Turin Shroud may be genuine after all

UPI via The Washington Times ^ | 10/9/2002 | Uwe Siemon-Netto

[SteveH]

GURAT, France, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The Turin Shroud bearing the features of a crucified man may well be the cloth that enveloped the body of Christ, a renowned textile historian told United Press International Tuesday.

Disputing inconclusive carbon-dating tests suggesting the shroud hailed from medieval times, Swiss specialist Mechthild Flury-Lemberg said it could be almost 2,000 years old.

[Swordmaker]

This is a real big deal to you, isn't it? Sorry to have touch such a sensitive nerve.

I never said that Drurer's visage was the only representation of Christ in the history of the world.

No, Skooz, it is not a "big deal" but you made a statement as a matter of fact. You then "corrected" me when I disagreed with your flat statement and pointed out that the image of Christ had a much earlier origination than your assertion that Durer had "created" our modern concept of Christ's appearance. You said:

Sorry, but it IS correct. The Christ Pantocrater just showed a skinny guy with a beard. Any skinny, relatively white gut with hair and beard would look like that. Drurer gave us a full portrait and gave the Western mind the picture we see when we imagine Christ.

I was curious why you thought that Durer had established (created) the modern concept of Christ's appearance in 1498 when NOTHING I had read over many years said anything about him doing such a thing... and I have read a lot on iconography... so I went looking. Had Durer done some seminal work developing the concept? Was there a large body of work with that intent that many people would have seen?

I have merely reported back what I found. Your theory is based on ONE painting that Durer did of himself that he, evidently, and later critics agreed, intended to evoke the image of Christ. It hardly was what you said. It is in fact based on the image on the shroud. In addition, for others to even recognize Durer's intent that it be "Christlike" the images had to ALREADY be part of the public awareness so that it COULD appear to be "Christlike".

You tossed out a "factoid" as though it were "fact" when in actuality it is merely your unsupported opinion. I have merely refuted your assertion for you and others to consider. I have asked you for the basis for your assertion and you have provided nothing except veiled implication that I am somehow emotionally wrapped up in this discussion. I believe that if you make a statement of fact, you should be prepared to back up your fact with authority.

So, if you have any citations or bodies of work that give any evidence for Durer having done what you asserted, please post them... I am interested.

[Swordmaker]

It just deepens my belief that the shroud is a photographic negative of some kind -- a beautiful elaborate hoax.

Your logic does not flow... why, if it is a photographic negative does that provide you with MORE proof that it is a hoax?

The knowledge that the Shroud appears to be a "photographic negative" is one of items hardest to explain and most difficult to understand how it could have been created given the state of art at the time frame a hoax could have been perpetrated.

[montag813]

But some people will do anything to destroy Christianity.

Relax. "Christianity" does not depend on the validity of the Shroud of Turin.

Save your wrath for Socialist enemies of the religion like the National Council of Churches. They are a far greater threat.

[aruanan]

Here are a couple of items from a previous thread on the subject in 1999:

1. I've always believed that it will never be absolutely proven to be the Shroud of Jesus, that the Shroud would be a test of faith.--mare

You're operating from a modern definition of faith as being belief in the absence of evidence or in spite of contrary evidence. If that were the essence of faith then all those who actually saw Jesus do what he did and as a result believed his claims about himself were not exercising faith. However, if faith is accepting as true that for which one doesn't have first-hand knowledge but which is based on the previously established trustworthiness of a reliable witness, then one doesn't end up saying that the essence of faith is never being certain, or worse, that religion is true to the extent that it doesn't make any claims on reality that can be tested.

Obviously we who live almost two thousand years after the fact are in a different position than those who were eyewitnesses to the events of the first century. However, we are in exactly the same position as anyone else who is not an eyewitness to any other event in history who also doesn't have the luxury of talking to contemporaries of the event. We know of it based on the accounts of others and judge their reliability by their character, the nature of their accounts, and the consistency of its details with other things that are known about that event and its time and location. Even Paul appealed to this in laying out the basis for faith in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians. He said that the basis of their hope lay in the fact, not in the belief, that Jesus physically rose from the dead and that if it hadn't occurred their faith was in vain and those who claimed to have witnessed it were liars. His point was that the event occurred, people were witnesses to the fact, people who could, at that time, be questioned about it:

And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

We don't have the ability as his hearers did to personally question the purported witnesses, but we can examine the historical record and its corroboration by archaeology and other means and come to as reasonable a certainty about its trustworthiness as we can about anything else in history. Having done so, this is where faith stands or falls--the reasons people come up with then for not accepting as reliable the accounts of the contemporaries of the event in question. Jesus spoke directly to this inner disposition in his story about Lazarus and the rich man:

The rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them that they not end up in torment like him. Abraham said that they had Moses and the Prophets to listen to. The rich man said, yes, but if someone came back from the dead they'd listen to him. Abraham said if they wouldn't heed Moses and the Prophets they wouldn't be convinced even by someone who rose from the dead.

