The Shroud of Turin: The Mystery that Science and Technology Will Someday Solve
3D modeling depicted in the 2010 documentary The Real Face of Jesus? as seen on The History Channel.
Why is one of the most enduring mysteries of mankind still unresolved?
With all the 21st century technology available to scientists, why does the faded image of a tortured man on a blood-stained cloth allegedly dating back 2000 years still baffle the scientific community?
Of course the mystery I am alluding to is the Shroud of Turin – an artifact that millions of Christians believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus.
For about 20 years I have been interested in the Shroud of Turin. Then in 2010, when it went on public display for only 44 days in Turin, Italy, I was fortunate to be among the two million people who saw it in person.
My two decades of reading about the Shroud culminated in a first-hand look and led me to believe that this is the physical evidence proving that Jesus Christ was in fact resurrected from the dead.
So why should you care about the Shroud of Turin, especially if you practice a faith that does not include Jesus or have no faith at all?
There are two answers: First, just plain intellectual curiosity about the world’s most studied and mysterious relic. Second, sometime in the not-so-distant future, technology will enable scientists to prove that this was the burial cloth of the resurrected Christ. So get ready.
In the meantime, what science has or has not been able to confirm about the Shroud is also instructive.
The Shroud with side burn marks and an artist rendering of what the man in the image might have looked like.
Yes, Jesus, that still-controversial figure whose very birth defines the time of man between B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, Latin for “Year of our Lord”), is the central focus of the Shroud.
Now, if that is enough to deter you from continuing to read this piece or pursuing further exploration on your own, it is worth remembering that Jesus was also an historical figure mentioned in official Roman documents, in addition to all the New Testament books of the Bible.
But regardless of whether you believe Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected, it cannot be disputed that he was then and still is today the most influential being who has ever existed in all human history.
Jesus Christ’s influence on the world in terms of culture, history, kingdoms, religion, empires, war, art, music, architecture, printing, human relations, charity, literature, exploration, population relocation, medicine, education, holidays, etc., cannot be refuted.
In other words, if you live on this planet, Jesus has had an effect on your life whether you care to acknowledge Him or not. (An excellent book on this subject, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, was written by Dr. D. James Kennedy in 1994.)
Conversely, if Jesus had not been resurrected, the world’s largest religion, Christianity, would not have grown and thrived for centuries and Jesus’ influence on mankind would have been minimal or non-existent.
So that is why the mysterious Shroud, which could prove Christ’s physical resurrection — the foundation of Christianity, is still an open and active cause célèbre among believers in Jesus’ divinity and members of the scientific community who continue to study the Shroud and remain intrigued by its unique properties.
A computer-generated image of Jesus under the Shroud before the resurrection.
Some important questions about the Shroud that remain unanswered are:
Q. What force caused the man’s image on the cloth to be imprinted?
A. The latest theory from a 2012 study was that radiation was released in the form of an electrical discharge.
Q. What was the substance used to form the imprint of the man?
A. Scientists are in agreement that no paints, pigments, dyes, or stains have been discovered that could have made the image of that battered man. Furthermore, the substance forming the image sits on top and does not penetrate the cloth. This amazing finding only adds to the mystery.
Q. Why are the marks on the man totally consistent with the biblical account of the wounds suffered by Jesus Christ?
A. This is well-documented but still a mystery.
Q. Why is the human blood found on the cloth separate from the unknown material that forms the man’s image?
A. Scientists have discovered that the blood found on the cloth was there before the man’s image was imprinted.
Q. Why are the weaving and pollen found on the Shroud consistent with the type of cloth weaving and pollen dating back to the time of Jesus in the area around Jerusalem?
A. New studies point to this exciting fact leaving more clues as to the date of the cloth.
Q. How did the cloth survive numerous fires and wars over the centuries?
A. The history of the Shroud is marked with many close calls of potential destruction. For example, a fire in 1532 was responsible for the most extensive burn marks visible along both sides of the Shroud.
Q. Is the Shroud real?
A. The question for the ages for which there is still no answer.
However, the radiocarbon dating performed in 1988 on a small piece of the outer Shroud cloth “proving” that the Shroud dated back to only the Middle Ages was debunked by a noted American chemist named Raymond Rogers. Rogers proved conclusively that the sample used for dating was not part of the original image area but was sewn on during the Middle Ages after a fire damaged the outer edges of the Shroud.
Then back in March of 2010, just in time for Easter and a month before the Shroud was openly displayed in Turin, Italy, the History channel aired a special documentary on the Shroud using the latest 3D modeling technology. The documentary earned historic ratings, according to director Trey Nelson.
If you have not seen this program called The Real Face of Jesus?, it is worth viewing. (See the entire program embedded above.) The popular documentary was based on an “unprecedented feat of science and technology” and relied “on the most sophisticated electronic tools and software available.”
At the end of the film there is a face of a man, computer-modeled from the Shroud visage, that is presented as representing the true face of Jesus Christ if indeed the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus.
In the future you can expect to see more of these kinds of studies, since 3D-modeling technology is evolving quickly. Now since this science applied to the Shroud is especially intriguing (and profitable for the History channel) Sindonology — the term used to describe the formal study of the Shroud — will benefit greatly from any new modeling breakthroughs.
Therefore it is with full faith that I believe science and technology together will eventually unravel the great enduring mystery of the Shroud of Turin. Sometime in the coming decades (or maybe even sooner) there will be an unveiling of hard evidence (akin to a “smoking gun”) proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that this cloth bears witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For nothing is impossible with God.
The Shroud of Turin has been “solved” many times. It is a “pious fraud”, and was known to be one withen years of it’s unveiling.
Links please?
Pre internet.
Check:
http://www.csicop.org/si/
and enter “shroud of Turin” for more recent.
Tantalizing. Please explain.
It’s many years since I read about it, but from what I recall the gentleman who found it admitted to painting it.
But more to the point, suppose everything claimed about the shroud is true. Suppose it’s a miracle connected to one of the countless Jewish saints to be crucified. It still would not mean it’s Jesus.
From what I read, no one found it. It has been in Turin from the 1500′s and science has proven it was not painted. The plain fact is that there was a record of a smaller shroud, folded perhaps, in Constantinople which found its way there through a torturous route through the Middle East. We can’t prove that Shroud was the same as the larger, unfolded Shroud in Turin from the Renaissance period, but the Jesus paintings from the early Constinople period before the year 1000, Year of our Lord, looked just like the immage on the Shroud of Turin and on the smaller Constantinople Shroud. The Shroud shows up in Turin historically, just after Constinople falls to the Turks to become Istanbul. Why, historically, does the image of Jesus on all the art before the 1500′s look just like the Face on the Shroud? I have read alot about the Shroud, but I have never read that anybody admitted to “finding it” or “painting it.” You say it was written now give me his name and what year he said he found it, and where. And what was its connection with the Shroud of Constantinople which had the same Face on it as the Shroud of Turin?
Why should I trust the opinion of a man who doesn’t know the difference between the possessive form of “it” and the contraction, “it is”?
Minor leaguers should restrain themselves from entering into debates for which they are intellectually ill-equipped.
Ooooo. Spell flame. Such a devastating rebuttal.
“It is (or it’s, if you prefer) better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
But there’s nothing to rebut. You’ve said…exactly…NOTHING. The link you supplied…is…exactly…USELESS. Although you clearly want to be perceived as some sort of expert here, you didn’t do any of the hard work needed to persuade others to put any faith in your opinion.
So instead of rebutting you (since there was nothing to rebut), I was really just mocking you.
Phil,
Did you even read Ms. Adams’ piece fully and go into at least some of the links? If you had you would not have so cavalierly dismissed her excellent analysis. I’ve also studied “Shroud science” for some time and if it is a fake, it has to be one ginned up by aliens because no human could have concocted it. That much seems to have been established by science. We definitely know what it isn’t but no scientist has been able to figure how it was “faked.”
