Posted on 03/28/2013 9:56:57 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
Experiments conducted by scientists at the University of Padua in northern Italy have dated the shroud to ancient times, a few centuries before and after the life of Christ.
Many Catholics believe that the 14ft-long linen cloth, which bears the imprint of the face and body of a bearded man, was used to bury Christ's body when he was lifted down from the cross after being crucified 2,000 years ago.
The analysis is published in a new book, "Il Mistero della Sindone" or The Mystery of the Shroud, by Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at Padua University, and Saverio Gaeta, a journalist.
The tests will revive the debate about the true origins of one of Christianity's most prized but mysterious relics and are likely to be hotly contested by sceptics.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Um. There is blood on the shroud. As well as blood on a head-wrap with some fancy name kept in some other church. Not sure what tests have been done on the blood.
Found it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudarium_of_Oviedo
About the crucifixion. This is a horrific death. Say you're a coroner, what do you list as the cause of death on a crucifixion victim?
First it's your last stand, so you're beaten into submission and nails are placed in your wrists and one through both feet. Then you are raised up and gravity goes to work. While hanging by your wrists you can't breath, so you painfully push up with your feet to gulp some air into your lungs. All day long it's back and forth gasping for air. Finally when the Romans think the show is over they break your legs so you can't push up and you suffocate.
Hear what one of the former researchers commented about the shroud. He said this was a violent death, yet the face on the shroud is one of peace. Top that!
I'm all for science, now analyze the DNA!
Anyway, it's Holy Week so let's learn something (else)!
Kabbalah TV: Kabbalah & Christianity Part 2 with Billy Phillips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO0HGteKB4E
The mystery of Golgotha and INRI
Well, in responding to your post, I checked Wikipedia, (yea, I admit I’m not a genius), and according to their entry, St. Helena contracted to do excavation in an area near around a Roman Temple and three crosses were unearthed. (In the process she destroyed the Roman Temple). It is said that she wanted proof positive as to which of the crosses was the one upon which Christ was hung so she ordered that a sick woman be brought to the site and had the woman touch the crosses. The first two had no effect, but upon touching the third, she was immediately and miraculously healed.
I somewhat recall having heard that story in the 1970’s from my Grandmother, whose name was Helen and her patron saint was St. Helena and she had made quite a study of St. Helena’s adventures in life, (and they were plentiful). I’m a “believer” and active Roman Catholic and love the tale and would love to believe it true, but as well, I lived in Rome for 3 years and am quite an avid student of Roman history and have to tell you I’m somewhat skeptical.
On the one hand, I do believe that Helena was quite meticulous, wise and a very strong and determined woman, (and wealthy as well having made an “Augusta” Co-Empress of the Empire), but all of that notwithstanding, the truth of the matter is that Crucifixion was as common in the Empire as sacrifices to Quetzelcotle were in Mexico City, (and they had hundreds of yards of Skull racks lining their Main Street). In fact, hundreds of criminals and insurgents were crucified a month; the main roads into the major cities were lined with crosses upon which people hung. And from the histories I’ve read, they re-used the crosses over and over again. Along major Roman roads, you’ll see stones into which have been carved square holes into which they set crosses. Travellers knew they were approaching a major Roman city when they started to pass crosses adorned with the drooping bodies of the dead and/or dying along the road.
So, like..........really? What are the chances? And of course, to make matters worse, Helena, in Jerusalem, was in a virtual Christian tourist trap. At that time, the major industry was catering to Pilgrims from all over coming to see Jerusalem and the place where Jesus was crucified. The roads and streets would have been litered with people selling “sacred” artifacts. They probably had “sacred” artifact factories! I haven’t been to Jerusalem, but I’d be willing to bet there are tourist shops there, even today, where you can buy pieces of the true cross and the real nails and the crown of thorns. Its been a racket for 2000 years!
I get a kick out of people who say: If it’s real, it makes absolutely no difference.
If it’s real, then it’s physical evidence, in the here and now, of the Resurrection. It’s a physical artifact which God himself had a direct hand in producing.
So you above-it-all people are really saying that God wasted his time producing a powerful, physical sign that is akin to the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels.
Yes: I understand that there are sufficient motives for belief, even for those who have never heard of the Shroud. Obviously. But the dismissive, superior attitude is what gets me.
All of this is irrelevant.
Since 1898, it has been known that the image on the Shroud is a photographic negative—a thing that no human being could have conceived, let alone produced, before the advent of photography. Repeated attempts by competent artists, in modern times, to paint negatives, have produced nothing but grotesque images.
