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'Shroud of Turin'
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The Turin Shroud a scam? Right. After 60+ peer-reviewed SCIENTIFIC papers it is still an authentic burial cloth with real human blood and matches every detail recorded in the Gospels. The C-14 test was truly a huge scam. The sampling was in gross error and was never a blind test. There is ample proof the cloth is far older than the 14th century.
You are in a tiny minority of angry-at-God scam artists. Joke Nichol has zero credentials yet since he is the only one alive willing to spew these lies people like you and the stupid press only talk to him. No one is buying this garbage. When they do REAL research they find out what silly fools you angry atheists make of yourselves. All the evidence is overwhelming. Why don't you try to duplicate the images on the shroud and let's see if you can fool the scientists from Los Alamos, Sandia, NASA, etc? They are so laughing at you strange people.
Sorry Charles, but with comments like "[the shroud] matches every detail recorded in the Gospels", you obviously haven't read our article or your Bible in any detail.
And you seem to be one of these religious people that can't grasp that atheists are not "angry-at-God". Are we also 'angry-at-Zeus' and 'angry-at-Shiva'? Can't you understand that atheists don't believe your god exists? It makes as much sense for us to be angry at your god as for us to be angry at leprechauns.
Get back to us if you can put together a more rational argument.
Hi — I enjoyed reading your web page on the Shroud of Turin. I think you are wrong on too many
points to list in a short email. Let me just note that Ray Rogers did not use the vanillan test primarily to show that the shroud was old but that the material removed for the carbon dating was contaminated with more recent material. He did this in a couple of ways: 1) he found cotton which is uncharacteristic of the shroud more generally and so an anomolous material, 2) he found dyes on the cotton obviously intended to match the color of the surrounding linen fibers, 3) he found an end to end cotton to linen splice from material removed from the reserve sample that was part of the material removed for the carbon dating, and 4) he found that the material in the sample area tested positive for vanillan while the shroud in general does not test positive for vanillan. In addition there are a number of spectral pictures taken of the region which show that the sample site was anomolous. All in all it was unfortunate that the original protocol was not followed.
Yes Ray, I agree that Ray Rogers' main purpose was to show that the carbon dating was performed on a patch and not the actual shroud. However, rightly or wrongly, the popular media tends to focus equally on the sample/patch debate and the revised shroud age he arrived at. Thus the layperson tends to remember the revised date rather than the debate about the fibres. As in the lecture I attended, this mistaken belief that Rogers' has overturned the carbon dating results surfaces. Also there is no independent evidence that the threads he tested came from the carbon dating sample, and since they have been destroyed they can never be compared. Likewise there is no rational explanation how simple medieval nuns could weave an invisible patch that textile experts and scientists with microscopes couldn't detect. No STURP member at the time of the carbon dating test is on record of complaining that the sample was taken from a patched area. Also the claimed differences between the "sample/patch" and the rest of the shroud is debated by others. If the "differences" are correct, perhaps the "sample/patch" is original shroud cloth and the other areas are the real patches? Supporters can't use the excuse 'We would notice if the other areas were patches' since they didn't notice the carbon dating area until it returned the wrong date. People can't just claim that those areas of the shroud that return appropriate data are authentic and those that don't must be patches.
You state that, "Dismissing someone because they believe the shroud is authentic is not a valid criticism." I agree entirely, although I don't believe I dismissed anyone in my essay solely on their belief that the shroud was authentic. The feature of my essay was Father Laisney and I dismissed his lecture solely on the inaccuracies he delivered. I did mention that Ray Rogers and most of STURP were believers, but only to inform that this bias must be taken into account. As you will be aware "double blind" scientific experiments are the best way to avoid intentional or unintentional manipulation of results. If possible bias exists and it can't be eliminated, then it needs to be acknowledged. If someone lectured you on the safety of cigarette smoking you would be annoyed if you later discovered he was a sales rep for a tobacco company. He may have believed what he said but I'm sure you would have preferred to have been informed of this association. Likewise scientists with religious convictions investigating religious icons need to disclose this, as would a scientist who was anti-religion.
I am an atheist but I believe I have reached this position because of critical thinking and not because of any backlash towards religion. I go where I believe the most reasonable answers lie. As per your suggestion I will try and "read all the literature on the shroud and apply critical reasoning".
