Posted on 12/20/2015 2:34:41 PM PST by marshmallow
Rome, Italy, Dec 19, 2015 / 03:39 pm (CNA).- The Shroud of Turin has different meanings for many people: some see it as an object of veneration, others a forgery, still others a medieval curiosity. For one Jewish scientist, however, the evidence has led him to see it as a meeting point between science and faith.
"The Shroud challenges (many people's core beliefs) because there's a strong implication that there is something beyond the basic science going on here," Barrie Schwortz, one of the leading scientific experts on the Shroud of Turin, told CNA.
Admitting that he did not know whether there was something beyond science at play, he added: "That's not what convinced me: it was the science that convinced me."
The Shroud of Turin is among the most well-known relics believed to be connected with Christ's Passion. Venerated for centuries by Christians as the burial shroud of Jesus, it has been subject to intense scientific study to ascertain its authenticity, and the origins of the image.
The image on the 14 feet long, three-and-a-half feet wide cloth is stained with the postmortem image of a man - front and back - who has been brutally tortured and crucified.
Schwortz, now a retired technical photographer and frequent lecturer on the shroud, was a member of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project which brought prestigious scientists together to examine the ancient artifact.
As a non-practicing Jew at the time, he was hesitant to be part of the team and skeptical as to the shroud's authenticity - presuming it was nothing more than an elaborate painting. Nonetheless, he was intrigued by the scientific questions raised by the image.
Despite his reservations, Schwortz recounts being persuaded to remain on the project by a fellow scientist on the team.....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewsagency.com ...
When one digs deep enough to find what source documents there are in that regard (as opposed to discussions and assertions based upon those) it is still far less than convincing, for each 'study' has serious problems, many of which have been identified to then later be overwhelmed with reams of wordy smoke-screen which obscure & mislead enough that the writers can then "pronounce" a this or a that as if something has been actually established.
would kick off skeptics whom they could not control, or else neutralize expression of skepticism.
Get with the program, or else the Vatican would see to it that further access would be blocked (for any particular individual) sort of like how more recently mr. Bergoglio and his close advisers would see to it that skeptics of anthropologically-driven 'climate change' were excluded from providing "scientific" input.
Details. the debils in 'em.
I wonder Arthur. If the Shroud is what it really, really appears to be then it has the blood of our incarnate God on it.
In which case there may be a theological argument for worshipping it, just as we worship Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.
Not something I can get into now though. It’s very late where I am.
May His blood be upon us, and on our children. Amen.
There’s a program on cable right now (Discovery?) on the Shroud. They think they know why 3 inches of shroud was torn from each side. They believe it was used to bound the body and that scripture hints at it. Afterwards, the strips were re-attached to the shroud.
The scripture reference was to Mary, upon entering the tomb, saw that it was empty. But upon telling two of the apostles, they’re immediate reaction was that he had risen. They suspect it was because the shroud was still bound by the strips.
What they didn’t mention was if the strips had any blood patterns that would match the other sections like the Sudarium.
There is a lot of evidence, pollen and the weave of the material for example, that relate the cloth to first century Palestine and no one can explain how the image, which is a molecule deep discoloration - no paint or pigment - was made. Or why a medieval artist would show crucifixion wounds at the wrists, which happens to be how it really would have been done but is contrary to all the traditional imagery.
When Jesus was dead, the Hypostatic Union continued. The Word was still hypostatically united to his body in the tomb, and with his soul, which was not united to his body—since he was dead.
My personal opinion would be that the blood remained hypostatically united to the Word, until the blood dried or corrupted to such an extent that it could no longer function as blood. Perhaps I am making an analogy to the Eucharist, where the Real Presence ceases when the consecrated bread and wine, for any reason, cease to function or appear as bread and wine.
The blood on the Shroud is the blood of Jesus, but note that it was not resurrected when the body was resurrected. The Risen Christ has blood. We know this because the consecrated wine of the Eucharist is the blood of the Risen Christ.
From these premises, I would say that the blood on the Shroud, while it is the blood left on the Shroud by Jesus, is no longer, at this moment, actually blood, having dehydrated and undoubtedly corrupted in other ways, and is therefore no longer hypostatically united with the Word.
Jesus was owed worship while he was alive on earth because his body, blood, and soul were hypostatically united with the Word. The Eucharistic Species are owed worship because they are the body and blood of Jesus, which are hypostatically united with the Word.
Giving the blood on the Shroud actual worship would be wrong if the blood is not hypostatically united with the Word. And I think the very fact that that particular quantity of blood was left on the Shroud is evidence that it is not hypostatically united with the Word.
But it DOES matter. Because it's EVIDENCE.
Evidence doesn't COMPEL people to believe, but neither do people believe for no reason.
If Jesus left us a photograph of himself, I think it's rash and ungrateful to wave one's hand and say "It doesn't matter."
Is it NECESSARY to know about the Shroud in order to believe in Jesus? Obviously not. But "It doesn't matter" is an entirely different assertion.
There was a totally, absolutely botched Carbon-14 test about 25 years ago. The cloth they tested wasn’t even part of the Shroud. The press, of course, trumpeted that the Shroud had been “proven” to be a “painting.” (Never mind that a Carbon-14 test can’t say ANYTHING about whether something is a “painting.” A Carbon=14 test can’t distinguish between the Mona Lisa and Leonardo’s finger.)
People who cling to the Carbon-14 test as “proof” of anything are intellectually dishonest.
Well, eventually it’s no longer a matter of process, but substance.
