But in the scheme of things it just doesn't matter, does it?
Posted on 11/20/2009 12:00:11 PM PST by markomalley
A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.
Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.
The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next Spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.
However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.
Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Maranatha.......Come Lord Jesus!
I took the picture that you posted as an effeminate mockery of Jesus, whether you intended it or not. Jesus was a hale and hearty carpenter, not a drugged out 60s freak. That picture is NOT of a strong and work hardened carpenter.
But in the scheme of things it just doesn't matter, does it?
If I recall correctly, I think I read that the error wasn’t in the carbon dating but in the sample of cloth which was used for the carbon dating - it was of a repaired area and I think there were indications of woven repairs made over the centuries and the sample was not from the main original cloth where the corporal stains were located. Of course that raises more questions such as in whose interest is it to sample such a repaired area of the cloth?
Wasn’t there a later carbon dating that went back to the 1st century?
I'll allow it. :)
LOL - one of my fav. movies too .... Dogma ....
Not going there, not even to take the dogma for a walk...
It says “Burn after reading”.
Notice where it says: “Unique linen clothing” ... no wrapping ...
According to Jewish law, burial of the deceased had to occur within 24 hours of the individual’s death (Deuteronomy 21:23), because of climate factors, in order to maintain ritual purity. Soon after death, family members of the deceased would mourn and prepare the body for burial. The deceased’s body was washed and anointed with various oils and spices. The body was then wrapped in unique linen clothing that contained spices and placed on a stone shelf that was carved into the bedrock wall of a the tomb.
It does not say strips of linen ... even today we Jews use a shroud as large as a sheet ....
And where did you pull this reference from? Not Deut. 21:23.
“his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.”
All that indicates is that the body should be buried on the same day. It doesn’t indicate anything about how the body is to be prepared. You surely can’t be saying a body can’t be wrapped in linen strips in less than 24 hours, can you?
I found where you pulled your quote here (if I’m wrong, please provide another link): http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com/back_to_basics/burial_practices/jewish_law.html .
It doesn’t mention a sheet or strips of linen, just uses the term “unique linen clothing”. Neither a sheet or strips of cloth would qualify as clothing in the conventional sense, so it’s a stretch to say clothing = sheet.
Unique? One of a kind. Unusual. Strange.
I’m sorry, I don’t see how the phrase “unique linen clothing” equates to “big linen sheet”.
I’ll refer you to the story of Lazarus:
The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go. (John 11:44)
The word translated as bound is the same one later to used to describe Jesus’ wrappings and means as though to have chains wrapped around you.
The word translated as wrappings here is “keiria” which means: 1) a band, either for bed-girth, or for tying up a corpse after it has been swathed in linen (swathed, btw, means “To wrap or bind with or as if with bandages.”)
The word translated as cloth here is soudarion which means: 1) a handkerchief 2) a cloth for wiping perspiration from the face and for cleaning the nose and also used in swathing the head of a corpse.
Note the parallel to John 20:6-7
And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying {there,} and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. (John 20:6-7)
The word translated as wrappings (twice) is othonion which means: 1) a piece of linen, small linen cloth 2) strips of linen cloth for swathing the dead.
The word translated as face-cloth here is again soudarion meaning: 1) a handkerchief 2) a cloth for wiping perspiration from the face and for cleaning the nose and also used in swathing the head of a corpse.
Neither of these descriptions from the Bible are consistent with using a large sheet. They ARE consistent with the body being wrapped with linen strips and a smaller cloth used to cover the face.
I understand all about tradition, and how things are done “even today”, but that doesn’t override what the Bible actually says. You’ve yet to address the main point: why the Bible indicates linen strips and a face cloth, NOT a large linen sheet.
I understand that the spot sampled was repaired after a fire sometime in the 15th-16th Century (may be wrong on the date). So if the material used was contemporary to that time, the carbon dating would be from that time.
From what I gather, some of the more compelling evidence consists of pollen particles vacuumed from there. I understand that some of them come from plants that are native only to that area (Jerusalem and environs)
As to why somebody would do this, I can't speak to somebody's motives with any kind of authority. So I won't.
Since His first miracle was to keep the party going in Cana ... maybe that pic is a pretty good likeness ;-)
Church ladies everywhere have just disowned me.
The researcher who made the claim works for the Vatican.
Conflict of interest?
Whatever ... I’ve seen enough Jewish funerals to know different .... thanks and take care ....
Nah ... my kinda guy .....
bumpus ad summum
You can if you date, as has now been proved, a cotton patch on a Linen (Flax) shroud.
Not one Jewish burial has every been found done in such a manner. None. There is a large extant body of written history and documents in the Jewish traditions from the period that describe the proper techniques... and what you describe is NOT in them. What is being described is a confabulation of Egyptian burial practices that were being discovered and were written about in the popular press and it was assumed that every middle eastern burial was similar. Modern archaeology and Jewish scholarship have shown the truth to be far different than what you describe above. Preservation of the body was not a goal in Jewish burials. The bodies were intended to be reduced to bones which were then collected and then joined with the bones of their family ancestors in a central ossuary pit in the center of the tomb after a year or so of separate decomposition. Wrapping and preservatives would have been counter productive to this purpose. Consider Lazarus who was able to leave his tomb under his own power... he was could not have been wrapped in such a manner and been able to move.
The Jews did bind the wrists, ankles and the jaw with strips or bands of cloth or small ropes to keep the arms and legs from flopping akimbo and the jaw from gaping open. Similarly, to keep the eyes closed, pot sherds or coins were placed on the closed eyes to keep them closed. Often a Sudarium (sweat cloth) would be rolled like a kerchief and passed under the jaw, behind the ears, and tied over the top of the head to keep the mouth closed in death. There is evidence that on the Shroud of this... and the face cloth, the Sudarium of Oviedo (kept in the Cathedral of Oviedo Spain since the 6th Century and bearing blood stains with 78 points of congruence with blood stains on the Shroud of Turin), that was "wrapped about the face," bears patterns that show signs of having been rolled and tied in just such a manner.
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