I replied before I read your response John — so I imagine that part of my response is something that you'd now agree with. The shroud is a very complex object and there has been a tremendous amount of study of the image, the blood stains, the fabric, the historical record and on-and-on. I think you do yourself a disservice if you don't read more widely about the work.
On the idea of being an atheist through the application of critical reasoning — I'm sorry but
that's an oxymoron. An atheist positively asserts the non-existence of God. That is a position impossible of proof and so cannot be the conclusion of critical reasoning. It may be plausible to assert that the evidence for the existence of God is insufficient to prove God's existence — however, just the fact that many plausibility arguments for the existence of God exist shows that it is not an unreasonable belief. Conversely to assert the non-existence of God is a dogmatic belief based on no evidence at all. I might question — if God does not exist, then why does
anything at all exist?
On the matter of invisible weaving I direct your attention to the work of Joe Marino and Sue Benford who actually substantiated the probability of invisible weaving by sending photographs of the weave in the sample area to experts without telling them it was the shroud and they identified subtle signs of invisible weaving. Ray Roger's sample was from the reserve piece that was part of the original sample cut from the shroud for the purpose of the dating. The assertion is not that some nuns did it but that experts did it. But of course there is no record and unless a critical
examination of the reserve sample that remains is allowed at some point, we'll not know for sure. What Rogers did however was show that anomolous cotton that had been intentionally tinted was in the reserve sample. The observation of cotton is consistent with the earlier observations of Raes — but no cotton was found by STURP on the rest of the shroud. They looked. There may be minute amounts of vanillin remaining on the shroud as you suggest. The power of the tests that Ray Rogers applied may not be sufficient to identify trace amounts. Indeed, the equation used to describe
the decay of vanillin is an exponential decay and such equations never predict "zero". But there is a huge difference between a lot of vanillin and almost no vanillin. That is the point. Contemporary linen or linen only a few hundred years old tests positive for vanillin while very old linen tests negative. The shroud tests negative while the C14 sample area tests positive. It's no contest. There's a clear problem. That discrepancy alone points to contamination. A point that was not raised is the high Chi-squared result of the C14 test samples. This also points to statistical problems with the site. All of these problems would have been avoided if the original protocol had been followed. In that case we would have been quarreling about the variation among the samples and not a single anomalous result. Whether or not "most of the STURP team" were believers is irrelevant. In fact a good number of them were not and those that remained represented a cross section of belief and were hardly fanatics. To date the STURP team has produced far and away the most technical papers published in referred journals while most of the naysayers have been on the professional sidelines throwing rocks and mostly rather unsubstantiated and speculative rocks. That's why I suggested a deeper reading of the shroud literature with a conscious effort to remove your own blinders. I don't know if the shroud is authentic, but both it and the scientists, historians, archeologists and others that have studied it and drawn conclusions different from
your own deserve better attention than you've given them.
Ray, I agree that many atheists — but not all — positively assert that gods don't exist. I'm one of them. However it is a religious myth to claim that atheists like myself say it is possible to prove gods don't exist. I agree that one can not absolutely "prove" that gods don't exist or equally — from your point of view — that God does exist. From a silly but legitimate perspective, you also can't "prove" that leprechauns or unicorns don't exist. However, like all scientific conclusions, it is perfectly rational to declare what you believe is true based on the best evidence available. Thus by using critical reasoning I have concluded that the best evidence indicates there are no gods, and never have been. No leprechauns or unicorns either.
You say that "to assert the non-existence of God is a dogmatic belief based on no evidence at all." That might have been true in 2000 BCE but the overwhelming evidence today from scientific fields like biology and genetics to cosmology and archaeology just scream a natural universe with the gods long relegated to superstition. It is the religious that are suffering from a lack of evidence in favour of their worldview.
Also if your logic was correct, and since you likewise can't "prove" God exists, you can't then have used critical reasoning to reach this conclusion otherwise this would also be an oxymoron. Do you hold your belief through faith alone? I prefer reason.
As for your question "if God does not exist, then why does anything at all exist?", it is much easier to explain the existence of the universe than of God. We only have to explain one thing — the universe, whereas you have to explain two things — the universe AND God. Every problem you have explaining the universe is only massively complicated by having to explain a god as well. You ask why does a universe exist at all? If we both agreed God existed, I would then ask — "Why does God exist at all?" "How did God create the universe?" "Why did God create the universe?" Rather than understand why the universe exists, all you have done is move the mystery back a step. You haven't solved anything at all.
