Is this the face of Jesus Christ?Figure of crucified man on Shroud comes to life

WND ^ | March 24th, 2010

[TaraP]

The world will have an extraordinary opportunity to look upon an undistorted, never-before-seen, moving 3-D portrait of a man who many think is the crucified Jesus Christ.

In just one week, graphic experts will bring to life an imprint on the holy relic known as the Shroud of Turin, believed by millions to be the burial shroud of Christ.

The Shroud of Turin bears the full-body, back-and-front image of a crucified man that is said to closely resemble the New Testament description of the passion and death of Christ. The 14-foot cloth long has posed mysteries because of its age and its negative image of a bloodstained and battered man who had been crucified. Believers claim it to be the miraculous image of Jesus, formed as he rose from the dead.

The History Channel will air "The Real Face of Jesus?," a special two-hour event that premieres March 30 at 9 p.m. EST. It aims to bring the world as close as it has ever come to seeing what Jesus may have actually looked like.

[marstegreg]

Swordmaker!!!!! It’s you!!! :)
I am glad to hear from you again! I was surprised that they left out all of that information as well. There were parts that just seemed like filler, they could have easily fit the information in. That information is extremely important. By the way, thanks for the website information. It has kept me very busy over the last few days.

[marstegreg]

Flowerplough was out of line. You were very patient with him. It seemed that he was intent on getting “in your face”, no matter what you said. You, however, handled yourself extremely well. Just reading your exchange with him, I can honestly say that I would have behaved not quite as Nicely as you did. Thank you for going out of your way to share all this information with us. I ,for one, could read you postings all day! :)

[Swordmaker]

There were thousands of churches and monasteries holding tens or hundreds of thousands of purported Bible-person body parts or personal belongings, way back when, the relic holders profitted from the religious touristry. There have been shrouds and more shrouds, and this one is the best shroud, sorta the NCAA Shroud Madness tournament winner, but what, if the Church itself won’t accept teh HUGE evidence of the Mandylion and declare that you and yours have been exactly right all along, why in hades would I?

Please provide your evidence of all these other "true shrouds"... cite websites, links, historical reports, etc., please discount any that are known to be painted copies of the Shroud of Turin.

[Swordmaker]

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

You are aiming your reprimand at the wrong Freeper. I suggest you do a careful review of FlowerPlough's behavior throughout this entire thread and reconsider the well thought out judgment RightOnLine has declared upon Flowerplough.

After many attempts to reason with him by many of us using up-to-date peer-reviewed science and links to published articles which he invariably ignores and/or fails to read and then simply again re-iterates his talking points, I find I am in complete agreement with RightOnLine. FlowerPlough is a troll whose purpose in this thread is to throw spitwads and disrupt discussion, not to advance it.

I suggest you look at his ad hominem attack on Rightonline in Reply 321, where he impugns Right's reading ability by writing he is going to "type slowly" implying that by doing so Right can then be able to read what he is going to say. There are many more such slurs spread throughout FlowerPlough's posts on this thread to RightOnLine and other pro-Shroud Freepers and I believe that Rightonline has been a model of restraint in not letting him have it between the eyes before now. FlowerPlough has subtly made it personal long before anyone else.

FlowerPlough has an agenda and he has been pushing it from his first post to his last, and damned be to the facts, regardless of their source or provenance; he is never bothered by letting them slow him down an iota. Nor does he provide any citations to rebut our facts when we present current science; he just falls back on already falsified data, ignoring its falsification, and ploughs on ahead. I think that meets the definition of a troll... and possibly that of an idiot. At least my definition would include discard factual evidence to embrace ignorance would define an idiot in my lexicon.

[flowerplough]

FlowerPlough has an agenda and he has been pushing it from his first post to his last, and damned be to the facts...