One of the foremost experts on the Shroud is Barry Schwortz, a Jew who last I heard had not “come to Jesus” even though he apparently believes the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus after years of study and analysis. Barry’s website is http://www.shroud.com and it is linked in Adams’ essay. Indeed, he began to study and photograph the Shroud with the intention of debunking it but eventually became convinced that it is the genuine article. Instead of insulting Myra Adams you and the other naysayers who have commented thus far might visit Schwortz’s website and see if you can engage him in a dialogue on this amazing phenomenon.
Why re read the hundredth rehash of an old scam? It’s been disproven so many times I’m astounded people are still being fooled into believing it.
Your credibility is zero. And it’s not just because of your 2nd-grade level grammar.
Any discussion of the Shroud of Turin, if particularly in dissent, must take into account the Sudarium of Oviedo.
See, for example:
http://www.shroud.com/guscin.htm
I saw a documentary on the Shroud of Turin a couple of years ago. I believe it was on the Discovery channel. It revealed that the Shroud is actually a photograph, which is why the image could not be seen until it was viewed as a photographic negative.
All the chemicals to process a photograph were in existence in the Middle Ages. They just weren’t used to process photographs until much later. This Italian scientist showed exactly how it was created, using sunlight, refractive lenses and commonly available photo-chemicals.
There are actually three overlapping images on the Shroud, front, back and head. Since we have no contemporary sketches or paintings of Jesus, we have no idea what he actually looked like. But the face on the Shroud does bear a striking resembance on one Leonardo Da Vinci, who probably created it.
Statues do not cry tears of blood. The image of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, did not appear in Mexico until after the Spanish conquest. It’s as obvious a fake as the Shroud.
If you need such nonsense to justify your faith, you don’t have any faith. You just have nonsense.
What else do you need? A sliver of wood from the Cross, the spear head that pierced the side of Jesus, Veronica’s veil, the Holy Grail? Chaucer noted that church leaders have been using frauds such as these to fool people for centuries.
I suppose that if the Shroud really is the burial cloth of Christ, we’re also supposed to believe that Henry VIII was divinely inspired to found the Anglican Church. Or that Jesus really did miraculously appear in America and found the Mormon Church. Lots of people believe that. Doesn’t make it true, does it.
I don’t need a burial cloth, a sliver of wood, a spear head, a veil, or a grail to justify my faith. I believe in the Sacraments. Jesus founded the Sacraments. The Apostles founded the Church. The Church, or rather the men in the Church, wrote the Bible decades, even centuries, after the Cruxifixion.
Blind faith is exactly that, blind. This article is ridiculous.
Amen to that, brother.
The Almighty doesn’t do parlor tricks. If that’s what you require, I recommend you switch to Voudon or Santeria.
Or more likely, the Shroud was formed by X-rays from the moment of the Resurrection burning the image onto the shroud just as a cathode ray-tube will burn an image of the back of a TV-set onto the wall behind it.
Unfortunately, your comment offers us little more than circular reasoning. You start with the premise that “The shroud is a fake”; conclude from there that Church leaders who point to the shroud as possibly authentic are therefore just “fooling” people; conclude from there that people who take the shroud seriously are therefore “fools” without “any faith”; and conclude from there that, since only faithless fools take the shroud seriously, the shroud is obviously “nonsense” — which of course was your initial premise.
Instead of the article being “ridiculous,” I’d say your comment is.
I call it the Babel Fish argument.
I’ve traveled all over SouthEast Asia and South Asia and frankly I’ve lost count of the number of Buddhist temples I’ve been to that claimed to have tooth or a hair or piece of bone, or a fingernail or some other body part of Buddha inside it. For the totality of these claims to be true, one would have to believe that A) the religion Buddha spread all over Asia was worshipped by millions of Asians by the time he died (false) and B) upon his death, his body was dismembered by hundreds of temple founders, each from different locations all across Asia (absurd). Faith is one thing, but religious relics are all scams.
“All” is too broad a brush, but enough are that they should be regarded as fake unless a lot more proof is offered than is generally the case. And “faith” is not proof.
Well, to quote Martin Luther in speaking about relics, he was amazed that of the 12 Apostles, 18 of them were buried in Germany.
Nevertheless, simply because there are multiple copies of a venerated object, subject to the con artistry of the nature of Man (who falls short of the glory of God), that does not dispose of the fact that there can be an original.
In my study of religious archeology of that area, I was struck by the fact that very early depictions of Christ were varied, but after we can trace evidence of the (a) shroud of this description to Constantinople, we begin to see a uniform image of Christ begin to appear.
Skeptics are quick to dismiss early accounts as mere legend, but accept other stories that have far less evidence. Their dismissals just show them to be unbelievers, without applying a serious study of the evidence.
Gawain,
You are wrong from the get-go. It has been definitely proven that the image on the Shroud was NOT imprinted through photography.
And before you dismiss Marian apparitions, you should carefully study the facts of Lourdes, Fatima and Guadelupe. All three sets of appearances clearly occurred and empirical evidence left behind. It seems that you are a Christian of sorts, so heed my warning that Jesus does not appreciate it when someone disses His Mother!
You also might find interesting the scientific evidence uncovered by Simcha, the “Naked Archaeologist” in his specials on the Int’l History channel. Simcha, a Jew, argues convincingly that God used earthly phenomenon to carry a number of the Old Testament miracles, such as the parting of the Red Sea for Moses and his flock.
The Lord realizes that man is weak in his faith and profits from being able to see empirical evidence of God’s existence. That way, there is NO excuse for those who won’t believe……
The provenance of the tilma is unbroken since its revelation on December 9, 1531. If it were a forgery, the ayate material would have disintegrated over 400 years ago.
The existence of fakes and forgeries does not prove that there are no true relics.
I thought this was interesting:
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=11273
Tiny reflections on someone’s pupils, at slightly different angles, would be kind of difficult to paint.
Thanks for publishing this. Much more uplifting than the service I went to this morning!
You have made my day! (But recommend you find a more uplifting church)
Actually, the shroud does have a human image, and we know his name. Brian. Brian Cohen. He was Jesus’s neighbor, and frequently mistaken for the Messiah, and it’s happened again.
“Wewease Bwian!”
He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.
Any article that starts out with “science will eventually prove such-and-such” can’t possibly be about science.
If you “know” the eventual outcome of a future experiment, then it’s not an experiment, it’s just confirming your bias.
You can hope the experiments confirm your desired outcome; but you can’t say ahead of time that you know it will come out as you wish.
From an historian’s perspective, the Shroud is almost certainly a “fake,” in that it was created long long after Jesus’ time. The era when the Shroud appeared was awash in thousands of obviously fake relics, and there were countless rival Shrouds which appeared as well. You would just as likely find an authentic Michelangelo statue by sheer chance sitting in a warehouse that stores factory-made plastic copies of Michelangelo statues as you are to find an authentic relic of Christ suddenly appearing shortly after the Crusades. In that era, almost every single church in Europe had to get its own relic to draw in the crowds, and charlatans were more than happy to supply them — Arab charlatans in the Holy Land who tricked gullible crusaders, and home-grown European charlatans as well.
Do you know ho many Veronica’s Veils there were across Europe in the Middle Ages? Hundreds. All of which were touted as authentic. (Each one, like the Shroud, purported to show Jesus’s face supernaturally imprinted on it, as St. Veronica wiped his face on the Via Dolorosa.) I’m a church lover, and have visited countless old churches across Europe, and I myself have seen four of the surviving Veronica’s Veils. I’ve also seen two Holy Grails, and about seven vials of Jesus’s blood, and, gee, at least 50 pieces of the True Cross.
