Posted on 08/21/2002 7:41:41 PM PDT by mjp
Shroud of Turin tests miff scientists, religious scholars
ROME (August 21, 2002 5:23 p.m. EDT) - Experts on the Shroud of Turin said Wednesday they felt frustrated and betrayed to learn a Swiss textile expert had obtained Vatican approval to test the sacred cloth without involvement from the international scientific community. The shroud is a strip of linen believers say was used to wrap the body of Jesus. Kept in the Cathedral of Turin, it is rarely displayed to the public.
Earlier this month, the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero said a well-known Swiss textile expert, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, had begun tests on the cloth and, as part of the research, cut out 30 patches woven into it in the 16th century.
Flury-Lemberg confirmed then that she had received Vatican approval to perform the tests. But she has refused to say exactly what her work has entailed.
Some experts worry that in the absence of any oversight, she may have damaged the cloth. In the past, tests on the cloth have involved a large committee of international scientists.
"This one was limited strictly to certain favorites in Turin, and Flury-Lemberg was one," said the Rev. Albert Dreisbach, an Episcopalian minister who has been studying the shroud since 1977.
Flury-Lemberg said Wednesday she would release photographs of her research next month.
"There are so many wrong things in the press," she said by telephone from Bern, Switzerland. "Everyone's speculating. I don't want to give any news."
Cardinal Severino Poletto, the archbishop of Turin and the shroud's custodian, said in an interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper L'Avvenire that the Vatican approved the tests.
He would not discuss Flury-Lemberg's procedures except to say her work was carried out in accordance with two Vatican conditions: that there be unanimous consent of the members of the Conservation Commission for the Shroud, a small group of experts overseeing the cloth, and that the cultural authorities of the Italian government be informed.
Members of the commission could not be reached Wednesday.
Ilona Farkas, who has been following shroud research since 1976 but is not a commission member, said scientists are upset.
"It's scandalous," Farkas said from Rome. "There will be tons of protests arriving at the Vatican from scientists."
Paul Maloney, general projects director for the Association of Scientists and Scholars International for the Shroud of Turin, located in Pennsylvania, said the lack of information has "many of us around the world very frustrated, because we don't know how to assess what they have done."
Maloney, who is also not a member of the smaller commission, said experts fear "historically important information may be gone forever."
The cardinal said the research involved removing impurities and residue from the cloth, which is 13 feet long and three feet wide.
"The interventions have been carried out reservedly not out of a great desire for secrecy, but to guarantee the necessary calm for those who had to work, beside obvious reasons for safety," Poletto told L'Avennire.
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.
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.
My answer: Not one bit.
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?
Some denominations have no problems with graven images.
I agree that is missing the point.
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.
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.
Correct. And Richard Burton won it. 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.
shoo fly
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.
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?
Whatever you can imagine is probably already being done.
Carolyn
Gimme a physical break!
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.