What factors point to the Turin Shroud being a fake?

The idea that Pope Pius XII was "Hitler's pope" is disputed by Rabbi David Dalin in his book The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis (Chicago: Regnery, 2005).

I made an error.
The Shroud is real.

Calling you a “doubting Thomas” would be generous and an insult to Thomas. You completely reject it without even examining the evidence.

I don’t know. It could be the real thing.

I remember reading about the carbon 14 tests when it was done. It struck me as about as poorly done as possible and probably on purpose. And this was Oxford!

FTA:

"The Shroud of Turin has a double image—that is, a superficial discoloration on the front surface of the cloth—closest to the body—and a fainter image on the back surface of the cloth—furthest from the body. Both images correspond to each other anatomically…
However, since the image is superficial and doesn’t “soak through” the fibers, there is no discoloration on the fibers between the front surface and back surface of the cloth…. Chemical and vapor explanations of this double image are inadequate, because none of them can explain [this] …. "

Thanks for posting this! I thought I was fairly well-versed on Shroud phenomenology -- but this this is the first mention I've encountered of matching, surface images on both the obverse & reverse surfaces of the cloth.

During my career in micro-fabrication R&D, I did research (leading to several patents) on patterned re-deposition of materials ablated from the surface of a transparent film onto an adjacent surface, using the energy from intense light flashes.

Conceptually, I can envision how ablation from a 3-D (facial contoured) surface could re-deposit as a negative image on a nearby flat surface -- as seen on the Shroud.

That comports well with the body , itself, being the source of the energy burst.

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However, there is no rational (or spiritual) reason or mechanism I can discern for the image appearing on both surfaces of the same section of cloth -- with no intervening image occurring.

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I was comfortable with the concept that an instantaneous (miraculous?) energy-emission from a (disappearing/transforming) shrouded body could cause the observed negative surface image to be transferred to the adjacent shroud.
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BUT -- the described obverse/reverse double imaging shouts "Humbuggery!" to me...

YMMV...

TXnMA

Concerning the coin in the anatomical right eye : the placing of coins over the eyes of the deceased was a long-time heathen practice. It was to provide the dead with a means to pay the boatman for the crossing of the River Styx. Now, why in the foggy blue morning would ANY follower of Christ do something so demonic? Read Matt. 22:21 - this is an account of Christ’s response to whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman Empire. Spoiler alert : Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. Placing coins with Pontius Pilate’s inscription on Christ’s eyes is indisputably Satanic in nature. The Biblical account of the discovery of the empty tomb speaks of the shroud and the napkin but curiously does NOT mention any coins ( see John 20:1-7 ). You might think such an important RELIC would merit a comment .. . May God bless you all.

"The Shroud of Turin has a double image—that is, a superficial discoloration on the front surface of the cloth—closest to the body—and a fainter image on the back surface of the cloth—furthest from the body. Both images correspond to each other anatomically…"

BUT -- the described obverse/reverse double imaging shouts "Humbuggery!" to me...

Part of your confusion and conclusion of "Humbuggery" is that the quoted description comes from a writer who has written the above as part of his conclusion of why the shroud is a fraud. His description is both obfuscating and just wrong.

He's trying to describe the frontal and dorsal images on ONE SIDE of the cloth, not the images as existing on BOTH SIDES of the cloth. There are extremely faint, I mean very, very, very faint images of only some parts the facial portion of the image on the reverse side of the cloth, but nowhere are there any other portions of the body image on the reverse side of the cloth.

If he is discussing the dorsal image, it would actually closer to the body as it would be laying directly on the cloth. Clueless.

Basically, the guy doesn't have a clue what he is talking about in his declaration of fraud, because he hasn't bothered to read anything but the skeptics bad non-s(sci)en(c)e. He's parroting what he's read in nonsense books such as Walter C. McCrone's long debunked claims it was painted and the blood is nothing more than red ocher and vermillion in egg albumin tempera paint, based on looking only through an optical microscope, ignoring lots of much more sophisticated tests by specialists working within their fields of expertise, proving it to be real blood.

Whatever caused the slight changes in the 80-100 ångstrom thick layer (about the thinness of a soap bubble) of the Soapwort fullering on the inside facing portion of the cloth's flax fibers did not even penetrate into the fibers at all, much less penetrate into interior threads or their soapwort coating, or to exterior threads or their fiber coatings... except for a few minor areas behind, or, given the orientation of the cloth, above the face.

