Shroud of Turin tests miff scientists, religious scholars

AP Online ^ | 8-21-02 | ROXANA M. POPESCU

[PJ-Comix]

I thought the Robe was the Shroud. What's the difference? Perhaps I should consult Demetrius and the Gladiators.

[PJ-Comix]

On a similar topic---Did they ever find that diaper that Buddha was wearing? You ever see statues of him? Buddha is always sitting on the ground wearing some sort of diaper. Of course, I don't buy into that Buddha thing. You'll never convince me that some pot-bellied green guy is God.

[Swordmaker]

I thought the Robe was the Shroud. What's the difference?

The Robe was the seamless, woven in one piece, tunic worn by Jesus that the Centurions cast lots for as Jeses hung dying on the cross. It was customary for the executioners to divide the belongings of the executed amongst themselves.

Cloth was one of the more valuable products of ancient industry with each piece representing many man-hours of labor. Up until the industrial revolution, textiles were among an estates most valuable possessions.

The centurions, seeing that this particular tunic was not sewn but woven as a single piece (perhaps knitted??) The decided that instead of cutting it into parts to share equally, they would gamble for it. Who won it went unrecorded.

The Shroud is a bolt of fine linen (twill, three over one) woven in one complete job and could have taken an expert weaver several days of labor to produce. The quality of this cloth would have been suitable for a very wealthy man. It was, after all bought by one, a member of the elite of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin. The shroud was used, along with at least one other smaller piece of linen, as a burial cloth for Jesus.

[PFKEY]

Looks like atheists have found another piece of evidence to avoid.

I don't understand what the attraction is regarding the Shroud of Turin.

Do Christians need some physical proof to reinforce their faith?

Would an atheist become a believer if somehow this cloth was proven to come for the time of Christ? It still wouldn't prove that it was the image of Christ.

I think the whole notion of the Shroud of Turin being the image of Christ is unprovable and completely meaningless to the beleiver and the unbeleiver.

[PFKEY]

real or phony is irrelevant... the question a person must ask: How does this affect my salvation?

My answer: Not one bit.

[PFKEY]

What do you think was the Vatican's motivation for secretly contracting with a hand-picked lab to test more of the cloth?

I have many issues with the vatican and I will add this to my list.

What does the vatican care about some earthly cloth? The church of Christ places no value in things of this earth, why does the vatican?

[PFKEY]

Not to sound too picky, but does a piece of cloth qualify as a graven image? I mean, some folks seem to worship this picture...isnt that missing the point?

Some denominations have no problems with graven images.

I agree that is missing the point.

[Swordmaker]

I don't understand what the attraction is regarding the Shroud of Turin.

Do Christians need some physical proof to reinforce their faith?

Would an atheist become a believer if somehow this cloth was proven to come for the time of Christ? It still wouldn't prove that it was the image of Christ.

I think the whole notion of the Shroud of Turin being the image of Christ is unprovable and completely meaningless to the beleiver and the unbeleiver.

The Shroud is a fascinating artifact. First the image is inexplicable, it cannot be duplicated. We do not know what mechanism produced the image. Scientists, magicians, skeptics, debunkers, and amatuers have been attempting to duplicate all of the features found on the Shroud for over 100 years... and not one has succeeded yet.

If we accept the 1989 Carbon-14 dating of the shroud making it a medievil pious fraud, we then still have to explain how an unknown artist was able to create it incorporating many things completely unknown and unknowable to anyone of that millieu. In addition we have to accept that it was created with perfect realism in a time of primitivism and cartoonish artwork. It also runs counter to many iconic traditions.

IF, and it is beginning to look more and more not to be the case, the Shroud is a medievil fraud, then we have an unknown genius with an apparent encyclopedic knowledge of many not yet invented disciplines, using unknown technology to create an artifact that cannot be duplicated 700 years later. This would perhaps be an even greater miracle than if it proves to be a first century relic.

Pious frauds were money makers... and ANYTHING, literally anything, could attract veneration. It didn't have to be convincing as 99% of the people totally lacked any discriminatory skills and were, to put it bluntly, totally credulous. One could (and someone probably did) pick up a sheep's femur, announce that it was the arm bone of St. Stephen, and garner donations day after day... and no authority would deny it. Why then should anyone go to the trouble of creating such a fraud as the Shroud would be if created at this time. The SAME amount of money could be had by taking a homespun sheet, daubing some chicken blood on it, and announcing the miraculous Shroud of Jesus. Pilgrims would beat a path to the door of the Charlatan.

Instead, we find the Shroud in the hands of a country Knight named Geoffrey de Charney (spelling was a matter of opinion in medievil France) who built a church to house it, using his own money and impoverishing his estate to operate it, and refused to display it. Geoffrey was not just ANY knight... de Charney was the Standard Bearer for the King of France and author of the French Code of Chivalry! It was only later, after Geoffrey's death, that his widow, needing cash to keep the Church at Lirey afloat, agreed to display the Shroud for the first time. These are hardly the acts of conmen and frauds.