I read a very detailed but not scientifically correct attack to the authenticity of the Turin Shroud. At the end it is written: "*Please note that much of the information contained in this essay is obviously not my original work, and has been sourced from numerous books and articles examining the controversy surrounding the Shroud of **Turin**." I write to you to inform that it exist some document probably neglected by your research that must be read before to arrive to such conclusions. If you want, I can help you in indicating some scientific text. I have written above "not scientifically correct attack" for many reasons but perhaps the most important is the following. As the body image is not up to now scientifically/technically reproducible, who is the middle-age artist that was able to make it? And why up to now it is not possible to reproduce it? On the other hand, if you know someone that is able to reproduce the Shroud body image with ALL the peculiar characteristics detected by many scientists (please see for example http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/doclist.pdf) please indicate it to me and send me a sample of this results; up to now I have studied many hypothetical "reproductions" but none of them were compliant with all the Shroud characteristics.
Thanks Giulio. I have downloaded the file you recommended (http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/doclist.pdf), plus a number of others from that site that I hadn't read before. I will study them further in the near future. It certainly is impressive the amount of scientific study that is still going on regarding the Shroud. In New Zealand debate or discussion surrounding the Shroud is almost non-existent.
John, thank you for your answer and for the wishes. I agree with you, the fact that the body image up to now is not reproducible it does not directly imply that it was made by God or some other supernatural cause, but it is a strong fact against the hypothesis of a middle-age artist who certainly should have had much more technical means than we have now. You can suppose for example that it was made in that age by an extraterrestrial source but not by an human artist. I think that this is a sufficient basis to state that this is an open issue, without a reliable answer, that must be studied more in depth. You have collected an interesting list of 41 facts apparently against the Shroud authenticity, but many of them have a clear answer from the opposite point of view and some of them make reference to old scientific points that have been clearly explained with newer studies. You can find some papers on the subject in my site
(http://www.dim.unipd.it/misure/fanti/fanti-ital.html), but if I had time in the future I would answer to them point by point because I think interesting such a scientific comparison at Internet level.
Hello, my name is Teresa [bleep]. I am currently a senior at [bleep] High School in [bleep], Wisconsin.
Hi Teresa, I would be happy to help you with your thesis on the Shroud of Turin. It sounds fascinating.
Thank you so much for responding to my request. I am so relieved that someone finally did!
Hello, thanks for completing my questions. I was so happy to see how much time you obviously put into the interview. Thank you so much! I would be glad to show you the other interview. As soon as I finish it and get it all typed up I will send it to you. To be honest I chose this topic because I wanted to do something really easy and just be able to pass it in quick and forget about it. It has turned out to be much harder than i ever thought it could be. I have talked to so many qualified people on both sides of the argument. I wish I could just turn the paper in with an "I don't know." :) As of right now, I am torn in the middle as far as my position goes. I just keep reading books from both sides and hopefully soon I will be able to make a conclusion that makes some sense. Thanks again for your time!
Might be of interest — http://www.shroudstory.com/art.htm
Hi John — I just read your piece on the Shroud of Turin. I really think that you did a nice job of showing some of the errors that Fr. Laisney committed, but I also think that you were biased in your anti-shroud authenticity discussion. There are problems with the statistics of the C14 sample which ought to have signalled to the researchers that the samples were inhomogeneous. That itself is disturbing since they ought not to have been dismissed as they evidently were. The dating of the samples appears to have a linear gradient which suggests the presence of anomalous material. The invisible weaving theory has not been shown to be wrong and Rogers found a thread in a sample from the reserve that had been spliced with dyed cotton. Rogers was not trying to date the shroud using his vanillin test. The date cited is a very wide range because the quantity of vanillin present is strongly influenced by the storage temperature of the shroud which is unknown. But it is known that the shroud went through a fire in 1532 capable of melting the silver reliquary in whcih it was stored. So the presence of vanillin in the sample area suggests intrusives. Only material from the C14 test area tests positive for vanillin. That was Rogers' actual point.
Hi John, I read your article about Father Laisney's lecture on the Shroud (2005). On this matter you debate at length that his statement that a conspiracy of the labs would have taken place is wrong. I did not attend his presentation, so I cannot analyze this. (By the way, I recently attended an atheist presentation of the Shroud. I can actually make the same remarks: many statements are made that are incorrect, false, distorted, etc. You can read this here at www.sindonology.org. To get everything right is a difficult task.)