If it could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud of Turin was indeed the burial cloth of Jesus, that wouldn't lessen the basis of your faith; it would only take away another reason for someone refusing to believe. But, then, like the rich man, such a person has reasons not to believe that no amount of evidence will ever satisfy.

2. If the shroud were "accurately dated as 2000 years old and proved to be 100% real and only one other person in the world were crusified [sic] that year, it would only give it a 50% chance of belonging to Christ!--Paine's Ghost

Depends on whether the other guy's legs were broken as was commonly done in crucifixion to finally bring on death. The image in the shroud was of someone who's legs were not broken. Historical evidence states that Jesus's legs were not broken. When you have physical evidence that appears to corroborate historical evidence, and fraud is ruled out or cannot be proved, then you move into a whole other area than merely talking about 50/50 chances. When you take into account that, if a body somehow made that image, the body didn't stay within the cloth to decompose, you're taking the matter out of the realm of the ordinary.

Some people's main line of argument seems to be to try to reduce something to the ordinary and then say that it, therefore, merits no attention. Failing that, they declare it to be extraordinary and, therefore, less worthy of attention because it's probably more likely to be a fraud. There's something at work behind either of these approaches that doesn't come from a desire to follow the truth wherever it takes one.

Regarding the 3-D image and visual expectations that had to be met in order for it to be a successful hoax. A hoax in an era without photography purporting to be an image transferred to cloth would, more likely than not, be done in such a way to meet the expectations of the viewers. Providing a type of image that looks highly unnatural (at least by the artistic standards of the time--supposedly the 13th century) would ensure its rejection as a genuine phenomenon. This is not the goal of a successful hoax.

3. That's how you could get a 3-D image, but in the shroud's case, there was no pigment used like this.--aruanan

It would not be 3D. It would be here and there with no depth. Put your hand in paint and put it on paper. You get a hand-print, not a depth-chart.--Lepton

Sorry, I should have more fully answered the other guy's objection. If you have a substance, whether it be a cloth or plaster of Paris, touching an object at all or at a substantial number of points of its surface and have some means of transferring the surface features to that substance, whether it be through physical casting in the case of plaster of Paris or some kind of heat or radiation, you can recreate a 3-D image of the object. Such was the case in Pompeii when rain-soaked volcanic ash preserved the forms of asphyxiated victims. In the case of the shroud, presumably bound closely to the naked body, the surface in contact or close proximity to the body had the body's image at that point transferred to it. When flattened out, the cloth would make some body parts, perhaps the legs, look strange since their image was transferred to the cloth not as a focussed image falling onto a screen (that is, a photographic image) but as one transferred radially outward onto cloth that was in close proximity to the skin, much as the skin of an animal follows the contours of the animal's body yet assumes a very different appearance when removed and flattened out, or the map of the earth when the surface of a globe is split as an orange peel so as to lay it all out flat in one piece. A suitable imaging program could reconstitute its three dimensional appearance.

[Conservative til I die]

Good post. What I got from your post (although there is more there than what I am getting), is that scientific proof like that which is being talked about in this thread, is just one small aspect of it all. Sure, if we were to break it down to that "at best, 50% chance" it's Jesus (if there were one other person to be crucified that year, regardless of his legs being broken or not), we could never prove it was Jesus. But really, too many people, either because of an agenda, or because of a blind faith in science as the end-all-be-all-of everything, read too much into that statement. The statememnt means no more, no less than what it says: That we cannot prove mathematically that it was Christ, to better than 50-50. People that read into it that "this means the Shroud's a hoax" are just adding what they want into it.

[rwfromkansas]

I guess your uninformed opinion solves the case then.

It is fake everyone.....M.T. Cicero, who has never examined the shroud himself, claims it fake.

Nevermind the never-ending contrary scientific evidence that leads to the continued mystery.

End of debate. /sarcasm

And for the record, I am not a Catholic, but a Calvinist/Presbyterian Protestant that tends to not look favorably upon Catholic doctrine. But the shroud fascinates me.