Scientists, Christian, Agnostic, Atheist, Jewish, have investigated the Shroud and come away totally puzzled. Most will say that something extraordinary happened to the body the Shroud covered that caused a VERTICALLY COLLIMATED effect on the cloth. Latest research shows that the BONES of the body actually are imprinted on the cloth in what must be the first X-ray image in history.

What mysterious force created ALL of the features we find on this one small piece of cloth? Perhaps it is a snapshot of the moment of resurrection? Who knows.

Can we PROVE it is the Shroud that covered Jesus of Nazareth in the tomb as reported in the Gospels? Nope. All we can do is continue to find out what mysteries there are in the cloth, prove or disprove to the best of our abilities what we find there... and look at probabilities.

Will it convince Atheists? Certainly not those who refuse to look. Will it destroy the faith of the faithful if proven a fraud? Probably not. Can it make a difference in those who are seeking the truth, one way or the other? Absolutely.

[PFKEY]

The Shroud is a fascinating artifact.

That is for certain.

Can it make a difference in those who are seeking the truth, one way or the other? Absolutely.

As someone quoted earlier 'blessed is he who has not seen and beleives'.

One of the components of our salvation is faith. If someone requires physical proof to beleive then I think they might be missing something required for salvation.

Again, even if proven to be from the time of our Lord it still can never be proven to be him.

I think people should spend their time and energies in more profitable ways.

[PJ-Comix]

The decided that instead of cutting it into parts to share equally, they would gamble for it.

Correct. And Richard Burton won it. So in the move they called it the Robe, not the Shroud, but what's the diff?

[Swordmaker]

So in the move they called it the Robe, not the Shroud, but what's the diff?

One's a long shirt... the other is a long sheet.

[maryz]

Thanks for the explanation. I did read a book on the Shroud a few years ago that mentioned this, but didn't explain as clearly as you have. The book also mentioned, however, that the bacterial buildup is one reason carbon dating is not reliable in dating any fabric.

[mjp]

Breakthrough Effort
Authenticate The Shroud
By Randy Boswell
The Ottawa Citizen and Citizen News Services
8-30-2

The Ohio woman who appears to have discovered a critical flaw in the 1988 carbon dating of cloth samples from the Shroud of Turin says her insights into the controversial Christian relic were communicated to her by Jesus Christ himself.

Sue Benford, who co-authored a research paper in 2000 with her partner Joseph Marino, a respected shroud scholar, told the Citizen yesterday she's "excited" that their findings could help refute the 1988 tests that have led most experts to conclude the shroud was a medieval forgery and not the burial cloth of Christ.

Roman Catholic officials in Italy have confirmed that new experiments are being performed by a Swiss textile expert, apparently to test the Benford-Marino theory: that the cloth sample chosen in 1988 - and which yielded a date of origin between 1260 and 1390 A.D - was actually a blend of original material almost 2,000 years old and newer threads woven into the shroud as recently as 400 years ago to repair damaged or pilfered portions of the sacred object. Ms. Benford, a former nurse who now runs a nonprofit educational organization near Columbus, said it was a "divine revelation" in March 1997 - followed by months of arduous research with Mr. Marino - that produced their theory that the 1988 study was fundamentally flawed.

"I was working at my computer when a voice told me to go watch TV," said Ms. Benford, 45, who began flipping channels until she happened upon a show about the Shroud of Turin. "I was just stunned," she said, because she instantly recognized that the face on the shroud belonged to the same man whose voice had instructed her to watch television, and which later explained to her why scientists had mistakenly concluded the shroud was a fake. "I don't want to sound like a nut case, but that's what happened," she said. "I was given the answer."

The couple's theory was presented at a conference in Italy in August 2000, around the same time the Vatican announced there would be no further testing on the age of the shroud in the immediate future. But members of the official Committee for the Conservation of the Holy Shroud have disclosed to the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero that testing has begun again.

They said that the cloth's backing and about 30 triangular patches used to mend the shroud in the 16th century after it was damaged by fire have been removed in a "secret experiment." They added that the committee as a whole has not been consulted and instead the testing has been authorized by a small number of church "insiders." Officials in Turin also confirmed that the shroud has been removed from its case and would not be on display while the experiment was in progress. They said the operation is being conducted by Swiss textile expert Mechtild Flury-Lemberg.

As startling as Ms. Benford's story might seem, the central argument she and Mr. Marino have advanced has also been embraced by a prominent U.S. scientist who first studied the shroud in 1978 and still possesses samples of the cloth. Ray Rogers was part of an international team 20 years ago that performed a chemical analysis of shroud fibres and determined that the image on the cloth was not painted.

That finding ruled out an obvious hoax and left open the possibility that the shroud was authentic. But most of the scientific community - including Mr. Rogers himself - were later convinced by the 1988 carbon dating that the cloth was a fake after all.

