Shroud of Turin

[otseng]

The Shroud of Turin to me is the most compelling evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.

But first, a little background on the Shroud:

- It is a cloth that measures 14' 3" by 3' 7".
- There is full frontal and rear image of a crucified man.
- The first known public display of the shroud was in 1357 by Geoffrey II de Charny first in Lirey, France.
- It was damaged by a fire in 1532, but the central image was not greatly affected.
- Here is an image of the shroud.

The question to debate: is the Shroud of Turin the actual burial cloth of Jesus or is it a hoax?

[otseng]

Well, this is an old thread. But, I came across an article that I'd like to place here.

Did boy Jesus look like this?

What did Jesus Christ of Nazareth look like as a boy?

While no one knows for certain, forensic experts are now using computer images from the Shroud of Turin along with historical data and other ancient images to make an educated guess.

At the end of the article, it references another article, Evidence favors Shroud of Turin as real thing, that has some interesting things in it.

[Spongemom]

I don't have time to read all the replies to this thread, so I don't know if this was already mentioned or not. The image on the back of the shroud is slightly taller than the image on the front. Which means Jesus would have to have been taller from the back, a physical impossibility. It is also speculated that the shroud was painted by Da Vinci, via air-brushing techniques, since the shroud has been dated to the same era as Da Vinci.

From a thread on another board, by someone who watched a Discovery channel special on the topic:

One [expert] was a micro-something-or-other. His job was to examine microscopic particles of old paintings to determine the authenticity of famous pictures, and he said on a microscopic level it is clear that it's a fake. He said the scientists who examined the shroud a few decades ago (they said they couldn't find any brushstrokes) were simply not qualified in this particular field to make the call.

Another art expert pointed out that many of Leonardo's paintings are so amazing that to this very day experts were still not able to figure out how he painted them, because even with high-tech equipment, they could not find brushstrokes. One expert said it looked like Leonardo painted with a fine mist of particles. (Sounds like airbrushing to me. Why not? He invented many other things 500 years before they were popularized.)

Then they spoke to another expert who actually re-created the shroud with photosensitive chemicals and a very primitive camera. Amazingly there is evidence in Leonardo's diaries that shows he knew about those photosensitive chemicals, and there's a drawing in his diaries of a primitive camera, and his diaries show that Leonardo was very interested in optics.

They said that would also explain why the back image of the body is slightly taller than the front image of the body. When the back image was created, Leonardo may have stood in a slightly different spot when the primitive camera scorched the image onto the shroud, and it caused the back image to be of slightly different proportions.

Also, Leonardo's self-portrait was found in the posession of an old Italian royal family, only a few feet away from the shroud of Turin. The same family owned Leonardo's portrait as well as the shroud. A pretty big coincidence.

And carbon dating conclusively proves that the fibers of the shroud are from about the same era in which Leonardo lived. It is estimated that the fabric of the shroud is about 60 years older than Leonardo, which makes sense, because if Leonardo tried to create an ancient-looking hoax, of course he would use old fabric rather than brand new linen.

[juliod]

I'm also entering this discussion a bit late, but I want to point out something. There is no real reason to think the shroud might be genuine. It was declared a fake centuries ago when it appeared. I know of nothing that would make someone think otherwise.

BTW, the shroud is not a negative. inverting the imag does not give you a posative. It is just the kind of thing that might be done by someone trying to make a fake shroud.

DanZ

[Dilettante]

As someone who has dabbled in painting (I have a degree in Fine Arts), the Shroud looks suspiciously like a painting. It does remind me a little bit of the Pantocrator representations. However, we shouldn't assume, like Otseng seems to do, that Gothic artists were not capable of realistic art. In the past, artists conformed to the artistic conventions of their times, but that does not mean they were limited to that particular style. There are some amazingly realistic paintings in Tel-El-Amarna which differ greatly from typical Egyptian art of the period.
If it were not a painting, but the impression of a body, it would look very different. If the Shroud had been tight around the body, the impression of the face, for example, would be deformed: it would look too wide instead of elongated, with the ears on the same plane as the face. You can try this yourself at home by smearing your face with paint and wrapping your head on a cloth. I bet the result will not look quite like the face on the Shroud. Also, the artist did make a mistake with the arms: they are way too long. Try lying on the floor with your elbows resting on the floor while you try to cover up your private parts, and see if you can do it. But perhaps it wasn't a mistake: perhaps the artist had the Jesus figure cover himself out of a sense of respect or modesty.
The image on the Shroud is consistent with the pictorial effect of a technique known as "frottage".
Finally, apart from the eye-opening investigative work of Joe Nickell or the late Walter McCrane, the fact that the Shroud includes impressions of the feet soles seems also highly suspicious. A lying figure is not consistent with that. And the Shroud has the nails go through the place where the hands join the wrist, not the wrist itself, when archaeological evidence points to the forearms rather than the wrists anyway.
In conclusion, apart from the scientific evidence against the Shroud's authenticity and its mysterious history (why did it appear during the medieval relic craze and not before then?), the whole thing does not look credible even to the naked eye.