If you’ve never read Walter McCrone’s definitive double-blind analysis of samples from the Shroud of Turin, please do so. He discovered that the image on the cloth was made of pigment dating to the medieval era. And there was no experimenter bias — no one involved knew which sample was which until after the results were revealed.
The proliferation of other Shrouds, most now little-known, also casts doubt on the whole authenticity question. Many of these other Shrouds pre-dated the Shroud of Turin.
There was a Shroud reported in 570 A.D. in a convent in pre-Arab Judaea/Palestine. Around 675 A.D. a French Christian described a Shroud he saw in a church on the island of Iona in Greece.
The Holy Shroud of Compiegne, presented to an abbey in France by Charles the Bald in 877 A.D. was famous across Europe as THE Shroud for 900 years until is was destroyed by the French Revolutionaries (who also destroyed about 90% of the other relics in France, btw).
The Shroud of Cadouin was also worshipped as the one and only Shroud for nearly as long, before being debunked in 1935.
Total number of Holy Shrouds that pre-dated the Shroud of Turin? Forty-three.
One of the hallmarks of early Protestantism was a rejection of the “cult of relics,” as a form of idolatry which strayed from the true message of Christ. Even Jean Calvin once wrote that he was partly inspired to break away from Catholicism because of “the wicked impostures set up to deceive the public by the pretense that they were each the real sheet in which Christ’s body had been wrapped.”
It’s quite odd how many modern-day Protestants have now suddenly expressed a new veneration of Catholic relics, in particular the Shroud of Turin.
One doesn’t need to believe questionable artifacts to internalize or accept the Jesus’ message.
Informative and insightful. Apparently some Zombies have BRAAAINS.
Thank you. I was aware that other fake artifacts existed, not that there was any other shroud.
You almost make another point that Christians should keep in mind: Faith based on lies can be destroyed when the falsehood is demonstrated.
Thank you, Zombie, for that factual, well-reasoned reply. I too, am dismayed at the interest people who claim to follow Christ show in nonsense like this. Do they believe the truth of Scripture or must they have “supernatural” trinkets to prop up their faith? By the way, the Gospel of John, written by the Apostle John under the attendance of the Holy Spirit of God, says clearly that the cloth that Jesus’ head was wrapped in was separate from the cloth his body was wrapped in and was “folded in a place by itself” when the Apostle Peter looked into the empty, open tomb. So, if you believe Scripture is the infallible Word of God, that debunks the “Shroud” right there. Also, bodies were wrapped in a circular cloth, mummy-style, by the Jews in that era, so the whole idea of the once-piece body cloth laid flat over him shows right off the ignorance of the fraudsters who perpetrated this scam.
A piece from the edge of the Shroud was analyzed. A piece of the Shroud was sewn on in the Middle Ages after the fire, and there doesn’t seem to be an agreement about which part of the Shroud was tested; neither you nor I know who is lying, and Phillep’s arrogant assertions don’t qualify as substantive arguments. Many many people touched the Shroud, some long after Yeshua of Nazareth lived on earth. (He is referenced in historical writings so it’s very reasonable to assume He did live.) There is pollen on the cloth that appears to be from the Galilee area, circa 1st century AD. I thought this was interesting, too; it will be really neato when we learn the Truth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScCwzKRob7s We’d have to look and see what access the Discovery Channel guys had to Akiane’s picture of course. And since the Discovery Channel show, Fr Thomas Williams, LC (who appears in the show) has been just a tiny bit discredited…
A bit of a heads-up on Catholic teaching: When an apparition or image or item is “approved” by the Church, it means that the Vatican (its particular office in charge, specifically) has not found any evidence of fraud so that Catholics won’t find anything contrary to Catholic beliefs within it. But no apparitions (Lourdes, Champion, WI, etc) or objects (Shroud, tilma of Guadalupe, etc) are part of Church teaching. So a Catholic who thinks Lourdes is a bunch of hooey, and someone painted images of a dozen people on the reflection of the woman’s eye on a particular Mexican tilma or that married men should be able to become priests, or that Saint Jerome was a cranky old fart or that the Shroud is a fraud, is still a Catholic in good standing. These things are not part of the Catechism. Bayside, Necedah, and (probably Medjugorje in the near future) have been discredited so the Church has given a great big frowny face upon what those seers say.
“One doesn’t need to believe questionable artifacts to internalize or accept the Jesus’ message.”
Precisely so.
(except I would be a grammar Nazi and point out that either “the” or the second apostrophe aren’t needed — *snicker/grin*)
Zombie is spot-on.
Lest anyone think otherwise, based on my previous comments, as a Protestant I do not place my faith into a dependency on relics.
As a man of the modern age, I also have little patience for those who dismiss such an object out of hand, which betrays an unthinking prejudice, just as condemnatory as an allegation of superstitious belief in a supreme God.
Those who condemn faith express a faith in their own belief.
Dozens of fake shrouds circulated in the Middle Ages. The industry in fake relics that lasted for hundreds of years.
Moreover, the inability to explain something does not prove that the thing cannot be explained.
Relics are not good things to invest one’s faith in. And why commit to something temporal when faith is all about things that are unprovable in the first place? The odds of this shroud eventually being shown to be a fake are astonomical.
In the Middle Ages all the Crucifixes had Jesus nailed to the Cross through his palms. Still do. I was many years a Catholic before I learned that modern historical study showed the Romans crucified people through the wrist, where the bones would support them and the nerves would maximize the punishment and pain. What Christian knew this in 1500 when anachronism had all Jesus’s contemporaries dressed in medieval garb? Yet the Man on the Shroud has nail wounds through his wrists. Even modern Stigmata, self-inflicted I would suppose, involves wounds through the palms. This is another fact that argues against a 1500 forgery. If the info re origin in Israel circa 0 to 100 AD, and why would the scientists who say this lie since other scientists can double check them. I am as big a skeptic of Renaissance forgeries as anyone else, but the argument still rages. If it was a forgery for sure, we would know by now. Plenty of people have plenty of motive to lie. But I can hardly know which side has the bigger share of charlatans. Count my mind open to any possiblility.
As far as proving the Romans never crucified any troublesome Jewish preacher whose name has now been Anglicized to Jesus, How can you prove that? Impossible. It would be easier to prove Homer or Moses never existed, and I believe both did, though certainly the Iliad and Odyssey did not emanate from teh same literary source. Homer the blind poet may have memorized and recited in various evolving forms, both of them. Or maybe it was another Blind Itinerat Greek poet of the same name.
Actually, people from the middle ages would be far more likely to know that crucifiction was done through the wrist (and in fact must be – the palm will not support the weight). Why? Because crucifiction did not die out with the western Roman Empire, but remained a regualr form of execution in many areas of Europe into the Renaissance.
So why don’t the Crucifixes from that era, or any, show the nails through the wrists? I have not done an exhaustive search, but with the miracle of Google I found this website http://www.aug.edu/augusta/iconography/cross.html. It links to a frieze relief carved in stone from circa 430-435 about a century after Constantine ended public crucifictions and the text of the web site says this:
“Debunkers will sometimes declare that nails could not have been driven through Christ’s palms as shown in crucifixes, because of the pull of the body. But the usual Roman practice, well attested in the literature, was to tie the limbs to the cross and then drive nails through the hands and feet. The earliest known Christian image of the crucifixion, (430-435 AD) from a time not long after the era of public crucifixions, clearly shows nails driven through the palms.”
So Christ could have been crucified through the palms as tradition has informed us from thousands of depictions. But the fellow in the Shroud has nail holes through the wrists and looks like the pictures of Christ in Art from before 1000 AD, particularly in Constantinople or so I am told. A Christ look alike from long after? I bet this image is of a real victim and not an artist’s rendering, but who can be sure? A conscript or volunteer? If it was manufactured in a Year of Our Lord, and is not from the Roman era, then it sure looks like a redepiction of the Biblical story. I am still mystified but our Religion and Church has alot of mysteries. Someone confince me its a fake so the debate can end. But no one yet has seemed to do that and alot of the circular reasoning uses is specious on its face.