Mr. Rogers, a retired chemist living in Los Alamos, New Mexico, told the Citizen yesterday that he dismisses Ms. Benford's story about speaking with Jesus. But the observation itself - that old and new fibres had been mistakenly mixed in the 1988 experiments - is valid, he says.

"When I first saw Benford and Marino's study, I said they're full of it," recalls Mr. Rogers, who re-analysed his shroud threads based on the Ohio couple's hypothesis. "But I have to agree with what they're proposing. The 1988 radio-carbon analysis was probably the very best ever done, but it was done on the worst, most stupidly selected sample of cloth."

The 1988 sample, explains Mr. Rogers, comes from the lower left corner of the shroud which, it appears, has been "cleverly rewoven" over the centuries to disguise the fact that cuttings have been taken from the outer edge of the cloth from time to time.

But several threads studied by Mr. Rogers in 1978 came from a section of the shroud slightly closer to the famous image of a crucified man that appears in the middle of the cloth. Some of those threads had been expertly "spliced" to connect older and newer fibres. In 1982, says Mr. Rogers, one of the threads from his samples was carbon dated - unbenownst to himself and against the wishes of Roman Catholic officials who had authorized the chemical analysis. Nevertheless, that test showed an age difference of more than 1,000 years between the newer and older fibres - and suggested the original portions of the shroud dated from around the year 200 A.D.

"I have not been able to find any information on the accuracy and precision for the dating method used," says Mr. Roges. "However, the dates determined are so different that I could believe a real difference between the ends of the threads." The shroud, preserved in Turin Cathedral, is held by many Christians to be the cloth in which Jesus Christ was wrapped after the Crucifixion. Venerated for centuries as the Holy Shroud, it preserves the image of a tall man with crucifixion marks which only came to light when the 4.37-metre-by-1.11-metre cloth was first photographed at the end of the 19th century.

(First published 8-21-02)

[ALS]

atheism? hahaha Is that why you feel a need to cling to lies? I'm no atheist son.

shoo fly

[Swordmaker]

atheism? hahaha Is that why you feel a need to cling to lies? I'm no atheist son.

What lies, ALS? I have posted only the results of peer reviewed research and scholarship.

YOUR attitude is the insulting one. YOUR posts are the ad hominum attacks. YOU are the gadfly, not I.

If I am am wrong in my assumption about your beliefs, I apologize.

[ALS]

"What lies, ALS? I have posted only the results of peer reviewed research and scholarship."

So do evolutionists.

If I believed the shroud was authentic I would be just as adamant as you. I don't believe it is authentic. I believe it's a religious icon, nothing more. When I was very young and still naive, I used to automatically accept things as truth and fact based upon the seriously erroneous presumption that smarter people than I have concluded such. I have since grown up and life has taught me that the probabilities are that accepted "truth and facts" are neither either. I have my own tests for what I believe are truth and facts. This shroud fails those tests. My posts state why. I have seen, read and heard all your arguments and still it fails my tests. Not because I want it to or it fails to align itself with a pre-conceived dogma, but because it does. The more you try to convince me based upon what others say/believe, the less chance I will believe it. There is too much evidence that cloths/strips or whatever term you wish to use, were used instead of a shroud. There is also no proof whatsoever that Christ's image is on the shroud. In fact, the image itself fails my test as to what Jesus looked like, and no one has been able to even establish this image was created in 31AD. I conclude that people want it to be what it isn't.

I believe that if you applied the same principles of acceptability to other things in your life that you apply to this, you just might finally receive your diploma in the school of hard knocks (i.e.- a wakeup call).

May we dispense with the name calling and assumptions now?

[CDHart]

"I hope it doesn't move as fast as my imagination...."

Whatever you can imagine is probably already being done.

Carolyn

[Thumper1960]

I assume the Medieval "photographers" popped down to the Turin One-Hour Foto shop and picked up some silver nitrate, stop bath and fixer solutions before performing their feat. I also assume that of all the numerous examples of this 'very common' art, it is mere coincidence that a shroud...err...photo accurately depicting a crucified man survived until the 21st century. Oh, that's right....those Catholic buggers are devious and cunning, aren't they? Why, just look at them: burning at the stake anyone who dared think outside of the box and maintain the Earth revolved around the Sun, or who cured the sick with natural herbs. Why, those Catholic buggers were/are so hypocritical and Satanic, they'd fake a crucifiction shroud of the Christ for politico-religious reasons.

Gimme a physical break!

[CFW]

John 20 6-7
6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
7 And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

#######
Is'nt the shroud 1 piece?
Supposedly used to wrap the whole body and head , if so it can't be the one used for the Christ.

[Thumper1960]

As the body was carried to the tomb, a deceased Jew would have his/her eyes closed and the face covered with a face cloth. Inside the tomb, the body would be prepared with herbs and aloes, then wrapped in the burial linens. It is the face covering that Simon Peter saw, rolled up and lying separate from the burial linens. "Linens" not necessarily meaning "several" cloths.