Another strange property, if we are looking at a radiation modality, is that the resolution of the image implies that whatever caused the image, radiated as if it came from a vertically 90º collimated radiation from every point on a plane sliced horizontally through the body, exhibiting almost zero deflection to (+/-1º) accuracy from vertical in Z axis in both the positive and negative directions. Intensity may have been slightly lower in the negative as the effect seems lower on the dorsal image's quasi pixels. Attenuation was extreme, as the effect dropped off rapidly with distance from that plane. Whatever it was, it had no effect in the X or Y axis at all. We also know that it had a radiographic result in that some bones of the body are seen on the image on the Shroud, such as the teeth under the lips, the orbits of the eyes, and the phalanges of the hands through the skin.

The attenuation is such that with computerized enhancement, it can just barely be seen that the Man on the Shroud was circumcized (per Barrie Schwortz, STURP Official photographer).

The idea that Pope Pius XII was "Hitler's pope" is disputed by Rabbi David Dalin in his book The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis (Chicago: Regnery, 2005).

He isn't the only one. There were so many Jews who survived WWII thanks to Pius XII, and so many of them said so.

Pacelli hasn't been canonized to this date. I have to believe he is a defacto saint.

Concerning the coin in the anatomical right eye : the placing of coins over the eyes of the deceased was a long-time heathen practice. It was to provide the dead with a means to pay the boatman for the crossing of the River Styx. Now, why in the foggy blue morning would ANY follower of Christ do something so demonic? Read Matt. 22:21 - this is an account of Christ’s response to whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman Empire. Spoiler alert : Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. Placing coins with Pontius Pilate’s inscription on Christ’s eyes is indisputably Satanic in nature. The Biblical account of the discovery of the empty tomb speaks of the shroud and the napkin but curiously does NOT mention any coins ( see John 20:1-7 ). You might think such an important RELIC would merit a comment .. . May God bless you all.

Cultural appropriation. . . or the Romans and the Greeks just used that myth as an explanation of why THEY did the same thing for practical reasons as well. Who wants to look at a body with dead staring eyes? It's a practice performed by every culture in the world, which use something to keep the eyes closed in death. We now sew the eyes of the dead closed.

There is a lot about Jesus' burial and ressurrection that is not detailed in the Bible. It is not a coroner's inquest document. There are only about 65 verses or so that describe the entire burial and resurrection in the tomb. There is not much detail to cover everything they did in preparing the body for burial, so don't assume you know what they did or did not do based on the summary description provided in the gospels which says "as is the custom of the Jews." You don't know what the custom of the Jews of that period was.

You are entitled to an opinion, but your facts are just wrong.

It is an archaeological fact that such coins have been found in the eye sockets of 1st Century Jewish burials in Jerusalem. Some were Temple Coins, some were Greek Coins, some Roman, some skulls merely had clay disks or potsherds. Ergo, it was done by those burying the dead.

For first Century Jews it had nothing to do with paying the mythical ferryman at the River Styx, but completely practical for their burial practices which required they keep the eyes closed. They coins had nothing to do with a religious offering. The purpose was to keep the eyes closed in death. Small coins were convenient weights that would do the job. It was the practice until the mid 2nd Century when the prominent Rabbi Rabban Gamaliel put a stop to extravagant burial practices and standardized such things, including limiting the practice of buying expensively fine and fancy linen shrouds, requiring everyone, rich and poor alike, be buried in a simple linen shroud. After that, clay disks or potsherds were the rule for the eyes.

Incidentally, before you argue against full sheet shrouds in biblical times, numerous full shrouds have been found in Jewish burials in Jerusalem and surrounding cemeteries from the first century AD. It WAS the practice as the "Jews buried there dead" contrary to what people think. They did not bind them up in bandages ala the Egyptian mummies. Jews buried their dead minimally, because a year later it was required to collect the bones and put them either into an ossuary box or pit with the bones of their ancestors.