The only thing that argues against a later re-enactment of the Bible Story is the wounds through the wrists. Any one using the Crucifix as the model would have put the wounds through the hands. Or then used a body of another victim and added the Bliblical wounds. It just doesn’t fit.
“Play it again Sam.” Or “Judy, Judy, Judy”. Look, ‘everybody knows’ that Humphrey Bogart never said “Play it again Sam”; and ‘everybody knows’ that Cary Grant never said ‘Judy, Judy, Judy.’ But ask anyone to do a Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant impression, and they are likely to regurgitate those lines.
Nearly all paintings from that era depict ‘holy’ people with halos. Did any of the artists or anyone viewing the paintings actually think that Jesus walked around with a visible halo hovering over his head? Is there some place in the New Testament, or in any of those Roman records, where someone is recorded as saying, “What the…?? That dude has a halo hovering around his head! What’s up with that?”
Nails through the palms is symbolic. That’s all. It’s more anguishing to think that his holy hands were violated than that his wrists might have been. Anyone attempting a clever forgery, though, would have known to make it an accurate forgery.
It’s more probable that science will one day prove that the historical Jesus never existed. Why is it that Christians alone refuse to investigate, other than to attack and deny, the well-known pagan/astrotheological origins of their own faith? Every supposed ancient contemporary historical reference to Jesus has long been debunked as an interpolation (forged text inserted into a pre-existing document). The early Christian fathers actually bragged about lying and fabricating to further their cause. Historians and anthropologists refer to this as “pious fraud,” a practice that has not abated in the Middle East, where faked historical records and fraudulent relics are manufactured to order.
The Shroud of Turin has been raking in suckers and money for centuries. Modern researchers have been able to replicate it using products popular among artists during the Renaissance, including an aloe concoction that spread over a fabric placed over a statue produces an exact reverse-photographic image of the statue. No radiation, no sunburst, no miracle.
Since believers cling to the gospel stories, perhaps they can explain what happed to all the zombies supposedly released at Jesus’ execution, and why this astounding precursor to Night of the Living Dead wasn’t recorded by a single eyewitness or historian? Or how about the sun going dark? Surely, an astronomical event of this magnitude, which would have endangered the entire galaxy, deserves to have been recorded somewhere other than in a passion play script?
Believers always cite science when they think it supports them, but attack and disparage it when it doesn’t. There is nothing scientific about the shroud or the story behind it. Jesus is the most destructive hoax ever inflicted on a gullible public, with millions of ruined lives, and centuries of misery to prove it. I’m sure every accused heretic tortured, dismembered, and burned alive by his followers is eternally grateful to him for his alleged sacrifice (sarc off). I’m also sure that his minions, terrified of being struck down for not grovelling, will immediately be rushing to his defense right here.
Please, let me defend the Christians, as I am not one of them.
Yes, most of the stories in the Bible are from other cultures, with Jewish names reassigned to them. The Bible is a compendium- it’s great value is that the stories themselves were preserved. Stories, themes, and clues from dozens, if not hundreds, of cultures. These stories, this knowledge, would be lost if not for the Jewish encyclopedia.
As for the vile practices, can you name anyone else who was not doing these things at these times? You are seeing local politics, much of it learned from foreign invaders or local practice.
Yes, evil men abused the encyclopedia for their own ends, but terror is not it’s doctrine. They didn’t need anything to teach them terrorism- they believed in it already.
The Inquisition was political. The odious Ferdinand and Isabella sought Jews who wanted to regain their lost positions of power under their Moorish masters.
Spain learned slavery from the still extant Islamic slavers.
And the Gauls had been burning people alive for thousands of years- they were remnants of the old culture of human sacrifice the Jews had warred on and destroyed in the Middle East.
The Jews ended human sacrifice.
The Christians began the war on slavery.
Their pool of deep knowledge- often misinterpreted- helped them survive both the Golden Horde and it’s progeny, Islam.
They provided the only light in the world, the last link to Greco-Roman knowledge, as Islamic raiders tried to burn every library they could find.
I greatly dislike the modern day debasement- turning thousands of years of political and archaeological examples into magic- but some people need things simple. I can certainly forgive them that.
What you are seeing is a social process. Please observe it.
The ‘believers’ are getting something different from this than the scientific answers you and I both seek.
They don’t understand why we are angry, or why we don’t ‘see’ what they see.
They don’t realize that our needs are different- and that different needs are being satisfied.
They seek loyalty, unity, a tribal framework of common understandings.
They feel rooted, they belong.
We seek more scientific answers, such as,
“What are we looking at? How does it work?”
So observe your subjects, and try to understand what you’re seeing.
Being angry or blaming them is like blaming a dog for acting like one.
Sorry, a clarfication-
We aren’t angry- it’s just that what they call ‘answers’ seem confusing and nonsensical.
Not only our needs are different, but our agendas.
They seek to recruit. ‘Where is my place? Who wants me?’
It seems like an answer to them- sharing common referents, they belong.
We seek to understand the mechanics; untangling a tapestry can be difficult.
They, and we, speak different languages.
It’s just a touch insulting to be compared to a dog. We’re not dumb animals incapable of higher thought. There are differences in perspective and conclusion which you’ve seemingly (mis)interpreted as failure of methodology/ability. You assume superiority and fall into condescension.
“They” seek tribal unity. “We” seek rational answers.
You dismiss the different with open-minded preconceptions. (*yawn)
Your complexity is rather simple. There is no ONE difference. Some Christians are interested in the whys, others the hows, others don’t care. Some are lazy, some are not…
Ditto for non-believers.
Thanks for defending us Christians. I was taught in Christian schools exclusively, with two Christian parents, both still alive, until I was 22. I read alot about Christianity and Catholicism. I don’t doubt some Non-Catholic Christians might believe some of the stuff you criticize. Darwin was a Christian and looked to see what he was looking at and how it worked. So were Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Voltaire, Pascal, both the Bacons, Newton, Adam Smith, Locke, Montesquie and all the foundiing fathers. I am mystified how you can have such a misunderstanding of Christians and Christianity. You seem to know nothing about it, except the lies its critics have told about us. I dispute all you believe about us and reiterate, we believe in the truth and science as much as you do, since most of the science we know was basically discovered or revivied was discovered and explained by Christians, and in many cases, particularly with Einstein and after, by Jews. Where do you get we are not scientific. Don’t understand you people any more than you understand us, but the positives you espouse are the same positives that my Christianity has taught me to espouse. So you fight is imaginary, and is probably nothing more than a fight with your dual nature.
The sun going dark for three hours WAS recorded by pagan historians, and as for the resurrected people (not zombies, but living people), it could not possibly have been recorded by pagan or Jewish historians because no one would accept that it was so and not be a Christian. In other words, you seek evidence that cannot exist, because anyone who accepted that these things were true would surely be a Christian, and therefore their accounts would be Christian sources.
That was good!
When the Shroud was studied in Israel, they declared their shock and amazement upon verifying that it was woven of 1st century Galilean flax linen, with microscopic specks of 1st century Galilean burial herb pollen grains.
And, no, it wasn’t ‘painted’. Or made with waxes, or glass reflections, etc.
There is nothing known that could have made this 3D image.
Not even today.
What caught my attention was when the Israeli archaeologists repeated that only the medieval patch had been ‘tested’ by those determined to ‘prove’ fraud.
(I don’t see how anybody could trust that vicious sadist, Calvin, anyways. Talk about covering up fraud! He was only good for burning people or beating children to death- to rid them ‘devils’- and himself of political enemies.)
