Now you are accusing both shroudie and I of being liars. We are not.
You claim a "complete lack of evidence" when we have provided evidence upon evidence that the Carbon 14 test is no longer valid. YOU have provided none at all.
Have either Shroudie or I categorically stated that the Shroud is "2k" years old? We have NOT. We have merely stated that with the invalidating of the 1989 Carbon 14 test, the question of the age of the non-patched areas of Shroud material is UNKNOWN.
Hell, Orion, it could be, as you suggest, that the patches WERE added just after the unknown weaver finished the cloth however unlikely that may be. The fact is we don't know... and that is what invalidates the Carbon 14 test: not knowing,
Your list of possibilities:
There are basically three possibilities:
1: It's a fraud.
2: It's an extremely bizarre natural phenomenon that happened to some random guy.
3: It's an extremely bizarre thing that happened to one *specific* and religiously important guy.
If, by the word "thing", in possibility No. 3, you mean "natural phenomenon", then you should have written it thusly:
3: It's an extremely bizarre natural phenomenon that happened to one "specific" and religiously important guy.
Then there is the possibility you left out that betrays your agenda:
4: It's evidence of a miraculous event that happened to one "specific" and religiously important guy.
The researchers of the Shroud KNOW that possibility No. 4 cannot ever be proved by Science. All we can do is to try and prove the any other three. If any of those three can be PROVED, No. 4 would be FALSE. That is what the last 106 years of research has been trying to do.
Possibility No. 1 Fraud, should be the easiest of all of them to prove. Proving fraud would make 2, 3, and 4 FALSE.
McCrone's proof of Fraud
Researchers thought that if you found paint or pigment in the image areas or blood stains in sufficient concentration to produce the image, then its a work of art. Walter C. McCrone thought he had found it under his microscope. He found flecks of iron oxide (that he termed Red Ocher) and Mercuric Sulfide (which he termed Vermilion) in his optical microscope. He immediately announced "Fraud" even though no peer-reviewed scientific journal would publish his results.
Other scientists, attempting to duplicate McCrone's findings, could not. Looking at the same samples that McCrone claimed proved fraud, the other scientists saw singular flecks of the materials. Still others, using much more sophisticated instrumentation than McCrone's outdated microscope, found that while there are "flecks" of both Red Ocher and Vermilion on the Shroud, they are randomly distributed over the entire cloth, with no concentration in image areas, and none in sufficient concentration to be visible. Examination of other cloths from European churches found similar random distributions of pigments merely from environmental factors.
The chemistry of the image is now well known and it has nothing to do with added pigments or stains or paints. Shroudie has posted over and over the chemical reaction that apparently has caused the image and I shall not repeat them. He and I have posted the links and the names of the well esteemed scientists that have done this research and published their results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The blood stains have been found to be real blood by some of the top experts in hematology and blood chemistry, superseding the 1973 tests. Again, we have provided links and the names of the scientists involved who published their results in peer-reviewed journals.
McCrone's "proof" of fraud was falsified.
The Duplication by Technical Means Proof of Fraud
The duplication of the Shroud image using even modern technology, let alone medieval technology, would be assumed by some to be proof of fraud. Many people are attempting this including artists, scientists, magicians, writers, and photographers. Some have claimed success.
To be deemed a successful "duplication" the duplicate image would have to meet several criteria. It would have to duplicate the quasi-photographic negative qualities of the shroud without evincing any directionality of "light." It would have to produce the image without using any detectable pigments, stains, or paints tested to the level the Shroud has been tested. The image cannot be fluorsescent. It would have to reproduce the quasi-three dimensional nature of the Shroud as a topographical mapping of the body. The image would have to be chemically identical to the image on the Shroud, and be present only in the top fibrils. Some would add the requirement that the duplicate also include the radiographic nature of the Shroud for the duplicate to be deemed successful.
While some attempts at Shroud duplication have met a few of the criteria, none has been successful in meeting all of them. So far, none has met the chemical test. A few which lacked pigment were produced by "searing" but all of them had fluorescent images caused by the charred linen. A couple have tried using photographic means, which fail by not meeting the Chemical test, and the directional light test.
The Duplication by Technical Means is still being attempted, but at this time, has been unsuccsessful.
The Carbon 14 proof of Medieval Origin
The Agreed Protocol
All of the scientists involved were agreed that the Carbon 14 test was proof which would make possibilities Nos. 3 and 4 false. These scientists prepared a well thought out protocol for testing the Shroud that involved seven samples, taken from various areas of the Shroud, and seven C14 labs, some of which would be given "control samples" that were not Shroud samples but taken from a cloth of known medieval or 1st Century provenance (this proved difficult because there were few surviving linen cloths from either period that had the proper weave). The protocol specifically excluded several areas of the Shroud because they were known to be contaminated. The Pope (the putative owner of the Shroud), the Catholic Church, and the Bishop of Turin agreed to these protocols.
Because of politics and personalities, the seven labs were trimmed to three. The blind testing was dropped. Politics last raised its head when the scientific adviser to the Bishop of Turin, one hour before the seven samples were to be taken, unilaterally changed the sampling protocol and would allow only ONE sample to be taken which would be shared among the three labs.
Observers were aghast when the adviser specified one of the areas the scientists agreed should be avoided because of known contamination. The observers protested the breaking of the specified protocol, but the project had gained an inertia that was impossible to stop because of the politics. The tests were performed properly on the sample provided to the three labs, the data collated, and the Carbon 14 results were announced to the world: 1260 AD to 1390 AD, averaged to 1325 AD.
The Shroud was "proved" to be of 14th Century Origin, falsifying possibilities 3 and 4.
The Fatally Flawed Sample
It is now know that because of that breaking of scientific protocol and the resultant sampling error, the three Carbon 14 Laboratories (Oxford, Zurich, and Arizona) performed impeccably accurate tests on a fatally flawed sample. Some excellent research in textile analysis, photomicrographic examinations of the photos of the C14 sample, chemical analysis of the surviving sample area, physical examination of the sticky tape samples from the sample area, and historical investigation of French repair techniques of the 16th Century, it has been found that the area sampled was not only contaminated by being one of the areas most handled in antiquity, it was actually a rewoven PATCH with foreign material not Representative of the Shroud itself. The names of the researchers, scientific, technical, and historic, have been listed by shroudie and the links to their peer-reviewed journal articles posted. Because of the irresponsible and unscientific breaking of protocol the results of the Carbon 14 test are now invalid but not falsified.
The Carbon 14 proof of Medieval origin has been invalidated. The question of the age of the Shroud is still open and the falsification of possibilities 3 and 4 voided.
Conclusion
Because the sample was taken in violation of agreed protocols, the Carbon 14 test needs to be redone with the original protocols. It may yet prove the Shroud to be medieval... or 1st Century.