Posted on 02/25/2008 12:33:54 PM PST by BGHater
The Oxford laboratory that declared the Turin Shroud to be a medieval fake 20 years ago is investigating claims that its findings were wrong.
The head of the world-renowned laboratory has admitted that carbon dating tests it carried out on Christendom's most famous relic may be inaccurate.
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Professor Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said he was treating seriously a new theory suggesting that contamination had skewed the results.
Though he stressed that he would be surprised if the supposedly definitive 1988 tests were shown to be far out - especially "a thousand years wrong" - he insisted that he was keeping an open mind.
The development will re-ignite speculation about the four-metre linen sheet, which many believe bears the miraculous image of the crucified Christ.
The original carbon dating was carried out on a sample by researchers working separately in laboratories in Zurich and Arizona as well as Oxford.
To the dismay of Christians, the researchers concluded that the shroud was created between 1260 and 1390, and was therefore likely to be a forgery devised in the Middle Ages.
Even Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, the then Cardinal of Turin, conceded that the relic was probably a hoax.
There have been numerous theories purporting to explain how the tests could have produced false results, but so far they have all been rejected by the scientific establishment.
Many people remain convinced that the shroud is genuine.
Prof Ramsey, an expert in the use of carbon dating in archeological research, is conducting fresh experiments that could explain how a genuinely old linen could produce "younger" dates.
The results, which are due next month, will form part of a documentary on the Turin Shroud that is being broadcast on BBC 2 on Easter Saturday.
David Rolfe, the director of the documentary, said it was hugely significant that Prof Ramsey had thought it necessary to carry out further tests that could challenge the original dating.
He said that previous hypotheses, put forward to explain how the cloth could be older than the 1988 results suggested, had been "rejected out of hand".
"The main reason is that the contamination levels on the cloth that would have been needed to distort the results would have to be equivalent to the actual sample itself," he said.
"But this new theory only requires two per cent contamination to skew the results by 1,500 years. Moreover, it springs from published data about the behaviour of carbon-14 in the atmosphere which was unknown when the original tests were carried out 20 years ago."
Mr Rolfe added that the documentary, presented by Rageh Omaar, the former BBC correspondent, would also contain new archeological and historical evidence supporting claims that the shroud was a genuine burial cloth.
The film will focus on two other recorded relics, the Shroud of Constantinople, which is said to have been stolen by Crusaders in 1204, and the Shroud of Jerusalem that wrapped Jesus's body and which, according to John's Gospel, had such a profound effect when it was discovered.
According to Mr Rolfe, the documentary will produce convincing evidence that these are one and the same as the Shroud of Turin, adding credence to the belief that it dates back to Christ's death.
. . . and by childhood illnesses. Children today get vaccinated for so many illnesses that the baby boomers had, therefore the generation from the boomers are taller than their parents.
I have been following "The Shroud" since the 1960's - long before any testing - and have been corresponding with one of the scientists involved in the 1978 team of scientists - he was very skeptical and figured it wouldn't take much to expose the cloth as a fraud.
Like other scientists going in with the same mind-set, the more he learned, the more he became convinced of it's authentic age.
Carbon dating was only one of many scientific modems used. But since it was also the only one that really seemed to go against the Shroud, it was used as the silver bullet, all other evidence to the contrary, thrown aside/
As an artist, I also follow the trail from an art prospective - and there are too many paintings, most particularly the iconic paintings, that were done hundreds of years before the date given by the carbon-daters...paintings that could only have resulted from the artists looking at the face in the Shroud.
Also, it's pretty well documented that the tiny samples of cloth taken to test were not only contaminated by centuries of existence and handling, but were from the areas that were patched after a monastery fire in the very time period of the carbon dating results.
The nay sayers would still cry 'nay', if Jesus, Himself, walked in and said: "Yes, that is my burial Shroud."
Those who have a vested interest in denying the Shroud and existence of Jesus, of Noah's Ark or any other evidence that points to the truths in the Bible = will fight and deny and falsify and twist any evidence no matter what it is.