Facts, again? Here's the facts, Swordmaker. The shroud was “discovered” in medieval Europe and is very interestingly contrived. Its warp and woof match the time and place in which it was discovered, and carbon dating has also placed it in a medieval origin. Scientists who have studied the remains of the faint, scorched, water-stained image on the shroud have been unable to ascertain how it was applied to the cloth, and some scientists have found some trace evidence for the shroud having once been in the “Holy Land”, or at least handled by someone who’d recently been there; some even offer circumstantial evidence that it may have been accidentally or intentionally in contact with soils, pollens and similar materials, some possibly more ancient than the shroud itself, that are also from the “Holy Land”. The Turin shroud, one of many “True Shrouds” thru the centuries, had been often openly handled, fondled, and exhibited to public or ecclesiastic audiences and has been declared an object of veneration, but not the True Burial Shroud of Jesus Christ Himself, by the Most High Holy Blessed Catholic Church in Rome.

[Religion Moderator]

I try to read every post, but I can't always acheive that goal. And I post a warning to the first post I happen to read which is "making it personal" and therefore might lead to a flame war.

If a post is particularly offensive, I pull it. Most of the time I don't because the warning is usually enough to keep the thread from heating up any further.

In the Religion Forum guidelines on my profile page, I state that when one poster in a sidebar has been warned, all posters in the sidebar should consider themselves warned.

That is based on the principle that two wrongs don't make a right.

It also means that a poster cannot assume that I didn't notice simply because he wasn't warned.

[Swordmaker]

Facts, again? Here's the facts, Swordmaker.

No, FlowerPlough, they are NOT facts... they are your opinions. And most of them are wrong, having been disproved in the light of later science and investigative scholarship that has uncovered facts you choose to totally ignore because they don't fit your prejudiced opinions.

The shroud was “discovered” in medieval Europe and is very interestingly contrived.

That is false. The word "contrived" is a loaded word meaning it was "deliberately created rather than arising naturally or spontaneously, giving a sense of artificiality. Nothing could be farther from the facts. If you think this is a fact, you better provide a link to the proof. Otherwise it is mere speculation and your opinion.

You also ignore the fact that the shroud was listed among the inventory of the Hagia Sophia's relics... and you ignore the fact that Gregorius Referendarius, Arch Deacon of the Hagia Sophia, described it on August 14, 944 AD in his Sermon. You further ignore the fact that knight Robert de Clary, also described it in letters he wrote home in 1104AD. Another fact you ignore is that the 11th Century Hungarian Prayer Codex depicts the Shroud, complete with burned poker holes in a distinctive pattern and the three over one twill weave pattern, three centuries before your asserted "discovery" of the Shroud. Your "discovery" is only a fact based on your ignorance of the actual scholarship.

Its warp and woof match the time and place in which it was discovered

Again, false. In fact the warp and woof yarns of the Shroud are inconsistent with other textiles produced in Europe in the period and area where you say it was "discovered." The Shroud was made with technology that was NOT in current use in medieval France.

Here is a fact: First, the techniques used to bleach the Linen, hank bleaching, was not in use in medieval France, and had not been for centuries, but was in common use in 1st Century Jerusalem. This technique takes the spun Linen in hanks of yarn and lays it out in the sun and bleaches it BEFORE weaving the cloth. The Medieval French used unbleached Linen yarn to weave their cloth and then bleached the finished cloth, laying it out on bushes, which produced a more uniform finished product.

Here is another fact: Secondly, the Shroud was woven on a wall loom... a technique no longer in use after the invention of the frame loom, which could weave cloth in unlimited lengths, feeding yarn from spools and winding the finished cloth on a bolt, which was used ubiquitously in medieval Europe. Again, FlowerPlough, you or the skeptics are making stuff up out of whole cloth, pun intended.

and carbon dating has also placed it in a medieval origin.

And how many times do you have to be told that the 1988 carbon dating is totally INVALID, having dated a melange of original pure linen from the original Shroud and a 16th Century COTTON patch???? This is no longer in doubt... THREE DIFFERENT SCIENTISTS HAVE PROVED IT TO BE TRUE! And yes, I am shouting. I am shouting because something needs to get this FACT through your thick skull. READ THE THREE PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE ARTICLES ON THE THREE INDEPENDENT LINES OF RESEARCH THAT HAS INVALIDATED THE C14 TESTS!!!! No amount of dancing around is going to change the fact that what was tested was ABSOLUTELY NOT THE SAME as what was intended to be tested.

