How can we trust the Bible if it's not inerrant?

[otseng]

From the On the Bible being inerrant thread:

How can you trust something that's written about god that contradictory, contains errors and just plain wrong at times? Is there a logical way to do so, or do you just want it to be god's word so much that you overlook these things like happens so often through the history of christianity?

The Bible can still be God's word, inspired, authoritative, and trustworthy without the need to believe in inerrancy.

For debate:
How can the Bible be considered authoritative and inspired without the need to believe in the doctrine of inerrancy?

While debating, do not simply state verses to say the Bible is inspired or trustworthy.

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Thread Milestones

• Case study of Hezekiah
• Start discussing global flood / Flood Model summary
• Recap arguments of authority of the Bible
• Start discussing Tower of Babel / Tower of Babel summary
• Start discussing archaeology / Philosophy of science / Origin of alphabet / End of discussion on archaeology
• Start discussing cosmology / Concluding cosmology
• Start discussing Shroud of Turin / Summary top TS imaging theories / Created DefendingChristianity.com and TS subforums / Shroud of Turin summary
• Start discussing Bible and resurrection
• Start discussing the Messiahship of Jesus / Messiahship of Jesus wrap up
• Start discussing Old Testament ethics
• Summary argument of atheism and morality / God basis for objective morality
• Start discussing genocide / Genocide summary argument
• Start discussing slavery / Slavery summary argument
• Start discussing homosexuality / Homosexuality summary argument
• Old Testament ethics summary argument
• Start discussing philosophy / Summary argument on philosophy
• Start discussing creation of universe / Summary argument universe was created

[Diogenes]

Indeed, if the shroud were merely 'draped' over the body the image would only show those areas of the cloth that were in contact with the body/blood. Since even the non contact areas are displayed, this PROVES the image was painted, not an impression from a real body.

Nothing is proven by this. I remind you the conclusion of the 1978 STURP report is the image is not a result of painting. You have yet to produce any evidence any paint was used on the TS. What we do know is the coloring of the image is caused by oxidation/dehydration of the linen fibers, not by the application of any pigments, paints, dyes or stains.

And I remind you that I HAVE provided evidence* of pigments from paint proving the image was painted. I also provided evidence* both the paint AND the style of painting are consistent with 14th Century painting.* This is why the Church, as I have pointed out before, calls the 'shroud' an 'icon', not a 'relic.'

The problem with this entire thread is the use of inferior and biased experts, whether we are talking about the 'shroud' or your 'Christian" movie productions that give fake evidence and conjecture about history and archeology. The battle of the 'experts' reminds me of the Dover School Board case where the judge, a Christian, ruled the 'intelligent Design' 'experts' were not experts at all, at least in science.

The ultimate conclusion of STURP IN 1978? "IT'S A MYSTERY."

Thus, the answer to the question of how the image was produced or what produced the image remains, now, as it has in the past, a mystery.

https://www.shroud.com/78conclu.htm


_______________________
*That conclusion is unfounded and incorrect as was pointed out by STURP member McCrone, the only expert in STURP qualified to perform the appropriate examination.

The faint sepia image is made up of billions of submicron pigment particles (red ochre and vermilion) in a collagen tempera medium. The pigments red ochre and vermilion with the collagen tempera medium was a common paint composition during the 14th century; before which, no one had ever heard of the Shroud.
....
The “Shroud” is a beautiful painting created about 1355 for a new church in need of a pilgrim-attracting relic.

https://www.mccroneinstitute.org/v/64/t ... d-of-turin
McCrorne's paper, published by the American Chemical Society deserves to be read in full:
http://www.mccroneinstitute.org/uploads ... 560933.pdf

The American Chemical Society is one of the world's largest scientific societies and a leading source of scientific information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society

More specifically "Based on his microscopic and chemical analysis of the tape samples obtained by STURP, McCrone concluded that the image on the Shroud was painted with a dilute pigment of red ochre in a collagen tempera (i.e., gelatin) medium, using a technique similar to the grisaille employed in the 14th century by Simone Martini and other European artists. McCrone also found that the "bloodstains" in the image had been highlighted with vermilion (a bright red pigment made from mercury sulfide), also in a collagen tempera medium. McCrone reported that no actual blood was present in the samples taken from the Shroud."

And who is Walter_McCrone?
"In 2000 he received the American Chemical Society's National Award in Analytical Chemistry."

[otseng]

The ultimate conclusion of STURP IN 1978? "IT'S A MYSTERY."

Thus, the answer to the question of how the image was produced or what produced the image remains, now, as it has in the past, a mystery.

https://www.shroud.com/78conclu.htm

Yes, it's a mystery because nobody really knows how the image was formed. And it is especially mysterious if a medieval artist created it and we in the 21st century have no idea how he did it.