Of course copies would be made.
Of course didjits selling books would make claims.
I am by no means a Christian, yet I too thrill at this unique, incredible mystery.
It is a mideaval fake, as is well-known. Europe is choke-full of fake relics from mideaval times, created either for profit or out of pious sentiments — including at least three heads of John the Baptist, enough slivers of the true cross to make a small forest, Jesus’ foreskin, and similar There is no mystery, apart perhaps from the insistence that this shroud is somehow a genuine relic from Jesus’ burial. Chaucer in the 14th century already lampooned these folks (“The Pardoner’s Tale”). You’d think we’ve learned something in 700 years, but apparently not.
“You’d have me kissing your old breeches too, and swearing they were the relics of a saint!”
The Canterbury Tales
Florida, I invite you to source your assertions.
Concerning the shroud, my admittedly non-scholar understanding is that it deviates significantly from jewish burial customs of the period. The Johannine account (Jn 20:5-7) indicates for example that the wrappings and the head napkin were lying separately. As an evangelical protestant I don’t rely on relics for the authenticity of the Resurrection. I lean on the eyewitnesses (the New Testament asserts upwards of 500) and the changed lives and cultures over 2000 years since.
The Jews didn’t simply drape a piece of cloth over the body when they buried it, like the picture shows, did they ? The Gospel writers talk about the piece that wraps the head being found in a place by itself, apart from the rest of the cloth after the Resurrection. And the women came with spices to put into the folds of the cloth according to custom. None of this would result in something like the Turin shroud.
– if It is a fake? Can science duplicate it in 3 or 30 days using a medical cadaver? One Gospel account refers to a separate cloth covering Jesus’s head and laid aside, apart from the shroud. Another Gospel refers to over a hundred pounds of spices packing the body.
“Jesus’ foreskin”- that’s funny!
May I use that- just like “by the twenty-four balls of the Twelve Apostles!”
I hadn’t heard of the ‘aloe concoction’, mentioned by Florida above, but I’d like to see someone try it.
Either way, so what? I LIKE the idea of the Shroud.
Plus, no one yet has answered the mystery of 1st Century linen or grains.
Not just how, but why?
What was actually going on?
Not only the political history, but the social mechanism itself- we see similar mythologies developing with AGWarming, lead paint, or Che Guevara.
What are we seeing here?
Advances in 3D computer modeling will eventually prove that Jesus was the man depicted on the Shroud.
This is clearly impossible just by looking at it. The image in the shroud is clearly possesses northern European Caucasian facial features. Middle-eastern people do not have facial features like those depicted in the shroud.
You understand that people have moved around a bit in 2000 years, right? For example, the population of Japan at that time was Caucasian, as was western China. Indochina and Indonesia was populated by Negrito, which were linked to the early Olmecs in Central America.
There was a huge population & influence from the Greeks in Palestine at the time, with ‘Greek’ having as much specific definition as a Roman (ie, hardly any at all).
The ONLY evidence is Carbon 14 dating. Everything else is conjecture, theory or supposition;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin
pinched
“In 1988, scientists at three separate laboratories dated samples from the Shroud to a range of 1260–1390CE.[1]
Despite the evidence, believers will still believe.
The AGW crowd is tring to resurrect global warming, which is just as dead as Christ although for not as long.
The Shroud is a fake, done to attract tourists.
There are also nails, the spear and the crown of thorns supposed to be around. Big business in holy relics a few centuries ago. I’m surprised no one is claiming to have his Nikes.
Stoicheion,
As Ms. Adams wrote, the 1988 carbon dating of the Shroud was later proven to have been faulty in its application, i.e., the portion of the hem from which samples were taken had been sewn on by nuns in the Middle Ages after a Cathedral fire that threatened to consume the Shroud.
Read about it on http://www.shroud.com
Except that the team that did the removal of the piece have stated they took it from the main body, far from the fire-damaged section. The “patch” hypothesis is NOT generally accepted as being correct.
Apparently, that is true according to the witnesses (http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm):
“The shroud was separated from the backing cloth along its bottom left-hand edge and a strip (~10 mm x 70 mm) was cut from just above the place where a sample was previously removed in 1973 for examination. The strip came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas.”
Three laboratories were charged with carrying out the experiment. Each was given an actual Shroud sample along with three other control samples, all in identical containers. All the samples were visually indistinguishable from each other (cloth, weave, etc). The labs were not told which container contained the Shroud sample. Neither were the laboratories allowed to communicate their findings amongst each other until well after the experiment.
All steps, from the preparation of the samples to the actual experiment, were monitored and recorded to ensure the tests were done in the blind.
The compilation of the results from all three labs concluded that the Shroud sample was from 1260-1390 AD with a confidence interval of 95%.
–
Those that conclude:
a) since there are fake relics, therefore all relics are fake
b) since faith does not require relics, therefore anyone who is curious or ponders the validity of a relic has no faith
…have committed a logical fallacy and such arguments can safely be dismissed as meaningless.
With that said, IMHO, the Shroud sample that was tested was indeed a valid sample and that the results seem quite conclusive in arguing for a medieval date of origin. Those that might say the sample was invalid because it was a patch would need to prove that in light of all the witnesses (as cited in the above link):
“The sampling of the shroud took place in the Sacristy at Turin Cathedral on the morning of 21 April 1988. Among those present when the sample as cut from the shroud were Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero (Archbishop of Turin), Professor L. Gonella (Department of Physics, Turin Polytechnic and the Archbishop’s scientific adviser), two textile experts (Professor F. Testore of Department of Materials Science, Turin Polytechnic and G. Vial of Musée des Tissues and Centre International d’Étude des Textiles Anciens in Lyon), Dr M. S. Tite of the British Museum, representatives of the three radiocarbon-dating laboratories (Professor P. E. Damon, Professor D. J. Donahue, Professor E. T. Hall, Dr R. E. M. Hedges and Professor W. Woelfli) and G. Riggi, who removed the sample from the shroud.”
A medieval date for the Shroud would exclude the possibility of a burial Shroud for Jesus.
We are told, in text, but not shown, by authoritative diagram, the location from which the samples were taken.
Why might location be important? For example, I have read that the location was at a corner/edge of the Shroud, and potentially heavily-contaminated by finger-oils and dirt. The cloth was often held up for viewing during exhibitions in the Middle Ages. The location chosen, someone claimed, was at one of the points where priests would have gripped it.
Wouldn’t matter if the section was dirty, as long as it wasn’t actually charred. Radiocarbon dating would be fooled by neither human oils or introduced carbons (as from a fire); any object to be radiocarbon dated is cleaned down to cleanroom/zero bacteria levels before being vapourised and spectrographically scanned. If oils had so permeated the sample as to be irremovable, the spectrographic analysis wouldn’t look anything like what you would expect from cloth, and that would have been obvious the moment it was scanned.
The fire, or rather the smoke, introduced fresh carbon into the Shroud, making it appear younger than it actually is.
I checked. Apparently there were not one, but a few, churches in the middle ages whom each claimed to posses Jesus’s REAL foreskin. Talk about penis envy.
Even if all the science and technology together would prove the dates, the materials, the pollen,It still does not prove conclusively that the shroud belonged to Jesus. There were THOUSANDS of early Christians, Jews and enemies of Rome that were crucified. The shroud could have been anyone’s!
When the slave rebellion of Spartacus was crushed, the Roman general Crassus had SIX THOUSAND of the slave prisoners crucified along a stretch of the Appian Way, the main road leading into Rome (Bella Civilia 1:120). As an example of crucifying rebellious foreigners, Josephus tells us that when the Romans were besieging Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Roman general Titus, at one point, crucified five hundred or more Jews a day.
In fact, so many Jews were crucified outside of the walls that “there was not enough room for the crosses and not enough crosses for the bodies”
Advances in 3D computer modeling will eventually prove that Jesus was the man depicted on the Shroud.
