviewed scientific studies.
The Washington Times, BBC, the Observer, the Telegraph of London, ABC Australia, the Chicago Sun-Times and several outlets have picked up the story in the last few hours. In my opinion it reinforces the already clear proof that the carbon 14 testing in 1988 was completely erroneous. It clearly eliminates the polemics of medieval paintings, da Vinci conspiracies, proto-photography and other silly concocted theories being bantered about by those skeptical of Christianity.
If it is a genuine burial shroud of a 1st century victim of crucifixion, it can almost certainly be inferred that it is Jesus. If that is so, it buries the extra-liberal revisionism of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg who argue that Jesus was not buried.
If it is a genuine burial shroud of a 1st century victim of crucifixion, how is it that this piece of cloth survived the grave and was not ravaged by decomposition products?
The story at the link is quite technical. I suggest alternatively reading the stories in any of the various newspapers or for a clear concise explanation read first Chemistry of the Image and then Explanation of the Backside Image.
From the extract: "Photographs of the back surface of the Turin Shroud were analysed to verify the existence of a double body image of a man. The body image is very faint and the background not uniform; i.e., the signal-to-noise ratio is lower than one. Therefore, image processing . . . was necessary to highlight body features. This was based on convolution with Gaussian filters, summation of images, and filtering in spatial frequency by direct and inverse bidimensional Fourier transformations.
My post should have layed out the evidence so that anyone on FreeRepublic can see it plainly. The C14 samples are pictured and the OBVIOUS change in material from one side to the other can be plainly seen. The FACTS have been laid out for him as well as others but he CHOOSES not to look. Therefore his position is willfull and fearful. He does not WANT to see the facts in front of his face, so he WILL not.
He is afraid that the facts might invalidate his world view because he cannot refute them. Since he can't refute the latest "Flawed Sample" proof, he falls back on the "Fire Changed Carbon" or "Bioplastic Coating" theories that CAN be refuted and ignores any attempt to agree with him about the old theories and point out the newly proved fact.
You warn him about the elephant in the corner of the room and he says "What elephant?" looking everywhere but at the elephant infested corner.
This mind is not only closed, it is hermetically sealed.
Errrr.... no. A piece of linen on fire still only has it's own carbon.
Errr, Orionblamblam, were you aware the fire under discussion was not JUST the shroud burning all by itself, but included a wooden cathedral, the silver chased reliquary, the draperies draped over the reliquary, books, wooden statues ALL of which contributed carbon from their medieval grown source plants in the form of soot that COULD have infused the linen of the Shroud. With sufficient heat, carbon from those sources could be included with the sample that was later Carbon 14 tested.
That being said, there IS NO EVIDENCE on the Shroud of soot from those sources and certainly not in sufficient quantity to skew the C14 date by 1200 years.
At the submicroscopic level there is evidence of the Bio-plastic coating on individual fibers of the Shroud's threads. However, it TOO is insufficient in quantity to skew the date that much. Both soot and germ poop together are insufficient to skew the date by that much.
Both of these theories of why the Carbon 14 dates were so out of sync with the other scholarship are irrelevant!
WE KNOW WHY THE C14 DATA IS WRONG.
The impeccable work done by the three C14 laboratories was doomed to failure from the moment the agreed testing protocols were discarded (literally at the last moment) in favor of taking the sample from the ONE area on the Shroud almost all scientists involved in the project agreed should be avoided. The labs were given samples that were not exemplar with the main Shroud material in that it contained added a large percentage of contemporary FRENCH linen rewoven into the Shroud linen in either 1535 or 1552 by the Nuns of Poor Clare when they were repairing damage done to the Shroud over the years.
It is so obvious you can even SEE the change from one type of linen to the other in the pretest photos of the actual tested samples in Reply 30 which presents a summary of the evidence.
Orionblamblam, why don't you open your eyes and your mind and look at the evidence instead of just beating a dead horse. [shroudie, I know what I said in my last post... but I had to try... :^) ]
Actually, it is not up to anyone to prove to you that it is real. There is ample evidence that it is not been proven to be a fake and no evidence that it is. There is significant evidence to make a strong case that it is a first century burial cloth. As for miracles, we need only concentrate here on the formation of the images. Much work is being done to show that they might be the result of a perfectly natural phenomenon. Of course, if they are miraculously induced images it is unlikely that science could prove that.
Hell, for all we know, the shroud could well be 1st century... taken from a burial, sold to an artist, who then painted on it. Given that there is no blood on the shroud but there is iron oxide and other pigments...
Good stretch in thinking. (Oh, did you miss the point about their being blood and no concentrations of pigments or iron oxide to form an image). Now for that to be so we must assume that the cloth was separated from the body it contained. We must, of course, consider Jewish attitudes regarding blood. Now you might develop your theory a bit more to think that Romans unwrapped the body or maybe they had some of their Syrian slaves do it.
Occam's Razor you say. Are you for real?
theortical Jesus ??? I guess if you put no stock in history you probably put no stock in science either. Maybe this explains where you are coming from.
And that the image thereon was a result of the Physics of the Resurrection.
You still are beating a dead horse, Orion.
