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.
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. True. 1st Century Jews used several cloths in burial. Two small ones or ropes were used to bind the wrists and ankles to prevent the limbs from flopping out of the niche. A third cloth or binding was used to go around the head (under the chin and over the crown) to bind the mouth shut. If it could be afforded because they were very expensive, a large sindon or Shroud. If not, then they used modesty cloths over the genitals and face. These were often sudarions, sweat cloths that had been used to wipe the sweat from the face, or to bind around the forehead to prevent sweat from dropping into the eyes. In toto, these were othonia, grave clothes.
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.
Both true. And that separate piece was wrapped around Jesus head... first when he was dead, but still on the Cross, and then while he was carried to the tomb, as a modesty cloth to hide the face of the dead man from onlookers.
That cloth still exists. It is called the Sudarium of Oviedo, and has been in a Cathedral in Oviedo, Spain since the sixth century. The Sudarium has a bloody handprint on it that matches someone carrying a supine body, with the hand over the downward facing nose in support of the head. The blood stains on the Sudarium match the blood stains on the head of the Shroud image with over 75 points of congruence.
After the body was brought to the tomb, this temporary modesty cloth on the head was removed and then rolled diagonally into a kerchief rope and used to bind the jaw closed by passing it under the beard below the chin and up, and over the crown where it was tied, a known Jewish burial custom.
I would conjecture that after the resurrection, with Christ arising from the shroud, he stood and found his jaw still bound shut. As he walked out of the tomb, He removed the sudarium from about his head and either dropped it or placed it apart from the other grave clothes he left lying in the niche. This rolled (wrapped) sudarium was sufficiently far enough away from the other grave clothes to indicate to observers that it was a secondary act to removing the other grave clothes, the shroud, and the wrist and ankle bindings.
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). . .
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.
See above: Linen strips probably did bind the ankles and wrists as well as the jaw closed. As to the large sheet like shroud, The King James Bible states:
- In Mathew 27: 59 " And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,"
in the original Greek: "59και λαβων το σωμα ο ιωσηφ ενετυλιξεν αυτο [εν] σινδονι καθαρα". . .
the word in bold is "sindoni." In English, a Shroud or a large Sheet.
- In Mark 15: 46 "And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre."
Again in the original Greek: "και αγορασας σινδονα καθελων αυτον ενειλησεν τη σινδονι και εθηκεν αυτον εν μνηματι ο ην λελατομημενον εκ πετρας και προσεκυλισεν λιθον επι την θυραν του μνημειου." There's that troublesome word again: "sindoni," a shroud or a large sheet.
- In John 19: 40 "Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury."
Back to the original Greek: "ελαβον ουν το σωμα του ιησου και εδησαν αυτο οθονιοις μετα των αρωματων καθως εθος εστιν τοις ιουδαιοις ενταφιαζειν"
This time the word in bold is "Othonia." In English: Grave Clothes, a more generic term for all of the cloths used in the burial. Othonia would be inclusive of the bindings used on the wrists, ankles, and Jaw, and a shroud or modesty cloths.
As for Strong's Concordance, it was compiled at a time when the Egyptian mummies and their burial practices were all the rage. Many thought that all middle eastern burials were handled in a similar fashion. As a result, the interpretations of the original Greek were distorted by that awareness of Egyptian burial practices. It is not Biblical. If you note, the definition of the Greek words "entulisso and eneileo" are fixated on the more extreme meanings rather than the more common original Greek meaning of "to enwrap," which is easily understood if you place the body on a cloth and pull the rest over the head and down over the feet... you enwrap it. However, given the period, and the state of scientific archaeology, this is understandable. Archaeology was concentrated on Egypt and that is what the saw in Egyptian burials: tight wrappings entwined around the body binding it. At the time Strongs was compiles, no serious archaeology had been done to unearth 1st Century Jewish burials in Jerusalem to find out just exactly HOW Jews were buried. It was prohibited by the Muslims who were in control of that area.