Remember, nothing says “science” like announcing the conclusion before performing the study.
The Shroud of Turin is indeed a fake, and the evidence is in the text of the Bible itself;
http://classic.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+11:44,%2020:7&version=KJV
From John’s testimony it appears that Jews bound the dead with a separate cloth around the head. While it is possible for God to “burn” Jesus’ image through the burial napkin into the larger shroud, such a trick seems to me beneath God’s conception of signs.
There is also the argument that Jesus did not actually have long hair;
http://www.askelm.com/secrets/sec103.htm
The Catholic church used to send priests out to collect fraudulent relics.At one time they had over 200 foreskins of Jesus.
Soldiers used to carry holy relics into battle .To supply enough relics it got to the point that anyone considered for sainthood was being killed and chopped up for parts.
The bible is an incredible source for history,ancient politics ,beliefs,laws and a teaching tool.It is the root of modern legal ,educational and political systems.Even if you do not believe the religious angle you must acknowledge and respect the proven facts.
Is the shroud real? We may never know.
But it should be kept as an icon/relic since we will soon have no way to do further research.
The UN has given Bethlehem : it’s ancient churches ,relics and archeological evidence to the control of the Palestinian Authority .They have systematically been destroying ancient sites for hundreds of years to erase all evidence of Judaism and Christianity .
Soon there will be none left.Someday Judaism and Christianity will be a fairy tale whispered about on risk of beheading.
Don’t believe it ? Egypt was 100 % Christian after 42 AD to the muslim invasion 600 years later.In 1911-1921 there were 42 million Coptic Christians in Egypt .There are 12 million or so left and they are being persecuted,raped and killed daily………for the last 1200 years . And the world just watches it happen.
The Shroud of Turin, or any so-called holy relic, for that matter, is a complete fraud. If anyone knows anything at all about the Character of Yahweh, it can be seen that God would not make anything like this, or desire it to be made by anyone else. Jesus (Yahshua) was a Jew. He lived a completely sinless life, and obeyed the Torah of God perfectly. He never failed at any point. We also know that Jesus is God, the Second Person of the Trinity. There are too many verses to list here showing that Jesus is God.
Now we turn to the 20th Chapter of Exodus for the divine “10 Words” which are commonly known as the 10 Commandments; here we read:
Exodus 20: 1-4 [NAS]
” 1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.”
Notice especially verse 4: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.”
God does not want anyone to worship anyone or anything other than Himself. God would not create or provide the very thing that he is against: an idol, or something with the likeness of His Son upon it. God knows that the propensity of mankind is to try to worship an image. Indeed the Israelites, made a golden calf to worship immediately after these commands were given.
There is at least one other reason that the Shroud of Turin is a fraud:
In the Middle East, the dead were “wrapped” similar to the Mummies that have been found in Egypt:
John 19:40 [NAS]
“40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.”
Also, the Jews used a separate cloth for the face of the person being buried; we read:
John 20:6,7 [NAS]
“And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.”
So it should be easy to see that if a person sticks to the WORD of God, that person will not fall prey to frauds like this (which are all originated by Satan to take Glory away from Yahweh.
Do you then discount Exodus 25:10-22, in which Yahweh instructs Moses to contsruct the Ark of the Covenant, with the GRAVEN IMAGES of two Cherubim on the propitiary? Or the erection of the Bronze Serpent “graven” by Moses at the direction of Yahweh (Numbers 21:7-9)?
Jesus was buried in haste in the late afternoon just before sundown of the Sabbath by Joseph of Aramathea, His mother, and what few disciples remained with Him to the end. The body in the Shroud is covered with blood and grime, which for a proper Jewish burial would have been cleaned up. This is why Mary Magdalene and the other women were coming back to the tomb after the Sabbath, to complete what they did not have time to finish before sundown.
You should have included the next verse in John’s account of the empty tomb (Jn 20:8) “Then the other disciple [John himself] also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.” What do you suppose Peter and John “saw and believed” in the empty tomb, other than the Shroud?
The Golden Calf in Exodus 32:1-6 is the Egyptian deity Apis, who represented wealth, power and sex. Know anybody who worships those? To give any of these top priority in ones life is to make a “graven image” of ultimate happiness which doesn’t include God.
Veneration of Saints or relics like the Shroud is in no way a violation of the admonition to shun graven images. The Saints and the relics focus one’s attention on the truth and reality of Jesus and the Resurrection.
ALLELUIA ALLELUIA
(Do not be afraid~have faith:)
Ms. Adams states early in the column that:
“My two decades of reading about the Shroud culminated in a first-hand look and led me to believe that this is the physical evidence proving that Jesus Christ was in fact resurrected from the dead.”
Even if the shroud is legitimate, even if it is an image of Jesus Christ, I’m curious how this shroud proves that Jesus Christ was resurrected. It proves he died and somehow the image was made but I don’t see how it proves he was resurrected.
I am a seeker….not necesssarilly agnostic, atheist nor believer….
But one thing is clear…..this is a relic…a very old relic…what is not clear is what it is a relic of….
Though I am neither here nor there on the veracity of the claims of the Shroud being Christ’s burial cloth, and certainly don’t need it to reconcile my faith that Jesus Christ is indeed God manifested in flesh, Zombie’s information from above is contradictory of what has been republished by the original team of scientists that did the original study, including the carbon dating.
Nobody has ruled out anything, and the remaining members of the team have suggested they may have reached incorrect conclusions and further study required. Why would the History Channel, notoriously secular and flippant of Christianity produce a two hour documentary disputing Zombie’s claim?
This is the m.o. of Zombie and other unbelievers here that point to other fraud of antiquity to invalidate the authenticity of that the other claims.
This is the same person that has in the past has spoken of real doubt that the historical Jesus even existed, clearly demonstrating this “person” has the same faults of preconceived bias or confirmation bias if you will that “the person” accuses the author of, actively pursuing data to justify a conclusion.
I will say this once again. Anybody that even hints to the idea Jesus Christ didn’t even exist is a moron, and should be summarily discounted as garden variety Christian bigot and nothing more. Theologians,historians, and archeologists, pro and con, of Christ’s claims of divinity just rolled their eyes at the idiocy of Christ didn’t exist.
Notice they don’t quite work up the nerve to deny the existence of say somebody like Abraham, or Moses, or Jacob, or Joseph – and there is far less proof any I named existed.
Please provide your documented proof of these Christian Fathers lying and fabricating to further their cause, Florida (#7). Because I can point out dozens, perhaps hundreds including 10 of 12 of Christ’s disciples that denied Him at the Cross that later voluntarily went to their death not only not denying Christ lived as you have suggested, but that Christ was indeed the messiah. And those claims span well over 100 years.
Otherwise, I say baloney to your comment to the nth degree and am calling you a bald faced liar.
I find it extremely unlikely anyone had the foresight to save the actual shroud Jesus was entombed with. The obsession with relics didn’t begin until many years after Christ’s death – and to the Apostles, the fact of the Resurrection was the important thing, not the physical objects connected with it.
I tend to believe the shroud is a fraud along with all the splinters from the cross and most of the bones of saints. As the saying goes, there’s a sucker born every minute – and religious relics prove it.
When did the custom of saving mementos of dear departed loved ones begin? I had assumed that humans have been doing this for a very long time. And I just read the four accounts of the Resurrection, and it seems to me that some attention was given to the burial cloth, as if the burial cloth was around and being given some attention by 1st-century Christians.
You find it very unlikely that Mary of Magdala, or Salome, or John the Apostle, or Peter, all of whom had come to believe that their beloved friend Yeshua the Nazorean was God come down to Earth to show His Love for them, didn’t grab His burial shroud when they encountered it in the tomb? lol.