It behooves people who want to opine on the Shroud to do an honest study on all the known evidences and studies - and that will involve more than a couple GOOGLE searches.
For someone genuinely interested, however, one might try this following site for a springboard - and get the books by the experts in the different sciences that worked on it.Below: "The Pantocrator"
..
http://www.shroud.com/library.htm
Early iconic paintings of Jesus -
Compare with the face in the Shroud:
15th cent - long before Leonardo was born,,,
below, Detail of Pantocrator
This painting was done hundreds of years before Leonardo was born...which, from my artist point of view, destroys all the convoluted protestations that Leonardo painted The Shroud... it was crafted during the first half of the 6th century AD. It portrays a premature pictorial version of Jesus, probably the oldest that has survived the ages.
Literally hundreds of these iconic paintings were done for churches and for home sanctuaries...obviously the artists often copied from others - but there are also many that shoe more of the features in the Shroud Face - like 3 wisps of hair falling on the forehead (that were THOUGHT to be hair, but are actually streaks of blood) - the "v" formation between the eyes, and many other things...too much to go into here - but these are my observations =
"The Face" brought to life...
Remember, the Shroud Face is in the negative - darks would be light, lights would be dark - and the painter would compensate for the broken nose, the swollen cheek ...and all these many centuries later, forensic scientists confirm these injuries
Now now - such common sense is going to upset the apple-carts of those who know all there is to know and therefore, don't have to learn anything.
Thanks, good post.
Arguing with the shroud denyers is much like arguing with committed Darwinists. They are right, argument closed, no other opinions allowed. That’s not science.
Did they also get the right forensic properties that the Shroud has of blood, is the image fastened within a coating of raw starch and various saccharides....as it the Shroud Image? Does 'your' image produce a 3 dimensional analog data file of elevation, sometimes called a bump map in the world computer graphics...like the Shroud does???
answers: No No and NO - and can't. Also, there is no pigment, no paint, on The Shroud...
Yes, a lot of these facts came out fairly soon after these scientists released their results. They have been known for years, but I guess they didn’t want to admit they had screwed up.
I confess I wonder now whether they’ll find some new way to falsify their data, because it’s pretty clear that they found what they wanted to find.
Ha! Shows what you know.
And they would have gotten every modern day forensic detail right? They would have acquired a centuries old linen woven in the Jerusalem area to start off with, just in case, hundreds of years later, forensics was developed?
They would have been careful to impregnate the cloth with microscopic botanical evidence from plants indigenous ONLY to the Jerusalem area, against the day when the telescope and all the other lab tests could be discovered and used....etc etc.
Truly, geniuses that would make Leonardo look a moron.
All the "possibles" that people think up as scenarios for the creation of The Shroud are less believable than just thinking: "This could, indeed, be the burial Shroud of Jesus.
Joseph Of Arimathea, said to be Jesus' uncle, and a wealthy man, went to Pilate for permission to take Jesus body for burial. Custom/law at that time restricted such a favor to family members only - of a crucified criminal. Otherwise, they were thrown into a potters field, of sorts.
The Shroud linen is of fine quality such as only the wealthy would be likely to have.
If we go with the Biblical narrative, it would be plausible the The Shroud, after the resurrection, would be given to Joseph...who would have, it would seem likely, safeguarded it ---- etc
The second odd property of the Shroud is the three-dimensional information allegedly embedded in its image.22 There is indeed some three-dimensional information contained in the image, but it is very crude, requiring much fudging and a number of blatant, scientifically-impermissible "corrections" to produce anything resembling a human face and body.23 Today, however, computer-generated 3-D images and videos, and three-dimensional models of the Man on the Shroud's body and face, are widely available; both have been used to illustrate depictions of the Shroud's formation in non-skeptical, pro-authenticity television programs. The outrageous statements, then and now, that such 3-D information is the result of a paranormal or miraculous burst of radiation or flow of vapors from the body--and was capable of "regenerating faith in a skeptical age"--are so contrary to scientific knowledge and common sense that their origin can only be ascribed to a religiously-inspired zealotry that separates a person from his or her analytical abilities.
