Cloning may help terrible prophecies come true: another Christ or antichrist

Researchers say they would like to clone Christ. But with this good intention they on the contrary may get an antichrist. Famous chemist Alan Adler who studied samples of the shroud of Turin, the legendary burial cloth into which Jesus Christ was wrapped after crucifixion, made a sensational statement not long ago.

The researcher said there was blood on the shroud and it was shed by a man who died a violent death.

The University of Texas Center for Advanced DNA Technologies, USA, analyzed the DNA of the bloodstains. Head of the Center Victor Tryon confirmed that was human genetic material. It was divided into several samples and sent to different laboratories for further analysis.

No results of the research have been published yet but there are certainly some. Dr. Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes, one of the few researchers allowed to touch the shroud of Turin is working on his book that will have a shocking name, The DNA of God.

The very abbreviation DNA seemed to be rather common for majority of people a couple of years ago. But today it is a serious cause for anxiety. Indeed, DNA gives researchers an opportunity to produce clones, a copy of any creature whose DNA is available for experiments. Experiments of this type have been already made public: Dolly the sheep became an absolute cloned copy of a sheep whose genetic material, DNA, was available.

Soon, it became clear that cloning humans was also possible. Professor Richard Seed declared he would solve the human cloning problem by the end of the millennium. He said he was seeking a fitting candidate for cloning. Finally, researchers supposed that blood found on the shroud of Turin might be used as genetic material for cloning.

Last year, in an interview to The Time Dr. Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes summed up the decade-long dispute about the authenticity of the shroud of Turin. The researcher said he had no doubts that the shroud of Turin had been Christ' burial cloth and that it was his blood that stained the cloth.

In 1988, three laboratories from England, Switzerland and the US conducted a radiocarbon analysis and made a conclusion that the fabric of which the shroud was made was produced in the 14th century. In other words, the laboratories stated the shroud was a fake. And it was just recently that the erroneous conclusions were disproved. Russian researchers removed the cause of the doubts.

Russia's Doctor of chemistry Dmitry Kuznetsov conducted several experiments to persuade his colleagues that they were mistaken when determined the cloth dated back to the 14th century. He said the results of the radiocarbon analysis were distorted with excessive carbon that the fabric absorbed during a fire that the shroud had stood. He stated that in fact the shroud was older than traditionally believed and was at least 2,000 years old.

Some of the prophecies of the past sound particularly mysterious today. It was predicted that there would be another coming of Christ. At the same time it is known there was a prediction telling that an antichrist in the appearance of Christ and in his flesh would come too. In other words, this antichrist may be a fake double of Christ. And this may actually happen thanks to cloning. The prophecy says the antichrist will first of all kill two witnesses of his appearance. Researchers who decided to clone Christ are highly likely to fall the first victims of the antichrist. And then, the usurper and impostor under the guise of Christ, "the man of sin" will personify the absolute negation of God's commandments and set nations on to deadly fights.

John the Baptist associated coming of an antichrist with the Number of the Beast: " Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast : for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." It was for a long period of time that the rebus was a mystery for people. Some even believed a man would come with the Number of the Beast, 666, written on his head.

Today, researchers suppose that the Number of the Beast may be somehow connected with the genetic code indicated in figures. The number 666 may be the sequence of DNA genetic signals or DNA fragments necessary for successful cloning.

It is a proven fact that the image of a human body on the shroud is not a fake. No significant trace of ink, dye or paint has been discovered on the cloth. What is more, it is not clear how the image in the form of a photographic negative appeared at all.

Physics Doctor John Jackson from the US Air Force Academy and the head of the Shroud of Turin Research Project says the fibers of the image were charred to the depth of 15 micron only and just from one side. He adds that hard X-radiation may produce a similar effect. And it is a great mystery what could probably be the source of such strong radiation two thousand of years ago.

There are many things about the shroud that would prove that it was the burial cloth of Christ, such as a Roman coin over the both eyes minted between 29 to 33 AD. The Wounds are consistent with the Gospel account of Christ's ordeal. A) Crown of thorns. B) Bruising of face. C) Shoulder abrasions D) Knee abrasions E) scourage marks F) nail wounds in hands and feet G) wound in side. H ) Legs not broken !