[smith288]

That looks like the shoe bomber. I think the experts spent too much time with a bong.

Hey, thats your opinion. But they were not making any effort to debunk Christianity. It might be something to debunk the shroud. Do you need the shroud to backup your religion? I dont.

I know it would have been noted in the Bible had Jesus looked different than other Jews. Since its doesnt, I assume him to not stand out from the norm looks wise. Historic record (skulls) of Jews at that time showed them to be rather stalky with extremely round heads. I believe art recovered shown to be from that time had Jews keeping their hair short and having short facial hair.

All of this makes no difference to me. Shouldnt to any Christian....I wouldnt care if he was black, green or purple, 3 ft tall or 8 ft tall... It is his works and his words that matters most.

[Skooz]

So, if you have any citations or bodies of work that give any evidence for Durer having done what you asserted, please post them... I am interested.

All I have is the textbook to my History 430 Renaissance and Reformation class. It was in a section dealing with art during the early Renaissance.

We then discussed this issue in class for a pretty good while. I have no idea what the name or author of the text was. Each senior level History course had 5-8 texts and this was in 1988.

The author based his findings on much more than just the one self portrait Drurer completed at age 28. The guy seemed to be somewhat of a Drurer expert/fan. Anyway, since then it has always been my understanding that his assertion was probably correct. I'm no art historian; my specialty is early 20th century European history, so I rely on the findings of others in areas in which I lack expertise. I did so in this case.

Actually, I am far more interested in how the Chiefs are going to do against Marty Schottenheimer's Chargers tomorrow.

[spunkets]

"It is his works and his words that matters most."

...that matters at all. "I know it would have been noted in the Bible had Jesus looked different than other Jews."

The reason it's not mentioned is that it doesn't matter at all. In the image and likeness of God has nothing to do with physical appearance. "art recovered shown to be from that time"

None of the images resembled the shoe bomber like the proposed composite from those experts does. The fact the experts saw fit to put a dopey look on that pic says a lot about what they were thinking. They're a bunch of irreverent bozos.

[smith288]

No offense, I am a firm believer in Christianity and I have no problem with that composite. Just because you think he looks dopey hardly means a thing to me. Why does it bother you if Jesus did look like this picture? So Jesus, in your book, had to look like a westerner because he was who he was?

All the images of a tall, long haired Jesus were interpretations by Europeans... They fit their own idea to what Jesus looked like. What we see today is hardly what a Jew looked like in the days of Jesus. I wouldnt be suprised if he looked arab. It still doesnt bother me... he was Gods son and my savior.

[Skooz]

I see spunkets' point. I seriously think the people who came up with that picture did so with the intent of sticking into Christian's faces as if to say, "You people worship this?"

[VOYAGER]

Turin Shroud may be genuine after all!

WHY???

[spunkets]

"Why does it bother you if Jesus did look like this picture? So Jesus, in your book, had to look like a westerner..?

No. I told you it doesn't matter. Look at any image folks came up with and you'll see their impressions. They all have different physical characteristics. Note the facial expressions though; they are all somehow appropriate and reverent. The image these guys came up with, regardless of physical characteristics, has a dazed, dopey look on his face. An artist can take any of the images in #172 and put a dazed, dopey look on their face. It's the dazed, dopey look I am reacting to. The impression made by the artist tells me what he was thinking.

[smith288]

You need tin foil? Not that i think im going to change you way of thinking, but you are hardly opening you mind to what he may have looked like according to skull artifacts recovered from that time frame.

I would imagine scientists having a better argument besides "He was ugly...why would you follow that ugly of a guy?"

Come on folks, you are way paranoid if you think BBC is out to destroy Christianity with that photo of a typical Jew during the times of Christ.

[smith288]

Ok, the guy does have a dazed look but it was a 3d rendered model on computer... Im comfortable with my beliefs so I dont care... And that image of a dazed Jew doesnt bother me because it wasnt their idea of what Jesus himself looked, but of a Jew during those times.

[Skooz]

No, you can keep your tin-foil. Thanks.

I was merely agreeing with the other poster that the face has a goofy, dopey look that was almost certainly (IMHO) intentional.

[Skooz]

But then, some people actually worship this guy:

[smith288]

Who on earth is that guy? haha.

[Skooz]

Bob Dobbs. Lord of the Church of the Subgenius.

I'm not kidding.

[smith288]

Looks like a mascot for some cheesy hambuger joint.