And I remind you that I HAVE provided evidence* of pigments from paint proving the image was painted. I also provided evidence* both the paint AND the style of painting are consistent with 14th Century painting.*

Why do you continually use the word "prove"? There is nothing proven. And in the case of McCone's findings, it doesn't even come close to a proof. I guess now is the time to start our discussion on McCrone's findings. This is probably the top argument by skeptics against the authenticity of the shroud next to the 1988 C-14 dating and the d'Arcis memo, so we'll most likely be spending considerable time on this.

The problem with this entire thread is the use of inferior and biased experts

Ad hom argument. The experts are not inferior. And if you charge bias, then all the skeptics are as well biased. What's valid instead is the evidence, not accusations against the experts.

*That conclusion is unfounded and incorrect as was pointed out by STURP member McCrone, the only expert in STURP qualified to perform the appropriate examination.

McCrone was never a STURP team member as testified by Barrie Schwortz and is not in the list of STURP team members:
https://www.shroud.com/78team.htm
https://www.shroudofturin.com/Resources ... PTEAM1.pdf

"The only expert in STURP qualified to perform the appropriate examination" is quite a claim. What appropriate examination was McCrone the only one qualified for?

The faint sepia image is made up of billions of submicron pigment particles (red ochre and vermilion) in a collagen tempera medium.

How would McCrone even know this? All he had was 32 sticky tape samples, which would be a small subset of the entire shroud. As a matter of fact, he has never claimed he could show scientifically the image was formed entirely by paint. All he claims is he found iron oxide and vermilion particles on his sticky tape samples and it could be associated with paint.

I am not saying the Shroud is not authentic. I am saying that the image area has a lot of iron
oxide and a lot of artist's pigment associated with it but I do not know whether the amount of
iron oxide present is sufficient to explain the entire image.

Although there is considerable iron
oxide on the image, either it is the image, or it enhances an earlier image. Therefore there is
the possibility of later enhancement of an earlier image. I cannot say whether the Shroud is
either real or not real. There is a suspicion that evidence of a medium for the paint also exists
in the samples. There was only a quantitative difference between the particulate matter on the
body image and the blood images. There was also corn starch, wax, minerals, air pollutants,
human hair, wool, cotton, red silk, all obvious fortuitous contaminants from the environment.

I know that a great deal of iron oxide is present in ways telling me it was done by an artist. I
do not know whether or not it is the entire image; it could be enhancement of an earlier
image.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/sn002Oct80.pdf

As for where the sticky tape samples were taken, here are the locations below, which shows it's only a small subsection of the entire shroud that was sampled. Sticky samples also only pick up some of the loose materials from the cloth. So, it is not really a study of the image, but only what can be removed from the cloth. He was never able to study the linen fibers directly. And it has been shown the coloration on the TS image is only due to oxidation/dehydration of the fibers.


http://www.mccroneinstitute.org/v/296/s ... ple-points

[Diogenes]

The ultimate conclusion of STURP IN 1978? "IT'S A MYSTERY."

Thus, the answer to the question of how the image was produced or what produced the image remains, now, as it has in the past, a mystery.

https://www.shroud.com/78conclu.htm

Yes, it's a mystery because nobody really knows how the image was formed. And it is especially mysterious if a medieval artist created it and we in the 21st century have no idea how he did it.

No. STURP in 1978 declared it a 'mystery.' It's no mystery to those who don't demand their preconceived conclusion that it is a 'miraculous image of the crucified Christ.' The Carbon dating AND a demonstration of how it was painted have proved it a fake by any reasonable standard of proof... and significant enough to convince the 1988 archbishop of Turin to admit the hoax.

In 1988, scientists carried out carbon-14 dating of the delicate linen cloth and concluded that the material was made some time between 1260 and 1390. Their study prompted the then archbishop of Turin, where the Shroud is stored, to admit that the garment was a hoax. But the debate sharply revived in January this year.

Drawing on a method previously used by skeptics to attack authenticity claims about the Shroud, Science & Vie got an artist to do a bas-relief -- a sculpture that stands out from the surrounding background -- of a Christ-like face.

A scientist then laid out a damp linen sheet over the bas-relief and let it dry, so that the thin cloth was moulded onto the face. Using cotton wool, he then carefully dabbed ferric oxide, mixed with gelatine, onto the cloth to make blood-like marks. When the cloth was turned inside-out, the reversed marks resulted in the famous image of the crucified Christ.

