Shroud of Turin — Local scientist says the cloth covered Christ

Deseret Morning News ^ | November 5, 2005 | Carrie Moore

[NYer]

While periodic claims continue to surface purporting to debunk the Shroud of Turin as a hoax — including one made earlier this year by an Idaho academic — one local scientist has no doubt that the cloth covered the crucified Christ and has survived intact for nearly two millennia.

Deseret Morning News graphic

DNA testing of blood found on the fibers of the Shroud of Turin has been inconclusive.

      Eugenia Nitowski, an archaeologist and former nun, bases her conclusion as much on science as on faith: The shroud's existence has forced science to seriously debate the Resurrection of Jesus.
      In 1986, Nitowski conducted one of many experiments now referenced by shroud scholars in trying to determine whether the cloth — a linen containing the image of a man who had been brutally scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified with spikes through his wrists and feet, and speared in the side before death — was Christ's burial shroud. (See story below.)
      The fine-twined linen Shroud of Turin, approximately 14 feet, 3 inches long by 3 feet, 7 inches wide, has been one of the most closely scrutinized religious icons in history. Owned and conserved by the Roman Catholic Church, it is housed in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud inside the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Torino (or Turin), Italy — in the news most recently as the next host of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.
      Just as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became a focal point of news media coverage during the Winter Games here three years ago, the Catholic faith and Turino's famous artifact will no doubt be part of the story during the 2006 Games.
      Though a couple of strokes and failing eyesight have left her unable to actively research with the so-called "shroud crowd," Nitowski will likely be among Utahns watching from afar, curious about any new discussion of the cloth she believes covered Jesus Christ.
      Nitowski's efforts to re-create the conditions that would have existed inside an excavated Middle Eastern stone burial chamber have since been cited as another piece of evidence that places the shroud in first-century Jerusalem.
      "We rented a tomb there for two weeks," on the grounds of the French School of Architecture in Jerusalem, said Nitowski, who has a bachelor's degree in biblical languages and history, master's degrees in biblical archaeology and medieval history and a doctorate from Notre Dame in medieval history.
      As a Middle Eastern archaeologist, Nitowski told the Deseret Morning News, she had previously excavated 17 tombs and knew "pretty well what the environment was like," including the first one she'd ever worked on — a "rolling stone tomb dated to the time of Christ."
      While she was working inside, a fellow worker rolled the stone closed, encasing her in stony darkness and silence, she said. She found a bench that lined the walls of the tomb's central chamber and lay down on it, enjoying the cool stone wall's feel against her face. As she did so, she thought about the temperature inside and later began digging into literature on the Shroud of Turin and whether anyone had tried to determine the temperature inside Christ's tomb.

Deseret Morning News graphic

      A resulting article, "New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud of Turin," published in Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1986, was co-written with a researcher named Joseph Kohlbeck.
      Kohlbeck was listed as a resident scientist at Utah's Hercules Aerospace Center. It was reported that Kohlbeck, with assistance from Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, compared dirt from the shroud to travertine aragonite limestone found in ancient Jewish tombs in Israel.
      Kohlbeck's dust particles were taken from sticky tape samples that researcher Ray Rogers, from the 1978 shroud investigation team, had taken from the Shroud of Turin and compared with Nitowski's samples.
      According to several scholarly papers and a book by author Ian Wilson called "The Blood and the Shroud," the particles of dirt on the Shroud of Turin provided a close chemical match to the samples Nitowski took from the tombs. At the time, Kohlbeck acknowledged that his work was not proof that the shroud was in Jerusalem and that there might be other places in the world where aragonite has the identical chemical composition.
      Barrie Schwortz, a Jewish researcher and member of the original 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) team, said his knowledge of research on the shroud leads him to believe the image on the cloth "is not the product of a scorch," even a very mild one like Nitowski described.
      "There are many known scorches on the Shroud from the fire in 1532. Scorched linen will fluoresce, and as expected, the scorched images (on the shroud) do show fluorescence, but it's not a product of heated linen in the image the way a scorch would be. I believe there is ample scientific evidence to support that."
      Schwortz now owns and operates an active Web site on the shroud, www.shroud.com. He said he believes the shroud is most likely authentic, but moving from skeptical science to active advocacy of that position took him about 18 years of study.
      "I became an advocate based on direct involvement and personal examination of the cloth. I expected to see the brush strokes (that many have speculated were used to paint the image) and come home. But there is no paint. This is not a painting. Then it became a question of what is it."
      For him, science became advocacy "when the weight of all the science together leads in one direction. I believe that's the case with the exception of the radiocarbon dating."
      In 1988, three separate laboratories tested a small section of fiber from the shroud and dated it to medieval times, yet "all of the other evidence was pointing the other way," Schwortz said. At the time, many serious scholars dismissed the shroud as a fake, but earlier this year, Schwortz said a fellow shroud researcher who was part of the STURP team produced evidence that the sample used in radiocarbon dating experiments was actually taken from a part of the cloth that had been woven in to repair the shroud, meaning the sample was not a part of the original fabric.
      To date, no access has been granted by the shroud's conservators to do another radiocarbon sample.
      "I'm pretty convinced now the best explanation is that it is what we think it is," said Schwortz, who is Jewish and claims neither religious nor personal stake in the outcome. "I've spent years and years of studying this thing and doing everything in my power to find it's not some kind of medieval fake or forgery. Why is it so hard to accept that we could have an artifact of the historical Jesus? I would think that would be welcome."