That makes the carbon dating results decidedly NOT A FACT. Scientists who have studied the remains of the faint, scorched, water-stained image on the shroud have been unable to ascertain how it was applied to the cloth

Again, you are using LOADED words, which assume facts not in evidence... "applied" implies that it is artificial... and the word "remans" implies that it is somehow less than it once was... a favorite claim of skeptics without basis in fact.

and some scientists have found some trace evidence for the shroud having once been in the “Holy Land”, or at least handled by someone who’d recently been there; some even offer circumstantial evidence that it may have been accidentally or intentionally in contact with soils, pollens and similar materials, some possibly more ancient than the shroud itself, that are also from the “Holy Land”.

Now you postulate a miraculous conspiracy of medieval hoaxers realizing the necessity of fooling future Palynologists arranging the proper pollen contaminants be placed on the shroud... and also the placement of the correct Travertine Aragonite limestone dust only on the dorsal obverse side of the Shroud where it would have had contact with freshly hewn rock of an East Jerusalem tomb. Or, you opine, that it was handled by someone who was still exuding the dust and pollens of the Jerusalem area after an arduous many month's long journey... Right, sure... Again, lacking facts for that last one.

The Turin shroud, one of many “True Shrouds” thru the centuries, had been often openly handled, fondled, and exhibited to public or ecclesiastic audiences and has been declared an object of veneration, but not the True Burial Shroud of Jesus Christ Himself, by the Most High Holy Blessed Catholic Church in Rome.

Let's have your FACTS about those "many 'True Shrouds' thru the centuries"... you claim them... but let's see you back up your assertions with some FACTS. Remember, discount those known to be copies based on the Shroud of Turin.

[Swordmaker]

I try to read every post, but I can't always acheive that goal. And I post a warning to the first post I happen to read which is "making it personal" and therefore might lead to a flame war.

I appreciate your efforts... but sometimes it gets hard to put up with the trolls.

[RightOnline]

The Religion Moderator was right. I had no right to call anyone an “idiot” on this thread. Flowerplough....I hereby apologize to you for that. No matter how irked I may get, such words are uncalled for on FR, let alone on such a thread about such an important topic.

That said, I am humbled by the “defense” of me by Swordmaker and other FReepers who have put up such valuable information on the Shroud, here on this thread and many others. You guys are great, and I’ve learned much from YOU. I appreciate your insights, your knowledge, and your appreciation and understanding of research on the Shroud.

The Shroud is controversial and always will be. It also fascinates people, even non-Christians. I did a major presentation on the Shroud last evening at a local mega-church to thousands of people. Additionally and separately, in their cavernous main lobby, we had set up a huge display on the Shroud complete with looping PowerPoint presentations (with audio), film clips running on DVD in a loop (3 50” flat panel displays), life-sized Shroud images suspended from the ceiling, posters, a sculpture from Dame Isabel Piczek, plant samples, actual leptons from 2000 years ago, etc. etc.

The responses to the seminar and the display were incredible. People are hungry for knowledge; for information on this amazing piece of cloth.

I really just want to get out good information, good research to people everywhere so that they can draw their own conclusions. I overlooked that simple principle when I used an inappropriate “descriptor” in a reply to flowerplough, no matter how much I disagreed or tried to refute his points. That won’t happen again. He has every right to his own opinion, whether I agree or not.

So thank you very, very much, all, for your kind and supportive words....let’s keep this wonderful discussion going and I’ll do my part to keep it civil. God bless all of you.

[marstegreg]

You are a true gentleman! Happy Easter. :)

[RightOnline]

Thank you, and a very Happy Easter to you and yours, as well.

[wagglebee]

Outstanding post!

[Religion Moderator]

Thank you.