You state that the conclusion of the Nature article is very clear. I quote: "There is no confusion, no debate, no controversy, no conspiracy". But you seem to base this solely on reading the Nature paper. On what else? Of course, the paper does not do a debate or talk about a controversy.
Have you consulted the book written by Harry E. Gove "Relic, Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud". Harry Gove is the co-inventor of the AMS carbon dating technique. You would see quite a different picture than "no debate", "no controversy" and even "no conspiracy". And Gove certainly does not show sympathy for the authenticity of the Shroud.
You point out that the Vanillin test done by Raymond Rogers is not as accurate as the radio carbon dating. I think this is obvious. I do not think any serious researchers would argue for the opposite. Some pro-authenticity researchers pointed this out explicitly.
You mentioned several reasons why the Shroud is a fake. In particular, you cite the July 2005 issue of Science et Vie. Have you read it? I did. This article is one of these popular presentations that pretend that it is easy to create a reproduction of the Shroud of Turin. Of course, you can show on some nice looking photos, something that look somehow similar to the Shroud (and even in this case I think that what Science et Vie presents is far from looking like the Shroud.) Water looks like vinegar, it is not the same based on chemical analysis. Likewise, for the Shroud, the physical details at microscopic level is quite different than these "copies". This is a very important aspect to consider. These articles do not do such studies. They are made for the masses.
For point 13 of your article, I point out a study I did. The paper can be accessed here. It shows that the no major distortion would occur when the image formed assuming that the cloth is not tightly wrapping the body.
Point 14 makes many claims about length, distortions, etc. Have you looked closely to what you reported? I think that all these measurements are randomly selected. Many others were done, and differ from what you reported.
You also mentioned the work of Walter McCrone. Have you read his book or his papers supposedly demonstrating that the Shroud is a painting? In particular, where does McCrone mention the amount of "paint" he finds on the Shroud? As far as I know, he never does. It is only a qualitative measurement with no data about the amount of these putative "pigments" he finds. His book on the subject is very confusing, I invite you to try to back what he claimed. And can you combine the result of McCrone who steadfastly claims that the Shroud was painted with a brush, and the claim that you make that it was probably made using a bas-relief? And if you look at the images you display on your website, which ones appear more life like?
Your comment 4 in the comments state: "Likewise there is no rational explanation how simple medieval nuns could weave an invisible patch that textile experts and scientists with microscopes couldn't detect." The medieval nuns are not attributed the invisible weaving. They actually patched the Shroud in 1534. (These patches were removed in 2002) As for "scientists with microscopes couldn't detect", I would like to know who did such a study.
I think that a careful study of the Shroud takes time. It is not clear that the Shroud is a fake.
Mario, the way I see it, there is only one reason that some people think the shroud might be the burial cloth of Jesus, and that's the stories in the Bible. If it weren't for the Bible this cloth would be a mere curiosity for everyone, not just skeptics. But importantly, if the shroud is really the burial cloth of Jesus, then the Bible is wrong, since its description of the cloth used to wrap Jesus doesn't in any way match the shroud. An authentic shroud means a false Bible. But if the Bible is false, then there was no Jesus in the first place that needed a burial cloth. Again I say, no matter how many scientific tests you discredit or place doubt on, such as whether image distortions would occur on wrapping a body or whether there was paint on the cloth, the most crucial source of dissent that you must discredit or throw doubt on is the Bible itself. But of course if you succeed in showing the Bible to be wrong, then Jesus disappears in a puff of fiction as does his burial cloth. I could accept that maybe the scientific tests carried out so far are flawed, that maybe the shroud was used to wrap a crucified man in 1st century Palestine, that maybe something strange happened to the body — perhaps aliens beamed it aboard their spacecraft — but I can't accept that the burial cloths described in the Bible and the Shroud of Turin are one and the same thing. Throwing doubt on the tests performed on the shroud may continue to keep its origin a mystery, but it in no way reconciles the shroud with the Gospels. Christians need to make a choice, believe in the shroud or believe in the Bible.
This is the site I now direct my lovely but deluded traditional Roman Catholic friends to — well done John!