[Nyril]

[tangent]

Try lying on the floor with your elbows resting on the floor while you try to cover up your private parts, and see if you can do it. But perhaps it wasn't a mistake: perhaps the artist had the Jesus figure cover himself out of a sense of respect or modesty.

I think it could of been altered such that people couldn't look at the shroud and say "Mine's bigger then Jesus's"

[/tangent]

Regardless, if the shroud was real, why was it not known about (discovered) until the time period in which it was dated to have been created, a time period when it was extremely popular to fake religious artifacts and such.

[anchorman]

the carbon dating test shows 1400 or 1500 was the orgin of the shroud. The problem was the three samples used for the dating were actually taken from a part of the shroud that had been repaired during a fire in the 1400 or 1500s. Under a special light you can clearly see were the shroud had additional material that was woven into the shroud after the fire.

So the cabon dating is correct but the samples were clearly taken from a contaminated part of the shroud.

[otseng]

More news on the shroud...

Turin Shroud Older Than Thought

The Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus's body after the crucifixion, is much older than the date suggested by radiocarbon tests, according to new microchemical research.

Published in the current issue of Thermochimica Acta, a chemistry peer- reviewed scientific journal, the study dismisses the results of the 1988 carbon-14 dating.

"As unlikely as it seems, the sample used to test the age of the shroud in 1988 was taken from a rewoven area of the shroud. Indeed, the patch was very carefully made. The yarn has the same twist as the main part of the cloth, and it was stained to match the color," Raymond Rogers, a retired chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratories and former member of the STURP team of American scientists that examined the Shroud in 1978, told Discovery News.

"The radiocarbon sample cannot be older than about 1290, agreeing with the age determined by carbon-14 dating in 1988. However, the Shroud itself is actually much older," said Rogers.

Evidence came from microchemical tests that revealed the presence of vanillin in the radiocarbon sample and in the Holland cloth, but not in the rest of the shroud.

Produced by the thermal decomposition of lignin, a chemical compound of plant material including flax, vanillin decreases and disappears with time. It is easily detected on medieval linens, but cannot be found in the very old ones, such as the wrappings of the Dead Sea scrolls.

"A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggests that the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old," Rogers wrote.

[juliod]

More news on the shroud...

I was waiting for someone to bring this up.

I read the paper. Not very convincing. This lignin-loss technique sounds highly problematical.

The excuse to invalidate the C-14 dating, "As unlikely as it seems, the sample used to test the age of the shroud in 1988 was taken from a rewoven area of the shroud" is in my view totally bogus. A "fact" invented in retrospect.

Since carbon dating is very accurate within the expected time period of the cloth, let the supporters of the shroud provide material from the "genuine" parts.

DanZ

[JamesBrown]

One thing to consider is that the Shroud of Turin is one whole cloth, while the Gospel of John tells a different story:

"They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself." John 20:4-7 (Revised Standard Version).

Two times the plural word "cloths" is used, plus the description that the head napkin was separate and lying elsewhere. Lazarus is also described wearing the two pieces (John 11:44)

Plus, given the layout of the image on the cloth, the Shroud doesn't look as if it wrapped anything. It appears to have been folded over the head, leaving the sides open and ventilated, except the front and back of the head do not meet as they would if it truly was folded over a body.

The Shroud may indeed be a 1st century piece of cloth, and it may indeed have an image that was imprinted on it from the first century. So far the evidence seems inconclusive. But if we accept this as the burial cloth of a resurrected man, then we must conclude that the biblical text is incorrect.

Besides, if the Shroud proves to be a fake, would this damage Christianity somehow? Would believers lose their faith if this artifact proves false? No one I've asked ever agrees with this. The resurrection can stand or fall on its own despite the physical evidence.

So what do we do? Do we accept a controversial, unnecessary item and conclude that the biblical text is unreliable? Would this not be relic worship?

More on the Shroud: http://www.skepdic.com/shroud.html

[Dilettante]

James Brown wrote:


"Two times the plural word "cloths" is used, plus the description that the head napkin was separate and lying elsewhere. Lazarus is also described wearing the two pieces "(John 11:44)


What do you know! It so happens that the cathedral in my hometown has a piece of cloth which according to legend is the head napkin (sudarium) you mention. It is kept in the church museum, but it is only displayed publicly twice a year during mass (and only for a few seconds during the eucharist). Interestingly, no supernatural image can be seen there. The sudarium is a dirty-looking piece of cloth with brown stains which could be blood (I don't remember if it has been tested for hemmoglobin or not). But shouldn't there be a face on the sudarium too? The whole thing is highly suspicious to me. The Catholic church has never given a definite pronouncement on the Shroud, but has never been willing to denounce it as a fake, either.