[flowerplough]

“And yes, I am shouting. I am shouting because something needs to get this FACT through your thick skull. READ THE THREE PEER...”

Thanks for the apology for the insults, ROL, and SM, you sound like Al Gore explaining Global Warming, or Barack Obama campaigning for his(Pelosi’s/Reid’s?) health insurance takeover. Exasperation. Like this:

“Sep 8, 2009 ... CINCINNATI – In a combative Labor Day speech, President Barack Obama said the health care debate had gone on too long and accused opponents ...”

And this: “Look, I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, you know, academically approved approach to health care. And didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it. And just go ahead and have that passed. But that’s not how it works in our democracy.

And this: Mar 3, 2010 ... President Obama says that after years and months of political wrangling, and disagreements that the time for debate over a Plan to Reform ...

Bammy ain’t quite shouting, but he is crossing his skinny arms, stomping his long, flappy feet, jutting his lower lip and declaring that he’s had enough. And that we should appreciate what he’s done so far. And agree. “But that’s not how it works in our democracy.”

So you “Shroudies” have an explanation of how the carbon 14 tests were bungled, and can’t understand why people like me won’t listen and agree and believe. You claim to have Travertine Aragonite limestone dust only on the dorsal obverse side of the Shroud and ancient, Jordanian/Palestinian pollen retrieved from the fibers, some of you even think they can see faint marks from authentically-misspelled ancient Jordanian/Palestinian/Roman coin inscriptions over the body’s eyelids. And you all think this should be enough, and people like me should just believe you, and believe your experts’ claims, and believe in The Shroud.

Sorry. Occam’s razor comes into play. The simplest explanation is usually the most true, and extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary proof. The Jesus Shrouds from Besançon, Cadouin, Champiègne, Xabregas, etc., are all known(?) to be forgeries by this time, and, as some old 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia states “it remains true that many of the more ancient relics duly exhibited for veneration in the great sanctuaries of Christendom or even at Rome itself must now be pronounced to be either certainty spurious or open to grave suspicion.” Turin Shroud fits right in there. Sorry. Happy Easter.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12734a.htm

[Swordmaker]

So you “Shroudies” have an explanation of how the carbon 14 tests were bungled, and can’t understand why people like me won’t listen and agree and believe. You claim to have Travertine Aragonite limestone dust only on the dorsal obverse side of the Shroud and ancient, Jordanian/Palestinian pollen retrieved from the fibers, some of you even think they can see faint marks from authentically-misspelled ancient Jordanian/Palestinian/Roman coin inscriptions over the body’s eyelids. And you all think this should be enough, and people like me should just believe you, and believe your experts’ claims, and believe in The Shroud.

"your experts"

And there is your problem... as soon as a scientist finds something probative of authenticity of the Shroud, he becomes one of "our experts" in your eyes and therefor no longer believable or even trustworthy, regardless of the nature of his reputation, the quality of his work, the peer-reviews it has under gone, or the prestige of the publication in which his research appears. Suddenly, you apply ad hominem to the equation. For you, all are to be dismissed because he found something that doesn't fit your preconceived prejudices. Everything done by "shroudies" is to be ignored, regardless of its quality, its provability, its repeatability, or its logic, simply because the researcher MAY have a bias that YOU assign after the fact of the results. Many of these so called "shroudies" are Atheist, some are Agnostic... John Heller and Al Adler, the blood experts, like Barrie Schwortz and Avanoam David, are Jewish... Dr. Bruce Cameron was not associated with the Shroud until he was asked by Heller and Adler to do a peer review... yet you paint them with the same brush as "shroudies" and ignore their work and dismiss them out of hand merely because of the subject matter and because YOU don't like their conclusions—what they found—it is disturbing your world view.

...can’t understand why people like me won’t listen...

Now you admit you "won't listen." I suspected you haven't bothered to read any of the articles and now you admit it... "you won't" listen or read the science that you disagree with. You are the child standing there with his hands over his ears, yelling at the top of his lungs "bla bla bla, I refuse to hear what you have to say! bla bla bla because I have already determined no matter what you say, it has no value!"

