Posted on 03/15/2002 6:57:35 AM PST by OPS4
WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE Evidence of the risen Christ? Special Easter report sheds new light on reputed burial cloths of Jesus
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 12, 2002 1:08 p.m. Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
The March edition of WND's acclaimed monthly magazine, Whistleblower concludes with an in-depth and stunning report on the Shroud of Turin – the 14-foot-long piece of linen believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.
The most studied artifact in human history, the image of a crucified man mysteriously emblazoned upon it – in a way modern technology has been unable to duplicate – is breathtaking.
Experts – the gurus of science and medicine, the professors of history and art – cannot agree on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. Skeptics have tried, unsuccessfully, to recreate the image they insist is a “pious fake.” Most who reject the Shroud put their faith in the carbon-14 testing results that date the linen as from the 14th century. Others respond that the storage conditions over the years and at least one fire forestall any accurate dating using carbon-14 tests.
Believers point to the growing body of scientific and historical evidence that bolster the authenticity of the Shroud.
How, ask Shroud supporters, is it possible that a clever fake shroud could be made in the 1300s as a perfect photographic negative that would not be properly “seen” until modern photography was invented? And what of the incredible fact that the fabric areas on the Shroud where the image is contained are only one fiber deep? No paint or stain would remain on the top surface of the first layer of the fibrils.
And how was a fraudulent relic-monger to know the medical truths that recent medical science has just learned? The medical details of crucifixion are so complex that no modern artist has – and no medieval artist could have – duplicated the precise geometry of the body in extremis.
And most compelling, why has no copy been achieved, given the vast science and technology at our command?
Skeptics have a difficult time, say Shroud proponents, with the mounting scientific and historical corroboration that should force an open-minded investigator to reconsider his objections.
One historian of the Shroud mused, “Their refusal to believe the evidence is itself not a scientific attitude.” The real problem, claim Shroud supporters, is not that an ancient cloth that covered a crucified victim still exists after two thousand years. Said one researcher: “Do you think that if the ancient burial sheet of a sandal maker had been discovered with a scroll that read, ‘here lies Benjamin the Sandal Maker,’ that the scientific world fall all over itself to prove that it could not be Benjamin the Sandal Maker?”
“No. They only compromise their scientific witness because the peculiarities of the wounds of this victim reveal him to be no sandal maker, but the Son of God. If they could, they would get rid of all the physical evidence of Christianity – that Jesus lived, died and was buried. And then Christians would have nothing to believe in. Then, after two thousand years, Christians would finally die out.”
The March edition of Whistleblower is dedicated to the rampant persecution of Christians in today's world. But in honor of Easter, WND's editors included this special section on the Shroud of Turin. Titled "The first Christian martyr," this eye-opening report on the Shroud – as well as the lesser known Sudarium of Oveido, believed to be the face-cloth of the entombed Jesus – begins with the reactions of visitors who view the Shroud in person:
“You look at it and you cannot escape it: His body was horribly, horribly wounded. I choked up,” said one visitor to the millennium Shroud of Turin exhibit.
Another viewer summed up his experience, “I realized that this image is a message that was left for us. The resurrection truly happened. The man they tried to extinguish, lives. And we will too, no matter what the world tries to do to us, we will rise again with Him.”
Whistleblower's special report by Mary Jo Anderson includes five remarkable, high-quality photographs taken by Barrie M. Schwortz, a member of the historic 1978 scientific team that was allowed to examine the Shroud. One of them is the full-length negative of the Shroud that clearly reveals the detailed and deeply gripping image of a crucified man.
John 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
You describe a dampened or moistened fabric, made wet so that it would mold to the shape of the bass-relief object you're trying to duplicate the image of.
Once dampened, the capillary action of the moistened fibers in the fabric would cause the applied spice-solution to be absorbed throughout the material.
Your debunker was "all wet."
Is that statement supposed to ADD to your credibility here?
Why is it so important to you to disprove how a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth died but not how the Emperor of all the known world died?
If I may suggest an answer: while the lack of a particular religious relic doesn't disprove the divinity of Christ, the authenticiy of this relic does disprove secular humanism.
The pollen evidence alone would lead one to believe in the validity of the shroud. Also, the image and I believe, but could be wrong, the DNA from the blood matches the face cloth that has a better documented history than the shroud.
The actual threads taken from the Shroud were labeled as belonging to mummy wrappings of "Cleopatra," not the queen of course, but a teenage girl of good birth who died in Egypt a generation or two after that famous queen, and whose exact burial date was given on her tombstone. Other Egyptian and ancient burial cloths were also sampled.
Among those was another sample labeled as being from "Cleopatra," but whose C-14 age and particular fabric characteristics differed sharply from the other so-called "Cleo" item, which was really the Shroud.
Again, think closely. Both the 1290 items were from one and the same garment, and that is what they showed. But the "Cleo" items though from the same century, could not have been from the same or even closely related textile origin, nor from exact same date, as each other...thus one was the Shroud, and we even know WHICH one.
Besides fear of thieves, vandalism, and terrorists, the Vatican feared that any claim that C-14 showed it to date to Jesus' day would cause an outpouring of hate and persecution against the church, and perhaps charges of fraud.
We therefore now have the ideal situation. Anyone who cares to know the truth can do so, but the church does not have to try to say it has proven a miracle, and by so saying cause further hatred and persecution of the Faith.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.