You, and the skeptics page that you cut and paste this entire post from, choose to ignore the clear meaning of the word "σινδονι", sindoni, which is quite explicitly a large cloth, which the synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Mark both use in the original Greek. They also choose to ignore the plurailty of Grave Clothes which is another meaning to the word "οθονιοις ," othonia, plural and colloquially used for the multiple cloths in a set of grave clothes used for Jewish Burial.
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.
Walter C. McCrone is the ONLY researcher of the Shroud who REFUSED to have his work peer-reviewed despite his agreement to do so in order to be given samples. His ONLY publications on the Shroud were in his own vanity press magazine The Microscopist published by McCrone Research Inc., and sometimes edited by Walter C. McCrone. His findings (the shroud was painted with vermilion [HgS] and red ochre/iron oxide [Fe2O3] paint in a dilute egg albumin solution) have been completely DISPROVED in peer-reviewed scientific journals by scientists using far more sensitive instruments that McCrone's optical microscope.
NOT ONE other researcher looking at what McCrone looked at has seen what McCrone claims to have seen. While there are scattered Fe2O3 and HgS particles on the shroud, they are randomly scattered, contaminating both image and non-image areas. At no time are there sufficient concentrations of either to rise to visibility.
McCrone sees "paint". This cannot possibly be in agreement with what we now KNOW forms the image:
The substance is a dried carbohydrate mixture of starch fractions and various saccharides (sugars). It is as thin (180 to 600 nanometers) as the wall of a soap bubble. It is thinner than the invisible glare proof coating on modern eyeglasses. . . In some places the coating has turned a golden brown. This is the result of a chemical change: the formation of a complex carbon-carbon double molecular bond within the coating. There are two ways this could have happened chemically: 1) caramelization, whereby heat caused molecular breakdown into other volatile compounds and 2) a Maillard reaction in which a carbonyl group of sugars reacted with an amino group producing N-substituted glycosylamine. An unstable glycosylamine undergoes Amadori rearrangement, forming ketosamines, which then form nitrogenous polymers and melanoidins. Voila, pictures of Jesus. There is a problem with caramelization. The amount of heat required for browning would also heat the cellulose fiber sufficiently to change its crystalline structure and cause it to change color as well. That has not happened. Where a picture bearing bit of coating is removed, either with adhesive or with a reducing agent such as diimide, the fiber beneath is clear and un-ablated.
A Maillard reaction seems more promising because of the presence of amines needed for a Maillard reaction. Of course, it didn't need to be Jesus; at least chemically. It could have been any recently deceased person.
Ergo, NO paint! No Pigments! This alone discredits McCrone.
Microscopist McCrone claims "No Blood on the Shroud" McCrone goes further and baldly states the "blood stains" are merely a Vermillion (HgS) and Iron Oxide paint mixture. He also states categorically that the Iron Oxide is "earthen" in nature and could not come from blood. Yet world renowned experts on blood, blood fractions, blood remnants, and forensic blood disagree.
Let's look at other tests done by scientists who don't rely on what they can see through a microscope, say the pyrolysis mass spectrometer tests and micro X-Ray spectroscopy and electron microscopy—much more discriminating instruments that reveal much more than what can be seen through a light microscope—that show that what vermillion (HgS) exists on the shroud is again, random, insufficient to be visible, and not associated with the blood stains.
Instead of discredited McCrone, take the testimony of chemist Dr. Alan Adler and biophysicist Dr. John Heller, experts on blood and blood fractions, who state categorically in peer-reviewed scientific Journals, that the blood stains consist of hemoglobin and its derivatives. Aside from light microscopy, Heller and Adler tested for:
- hemochromagen (positive),
- cyanmethemoglobin (positive),
- bile pigment bilirubin (positive),
- proteolytic enzymes (positive),
- human specific protein albumin (positive),
- presence of serum halos around stains (positive),
- immunological determination that the blood is of primate origin.
