Posted on 10/05/2009 11:22:44 AM PDT by Gamecock
An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake. The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ. "We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday. A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Had medieval con men been able to fake our Lord’s burial shroud, they would have faked as many as possible. There was no mass communication in the Middle Ages, a faker would have been trying to sell shrouds in not only Turin, but every major city in Europe.
There is also the fact that the image on the Shroud is nearly identical to the image on the Veil of Veronica which had a chapel named for it in the 8th century.
Don’t bogart that tartar sauce!
Why don’t you start with the Bible itself:
1.It is clear from the Bible and from Jewish burial customs that several pieces of cloth bound Christ at His burial — not one large sheet like the shroud.
2.In John 20:5-7 we find there was a separate piece wrapped around Christ’s head. Yet the Shroud of Turin depicts a face on the sheet.
3.The size of the shroud is 14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches (434 centimetres by 109 centimetres). But the Bible says linen strips bound Jesus, not an enormous cloth (see John 19:40).
Walter C. McCrone, head of a Chicago research institute and a specialist in authenticating art objects, examined the shroud. He found a pale, gelatin-based substance speckled with particles of red ochre on fibres from the part of the cloth that supposedly showed the figure of Christ. He also found that fibers from the “wounds” had stains, not of blood, but of particles of a synthetic vermilion developed in the Middle Ages. He said the practice of painting linen with gelatin-based temperas began in the late thirteenth century and was common in the fourteenth.McCrone concluded that a fourteenth century artist had forged the shroud, and defended this view right up until he died on July 10, 2002.
In the 1980s, Jesuit priest Robert A. Wild expressed surprise that the bloodstains, if they were blood, showed no trace of smearing after all the movement and transport the body would have endured. Wild also noted that the hands of the body masked the genitals. He said this couldn’t be right. No matter how you arrange a body after rigor mortis, he said, the hands cannot cover the genitals unless you prop up the elbows on the body and bind the hands tightly in place. Yet this is not what the shroud’s image shows.
7.The first record of the shroud’s appearance was in 1353, when Geoffrey de Charny presented it to the small local church in the French town of Lirey. Three years later, in 1356, the bishop of the region wrote to the pope, in Latin, telling of his annoyance that certain people wanted this “painted” cloth displayed as the burial cloth of Christ. The bishop added that his predecessor, Henry of Poitiers, “after diligent inquiry and examination,” had found the artist who painted it. The artist testified that “it was the work of human skill and not miraculously wrought.”
Interestingly, this date accords with the carbon-14 tests, which dated the shroud to about the first quarter of the 1300s. It also agrees with art expert Walter McCrone’s estimate of the age based on known painting styles
9.The verses that tell of Joseph of Arimathea’s wrapping Jesus in linen cloth are Matthew 27:59, Mark 15:46, Luke 23:53, and John 19:40. Look in Vine’s Expository Dictionary, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, and the Ryrie Study Bible. They all tell us the Greek words used in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (entulisso and eneileo) mean “to roll in, wind in”, “to twist, to entwine”, “to enwrap”, “to wrap by winding tightly”. Winding, twisting and entwining imply wrappings, or strips of bandage, rather than a single shroud.
But if they did mean a single sheet, then Matthew, Mark, and Luke would conflict with John 19:40, which is clearer by using the Greek word othonion, meaning “linen bandage” (Strong’s concordance). If the Bible writers had meant a single linen sheet like the shroud, the word used should have been othone (a single linen cloth, a sail, or a sheet). From this, it seems that all four Gospel writers were telling us that normal long strips of linen covered Jesus.
The Ronman Catholic Church itself does not accept the shroud as authentic. In May 2008, the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on the Shroud of Turin stated there was good reason to doubt its authenticity. These included:
•the awkward fact that many similar shrouds existed which their owners claimed showed the genuine image of Christ
•a pope in the 1300s issued a pronouncement that when the shroud was exhibited, the priest must “declare in a loud voice that it was not the real shroud of Christ”
•the admission that “no intelligible account, beyond wild conjecture, can be given of the previous history of the Shroud” before it appeared at Lirey around 1353
•this shroud, like the others, “was probably painted without fraudulent intent to aid the dramatic setting” at Easter
Playing "gotcha" games with dictionaries reflects badly on those who do it.
Revere:to regard with respect tinged with awe; venerate: The child revered her mother.
Worship:reverent honor and homage paid to God
Huge difference, there.
Deal with it.
“Do you think this is not also true of those who believe the Shroud is authentic?”
I would hope, yes.
Are you lying or merely illiterate? Not only does post 45 not say that, but Nabber hardly constitutes “various Shroudies.”
They tried this before with a very unconvincing and unsimilar copy with the Leonardo theory. Again, apparently with an amazing knowledge of first-century pollen strains from the Middle East. It’s not just the image that needs to be explained but the other organic material and evidence on the cloth. Type of cloth, weave, pollen strains, disposition of the body, first-century Hebrew burial techniques. So a mere copy doesn’t cover all the bases.