Hey wise one, this stupid christian claims to have found proof for theshroud ofturn [Shroud of Turin?], schek out how stupid this idiots "proov" is: http://djknight.livejournal.com/15592.html. god he's such a dumb faggit
You're right, this Daniel J Knight is certainly not all that bright, although I think calling him 'stupid' and 'dumb' is an insult to the truly low IQ people in society. It's like accusing him of being as 'dumb as a chicken' would be unfairly dragging chickens down to his level of intelligence.
You'll note that while he quotes from our Shroud of Turin article, and pretends to debunk it, nowhere does he mention where he got those quotes. He never names our website or provides a link to it so that his readers can make up their own mind. Other articles of his contain links to other sites so it's not as if he doesn't now how to do this. Thus we can only assume he is afraid to point readers to our site. Also, all the quotes Knight attacks are gleaned from the two opening paragraphs in our article. Even though it appears that he read no further than this, he can't even construct a coherent argument against our introduction to the debate.
Rather than clearly identifying us, he simply labels us as the "Blind Biased Hypocrite Snake Father Bitter Atheist". Even more dishonest, he invents quotes from us merely so he can then criticise them. Of course if he linked his readers to our website, then they would realise that he was lying, thus no link.
His irrational, hateful rant is extremely poorly written, disjointed, clearly delusional and makes no argument for the authenticity of the shroud. It is just one long childish insult from a fearful fundamentalist. Apart from his insults, which make up the majority of his article, he often contradicts himself and makes numerous errors of fact. Even simple facts are beyond him it seems, like erroneously claiming that Star Trek's Gene Roddenbury invented the concept of teleportation. In addition to his reliance on insults, his poor grasp of grammar, spelling and his inability to construct a coherent argument makes one suspect that he might be quite young and immature, maybe only 10 to 12 years old. His repeated scenario of raping Christian kids in front of their parents and then murdering their parents — a fantasy or 'desire' he mentions five times in his article — would suggest he needs serious psychological help. This repeated image of raping kids and murdering their parents might suggest a disturbed pre-teen having sick erotic fantasies, although it might also be a sign of a Christian child that has been repeatedly raped by his father as he was growing up. The horrors of his own life continually surface in his childish rants. He obviously thinks that this rape fantasy of his is something that's common. Maybe being part of an American fundamentalist Christian family he knows something that we atheists don't, that rape of Christian children is common in these fundamentalist societies? And that these raped children consequently wish they could murder their parents?
The really scary thing is, this guy lives in the US with their easy access to all manner of weapons, so I wonder how long it is before he shifts from directing his venom at the internet and targets his innocent neighbours? If I get some time and I'm really, really bored, I'll leave a comment on his page, although to be honest arguing with him would be little different to debating with a seriously disturbed child or tormenting a pit bull terrier on a leash.
Hi Silly Beliefs Team.
Your article has been honoured by the comments of three well named scientists and Shroud researchers whose papers on the Image I read with much interest. I mean professors Giulio Fanti, Mario Latendresse and I guess Ray is Professor Ray Shneider (Mathematics and Computer Sciences). Why would these scientists and many others be interested in studying such a relic? The answer is quite simple, the Shroud of Turin deserves a special status among all the so called relics because it is a challenge for science.
I really did hesitate before writing this comment but I will go on because I'm convinced that although you are atheist you are honest and believe the information you got leads to the conclusion the Shroud is a forgery and not simply because it is just a way to attack christian beliefs and try to demolish an alleged material evidence for their faith.
I had the will to answer the so many inaccuracies and misleading statements contained in your article but it would be a much too long comment so I'll try to summarize and not repeating what those scientists stated.
1 — When you say «the cloth is incompatible with New Testament accounts on Jesus burial» that is not true because Matthew Luke and Mark mention a single cloth bought by Joseph of Arimathea which covered Jesus body and the Greek word in John's gospel was incorrectly translated.
2 — When you mentioned that pollens from Palestine were a fraud that is preposterous because Jewish botanist experts (Professors Avinoam Danim and Uri Baruk) confirmed Dr Max Frei's findings and added new pollen species.
3 — Shroud debunkers contradict each other. Each has a theory how a medieval forger produced the image some like Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince and Nicholas Allen claim the Shroud is a kind of negative protophotograph others like Chritopher Knight an Robert Lomas claim that Shroud's image was produced by the sweat an blood of a Master Templar, Joe Nickell states it was produced using a bas relief covered with a cloth and iron oxide and sulphuric acid but microscopist Walter Mccrone claimed the Shroud was a painting, but in 2005 the Shadow Shroud theory emerged so which of them fits ALL chemical physical and optical characteristics of Shroud Image?