Flowerplough, I do not ask that you believe. I ask simply that you stop pushing the 1988 Carbon14 test as probative of the age of the Shroud when later peer-reviewed science has falsified it conclusively. There is no longer any doubt that what was tested was not the same as what was intended to be tested. Three different scientists, using three different disciplines, in three different peer-reviewed published articles have demonstrated it; four, if you count the mathematical proofs offered by the statistical critiques that proved the 1988 C14 tested samples could not have come from a homogenous population. Ergo, claiming the 1988 C14 test proves the Shroud is medieval is a LIE; all that test proved is that the average age of the mixture of the ages of the patch and the original material mixed with the patch gave those varied results. Nothing more. No less an authority than Harry Gove, the inventor of the technique used in the dating of the samples, agrees that the dating was flawed. The head of the Project that oversaw the dating, in a letter to Nature, now admits that the dating was flawed because of poor sampling choices. I suggest you join them. It returned the question of the age of the Shroud back to the unknown column. In other words, Flowerplough, use good science. When something has been falsified, quit citing it as being true. If you continue doing so, you are pushing a falsehood, and bad science. Accept it.

The Jesus Shrouds from Besançon, Cadouin, Champiègne, Xabregas, etc., are all known(?) to be forgeries by this time.

I told you to ignore the known copies of the Shroud of Turin... and each of those you list is known as an artist's attempt at creating a painted copy of the Shroud of Turin... that's why they are known forgeries. There are actually 26 of those that were made and then touched to the Shroud to imbue them with some semblance of continuity before being sent to other churches, usually with a letter so attesting that they were so touched to the shroud. I truly was hoping ypu would cite the three non-image candidates... but no, you didn't...

[flowerplough]

It's the shouting, the passion, and the anger. In my admittedly-limited experience, and in my slightly-less-limited reading of history and literature, I've observed that those who run short of reason or proof will, too often, resort to noise, or even violence. I believe too many of you Turinistas have been there too many times. Or you'll find a respectable individual scientist or authority whose words can lend credit to your hopes, dreams, and aspirations and then cling to those words like a drunken, chubby chick to her date on prom night. Wall looms and bleaching, limestone and pollen, burned spots and blood stains, they all bow and tremble before the the almighty Carbon-14 atom, and before the Church's admissions of the proven forgery of many, many, many other similar (former) objects of veneration. It's too bad the rich, hoary, decrepit organization that holds the shroud isn't willing to double down and retest the carbon. Would lay lotsa barking dogs to rest, hayna?

You say that three different scientists, using three different disciplines, in three different peer-reviewed published articles have demonstrated that the shroud's C-14 tests were bungled; Al Gore can find me three or four thousand scientists who'll absolutely agree with him that manmade carbon dioxide emissions will completely destroy life as we know it within a few decades. Three scientists, possibly four, that's all for your side? But the shroud's the single most studied artifact in human history; shouldn't the colluding/concurring scientist count be a little higher, and more like Gore's?

"...all that (previous C-14) test proved is that the average age of the mixture of the ages of the patch and the original material mixed with the patch gave those varied results", and that proves me a liar, you say, Sword. I say the previous test proves one of three things. The previous test proves the shroud is medieval, or it proves that those holding and cutting cloth samples from the shroud are incredibly incompetent and definitely should not be trusted holding the shroud, or it proves that those holding and cutting cloth samples from the shroud intentionally bonerized and sandbagged the sampling and therefore, the test results, because they see foresaw the most benefit to themselves down that route. And if this third possibility is true, then, again, those holding and cutting cloth samples from the shroud are definetly not to be trusted with it.

Looks like a lose, lose, lose situation for the shroudies, as they have sometimes called themselves. Either the shroud ain't authentic, or it's held by the incompetent and isn't safe in their keeping, or it's held by malefactors and ain't safe in their keeping. Maybe you all shouldn't be arguing and cheerleading the shroud, but arming yourselves and rescuing it from it's current precarious placement.