I think it's probably real, but it can NEVER be fully authenticated. The temporal authentication can be done (the pollen, the reweaving, z-twist, s-twist, whatever) but how in the world do you authenticate deity-infusion? Even if false, it recalls the Passion of Our Lord. How can that be a bad thing? If it WAS made by a man, he's not getting any money off it now.
The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of authenticity.
Huh?
The fact that a natural process hasn’t been identified doesn’t lead to the conclusion that it was a miraclous process. We don’t know is the right answer.
The carbon dating is inacurate for a number of reasons. OK, but that doesn’t lead to the conclusion that it’s older. The only thing about its age we can say is a fact is that it is at least as old as its first documented appearance (around 1200). There is no evidence indicating it is older (there’s no evidence it isn’t either.) The answer again is: we don’t know how old it is.
It contains plant matter that is only found in the middle east. OK, but the only thing that tells you is that sometime during its existance it was in the middle east. That’s it. It doesn’t say when. It could have been at the time of Christ’s burial, or 300 years later (or 300 years earlier for that matter.)
It bears an image. Even if we assume the image is of someone, who is it? There’s no evidence that it was specificly Jesus. Crucifixtion was a common practice for the Romans (as was physically abusing/beating them.) The fact that the image shows signs of physical abuse and crucifixtion does not indicate it was Jesus. Crucifixtion was too common a practice to assume that. Again, the answer is “we don’t know” when it comes to who the image is.
If you want to believe the shroud is authentic, fine. I don’t think it makes much difference one way or the other. But the bulk of the evidence doesn’t favor authenticity, it favors an unkown conclusion. In other words: we don’t know.
“Find where I didn’t say I would be thrilled if the shroud could be authenticated.”
Then why the blanket statement that my point about the natural desire for tangible heirlooms is invalid because such heirlooms are fakes from China?
And why do you refuse to engage the actual evidence and hide behind generalizing bluster about “the best evidence shows it’s a fake.”
If you’d be pleased to know it was authenticated, you are going to need to refute the immense evidence that it is authentic rather than merely repeat your belief that it is fake.
You are not really eager to see it authenticated when reveal such a hopelessly unsophisticated awareness of the evidence on both sides. Prove me wrong. Offer your evidence for it’s inauthenticity. Give me some actual facts that support your conviction.
It would seem that those who insist that they know who or what another person worships are engaged in (attempted) mind-reading.
IIRC, mind-reading (or attempts at such) are verboten here.
I used to wonder why things like the Shroud of Turin bother the anti-Catholic bigots so much, but I now realize is that their bigotry is based on the assumption that ALL Catholic tradition is invalid. They are horrified by the thought that the tilma depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe is genuine.
Already read it ... sure doesn't look (to me) like somebody is calling you an atheist.
“One that is what it purports to be”
Nice dodge. Answer the question, or be gone.
How does it feel to be considered as wasting everyone’s time?
“Shroudies”, indeed.
Beware: Massive conspiracy, dead ahead !!
The Hungarian Pray Manuscript artist seems to be familiar with the shroud, and this is around 1192-1195.
Also, historians have speculated, and I think correctly, that what is now known as the Shroud of Turin was known to the Byzantines as the Holy Mandylion of Edessa that has a historical trail back to the 6th century but which disappeared (coincidentally) at the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Though the Mandylion is often thought of as an image of the face alone, there are certain oddities in the accounts that suggest it was a much larger cloth folded in fours until only the face was visible--and one commentator I think in the 900s even said that the whole BODY of the dead Christ was imprinted on it.
“Had medieval con men been able to fake our Lord’s burial shroud, they would have faked as many as possible.”
Correct. And they did. Indeed, look at my post from the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia. The innumerous fake “true burial clothes” is one of the reasons the RCC gives for doubting the authenticity of the “relic.”
Worship: v. to render religious reverence and homage to.
Hmmmm...interesting that you highlighted the word "reverence" in both these definitions, but conveniently ignored the word "homage" also present in both definitions. Since both words are included in both definitions, wouldn't both be required to make the definition accurate?
By the way, here is a discussion of the Pray Manuscript evidence:
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/terms/Hungarian_Pray_Manuscript.htm
“Then why the blanket statement that my point about the natural desire for tangible heirlooms is invalid because such heirlooms are fakes from China?”
I don’t disagree about the natural desire for tangible heirlooms. You claimed I had no such desire, which is false. I merely point out that there should be no such attachment to fake heirlooms.
“If you’d be pleased to know it was authenticated, you are going to need to refute the immense evidence that it is authentic rather than merely repeat your belief that it is fake.”
See my post above. It’s largely from the Roman Catholic Encylopedia, which disputes the validity of the Shroud.
The fake shrouds were dismissed as fake shrouds from the outset. That has NEVER been the case with the Shroud of Turin. Statements by Pope John Paul II certainly indicate that he believed it was real.
Why would it bother you if it was proven beyond doubt to be real?
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