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Jesus had no biological father if you believe the Gospel accounts. God the Father was free to give him whatever male genetics he wanted to...and if it is Cohen, it is interesting since he is our high priest.

[wolfpat]

Wild guess here....You're not an evangelical Christian, right?

[Tanniker Smith]

I'm not sure I like the idea of DNA testing of the blood on the Shroud. Can you imagine if some whacko tries to use a drop of blood and whatever DNA markers to make a clone . . .

< shudder >

[Uri’el-2012]

Jesus had no biological father if you believe the Gospel accounts. God the Father was free to give him whatever male genetics he wanted to...and if it is Cohen, it is interesting since he is our high priest.

Y'shua still had the DNA of his mother Miriam.

But High Priest under the order of Melchizedek

Ge. 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem [That is, Jerusalem] brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High,

b'shem Y'shua

[Matchett-PI]

LOL

[cryptical]

Wild guess here....You're not an evangelical Christian, right?

Not even a regular Christian, but most folks don't need to ask.

[Matchett-PI]

"Wild guess here....You're not an evangelical Christian, right?"

Yes that is a wild guess. My guess is that he isn't an emotion-driven religious zealot kook. :)

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Jesus, I am overjoyed to meet you face to face.
You've been getting quite a name all around the place.
Healing cripples, raising from the dead.
And now I understand you're God,
At least, that's what you've said.

So, you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you're divine; change my water into wine.
That's all you need do, then I'll know it's all true.
Come on, King of the Jews.
Jesus, you just won't believe the hit you've made around here.
You are all we talk about, the wonder of the year.
Oh what a pity if it's all a lie.
Still, I'm sure that you can rock the cynics if you tried.

So, you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool.
If you do that for me, then I'll let you go free.
Come on, King of the Jews.
I only ask what I'd ask any superstar.
What is it that you have got that puts you where you are.
I am waiting, yes I'm a captive fan.
I'm dying to be shown that you are not just any man.

So, if you are the Christ, yes the great Jesus Christ
Feed my household with this bread.
You can do it on your head.
Or has something gone wrong. Jesus, why do you take so long?
Oh come on, King of the Jews.

[Al Simmons]

More significantly, the blood type on the Shroud (which I maintain is actually the "Mandylion" shroud that was kept in Constantinople until it was probably saved from the advancing Turks) is identical to that on the Sudarium (the cloth that covered the head of the crucified Christ) which can be traced back to New Testatement times, and which is in the Cathedral of Oviedo in Spain.

[audax]

Jesus would have had Mary's DNA, and not Joseph's. Joseph was of the line of David -- there is no evidence that Mary was. In fact, there is some evidence that Mary came from a Levitical family. Her sister was married to a priest.

The genealogy in Luke 3 would seem to be of Joseph's bloodline, while that in Matthew 1 records in chronological order those who inherited the royal office (passing, for example, from uncle to nephew when the uncle was without heirs).