"South of the Old City of Jerusalem, located on the periphery of the village of Silwan, is one of Jerusalem’s richest concentrations of rock-hewn tombs. It was one of the main burial Necropolis during the Second Temple period, (538 BC until 70 AD) and as such, gives us knowledge of the Jewish burial customs during the time of Jesus.
Tombs at Silwan [11]
Linen shrouds have been discovered there at burials sites dating from the Roman period. They have also been found at ‘En Gedi, Gesher Haziv, and Jericho. Imprints of textiles were found on bones and skulls; the material used was identified as linen because of an equal number of threads in the warp and the weft.
Other types of fabric were also found—the most common being wool—but linen was found more in Israel than in other Roman areas.
Shrouds were specially-prepared or freshly laundered cloths made for the purpose of wrapping a corpse. The Hebrew word for these burial shrouds, takrikim, connotes wrapping and binding more than dressing. This is also indicated by Tractate Semahot: “Man may wrap and bind men but not women, but women may wrap and bind both men and women”. [12]
(In preparation for burial, the corpse was also ‘dressed’ with spices and incense placed underneath or upon the shroud. Under normal conditions, a year after burial, the bones were removed to an ossuary.)
Burial clothes at the time of Jesus consisted of at least three parts; a head cloth, the long rectangular shroud itself, and however many strips of cloth were needed to bind them in place. These pieces were arranged in layers (when the body was wrapped). They have been found stuck together by body fluids and decay so that it is impossible to separate them without causing damage, but there is no doubt about their composition.
Shrouds and their accompanying burial cloths were found at Nahal David and Ze’elim. The best preserved shrouds are from Roman-period ‘En Gedi (2nd-1st centuries BC). They were found in eight Jewish tombs on the southern bank of Nahal ‘Arugot and in one tomb on the northern bank of Nahal David. Over 70 fragments assumed to be shroud remnants have also been found at En Gedi.

So the idea that the Shroud does not comport with Jewish Burial customs just doesn't agree with actual Jewish burials customs. What it doesn't agree with is modern day mis-interpretations of Jewish burial customs which are constructed out of mistranslations of the Bible into English from the Greek using close, but inaccurate tertiary definitions of Greek words that were not then in common first century usage but which were perhaps easier to convey meaning to Reformation English speakers, the then recent discoveries of mummies in Egypt and the confabulation of those burial practices with those mistranslations (which came first, chicken or egg?), and popular tourist visits to the Middle East. An example of a mistranslated word would be "Sudarion" (Greek: sweat cloth) into the English word "Napkin" or in another translation "Handkerchief," or "Othonia" (Greek: Linen cloth) into English words "bandages" which is a fourth definition in Greek used only in war literature. The JEWISH researchers on the Shroud have repeatedly stated that Jews never buried their dead the way skeptics kept claiming, wrapped up in bandages. Nor did true Biblical scholars who read the Gospels in the original Greek and do a true exegesis.

Again, we are talking discovered facts, not opinion.

Please ping me to your forthcoming post.

Me too, please.

I have been studying the Shroud of Turin for nearly 50 years. I have yet to meet any one of my fellow students of the Shroud who prays to the Shroud. You impute to people something that is literally just not there.

Those who make comments to that effect also seem blind to the reality of how deeply offensive their comments are to people of faith, even if that's not their intent.

Thanks for that.

Thanks.....but I didn’t need anyone to tell me it isn’t.

Very common to fake stuff

You solved it, man.

The radiocarbon data has already been satisfactorily explained as “sampling error”. The places they took thread were from newer “repaired” areas. Once upon a time, I worked in a carbon dating lab as a tech (in grad school). The newer accelerator-based methods are orders of magnitude superior to the old approaches, so it is imminently possible to redo the studies with much smaller samples.

I think, Jenny’s conclusion is not supported by her own text. As she writes:

1. Generally speaking, accurate dating requires more than C-14 alone. [...]
2. C-14 dating is not necessarily more dependable than other methods. In fact, it can be undependable for some very specific reasons. [...]
3. The 1988 Carbon 14 dating of the Shroud has been the subject of extensive discussion because, in the history of C-14 dating, the shroud is unique —a small, one-of-a-kind sample, a contaminated artifact, making accurate dating harder—and the dating was seemingly affected by various procedural and statistical problems. [...]
4. It’s absolutely true that after the findings of 1988, the idea of error in the carbon 14 dating began floating around. Believers were desperate. Multiple theories were put forth. Some were even supported with real science, but none were definitive enough to actually overturn the findings. [...]
The 1988 carbon dating, once seen as proving the shroud was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial.[...]
If we wish to be scientific, we must admit we do not yet know, with certainty, how old the cloth is. [...]
The radio-carbon dating of 1988 is not secure, but it is the only piece of authentic data that argues strongly that the shroud is not, itself, authentic.

See my post #33 - if you can’t find it let me know and I’ll redo it for you.

if you need a material object to verify your faith then your faith is not terribly strong

Why do you care what my faith is? This is a question of archaeology and chemistry, not faith.

I believe the Shroud is authentic, and the article I posted supports my belief.

Thank you.

CONCLUSIONS