Carbon added from ANY fire is miniscule and NOT the reason for any skewing of the age of the Shroud. This hypothesis was raised, tested, found to be an inconsequential source of carbon 14 and dropped... LONG AGO! I responded to your comment on this merely to show that there WAS some rationale behind the hypothesis.
It is only Shroud skeptics like Joe Nickell (and you) that keep raising this strawman argument about a long discarded hypothesis as though it were an example of the current science instead of addressing the now ABSOLUTELY PROVEN NON-EXEMPLAR SAMPLE.
You still will not look at the data that the sample tested was a NON-EXEMPLAR SAMPLE. This data is a "slam dunk". The C14 data is discredited, not to be believed. No scientist worth his salt would agree that a sample so dissimilar to the main body of the Shroud could provide ANY worthwhile data on the age of the body of the Shroud itself.
was somehow the One True Shroud Of the Theoretical Jesus.
I see. Now we have your true agenda, blamblam. You doubt that Jesus was a historical person.
With that one question, Orion, you demonstrate you have absolutely no idea of nature of proof any scientific test must meet. Just the fact that the sample is (shall I shout this in your ear? Yeah, I think I will, nothing else seems to get through.) NOT SIMILAR to the rest of the Shroud is sufficient to invalidate the entire test!
Hell, for all we know, the shroud could well be 1st century... taken from a burial, sold to an artist, who then painted on it. Given that there is no blood on the shroud but there is iron oxide and other pigments...
What a stretch!
So now your hypothesis is that some 14th century archaeologist or grave robber excavated a tomb in the Jerusalem area, found a pristine shroud, unsullied by decomposition products from the body it covered, removed it, carried it to Lirey France where he sold it to an unknown artist, who "paints" an image of Christ's crucified body on this conveniently properly aged cloth which is contrary to every previous or current artistic style, utilizing a technique never used before or since, incorporating data that cannot be decoded for at least 800 years, and including details that demonstrate he has an encyclopedic knowledge of First Century Jewish customs, Roman execution techniques, the concept of negativity, anatomy and blood chemistry, merely so he can show a "relic" to ignorant rubes who would pay just as much to see a bed sheet daubed with chicken blood.
Right. Sure.
And you have the gall to shove "Occam's Razor" at us?!
Who is your authority for your assertion that there is "no blood on it?" Joe Nickell? Joe's PhD degree is in ART, not science.
Good Grief. The final sentence of the article resurrects the stupid theory that Leonardo Da Vinci painted it and put his own face on it... and, of course, they don't bother pointing out the chronological impossibility of this "theory!"
You are an engineer... at least that is what your FR page claims. I saw that yesterday.
Not similar" does not automatically mean the rest of the shroud is 1st century.
And I have never said that! All shroudie and I have said is that the C14 test is INVALID! It is. Invalidity does not prove the opposite, it merely invalidates the test and its conclusions. The results announced no longer have any validity in the discussion of the Shroud because of FLAWED science, the breaking of protocols.
As an engineer, would you accept a structural test that confirmed what you wanted to see about the strength of a bridge as accurate for the entire bridge when the test was of a stainless steel chord, and you learn that it is the ONLY stainless steel chord, on a regular steel structure? Of course you wouldn't... because you are a good engineer and would recognize the sample is non-reprentative of the structure. AND I am certain you would not go around certifying the safety of the bridge when you don't really know what it is capable of withstanding.
. . .yes, because even the most convoluted scam is more likely than a miracle. Scams have been proven to exist. miracles always seem to occur when nobody is watching.
A good question then is which is the greater miracle? That the Shroud is an artifact left behind by a man who is reported to have performed many miracles... or that an unknown artist c. 1325 created a masterpiece that defies replication 800 years later?
Yes, scams exist. There are many forged documents around... but that does not mean that there are also legitimate documents around as well.
As to the state of Joe Nickell's degrees, it proves that you ARE parroting his discredited and ignorant of the latest scholarship argments and articles.
I will weigh the hundreds of scientists who are investigating the Shroud with doctorates in Physics and Nuclear Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Forensic Pathology,Engineering, History, Archaeology, Anthropology, Biology, etc., many of whom are the best in their fields, who are studying this phenomenum and publishing their results in peer-reviewed scientific journals against Joe Nickell, PhD in Art, and Walter C. McCrone, (deceased Microscopist), the one Scientist that seems to be alone in his certitude that the Shroud is a fraud, both of whom have failed to get their "research" on this subject published in any peer-reviewed journals.
I also add in the facts that both Nickell and McCrone have been known to "fabricate" their facts, altering them to suit the needs of the moment. McCrone's work fails the test of reproducability - other scientists just do not see what he claims he sees. His credibility is about the same as Percival Lowell's (if he were still living) would be if he stuck to his claims of canals on Mars in the face of the the latest science on that subject.
Quite frankly, Joe Nickell is not qualified to challenge the people he is challenging in the way he challenges them. He demonstrates it by beating the same dead horses of already discarded hypotheses you wind up beating because you are echoing him.
I will give you credit at least for starting to look at the "flawed sample" hypothesis that Nickell has yet to even mention two to three years after the overwhelming eviidence was first starting to be published!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.