Which bones of which saints do you believe are frauds? You might not believe that the people to whom various finger bones belong to, are in Heaven, but it’s silly to say that, for example, the “official” finger bones of Therese of Lisieux or Padre Pio or Rafael Guizar y Valencia didn’t belong to them. (Hint: if someone claims to have St Isaac Jogues’ finger bones, he’s probably lying; the peace-loving Native Americans chewed St Isaac’s fingers off as a form of torture.) And yes, there are frauds. Evil men and women figured out long ago that masquerading as religious people helps them dupe good men and women.
If you think it’s likely that Mary or someone else hauled the shroud out of the tomb to show everyone and then keep as a momento WITHOUT any of the Gospels saying something about it, there’s no arguing with you. I find the whole notion silly.
And the common knowledge that most relics are frauds goes way back to Medieval times when churches wanted bones of saints to draw in pilgrims, crowds, and, yes, money. As far as I’m concerned the burden of proof is on the church claiming a relic is authentic – it’s not up to me to prove it’s a fake.
The Middle Ages, incidentally, is when people’s obsession with “relics” really began – which makes the Shroud of Turin extremely unlikely to be real, along with anything else allegedly dating back to Christ’s lifetime.
“If you think it’s likely that Mary or someone else hauled the shroud out of the tomb to show everyone and then keep as a momento WITHOUT any of the Gospels saying something about it, there’s no arguing with you. I find the whole notion silly.”
Oh, I didn’t realize you were one of those Sola Scriptura guys. You’re right, there’s no point in discussing it. Or are you one of those hilarious “Josephus isn’t a reputable source, but Gerald Massey is” fanatics?
It’s interesting, and disheartening, how this subject cannot be discussed rationally in open forum. There is too much emotional influence on BOTH sides of the issue. For many, the issue becomes more than just the facts. It becomes Religion.
Even one of the original STRP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) scientists decided he could not live with the implications of the data he was seeing — or maybe didn’t want to in the first place. He turned bat-sh*t crazy in trying to bias his portion of the results.
Then we have the cleric who chose the place from which to cut the samples to be sent for radio-carbon dating. IMHO, he knew what he was doing and did NOT want the Shroud to be validated.
Those two are no better than the venal purveyors of Relics of the Saints, of which (as Zombie points out) the Fourteenth Century had scads.
Ms. Adams’ column is good. However, I strongly disagree with two conclusions, which she bases specifically upon the capabilities of science.
1. Science is incredibly unlikely to be able to prove who the man was, if such is based solely upon evidence in the Shroud itself. Even if the Biblical account of the crucifixion were to be somehow proven as factually correct, all we would have is coincidence and that would not be proof.
2. Until science comprehends and defines a mechanism for resurrection, it will not be able to say, ‘That’s what happened here.’
IMHO, the truly fascinating thing about the Shroud is that it ultimately, inexorably, hands the entire question back to the inquirer.
Matters of Faith have a nasty habit of doing that.
P.S.: For those who don’t know of a source for hard data regarding the ongoing research, you can rely upon Shroud.com. It’s by a member of the original STRP team, and is hard-nosed peer-reviewed science. It also has a bibliography of reliable works on the history of the Shroud, such as those of Ian Wilson.
The person who started the http://www.shroud.com site is Barry Schwortz. He was on the 1978 original STRP team as the official photographer. He was “taken” with the shroud and now it is his life. Barry was the teacher for our tour group when we visited the Shroud in 2010 in Turin. He also is in the History Channel doc.
I sent him an email yesterday and asked him to comment on this piece.
So far have not heard. Barry…calling you… Barry.
Really wanted him to debunk the fraud chorus in these comments. If people really did just a little research about the known and accepted facts about the Shroud this chorus would be silenced and replaced with a desire to solve the mystery that science so far can not. The numerous links I have in the piece is a good place to start.
You didn’t mention that the image is nondirectional. There is no technology
known to man that can produce a 3-dimension nondirectional image.
The faith of millions of Christians around the world does not depend on a piece of cloth. If the thing is authentic, wonderful. If it isn’t, who cares? There are enough pieces of the True Cross extant to build a nice ranch-style house in the suburbs. It doesn’t change anything.
Well said.
Wow, a lot of people seem to have strong opinions on this topic without knowing anything about the shroud of Turin itself.
First of all, the fact that many fake relics exist does not mean that one particular relic is fake.
Secondly, the image on the Shroud is consistent with Roman crucifixion practices, including the specific torture implements used and the blood stains on the shroud are consistent with with the Biblical account. The exactness of the image with history and its 3-D nature make a medieval manufacture of the shroud extremely unlikely. It should also be noted that the most famous pictures we have of the shroud are actually from a photographic negative. The shroud looks a lot different in a regular photograph. This aspect of the shroud was only discovered I believe in the late 19th century when it was photographed for the first time.
Thirdly, some of the shroud is known to have been replaced after a fire (and dated from the middle ages). Other parts of the shroud that have been tested are consistent with a first century AD levantine origin. It shouldn’t be that surprising that a known patch originated in the time period when it was knowingly attached to the shroud.
However, the chain-of-custody of the Shroud is much less certain. While the Shroud may have been known in the Byzantine Empire there is no direct evidence equating shroud-like items known to have been in the East with the shroud as we know it in the West.
Basically, the shroud is certainly not a medieval forgery. The most obvious explanation is that it is the burial shroud of a man who was tortured and crucified in a way consistent with the biblical account of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Regardless of what is learned about this shroud, it cannot prove the resurrection of Jesus. It can’t even prove any connection to Jesus.
There is simply no way to know who the person is. We don’t have DNA evidence to link this to Jesus.
The MOST that can be proven is that the shroud is old enough that it MIGHT have been the shroud of Jesus.
That’s BEST CASE.
Your “best case” is essentially what the Church is saying when it “approves” something. Nothing new, not news.
Well, it may very well turn out that way, which is a statement about the limitations of our science, not about the shroud itself. DNA is not the only way to prove identity. Even before fingerprinting, police could sometimes use logical analysis to establish identity, given enough information and evidence to work with. Inference and process-of-elimination are old fashioned stand-bys that can sometimes be effective.
What if the shroud eventually proves that “somebody” was resurrected, in the early-to-mid first century, in Palestine?
Let’s see, who could that have been? Are there any historical references to such an astonishing event?
Oh, right.
Dear readers and writers,
Please take a little time to study available information about another set of truly amazing relics, i.e., the incorrupt bodies of long-deceased saints and other holy folks, favored by God in death as they favored Him in life. The most noteworthy of these in the modern era are perhaps St. Bernadette of Lourdes and Padre Pio. I dare you to investigate seriously and then write that you aren’t at least mystified, if not enlightened. Scientists have been trying to figure this phenomenon out for some time also.
I remain your humble servant, The Monk.
When I was a teenager, I went outside to get the mail one weekend. There was a long line of hundreds of people down the street. I went over and asked them, “What’s going on?” They said, “The Holy Tortilla.”
Yep, the face of Jesus had miraculously appeared on a tortilla. I am not kidding. This actually happened. People lined up down the street for over a week to witness this miracle.
Now, did the face of Jesus really miraculously appear on a tortilla? Or did the old devout Catholic Mexican lady, thinking about Jesus while making tortillas, subconsciously paint in butter with a brush what she presumed was the image of Jesus on the tortilla, and freak out when she turned it over? It’s a miracle!
I don’t think for a minute that this old lady deliberately set out to create a fraud. I think she was praying while making tortillas, and lo and behold the face of Jesus.
The Shroud of Turin is an obvious fraud. It was created by Da Vinci. He figured out how to use commonly available chemicals to make a photographic impression. He then got some old cloth, used sunlight and a refractive lens to create an image, which was not visible until a photographic negative of the Shroud was observed in the 1950s.
