Zygophyllum dumosum Boiss
Posted on 10/23/2014 8:22:07 PM PDT by Steelfish
Turin Shroud Was Made For Medieval Easter Ritual, Historian Says Charles Freeman believes relic venerated as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth dates from 14th century and was used as a prop
Charlotte Higgins 23 October 2014.
The Turin shroud, revered by some as the burial cloth of Jesus, dates from the middle ages, historian says. Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP When it is exhibited next year in Turin, for the first time in five years, 2 million people are expected to pour into the city to venerate a four-metre length of woven cloth as the shroud in which Jesus Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion, and on to which was transferred his ghostly image.
Despite the fact that the cloth was radiocarbon-dated to the 14th century in 1988, an array of theories continue to be presented to support its authenticity – including, this year, the idea from scientists at the Politecnico di Torino that an earthquake in AD 33 may have caused a release of neutrons responsible for the formation of the image.
But, according to research by British scholar and author Charles Freeman, to be published in the journal History Today, the truth is that the shroud is not only medieval, just as the radiocarbon dating suggests, but that it is likely to have been created for medieval Easter rituals – an explanation that flies in the face of what he called “intense and sometimes absurd speculation” that coalesces around it.
Freeman, the author of Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe, studied early descriptions and illustrations of the shroud. None predates 1355, the year of its first documented appearance in a chapel in Lirey near Troyes in France, before it was acquired by the House of Savoy in 1453 and “converted into a high-prestige relic”...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
It makes no sense at all. There exists a totally inexplicable artifact. No scientist can explain it. We cannot create anything like it today. Encoded on it is information no artist from the 14th Century could possibly have known. It is not a painting. It is not a photograph. It is a 3D Terrain Map of a man who was scourged, crucified, and was certainly dead. His wounds and crucifixion match exactly those described in the Gospels. He did not putrefy and rot. No one can come up with anything similar in history or art like it.
Why is it such a stretch to think that God may have done it? It is either that or believe that some unsung polymath genius of the 1300s came up with a Phenomenal artistic and pan-historic knowledge such that he somehow knew to include dust of a type of Travertine Aragonite, a stone that only exists outside of the gates of East Jerusalem, only on the back side of the buttocks and where the feet rested, and and also included among dozens of images of flowers and their pollens on the cloth, one image of a flower than went extinct 1200-1300 years ago and 400 years before he worked his fraud, a flower that only grew and flowered in the spring in a 40 mile radius around Jerusalem. . . and incorporated techniques that can baffle science 700 years later with an artifact that totally defies logic. . . so that 116 years after we discovered the negative/positive nature of the image, scientists are STILL completely stumped about an object that has been called "the single most scientifically studied object in history."
Which is the greater miracle? That a known miracle worker left behind a miracle, or that an unknown did?
Yes, and no. The Grail certainly existed (if you accept that passage in the Bible as literal truth). Jesus is described as sharing a last supper with his disciples and drinking from a cup. Whether that cup still exists is a question, but it existed if you accept the Bible as true. similarly for the Cross and a shroud. Whether a particular artifact is authentic and the degree to which they matter today is a different question, but I am firmly convinced that they exist or at least existed.
Matthew 26:27,27 - Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Luke 24:12 - But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.
Matthew 27:35 - Then they crucified Him
Matthew 27:59 - When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth
It’s a dot matrix image with a resolution equal to the best commercial printer, containing 3D info, on both sides of the cloth, yet the image is not on the cloth fibers but on the thin film of dried soapwort which was left on the cloth when it was made. Pretty neat trick.
bttt
To the naysayers no matter how much proof or evidence they are shown they will still not believe it, kind of like the Jewish Pharisees of old.
Care to explain how the 3-D image in the Shroud was created?
“belief ‘in’ a thing such as ... a piece of cloth is not right.”
I bet the people who were healed by Paul handkerchief (Acts19:12) might disagree with you. The woman with the hemorrhage touched the hem of Jesus’ robe and was healed. Peter’s shadow healed (Acts 5:15).
I’m not saying that one should worship a handkerchief, a robe, or a shroud as objects. But items connected to holy people can be venerated.
Question: Why so important to believe in things vs. just trusting in the Word? Does it matter if the shroud is authentic or not? If so, why does it matter. Why should it matter? How can one prove its authenticity? How does it affect the incredible gift of the Blood of the Lamb?
I agree with you with one caveat. For me it is immaterial if the Shroud dates from the Middle Ages. Ultimately, my Salvation is not dependent upon a length of cloth.
There are many scientific types who rebuff references to the Word and don’t believe in the Blood of Jesus. But they look at the Shroud and come across a number of things science can’t explain or explain away. And so those who rejected faith and the Word of a God have started journeys leading to belief. No one HAS to believe the Shroud is authentic but it can be a seed that leads to conversion.
Perfectly good questions. But you leave out one more perfectly good question. The shroud is there. What do you make of it?
I don't know or care what it is - I believe that He died, He was buried, and He rose again. I believe the cross existed and that some folks think they have some of the wood from it - it matters not as the wood of the cross is irrelevant. The shroud is as vital to the Truth as an image of the virgin Mary on a piece of moldy bread is - people can make much of nothing and lose sight of what is real and important - these 'artifacts" are diversions.
Why put one truth against another? If the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus then we should accept the truth of it. Nor does this mean that my faith is based upon it. There are items of my deceased parents that I cherish just because they were theirs. Just so, I do not have faith because of the Shroud but cherish the Shroud because I have faith.
Those who don't believe at all have an explanation for everything, it seems. Why not just accept that there is some kind of higher being that often works its will through scientific means?
Zygophyllum dumosum Boiss
Bunch of iconoclasts around here.
Sometimes even the scientific has to confess its limits. Release of neutrons from an earthquake?
The Shroud we have could well be the real McCoy. But how about the Savior whom it wrapped? The Shroud can’t come to you in your distress and love you. It can’t perpetually pardon your sins. It can’t arrange answers to your prayers that could have only come from God. These capabilities belong squarely to the divine.
There ya go...using logic again.
Eggheads. How do most photographic images get on a surface? Some sort of photographic process I'll bet. A chemically receptive surface and lots of light.
Think of the shadows in Hiroshima.
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