These are some hard facts not speculations. Till now science could not disauthenticate the Shroud, but of course there is not a scientific test to «prove» it is the cloth that covered Jesus body. But after analysing all the reliable historical and scientific data and through the application of critical thinking the only logical conclusion is that the Shroud of Turin is authentic and bears the image of Jesus Christ.
best regards
Hi Maria, thanks for your comments. I'm slowly working my way through the papers from the shroud conference you mentioned. However I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that none of the points that you raised or what I've read in those papers have caused me to change camps. Let me explain some problems I have with some of your points.
Regarding the description of the shroud in John's Gospel, you state that description of the linen being in strips was due to a word being mistranslated. I hadn't heard that before, but I'm certainly open to the view that much in the Bible has been mistranslated. For example, many Biblical scholars now believe that the word 'virgin' in relation to Mary, mother of Jesus, was mistranslated. Rather than 'virgin', it really meant 'young woman'.
If we look at John's Gospel, Jn 19:40 says "Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen." It's plausible that the word for "strips of linen" might have been mistranslated. However if we then look at JN 20:5~7, this says, "He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen." In this passage, mistranslating 'linen' into 'strips of linen' can not explain the claim that whether the linen was in one piece or in strips, there was a separate cloth around the head, separate from the body cloth. To explain this passage, not only must the word for 'strips of linen' be mistranslated, the lengthy description of the separate face cloth must be utterly bogus.
Also remember that Luke's gospel also mentions 'strips of linen' (LK 24:12), not just John.
However, this translation argument seems to be stating that we can believe what the gospels say about Jesus because some of the bits about Jesus are wrong due to mistranslation. I'm sorry, but I don't follow this logic. Any demonstration that what the Gospel's tell us is wrong in places only serves to reduce my confidence in the entire Bible. If the Bible was simply an ancient document written by some Greek philosopher or Sumerian king, then I could easily accept that our understanding of it might change as translations improve, but the Bible is supposed to be a supernatural being's message to mankind. While the Greek philosopher or Sumerian king has no knowledge or control over how we might interpret their writings, God does. God supposedly goes to great lengths to communicate his wishes to us, often involving great loss of life, and yet he seems to have no interest in correcting errors in his holy book, our only real source of information about him. Modern authors often go to great lengths to correct errors in their books, issuing reprints and corrections, even using the media to highlight mistakes. Why can't God? Each time scholars show another passage in the Bible to be incorrect, and worse still, when even believers accept that their Bible is wrong in yet another claim, it just reinforces my view that primitive man wrote this book, not an all-knowing, all-powerful god. The more the Bible becomes the error-ridden work of man, the more reasons we have to doubt the supernatural stories it contains. Improved translations of the Bible might bring us closer to the original document, but each change takes us further from the belief that a god wrote or inspired it. It's like a lawyer telling a jury that the more his client is forced to change his story, the more you can believe in his honesty.
You say that 'It is debatable that no burial spices were found on the cloth'. But both the gospels of Mark and Luke state that Joseph merely wrapped the body, and that the women had prepared spices for the body and were going to apply them when they noticed the body missing. Yet John's gospel states that Joseph not only wrapped the body, he added spices. In John's gospel there is no mention of the women preparing spices, obviously since it had already been done. So according to John's account the shroud should have traces of spices, but according to Mark and Luke, there should be no trace of spices. So whether spices are found or not, a passage in the Bible will support either stance. This blatant contradiction means that any argument regarding spices can not be resolved or used for support.
I accept that many shroud supporters believe that the Cloth of Edessa was actually the Shroud of Turin, but this claim only works if they reject the historical references to it while Jesus was still alive, and only highlight mention of it after he died. They must also explain why most people didn't know or else didn't care that the cloth contained a full body image and not just the face.