[Swordmaker]

It's the shouting, the passion, and the anger. In my admittedly-limited experience, and in my slightly-less-limited reading of history and literature, I've observed that those who run short of reason or proof will, too often, resort to noise, or even violence. I believe too many of you Turinistas have been there too many times. Or you'll find a respectable individual scientist or authority whose words can lend credit to your hopes, dreams, and aspirations and then cling to those words like a drunken, chubby chick to her date on prom night.

FlowerPlough, YOU are the one who uses ad hominem attack, using noise such as names like "turinistas" and "shroudies" and other diminutives to minimize your opponents in this discussion... not us. Another good example is the following: we are "a drunken, chubby chick [clinging] to to her date on prom night" All of that is an ad homimen attack on everyone who has argued with you on this forum... and that certainly is an insult.

YOU, on the other hand continually refuse to look at the evidence that what the labs tested in the 1988 carbon dating tests WAS NOT homogenous (the same as) with the main body as the Shroud. If it was not, then it is not representative of the thing intended to be tested and THEREFORE can not be equated with it. The proofs are now incontrovertable. They have been proved with three different methods.

Carbon 14 testing is not infallible. It fails for several reasons... one of which is testing the wrong thing... mis-sampling. And that is what happened in this case.

Raising Gore and Global warming is a non-sequitur and irrelevant to this issue. Drop it. It is again, meant to belittle and compare us to fake science. And science is NOT done by consensus, unlike Gore and his, let's have a bunch of people vote on it... and call them scientists. The people who have weighed in on the Shroud are WORKING IN THEIR FIELDS... Blood specialists, Chemists, Physicists, Forensic specialists, etc., and know what they are doing... while their critics are almost always working outside of their fields.

The previous test proves the shroud is medieval, or it proves that those holding and cutting cloth samples from the shroud are incredibly incompetent and definitely should not be trusted holding the shroud, or it proves that those holding and cutting cloth samples from the shroud intentionally bonerized and sandbagged the sampling and therefore, the test results, because they see foresaw the most benefit to themselves down that route. And if this third possibility is true, then, again, those holding and cutting cloth samples from the shroud are definetly not to be trusted with it.

First of all, the test did not prove anything about the Shroud... because the test has been invalidated... but I will agree that it did prove the sample takers were incompetent.

But your conclusions that it was MY people is wrong. Those were the people under the aegis of the Oxford Lab and the British Museum... and the STURP scientists were systematically excluded from all input and control of the 1988 Carbon14 testing. The sample cutter's ignored the prepared protocols that STURP had written for such a testing... and instead cut the sample from the one area the STURP scientists had agreed should be avoided because their testing had shown it was NOT similar to the rest of the Shroud... because it fluoresced under ultraviolet light, unlike the rest of the shroud... meaning it was chemically and physically different than the main body of the shroud. But the 1988 team ignored those findings and cut away, blissfully ignorant if the previous work... or deliberately making that choice. They did note the presence of cotton in their footnotes, also ignoring the studies that stated the Shroud is Flax based linen...

Is the Shroud in the care of people who are somewhat incompetent? In light of the ill-advised 2002 "restoration" of the Shroud, I have to answer "Yes." Many of their decisions are not based on good science... but they own it. They can do with it what they choose.

[alstewartfan]

Man, if you watched the special, FP, you would know beyond any doubt that the Carbon 14 dating is WRONG, irrespective of any wanting or wishing. That herringbone sketch dating around 1000 A.D. showed the L-pattern holes. In Ian Wilson’s book, he shows a sketch from the 4th century, I believe, which incorporated the holes! The only question is HOW the age of the Shroud was so miscalculated, and this question has been clearly answered on this thread. Blessings, Bob
P.S. You may believe anything you choose, but I think that you must ignore abundant evidence in disputing authenticity. You have but one rotten egg in your basket, methinks, the C14 dating, and you continue to roll it along, pretending not to see the cracks.

[Religion Moderator]

Do not use potty language or references to potty language, on the Religion Forum.