Perhaps we should look at Yale University's Dr. Joseph Gall's spectrophotometer tests that showed the blood absorbing light in 410 nanometers... a test that he states is "specific" for blood as "nothing else in nature that absorbs light at four hundred ten nanometers that strongly". Or perhaps we should accept the word of Dr. Bruce Cameron, whose "double doctorate is dedicated to hemoglobin in all its many forms", who on reviewing the test results stated "You both should know what it is. It's old acid met-hemoglobin." (a remnant compound of aged blood.)
Ergo, according to some of the world's top experts on blood, the blood stains on the Shroud of Turin, are exactly that... blood stains. Again McCrone's bald statements are refuted. I could also go into McCrone's attempts to sabotage other researcher's work including preventing his own colleagues from having access to the samples of Shroud threads he had.
You want sources?
Adler, Alan. "The origin and nature of blood on the Turin Shroud" in Turin Shroud - Image of Christ? William Meacham, ed. (Hong Kong: Turin Shroud Photographic Exhibition Organising Committee, 1987), 57-9. Adler, Alan." Updating Recent Studies on the Shroud of Turin" Archaeological Chemistry: Organic, Inorganic, and Biochemical Analysis, American Chemical Society Symposium Series No. 625, Chapter 17 (1996), 223-8.
Ford, David. "The Shroud of Turin 'Blood' Images: Blood or Paint? A History of Science Inquiry" University of Maryland Baltimore (2000), PDF file, "http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ford1.pdf", 2/17/2005. Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin", Applied Optics 19:2742-4 (1980).
Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin", Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal 14: 81-103 (1981).
Porter, Daniel. "The Chemical Nature of the Shroud" http://www.shroudstory.com/faq-chemistry.htm/ (2005), 2/17/2005.
Rogers, Raymond N. "New Tests Prove 1988 Carbon 14 Dating Invalid: Shroud of Turin Shown to be Much Older". Thermochimica ActaVolume 425: 189-194, (2005).
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. Both of Father Wild's conjectures turned out to be false when work was done by real scientists, not Jesuit Priests. As for the hands being in an unnatural position, the body was in rigor and somewhat hunched. And as noted above, the Jewish practice WAS to bind the wrists in place. However, the hands DO NOT cover the genitals. The image on the Shroud's penis is visible under computer enhancement. If you're wondering, he was circumcised. The authority on this is Barrie M. Schwartz, the principle light photographer of the Shroud of Turin Research Project.
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.”
There is a clear documentary record of the permissions vis-a-vis the Shroud granted to de Charny and to his wife extant in the Papal records. De Charny requested permission of the Pope to build his chapel to house and display the Shroud. It is HE who suggested restrictions on its display and assured the Pope that he would not accept donations or charge admission. This is a very rare request... most people who possessed a "relic" merely opened up shop and started accepting donations from the public.
There are also records in the Regency files about the rente De Charney paid to support the church in Lirey out of his own coffers. There are also the records of the Bishop of Troyes. They are in agreement about the nature of the exhibitions of the Shroud before de Charny's death. It is only after his death and his wife's and daughter's determination to display the shroud as an object of veneration did controversy arise. The one letter which raises the question of "the painter who painted it" is merely a draft—indicating it is a letter the Bishop intended to send—with marginalia indicating changes and deletions. This draft copy exists only in the Bishop's files and there is no original "transmitted" letter in the Bishop's files, or any received copy in either Avignon or in Rome, which, given the completeness of the files in both locations, would tend to indicate it was never sent. It is worth noting that Pierre D'Arcis, the Bishop of Troyes who was supposedly writing the letter, only moved to Troyes AFTER the death of his predecessor, In other words, it is likely he never spoke to the man. There are no records, aside from the draft letter, in either D'Arcis' records or in Henri's archives or in the See of Troyes records of any such investigation left behind for D'Arcis to read. It is possible they existed but were destroyed... but that would be odd, considering everything else was kept. There is indication that the Pope was appraised of the situation because he issued a permission to de Charny's family to continue to display the Shroud AND ordered the Bishop to perpetual silence on the matter. The Pope, although never having seen the shroud, did order that it be displayed only as a "representation of the Shroud of Our Lord."
I am really glad you showed up on the thread. It is amazing to see this story fall to pieces with only a minor effort to bring forth real facts.