Regarding the pollen supposedly found on the shroud, when you say that Jewish botanist experts confirmed Dr Max Frei's findings, did they independently recover the same 57 pollens from the shroud or did they merely confirm that the pollen samples he had were from Palestine? And why so much pollen, I thought Jesus was placed in sealed tomb, not laid out in the fields? And how did they explain the pollen from insect-pollinated plants? And it's not just pollen, on reading one of the conference papers you mentioned, it states that 'hundreds of plant images have so far been discovered on the Shroud of Turin'. The author states that 'I cannot evaluate the reasons for putting these flowers on the head area'. Were these images caused by the same thing that caused the body image, meaning that they were placed on the body prior to the resurrection? The Bible doesn't mention flower-bearing crowds visiting the tomb. Nor does the Bible or historical records mention mourning crowds laying flowers on the burial cloth of Jesus after his resurrection. The above author also claims that the image of a cord can also be seen on the shroud. He states that 'this cord was used to bind the Man of the Shroud to the Cross'. Are we to believe that Joseph of Arimathea couldn't be bothered to remove the rope from the body or that he tossed it on top of the burial cloth? Does Jewish custom dictate that victims must be buried with the implements that killed them?
You say that I don't tell the full story about Max Frei and his failure to detect the 'Hitler Diaries' forgery, then neither do you. While it seems that during the initial analysis 'at least one of the documents the handwriting experts relied on was itself a Kujau forgery', some or most of the other documents retrieved from Germany's Federal Archives and used for analysis were genuine. As for your mention of 'McCrone's wrong statement about the Vinland Map', perhaps you should read this Wikipedia entry on it, which starts with 'The Vinland map is a 20th century imitation of a 15th century [map]'. A page on this pro-shroud site entitled 'Yale says Vinland map is authentic', states that 'McCrone concluded that the ink contained a significant amount of titanium anatase in it'. They then go on to show that McCrone was wrong because 'Dr Thomas Cahill… analyzed the map and the ink using a new process called PIXE or Particle Induced X-ray Emission tests. The results were startling because Cahill found only a minute presence of titanium anatase…'. However they need to update their site with the following from the Wikipedia site: 'Because they were the first to apply PIXE to ink analysis, nobody at the time could explain the difference between the Cahill and McCrone figures, but the accumulation of large amounts of PIXE data from other laboratories around the world in the ensuing decades was sufficient by 2008 to show that the Cahill figures for all elements in the inks of the Map and its companion documents are at least a thousand times too small, so the discrepancy is due to their [Cahill's] mistake. The McCrone team had also made mistakes, though none as fundamental as Cahill's.'
As for Yale University still believing the map is authentic, Robert Babcock, curator of early manuscripts at Yale's Beinecke Library, has stated, 'Although the Vinland Map continues to have supporters as well as detractors, there is increasing scientific evidence suggesting it is a 20th-century production'.
I agree that some 'Shroud debunkers contradict each other' as to how the image might have been produced. But let's remember that shroud supporters also have multiple theories on how the image formed. The fact is that no one on either side of the debate has been able to prove their particular theory. However being unable to convincingly explain — at present anyway — how the image was made, does not mean we need to shift support to a supernatural origin. There have been a million and one things that man throughout history couldn't explain, and many claimed we never would, but much of what used to be attributed to gods has now been explained. If it's likely that man made the shroud, we may never discover exactly how he did it. But I think we must agree that we are never likely to get a supernatural explanation. If it happened as supporters believe, we will never know how it happened exactly. Jesus has had 2000 years to give us a hint as to how the shroud formed, and he hasn't bothered. The only explanation we can ever hope for is a scientific one. If shroud supporters are correct, then we will have to be content with mystery rather than explanation.
You claim that 'It is now a well known fact that Professor Raymond Rogers was right and radiocarbon sample was taken from a rewoven area of the Shroud… So there is no true radiocarbon dating of the fabric'. I'm sorry, but it is neither well known nor a fact. If it was, then the world would have dismissed the carbon dating result and both public and scientific opinion would have reverted to the old belief that the shroud was probably genuine.
The conference papers mention this patch controversy. Look at the following two statements from shroud 'experts':
'although the Shroud visually appears to be one whole cloth and shows no obvious seams, we will analyze evidence… that show that 16th century weavers, were, in fact, capable of producing an "invisible reweave" '. (Joseph Marino and M. Sue Benford)
Yet chemist Alan Adler, a member of the STURP team, states that regarding the C14 sample, 'That's an area which has obviously been repaired. There's cloth missing there. It's been rewoven on the edge. They even cut part of it off, because it was obviously rewoven on the edge'.