The Italian scientist in the documentary I mentioned above proved it by replicating it. In real science, if you cannot replicate an experiment your theory has no validity. This guy, he just said, look, this is how Da Vinci did it. He took an old cloth, used a window, sunlight and a lens, and these chemicals, which were commonly available at the time. This guy, this scientist, re-created an image on a shroud using the methods and chemicals Da Vinci would have used. Case closed.
Oh, and by the way, Da Vinci was an active member of a cult that believed that Jesus was not crucified, but rather that he and Mary fled to Europe and sired the descendants of French royalty. It’s the basis for the book and movie, the Da Vinci Code. Are you going to believe that too?
Legend has it that Joseph of Arithmethea fled to England and when he arrived with the Holy Grail, stuck his staff in the ground, whereupon a tree miraculously grew. It was the sight of pilgramages for centuries. I believe it’s possible that Joseph fled to England. I do not believe that he miraculously caused a tree to grow.
Splinters from the Cross, Veronica’s veil, the Shroud of Turin, the Holy Tortilla, the face of Jesus on some tree. I don’t place my faith on any of that. Only a fool would.
I place my faith on the truth that Jesus taught in the Gospells, the “Good News.” I place my faith on the Sacraments. I don’t need relics or frauds to justify it.
And, no, my argument is not circular; it’s factual. Jesus lived. He walked the Earth and preached the Truth. He condemned the hypocrites and pharisees. And he was crucified for it. I believe he rose again, but I don’t need any reason other than faith to believe that.
Relics, frauds, imposters, scientific theories don’t mean anything to me. I trust in Our Lord and Savior. But don’t show me some shroud, or a veil, or a splinter, or a tree, or a tortilla, or whatever to justify my faith. It’s beyond ridiculous.
If you need something like that to confirm your belief in the Sacraments, what Jesus taught, you don’t have any faith. All you have is myth and illusion. And that’s a sorry thing to base your immortal soul on.
The veneration of relics goes back to the first century, long before there was any “commercial value” to them. Faith in Jesus Christ is not like faith in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, dependent only on one’s inner desire to believe. It is based on hard facts and real historicity. As Paul wrote, “if He is not really risen, all our faith is in vain”. True, at some point, generally some time after Islam cut off access to the East, crooks began to fabricate phony relics, but that does not disprove the validity of the genuine originals (and the Church has always tried hard to distinguish the two, even in the face of popular sentiment to the contrary). Some relics, like the True Cross, were really broken up into numerous small pieces, and while phonies exist, so do genuine pieces, some well-documented, some not. Faith does not depend on relics, but Christianity is not just another “faith tradition”; it is a Faith based on actual historical events, witnessed and documented by real people, and a stubborn refusal to even consider the possibility of physical evidence of its historicity demonstrates not a “loftier-than-thou” version of Faith, but a contumacious desire to reduce Christian Faith to the category of “inspiring mythology”. Christian Faith can not be had only as a subjective preference; by its own definition it must be either objective Truth, or objective Lie. Between the 5th and 19th centuries it was possible to dismiss the Gospels as “enlightened fiction”, but archaeology, anthropology, history, and science have generally verified the historicity of the New Testament (and quite a bit of the Old, where it is being overtly historical).
Some information that might help clear up some misconceptions about the head cloth, which some seem to think should make the image on the shroud impossible.
1st-century Jewish burial practices demanded interment of the body along with as much body fluid as could be recovered, even to the extent of digging up blood-soaked earth, the objective being to inter the body as “complete” as possible.
The head-cloth, or “sudarium”, which might originally have been the victim’s turban itself, was wrapped around the head while still on the cross, to capture all the body fluid that would otherwise have flowed out of the mouth and nostrils when the body was taken down. It would have taken about an hour to lower the body, still attached to the cross-beam, and extract the nails. The head-piece would then have been removed, and the body placed on a long burial cloth, burial ointments applied, after which the cloth would then be folded back over the top of the body, with the head in the area of the fold. The head-piece would have been annointed with spiced oils separately and placed near the body (not back on the head).
This head cloth still exists, now held at Ovieto. Its history shows that it was separated from the shroud at a very early date, and was never anywhere near the vicinity of the shroud during the middle ages, when some claim the shroud was fabricated. Analysis of the head-cloth shows it is of 1st-century Palestinian provenance, and the blood-stains perfectly match stains produced by wrapping a cloth around a model head with injuries matching those described in the Gospels. Moreover, the stains align with those on the shroud.
The sudarium and the shroud are mutually corroborative. The odds of some medieval alchemist pulling this off are less than someone reading this post having my DNA. I don’t know how far our science can take us with this, but the last word has not been written yet. And please do not limit your information to the History Channel.
Several references to John’s depiction of events have been made. Some detail should be mentioned. Keep in mind that John was the only one of the 12 to eyewitness the entire trial and crucifixion.
After the crucifixion (see my previous post), the Sabbath time was rapidly approaching, and a rather hasty preparation of the body had to be done. After doing a quick “embalming” of the body with spiced oils, it was wrapped, tied up, and quickly entombed before sunset. Three days later, the women returned to perform the required but gruesome task of completing the embalming ritual on a three-day old corpse. Seeing the body gone, they ran to fetch the men. John relates seeing the burial cloth, and the head-cloth still bundled beside it, both exactly in the same position as when the body had been laid to rest (the head cloth was not on the body when it was brought to the tomb, but it was left there as it contained a significant amount of body fluid and therefore had to be “buried” with the corpse). The shocking thing about this is that everything was undisturbed.
A body-thief would most likely have taken the whole body, still wrapped, and make a quick get-away. Or, if they had wanted to unwrap it first, they would have made a mess of the cloth, or even cut it up. If the body had simply re-awakened, like Lazarus, there would have been an immense struggle to free itself from the cloth. But the cloth was lying there exactly as it had been when the body was entombed, i.e., still tied up, except there was no body inside it. In other words, the body had simply de-materialized within the cloth, allowing the cloth to deflate in-position. This is what Peter and John had “to contemplate” in amazement. John is describing something he could not possibly explain. Nor can we.
There is no way John could expect anyone to understand or easily believe this. He is either lying, or not.
Quick observations…
There is not one person commenting on this blog or whom I have ever heard of whose faith depends in any way upon the validity of any relic. On the other hand, every non-believer’s unbelief depends desperately on the illogical assertion that the existence of fraudulent relics eliminates the possibilit of any relic being valid. Ditto for the nonsensical assertion that Christianity is nothing more than a conflation of previous religious traditions. Sorry, those quacks are not impressing anyone but the uninformed gullibles and the unbelievers who suffer from confirmation bias. The fact that the first chapter or two of Genesis resembles a typical middle eastern creation story is neither surprising nor relevant. Moses retold those familiar semitic stories in a way that makes a morally instructive allegory about the origins of good and evil. From Abraham forward the historical narrative is largely factual.
The number of approved, potentially valid fragments of the True Cross would barely be enough to rebuild even a fraction of the cross-beam of the original crucifix. To state that a forest could be made from the well-known frauds is a rhetorical trick from a bad high school level debate team.
Childish wisecracks based on wild claims about relics that no one ever took seriously in the first place should be embarassing to those making them. Does the fact that quacks have been making phony scientific and medical claims, and gullible people believing them, for countless centuries, prove that Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, or Jonas Salk’s vaccine, were hoaxes?
Dear readers,
Ms. Adams and other defenders of the Shroud have neglected to direct your attention to one of the more authoritative texts on the relic, entitled The Truth About the Shroud of Turin, by Robert Wilcox. See the link below.
http://www.amazon.com/Shroud-Turin-Robert-K-Wilcox/dp/159698600X
If you read this book with an open mind, you cannot help but think that The Shroud may indeed be the genuine article.