Gelatine, an animal by-product rich in collagen, was frequently used by Middle Age painters as a fixative to bind pigments to canvas or wood.

https://phys.org/news/2005-06-turin-shroud-fake.html

[otseng]

No. STURP in 1978 declared it a 'mystery.' It's no mystery to those who don't demand their preconceived conclusion that it is a 'miraculous image of the crucified Christ.' The Carbon dating AND a demonstration of how it was painted have proved it a fake by any reasonable standard of proof... and significant enough to convince the 1988 archbishop of Turin to admit the hoax.

Again, nothing is "proved". The assertions that carbon dating shows it is a fake and that it was painted are not supported by any evidence.

For Jacques di Costanzo, of Marseille University Hospital, southern France, who carried out the experiments, the mediaeval forger must have also used a bas-relief, a sculpture or cadaver to get the 3-D imprint.

The faker used a cloth rather than a brush to make the marks, and used gelatine to keep the rusty blood-like images permanently fixed and bright for selling in the booming market for religious relics.

To test his hypothesis, di Costanzo used ferric oxide, but no gelatine, to make other imprints, but the marks all disappeared when the cloth was washed or exposed to the test chemicals.

https://phys.org/news/2005-06-turin-shroud-fake.html

I don't see any attempt in Costanzo's experiment to replicate the blood stains. Also doubt the experiment accounts for all the image features found on the TS. In other words, yes, he attempted to make a replica of the TS, but failed to fully replicate it.

[otseng]

More about McCrone and how he got the sticky tape samples...

Ray Rogers had loaned the sticky tape samples to McCrone immediately after STURP completed their testing on the shroud.

October 13, 1978: (Friday) STURP completes their scientific work during the evening of this day. The Shroud is returned to its casket the following morning.

En route back to New Mexico Dr. Ray Rogers stops off in Chicago and hand-delivers to Dr. Walter McCrone's laboratory thirty-two of the sticky tape samples taken from the Shroud.

https://www.shroud.com/history.htm

Rogers had done this on his own accord and it was not pre-authorized by STURP.

McCrone had signed a non-disclosure agreement when he got the sticky-tapes, which was
different than the non-disclosure agreement that the STURP members signed. I called Dr.
Jackson for clarification of Heller’s account. On October 5, 2022, he told via phone that they did
NOT offer McCrone membership.

Jackson also said that the loan of the samples by Rogers was not a STURP-approved
action, but something that Rogers had done on his own.

https://www.academia.edu/88373112/Dr_Wa ... Microscope

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to otseng in post #2202

I guess now is the time to start our discussion on McCrone's findings.

Darn----I was hoping that the absence of a distortion image of the head might be next.

[Diogenes]

No. STURP in 1978 declared it a 'mystery.' It's no mystery to those who don't demand their preconceived conclusion that it is a 'miraculous image of the crucified Christ.' The Carbon dating AND a demonstration of how it was painted have proved it a fake by any reasonable standard of proof... and significant enough to convince the 1988 archbishop of Turin to admit the hoax.

Again, nothing is "proved".

[sigh] The fraud HAS been proved, just not to your satisfaction, which apparently requires proof beyond any doubt AND requires the conclusion of a miracle.

Despite conclusive scientific evidence that it is of medieval origin, multiple alternative theories about the origin of the shroud dating it to the time of Christ have been proposed.
Although three radiocarbon dating tests performed in 1988 provided conclusive evidence of a date of 1260 to 1390 for the shroud, some researchers have challenged the dating based on various theories, including the provenance of the samples used for testing, biological or chemical contamination, incorrect assessment of carbon dating data, as well as other theories. However, the alternative theories challenging the radiocarbon dating have been disproved by scientists using actual shroud material, and are thus considered to be fringe theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_th ... d_of_Turin

Proponents of the miracle theory have done an excellent job of employing almost all possible fringe theories, pseudoscience, and pseudo scholarship.

A fringe theory is an idea or a viewpoint which differs from the accepted scholarship of the time within its field. Fringe theories include the models and proposals of fringe science, as well as similar ideas in other areas of scholarship, such as the humanities. In a narrower sense, the term fringe theory is commonly used as a pejorative; it is roughly synonymous with the term pseudo-scholarship. Precise definitions that make distinctions between widely held viewpoints, fringe theories, and pseudo-scholarship are difficult to construct because of the demarcation problem. Issues of false balance or false equivalence can occur when fringe theories are presented as being equal to widely accepted theories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_theory

Just like EarthScienceguy's inveterate insistence on employing pseudoscience while ignoring science, and despite excellent instruction by The Barbarian and DrNoGods notice of evidence from actual science just bounces off 'Fringe' claims of a Young Earth.