Should the scientific team have to tolerate a “skeptic” who ignores the evidence that the team has gathered, because he is PHILOSOPHICALLY committed to denying the reality of that evidence? Especially if he is noisily obnoxious about it.
Since the Shroud research has always been published, the public can decide.
That’s an entirely different matter from the exclusion, by thugs, of “climate skeptics” from Vatican meetings. The Vatican isn’t conducting any “research” or publishing any scientific findings. They are just conducting propaganda rallies.
“IMHO it kinda conflicts with the 2nd commandment.”
Nothing God does conflicts with any of His commandments. He has approved of images in the past: 1 Kings 6:23 that were MAN MADE.
“Because it’s EVIDENCE.”
Exactly! And as such, it stands as a rebuke to the unbelievers who insist the Gospels are a collection of fairy tales about a man who probably never even lived at all.
Why else would they spend so much energy trying to deny the evidence?
They just KNOW it’s a forgery, while remaining utterly incapable of offering any theory, much less evidence to support a theory, as to the process by which such a forgery might have been created.
Even while insisting it is a forgery, the doubters must acknowledge that the Shroud’s reference point is the Gospels, and that the Gospels are indeed an historical record that something out of the ordinary just might have happened which cannot be dismissed.
Attention must be paid!
The Shroud-doubters are, IMO, like atheists who just KNOW there is no God, while, ignoring both the teleological and cosmological arguments. they continue to disregard the Evidence everywhere in His Creation.
While the Shroud is obviously not necessary for faith, it occurs to me that Jesus left it as evidence, in preparation for a time when the OTHER evidence for his existence and his identity would be largely in eclipse.
Don’t we live in such a time? Certainly miracles are few and far between. The Mass, whose sheer beauty and heavenly order has constituted evidence of the truth of the gospels for millions of people, was destroyed (insofar as its beauty is concerned) 45 years ago. The intellectual clarity, the iron logic, of Catholic statements of the Faith, are gone. What we have instead is the ravings of a stupid, dishonest old man—who is a sock puppet of the international totalitarians.
No, we wouldn't worship the cloth, just like we don't worship the host. If anything, we would worship the Blood of Jesus, since that IS Jesus. Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist IS Jesus, Body AND Blood. Does that make sense?
worshipping anything but God is sin of the highest order. See the first 2 commandments. Would you actually, literally worship a burial cloth?
That's part of the problem. They are often hard to find, while on the other hand discussion about them (and what they purport to have found) abound.
When digging through the papers of one (I can't recall exactly which now, there are so many twists and turns in regards to claims and counter-claims it is difficult to keep track) they went on and on about how a testing process functioned --- then pronounced that whatever they were testing of the shroud fit the bill- yet that ending result pronouncement coming suddenly & awkwardly before the run-down description of the theory of how such testing is to be conducted again commenced.
Everything else about the thing, if there is some type of doubt which skeptics can point towards has had evolved over a period of time extensively complex explanations which often (at crucial junctions) rely upon an alleged researcher's own word, or else for example, as in the instance of pollen grain discussion rely upon interpretive analysis -- which can leave other experts of the same field scratching their heads, asking how in the...? can anyone come up with THAT sort of exactitude? That cannot be determined by visual analysis alone (or so yet another pollen expert said). Yet that exactitude was the whole point, and without it pollen grain analysis as some form of proof is otherwise worthless.
That the materials available for testing have been so severely limited rendering most things to not be repeatable, so far ---leaves them less than scientific, even in regards to the carbon14 samples from the alleged to have been "repaired with invisible weaving" portion. There too we must rely upon pro-authentication shroud enthusiast scientist who make claims ---yet without showing us actual sample of how they arrived at the conclusions which they did. An s twist around a z twist. Oh really? Then why not provide documentary photographic evidence or having whatever finding it was either verified by multiple dis-interested witnesses, or else if lab testing be duplicated by yet someone else using double-blind sort of materials submission with no one but an assembly of both enthusiasts and skeptics knowing the keys to what materials were what.
That said, I would like to consider the shroud to be the burial cloths, but see no real need.
At the least the subject matter would get people who otherwise not think of Jesus Christ all that much, to think of the tomb it was written of that he was laid in, after death (no "swooning" as per Muslim description, or else some substitute victim not Jesus but a look-alike as some of their stories about Jesus go) and that this same body-- the same exact person otherwise known to have been born of Mary and all the rest which the NT Scriptures detail of his life --- miraculously resurrected after death.
Or so the story goes -- now.
At first there more than a few "other scientists" who had come up with various theories to explain (and explain away) the carbon14 results.
And that is an aspect to this line of inquiry which is indisputable fact.
The body and blood of Christ are incorruptible.
Not sure where I come down on the shroud but something I find curious is that the proportions of the head are wrong.
The first thing they teach you in art class about drawing realistic looking people is that the eyes are located at the midline of the skull. That is, they should sit at the “equator”, midway between the top of the head and the point of the chin.
They have to teach you this because the natural tendency is to put the eyes nearer to the top of the head, which gives a cartoonish look. Nearly everyone makes this mistake unless trained not to. And to my eyes, this is exactly what’s going on with the shroud.
Never claimed it was proof. I was just an interested outsider, who remembers reading about the conventional thinking at the time. Didn't dream I was invoking some kind of angry response.
Excuse me for being curious.
Jesus was wrapped in cloth strips, not just covered with a single shroud...The strips kept the ointments pressed to the body...This shroud would not have worked...Would have been useless...
To abandon scripture and replace it with fables is the work of infidels, apostates, heretics...
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