[Uri’el-2012]

Jesus would have had Mary's DNA, and not Joseph's. Joseph was of the line of David -- there is no evidence that Mary was. In fact, there is some evidence that Mary came from a Levitical family. Her sister was married to a priest.
The genealogy in Luke 3 would seem to be of Joseph's bloodline, while that in Matthew 1 records in chronological order those who inherited the royal office (passing, for example, from uncle to nephew when the uncle was without heirs).

What you are searching for is the exception for women:
Zelophehad’s daughters

Numbers 26 & 36.

Which would imply that Miriam was of the house of David.

b'shem Y'shua

[Ohioan from Florida]

Correct. The biblical accounts of Matthew and Luke show that Jesus fit the "legal" definition of the House of David, but biologically speaking, His line came from His Mother, Mary, who was the daughter of Anna and Joachim. It has been a few years since I looked into this, but I recall that through Mary's lineage, Jesus has a Levitical heritage as well.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

In fact, there is some evidence that Mary came from a Levitical family. Her sister was married to a priest.

Yes, there is evidence Mary was descended from Levi.

Luke 1:5 states that Mary's relative Elizabeth, was "of the daughters of Aaron." Elizabeth's husband Zacharias was a priest.

[Uri’el-2012]

Jesus has a Levitical heritage as well.

Sorry wrong tribe ; He is of the house of David as King
and High Priest under the order of Melchizedek

Ge. 14:18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem [That is, Jerusalem] brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High,

and Hebrew 5 through 7.

b'shem Y'shua

[Hischild]

You have no idea what you are dealing with.

[cryptical]

You have no idea what you are dealing with.

Ignorance is bliss, so if you keep it to yourself I'll be happy.

[NYer]

More significantly, the blood type on the Shroud (which I maintain is actually the "Mandylion" shroud that was kept in Constantinople until it was probably saved from the advancing Turks) is identical to that on the Sudarium

Not only identical but the head stains line up identically on each separate piece of cloth.

[SandRat]

This could cause a great big "RUTT-ROOO!" to be sounded from the ACLU and all other Christaphobics.

[NYer]

He told us not to worship false gods, idols, or images

Deut. 5:8 - God's commandment "thou shall not make a graven image" is entirely connected to the worship of false gods. God does not prohibit images to be used in worship, but He prohibits the images themselves to be worshiped.

Exodus 25:18-22; 26:1,31 - for example, God commands the making of the image of a golden cherubim. This heavenly image, of course, is not worshiped by the Israelites. Instead, the image disposes their minds to the supernatural and draws them to God.

Num. 21:8-9 - God also commands the making of the bronze serpent. The image of the bronze serpent is not an idol to be worshiped, but an article that lifts the mind to the supernatural.

I Kings 6:23-36; 7:27-39; 8:6-67 - Solomon's temple contains statues of cherubim and images of cherubim, oxen and lions. God did not condemn these images that were used in worship.

2 Kings 18:4 - it was only when the people began to worship the statue did they incur God's wrath, and the king destroyed it. The command prohibiting the use of graven images deals exclusively with the false worship of those images.

Source: Scriptural Cathoic

It's not a miracle the image is still there. The miracle was in what is believed to have occurred afterward.

If the Shroud is an authentic burial cloth of a much wounded crucified man (it is if it is not a hoax) then is it a lucky fluke that the images are so visually correct?  A truly natural explanation requires that a chemical reaction starts and ends. And this is key: The reaction must end sufficiently late for there to be discernible images. And, it must end early enough that the images are not oversaturated. Analysis of the images shows no saturation plateaus. Timing is everything. In photographic terms this is correct exposure. Is this mere luck?

Just as there is nothing like the Shroud's images in the world of art, there is nothing like them in nature; after all dead men do not normally leave images of themselves on burial cloths.

Science is good at figuring out that with certain ingredients and certain conditions, certain processes will start and end. And it may well be that scientists will eventually figure out a complex process by which the images were seemingly so miraculously formed on the Shroud. Will scientist also be able to deal with the problem of how likely it is that all those right ingredients and conditions might have prevailed perhaps only once in history.

Source: Shroud Story

[NYer]

Seems to me that if the DNA matches the house of Levi ... Jesus was not born to that house.

Was that in the above post? I didn't see it.