People who doubt that the shroud is authentic suppose that probably some hoaxer used the Gospel account of Christ' sufferings to draw the image on the shroud. And made some mistakes at that. A hole on one of the palms of the image on the shroud allegedly made with a nail evoked much suspicion. It was thought that crucified people had their wrists nailed otherwise palms were not believed to bear the body weight. An experiment conducted on dead bodies revealed that when palms of dead people were nailed exactly at the spot marked on the shroud of Turin the palms could bear the body weight. This is a spot having particular bones protecting the flesh from tearing and the palms from deformation.

Researcher Alan Adler says not log ago researchers discovered traces of exuding liquid blood material right on the shroud. Doctors learnt about the existence of such liquid only in the 20th century. It proves that even a highly-proficient hoaxer had no notion of such liquid and thus could not paint it on the shroud. So, the cloth actually contacted with a human body.

It is important that the liquid analysis confirmed the human who had been wrapped in the cloth died of dehydration and pain shock. Earlier, experts denied the hypothesis that crucified people inevitably died of asphyxia. An experiment conducted involving volunteers proved that the pose of a crucified man caused no problems to breathing and allowed victims stay alive for several days.

The shroud of Turin is a linen sheet into which Christ was wrapped after being taken from the Cross. The ancient linen cloth 14 ft 3 in. long and 3 ft 7 in. wide is kept with special care in a special metal casket in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy. Earlier it was believed that the first record of the shroud dated back to 1354. But a recent research conducted by Ian Wilson confirmed that there were earlier records dating back to 1200. These records mentioned a cloth that by many features resembled the shroud of Turin. At that time, the relic was known as the Holy Cloth of Edessa as it was kept in the Turkish city of Edessa.

Did you see the science program on TV about the possibility of The Shroud being done by Leonardo DiVinchi? It said such things as that the two sides of the shroud had two images of people of different heights. It also said that LD had a room where he could of made the shroud through a special photo producing window. Did you see it and what did you think of it if you did?

My friend Barrie Schwortz is embarrased to have been associated with the making of that "documentary". Here is what he has posted on Shroud.com about it:

Shroud Documentary Reaches New Lows - A Personal Review of the Recent History Channel Program by Barrie Schwortz
(with some additional comments by Sean Heckman, the associate producer of the program)
In an article posted in my November 19, 2005 update, I recommended, "Unraveling The Shroud of Turin," a Shroud documentary that was going to premiere on the History Channel in December. I even went as far as saying, "I am hopeful that this will be one of the best Shroud documentaries in recent years." Well, I was wrong, and I apologize for ever recommending it. Plain and simple, it was probably the worst Shroud documentary that has ever been produced. Of course, that is not to say that the director and associate producer (the two men most responsible for the original script and production) didn't make a sincere effort to get it right. They honestly did. And so did those of us who spent our valuable time participating in the program, like Dr. John Jackson, Dr. August Accetta and Mark Guscin. I spent hours working with Sean Heckman, the associate producer of the program, over a period of more than 6 months and I found him to be intelligent, sincere and honest in his efforts. He called me frequently to double check facts, both scientific and historic and to make certain he clearly understood some of the more technical issues. However, the persons who have the final say in a television program are not necessarily the production team members who do the writing, shooting and editing. Such was the case with this program.
The first clue was a conversation I had with Sean on the last day of location shooting I participated in, at the 3-D animation studio where parts of the program were taped. He quietly pulled me aside and told me confidentially that they had reconstructed a camera obscura experiment for the program and that it had failed miserably to reproduce an image like the Shroud. In fact, although they spent 43 days exposing an image onto cloth, when they tried to fix it so it could be removed from the darkroom, it disappeared forever. In essence, they could not even make an image that could be brought out into the light (which is why all the video of the resulting camera obscura image was only presented in the darkroom under red safelights). However, he was concerned about how this might be portrayed in the program. His concern was valid, because in the final edited program, they touted the camera obscura theory as "possible" without ever revealing that their own experiment had failed and probably proved it was impossible! Apparently, the senior producers and network executives decided somewhere during the editing process that promoting the infamous "Da Vinci" theory regarding the Shroud was an easy way to capitalize on the current Da Vinci frenzy in the media and garner higher ratings, even if the truth was completely sacrificed. And I mean completely, since they were not even honest about their own results! What Sean didn't tell me then that I found out later, was that in the 2nd hour of the program, the production company had done an experiment in which they superimposed the Shroud bloodstains over those on the Sudarium with surprisingly high congruence. Naturally, they also failed to include that result in the final program. In a subsequent e-mail I received from Sean on November 4, 2005, he stated:

Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 17:29:37 -0800
Subject: For what it's worth...
From: Sean Heckman To: Barrie Schwortz
Not that I'm an expert in the field of cameras or photo superimposition, but if you ever wanted me to do a write-up on why I find the camera obscura theory to be nonsense (having built one), or why we found the superimposition of the Sudarium over the Shroud to be incredibly compelling, I'd be glad to do so...after the show airs.

Sadly, the segment in which I appeared was also edited in a less than honest manner. I participated as a consultant to the 3-D animation experts who extracted the spatial information from my Shroud photographs and reconstructed in the computer a full 3-D body of the man. The goal was to do so as accurately as possible and based solely on what is actually found on the Shroud. The initial results were somewhat distorted and did not match a "normal" human figure when the two were compared. This fact was clearly mentioned in the program. However, after suggesting that the head and shoulders should be slightly elevated, as would be typical in a 1st century Jewish burial, the animator made the necessary adjustments and the resulting image was again compared to the "normal" human figure. It was immediately obvious to everyone that the two images now fit almost perfectly and the animator clearly stated that as a fact. Unfortunately, that statement was NOT included in the final program, leaving the viewer to believe that the 3-D information on the Shroud was not accurate to a human form, when in fact, it is!
In another e-mail from Sean Heckman on Jan 9, 2006, he remained true to his word and sent me the following statement:

I was, personally, very disappointed with the direction this project took by completion. We managed to interview several high profile scientists and historians for our show, with the promise that this program would make a fair evaluation of the most recent theories both for and against the authenticity of The Shroud. I do not feel as though this program met this promise, and am personally embarrassed to have involved the participants that I did.
Specifically, I take major issue with the misleading nature of our "camera obscura" segments. I personally worked with artist Stephen Berkman to design, construct, and test the theory that the Shroud was created by such a process. Stephen and I paid particular attention to building the camera and exposing the image with historical accuracy. We only used simple lenses that would have been available in the 13th century, as well as exposed and fixed the image with chemicals that are known to have existed at the time. Put simply, the experiment failed. While it is theoretically possible to expose an image, there are a countless number of variables that make the process nearly impossible, a multitude of which caused our project to fail. Namely, in order to make a life-sized image, you would need to position the linen at least 6 or more feet away from the lens. Since light fades away at an inverse square rate, a pinhole or simple lens only allows for an extremely faint amount of light to reach that distance, making it extremely difficult to expose the image. In our case, it took 43 days to get a faint image, which completely disappeared once the image was fixed. Considering this experiment was based on 200 years of KNOWN photographic technology, I find it difficult that such an image could have been created 600 years ago, particularly an image that we'd still be able to see today.
The disappearance of our image, once fixed, was completely cut out of our program. Similarly, we had several other theories, counter theories, and experiments that were modified over the course of the writing and editing, resulting in a program that strayed away from the scientific focus that I was told the show should take. In essence, the focus of our program was severely altered in the closing stages of our edit, and decisions were made between the network, as well as the production company, which went against my original intentions. It is unfortunate that the aired program took the direction that it did, and I can only hope that its participants understand how disappointed I was with the decisions made beyond my control.
Sean Heckman

There were many other facets of the program that were severely lacking, but frankly, it is not even worth mentioning them here. Sadly, it is very apparent that the standards for production of television documentaries have dropped dramatically over the past ten years. This is perhaps due in part to the pressures of ratings, or the fact that there are 24 hours of programming to fill every day. Apparently, these days the networks are willing to accept and broadcast programs focusing on "popular" themes that will entice and lure the viewers away from their competition, even if they are misleading or completely untrue. More likely however, is the fact that television is first and foremost an entertainment medium and not an academic arena, so the truth is not an essential requirement. Television does not have to meet the same rigorous standards as a peer reviewed scientific journal. In fact, neither do commercial books, magazines or even websites! In most of those venues, standards for content are practically non-existent. It is unfortunate, but I am afraid that we all have to lower our expectations whenever the media focuses on the Shroud. That focus is inevitably altered by interests other than the truth. In the end, I strongly recommend that you avoid this program entirely.
Barrie Schwortz
SOURCE