[Diogenes]

There has been an assumption by some who believe the 'Cloth of Turin' to be a genuine relic that STURP is completely unbiased and authoritative. It is not. STURP was organized by John P. Jackson and Eric Jumper after Jackson was enamored by
The Shroud, (1963)


another wacky book by John Evangelist Walsh, author of other odd religious books like The Bones of St. Peter.

Just as one would not get information about the curvature of the Earth from the Flat
Earth Society alone, one should not primarily get “facts” about the Turin cloth from The Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) and other partisans.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive ... ic-author/

Did STURP membership include skeptics like Joe Nickell?

Moreover, there is no history of this cloth (there have been some forty True Shrouds) prior to its appearance in Lirey, and the image’s elongated forms are those of French gothic art of that period. Iconographic elements also date the image to the middle ages. The radiocarbon date, obtained by three laboratories, was 1260–1390 ce, consistent with the ca. 1355 hoax and forger’s confession.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive ... ic-author/
Nickell has debunked many popular frauds, religious and otherwise.

[otseng]

[sigh] The fraud HAS been proved, just not to your satisfaction, which apparently requires proof beyond any doubt AND requires the conclusion of a miracle.

All the evidence presented by skeptics are dubious as I've already shown (1988 C-14 dating, d'Arcis memo, attempts at replication, McCrone's findings, etc), so claiming it has been proven to be a fraud is an overstatement.

Despite conclusive scientific evidence that it is of medieval origin, multiple alternative theories about the origin of the shroud dating it to the time of Christ have been proposed.

Yes, the Raes corner has a medieval dating, but it was not representative of the entire shroud. So it does not show the entire shroud is medieval. Even Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford C-14 lab, does not go so far to claim the dating of the TS has been proven.

Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, took the theory seriously and agreed to collaborate with Jackson in testing a series of linen samples that could determine if the case for the Shroud's authenticity should be re-opened. Before conducting the tests, he told the BBC that "With the radiocarbon measurements and with all of the other evidence which we have about the Shroud, there does seem to be a conflict in the interpretation of the different evidence."[78] Ramsey stressed that he would be surprised if the results of the 1988 tests were shown to be far out – especially "a thousand years wrong" – but he insisted that he was keeping an open mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarb ... d_of_Turin

Proponents of the miracle theory have done an excellent job of employing almost all possible fringe theories, pseudoscience, and pseudo scholarship.

Strawman argument. We're talking about the TS, not anything else. Please point to any evidence I've produced that is pseudo scholarship.

A fringe theory is an idea or a viewpoint which differs from the accepted scholarship of the time within its field.

What is the widely accepted view among scholars in the field of sindonology of the TS?

There has been an assumption by some who believe the 'Cloth of Turin' to be a genuine relic that STURP is completely unbiased and authoritative. It is not. STURP was organized by John P. Jackson and Eric Jumper after Jackson was enamored by The Shroud, (1963)

Another ad hom argument and accusation of bias.

Did STURP membership include skeptics like Joe Nickell?

What qualifications does Joe Nickell have? Is he even a scientist?

[otseng]

In 1980, after McCrone had given his presentation on his findings from the sticky tapes, the press asked:

Dr McCrone, are you saying that the Turin Shroud, from your scientific analysis is a fake or
a forgery. Are you really sticking to the fact that it is a fourteenth century image put on by an
artist and I'd like to ask whether you are alone in saying this or whether you have other
scientists to back you up. And when can the public at large hear the results -- from all the
scientists who did the tests in Turin. I believe that the public have a right to know because the
Turin Shroud belongs to the whole Christian world and not just to a group of scientists and I
would like to ask you, on the record, are you saying the Turin Shroud is a fake or a forgery?

McCrone responded:

I am not saying that it is authentic or not authentic. I am saying, which I
cannot prove (and that's not very good scientifically) that I feel that probably the date will
come out in the middle of the fourteenth century. It is entirely possible that an artist could
have done it much earlier than that. My reason for picking that date was simply that it was
appropriate for it to be done then by the reasoning of the de Charnay family (who owned it).
The style of painting at that time included the style of the Shroud. The materials were
available then, as they were earlier. It was very fashionable to make shrouds at that time. So I
have a reasonably strong feeling that it will turn out to have been done at that period. Again, I
have to leave it open because it could have been a first century cloth and that's going to cause
utter confusion if it turns out to be true.

Press responded with:

Would you like to put on record that the Turin Shroud is a fake?

McCrone replied:

NO! I tell you I can't say that but I can explain the possibility that
he would have been able to do it and I think in my heart of hearts that it was done at that
time. I think it was a fake but I cannot prove it as a scientist.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/sn002Oct80.pdf

So, even by McCrone's own testimony he says he cannot scientifically prove the TS is a fake.