Since 1978, it has been discovered that the gradations of the image on the Shroud correspond to the DISTANCE of the surfaces of the body on the Shroud from the surface of the cloth—something that no one was capable of conceiving or detecting before digital analysis of images was possible.
Since 1978, it has been discovered that the image exists on the surface of the fibers of the Shroud—that no pigment or other material foreign to the fabric itself is present.
Anyone who suggests that this image was produced by hand—in the Middle Ages or any other time—is simply ignoring a vast body of hard data about the Shroud, and is an idle, irresponsible dilettante.
Miraculous, even.
Reminds me of all the “Cherokee” artifacts in Cherokee, NC and you look on the back of them and they say “Made in China”. LOL
Still, I have been amazed by the Shroud for many years and the first time I could plainly see the image of the face in a picture, I got chills and tears. I would love to know what Jesus looked like and the Shroud gives me an idea.
If you are a jew, worshipping jesus as God is a violation. That whether you make an image of him or not.
Well.... lately it has.
Amazing but certainly not impossible, nor unprecedented. We have the cloth grave-wrappings and clothing of mummies from Egypt that are 3,000+ years old.
Since the shroud would of only been in contact with Jesus' body for 3 days...and then carefully retrieved and stored ever since (never wrapped around a rotting body in a damp grave)--not all that amazing or suprising....IF you accept fact of the resurrection of Christ.
Key in determining the authenticy of historic relics--is proving a reasonable provenance, or chain of ownership/title--documented-in-writing--through the centuries.
The shroud DOES have that provenance for the last 700 years--and then another chain of ownership--written about--dating back into ancient times. There is a gap--where a plausible hypothesis is that it was hidden in a wall (where the knight from 700 years ago says he found it). Thing is though there is actcually artwork of it--pre-dating the gap.
The shroud is unique, one long sheet of cloth, with an image front and back. Oddly enough, the only way you can see a clear 3D image of it, is in the photographic negative--to the naked eye the image is very faded and uncertain. And of course even the idea of negative images....only dates to the 1800s and the invention of photography. Why would a medieval forger create a 3D image...that no one could see clearly...for another 600 years?
Shroud to the eye on the left, in photo-negative on the right...
Another evidence: ALL medieval images of Jesus crucified...(crucifixes) have nails going through His palms. Only in recent times was it discovered that unless a person's arms are tied by rope, nails through the palms will not hold the weight... In order to crucify someone with just nails (as the Gospels say) they must be nailed through the wrist or forarm. In Greek, the language the NT was written in, the word for "hand" includes the wrist and forearm. The shroud...definitely from at least 700 years ago, shows blood stains from wounds in the wrists NOT the palms. How would a medieval forger know the wrists were used...and even if he did why would he create a forgery, contradicting all of what was known of crucifixion in his day?
There are literally dozens of factoids like that about the shroud. None is utterly conclusive--but neither is any historical evidence supporting the Bible. As with everything, God really does seem to require faith...
Whether the shroud of Turin is a fake or not--doesn't affect the truths of the New Testament...still it is pretty amazing, and I think even supportive and helpful...to people of faith.
Note the wounds in the wrists, NOT the palms. Also the 3D nature of the image--in all detail--only being clear in the negative, not the positive.
If you can figure out how the image was created, you'll be the first.
But nothing can convince a person who doesn't want to be convinced. Are you willing to follow the truth, wherever it leads? The truth about the Shroud has caused atheistic scientists to convert.
I find it odd that Christians dismiss the Shroud so easily. If miracles are possible, which Christians believe to be true, then miracles like the Shroud, and the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, are of the best possible kind.
Why? Because they're public, visible, and testable, unlike subjective private revelations. The Shroud cannot be a hallucination or a product of human imagination.
Well said.
Thank you for the response, and the information.
But nothing can convince a person who doesn’t want to be convinced. Are you willing to follow the truth, wherever it leads?
The nails in the wrists, rather than the palms, was one that I always found fascinating. Then again, if it is a forgery, at the time it was forged it may be that the forger knew it was wrists and not palms. But the negative image part is rather interesting as well.
It reminds me of one of the proofs of Christianity in general. That is, if someone was making it up, then in the time of Jesus’ resurrection, nobody would use WOMEN as the witnesses. It would have been male centric.
So you have a real relationship with Him, but you're not interested in the burial shroud, bearing His image, that He may have left behind?
To me, it's as if my daughter had died, is in heaven, but I would have no interest in the burial shroud that she left behind, mysteriously bearing her image.
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