My viewpoint is the same. I was appalled at the presentation. One of the things not mentioned in ANY of the proposals that the Shroud is a Medieval photograph is the fact that any photograph is an image created in a photo-sensitive chemical such as Silver Nitrate... yet the Shroud is THE SINGLE MOST RESEARCHED ITEM IN HISTORY... and that includes microspectrometry. There simply is no photosensitive chemical residue on the shroud to hold the image. If there were, it would have been found and proven the method of creation long ago. Just as the absence of any pigment in sufficient quantities, or in concentrations in image areas, is sufficient to PROVE the Shroud is not a painting, the absence of any fixed photo-chemical is sufficient to PROVE the Shroud is not a photograph.

While we are talking about the image, the article above cites J. Jackson as claiming the "fibers of the image were charred to the depth of 15 micron only and just from one side." No one has claimed the fibers were "charred" and in fact the STURP examination in 1978 PROVED the image is not a "char". You see an impromptu and totally accidental "experiment" has already been done on the entire body of the Shroud... it was in a fire in 1532 that provided an entire spectrum of "charred" Shroud material. Charred Linen fluoresces under a blacklight... the image does not fluoresce. Ergo, it is not " charred" linen. Now we know what the image is made of... it is a extremely thin (100th the thickness of a human hair) coating. Freeper Shroudie has the most layman accessible Website on the Shroud and provides this explanation of the findings of the late researcher Raymond N. Rodgers:

The Filmy Substance That Holds the Pictures of Jesus
The substance is a dried carbohydrate mixture of starch fractions and various saccharides (sugars). It is as thin (180 to 600 nanometers) as the wall of a soap bubble. It is thinner than the invisible glare proof coating on modern eyeglasses.
The coating is only found on the outermost fibers of the thread. In fact, it is only found where the fibers are close to the surface of the Shroud's cloth. In other words, the fibers inside the thread, deep in the cloth, do not have this filmy substance.
Another important fact is that the carbohydrate coating can be removed by scraping or by pulling it away with adhesive tape. Over the years, as the Shroud of Turin was folded and unfolded, rolled up and unrolled and spread out across rough surfaces, microscopic bits of the filmy substance certainly flaked away. In fact, when the Shroud was examined in 1978, pieces of the substance -- pieces of the pictures -- were pulled away when adhesive tape was rubbed on the Shroud to collect particulate samples for research. Today, countless tiny bits of these pictures of Jesus, even whole fibers of the Shroud's cloth, are stuck to microscope slides and sampling tapes in laboratories in the United States.
Scientist have a pretty good idea about how the the coating got there. It wasn't brushed on or wiped on as one might apply sizing to a canvas before painting. Had that been the case, the starch and sugar mixture would have soaked at least part of the way through the Shroud. Fibers inside the thread would have been coated. Capillary action would have pulled the mixture into the middle of the threads.
So how did the coating get onto the fibers? It turns out that the distribution of the carbohydrate substance fits an evaporation-deposit model. Interestingly, this model dovetails exactly with the way linen was made during Jesus' era as described by Pliny the Elder (23 to 77 AD).
If the cloth was rinsed in a solution that contained dissolved starch and saccharides, and if the cloth was then dried in the air, the coating we find on the Shroud of Turin would have formed just as it is. We know from Pliny that during weaving, threads on the loom were lubricated with crude starch to make weaving easier and to prevent fraying. The starch was then washed out by rinsing it in suds from the Soapwort plant. But the starch wouldn't have been washed out completely. Trace amounts of both starch and the numerous saccharides found in the natural soap would have remained in the wet cloth. As the cloth dried, moisture wicked its way to the surface carrying with it starch and saccharide molecules. The dissolved material would have concentrated at the surface and remained on the fibers as the moisture evaporated into the air. This is certainly how the coating formed on only the outermost fibers.

All of this research was available to the makers of that "scientific" documentary that pushed Picknett's and Prince's totally discredited Da Vinci theory... and totally ignored. Just as the article above could have been written based on scientific fact rather than the tripe they did print, the producers and the writers did not bother to do serious research, and produced tripe.

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