Both the apparent "photographic negative" and crude "embedded 3-D information" properties of the Shroud of Turin can easily be explained by simply understanding how the artist created it. Although a direct painting on linen using red ochre pigment in a tempera binder17 cannot be absolutely ruled out as an hypothesis for the Shroud's creation, it is much more likely that the Shroud was constructed using a rubbing technique on a bas-relief model.18 Joe Nickell was the first person to suggest this method of producing the Shroud. He observed that contact imprints from bodies are invariably grossly distorted, and hypotheses involving a vapor or radiation would cause the image to penetrate the cloth, unlike the superficial Shroud image that is observed. After experimenting with various techniques, the Shroud artist prepared a suitable mixture of pigments and tempera binder, molded a wet linen sheet over the bas-relief he had constructed, and used a dauber (also termed a pounce or tamper) to apply the mixture to the surface of the linen.
The bas-relief rubbing method automatically produces not only an apparent negative image (that is, one without true photographic quality), but also an image with crude three-dimensional properties. Unlike a photographic negative, in which light and dark are reversed, a bas-relief rubbing produces a negative in which topographically high areas become dark and low areas become light. This is because the topographically higher areas receive more of the pigment and lower areas receive less. This is precisely what we observe on the Shroud: the nose, mustache, beard, hair, brow ridge, and cheek bones on the bas-relief were raised relative to the sunken eyes, the space between the hair and face, and the area below the nose and mustache, so the former areas are darker on the Shroud image and the latter areas lighter. A genuine photographic negative of the Shroud's faux-photographic negative image--that is, a faux-positive--looks appealingly natural and life-like, if one ignores the white blood and hair. Furthermore, as the pigment is applied, there is a gradation of pigment and binder density from topographically higher to lower areas, producing the tonal variation that creates a crude three-dimensional quality.
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/as/schafersman.html
Someone once said: "You shouldn't believe everything you think>"
Cheers!
And I know of people neither Catholic nor Angelical that have come to believe in it’s authenticity = including a Jewish scientist who set out to debunk it -
Jesus came from an extremely wealthy family and could have eaten whatever he wanted for nourishment.
Where did you get that from , Jesus from a rich family ?
Ah, the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy.
Read up on tobacco scientists and global warming for trivial counterexamples.
The shroud was carbon dated and is proven to have been made somewhere in the Middle Ages of history when a lot of these so-called “holy relics” originated.
You are misinformed.
Samples from the Shroud -- all from one area of the Shroud and not randomized samples were tested; as it turns out the samples were from an area which had been damaged in a fire and re-woven.
Contamination of the sample is a great way to get incorrect results in radiocarbon dating.
Nice try, though.
Now here's a little thought experiment for you: if this image were on any other piece of cloth, and not linked to Jesus, would you immediately dismiss it as a forgery, or attempt to figure out the mechanism of formation, as a fascinating curiosity?
Cheers!
Try reading something other than your own side's propaganda for a change, since you like to claim "free inquiry".
Cheers!
Oh my -
The only thing correct in the above is that it isn't mentioned in scripture...
There could be a very good reason for that - It's existence was protected for centuries to keep it from being confiscated and or destroyed - hate to burst the bubble, but everything that happened back then did not make it into the scriptures, and many books of scripture that the early church was using were burned as a result of the Nicence Council - who decided which books ,would and which would not, be compiled to become the Bible.
Those that didn't make the cut were ordered destroyed. And this was 300 years after Christ - 300 years of many books not "in the scriptures" now, being used.
Science can sometimes boil down to the concept of the drunk looking for his car keys under a streetlamp, not because he may have dropped them there, but because the light is better. I'm fully aware of the limitations of science & that there's always another, better test around the corner.
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