Two experts argue that a patch was erroneously tested because it was invisible and not obvious, yet another argues that the test was flawed because it was so obviously a patch. Both are shroud supporters but they contradict each other. At least one must be wrong. Another conference paper told us that 'The Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP),… had studied the most intensely-studied artifact in human history for five days in 1978'. So why didn't they object when an obvious patch was selected as the test sample? The above chemist who claims the patch was obvious was a member of STURP. We're also told that 'the Cardinal of Turin's scientific advisor, Piero Savarino,… acknowledged that repairs had been done routinely on the Shroud throughout its history and that if the sample had been taken from such an area "the carbon-dating results would not be reliable" '. Thus the Catholic Church knew that the shroud had been repaired and did contain patches, so they would be extremely careful not to test anything that remotely resembled a patch. Shroud supporters were perfectly happy with the site of the test sample until it returned the 'wrong' date. I'm sure many carbon dating labs would be perfectly happy to test further samples. Unfortunately, since shroud supporters now insist that the shroud contains many invisible patches, they could never be confident that another patch wasn't being tested. Even if a future test of another sample returned a 1st century date, they must, to be consistent, agree that it might just be a patch that used old 1st century linen, rather than a piece of the original medieval shroud. If the shroud is a patchwork of old and new, they can never know when they're testing a piece of the original.
Regarding these patches, one paper states, 'According to Mr. Ehrlich, French Weaving, one type of invisible reweaving, now only done on small imperfections due to its extensive cost and time, results in both front and back side "invisibility"… the technique used in sixteenth century Europe called "French weaving" is…, indeed, invisible. Sixteenth century owners of the Shroud certainly had enough material resources and weeks of time at their disposal to accomplish the task'.
We're expected to believe that centuries ago people had the wealth, time and desire to repair damage to the shroud, but not anymore. So even though we can still perform invisible weaving, seemingly because of the cost and time involved it is little used. The Catholic Church is obscenely wealthy, yet we're expected to believe that the shroud is in its present state of disrepair because they couldn't afford to repair the shroud or weren't prepared to wait for the weeks it might take? In the past they went to such lengths to repair the shroud that evidently modern scientists with microscopes can't agree on where the patches are, yet while they were making their invisible repairs, it never occurred to them to repair the burn marks on the shroud from the 1532 fire. Why not?
I'm always a little suspicious of the conclusions that conferences that exist on the fringe arrive at. For example, most speakers at UFO conferences believe UFO and aliens exist, likewise, speakers at cryptozoology conferences usually believe in the likes of Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster. Yet these conferences are contrary to what mainstream scientists believe, and while the conference attendees may be in complete agreement with each other, they are out of step with the majority of experts in their field. I accept that this doesn't mean that they are wrong, but if they can't convince other experts, it means little for them to convince a layperson. If they can convince you or me, it is most likely because we don't have the expertise to see the flaws in their argument that real experts can. I won't be convinced of arguments from shroud scientists until they can also convince their associates. Remember that we are expected to believe that not only are mainstream scientists wrong, but mainstream historians are also wrong, and mainstream Biblical scholars are wrong too. It would take a massive conspiracy to get all these experts to agree to falsify their view. While some might say that atheistic scientists and historians want to hide the truth, why would theologians, Bible scholars and many Christians want to deny the truth? Why is even the Catholic Church unwilling to say the shroud is authentic?
In closing I want to quote a passage from one of the shroud conference papers entitled 'Advancing the Shroud into the 21st Century'.
'I am not particularly interested in old linen cloths. I have little interest in other ancient artifacts or alleged relics either… [The shroud] is potentially the most important artifact on the planet. Its importance is derived from the message… that the very Son of God came to earth in the form of a man and humbled himself to dying on a cross in our place but then rose from the grave defeating the power of sin and death. And he offers the same victory for all who believe. What a message! Can there be a better message?… The unifying statement that defines my interest in the Shroud is [that]… it potentially confirms the message of God's love.'
Does this sound like the attitude of an objective scientist or investigator, someone searching for the truth of the matter wherever it might lie, or someone that has an agenda? I suspect that this is why many won't accept the widely accepted view of the shroud, their strong religious beliefs are influencing their objectivity. They are desperate for evidence of their god, and cling to a mystery. I'm glad that you accept that even though my friends and I are atheists, our view of the shroud controversy is based solely on an honest appraisal of the evidence, and is not motivated by animosity towards Christians. Can you say the same about all shroud supporters, that they are honestly appraising the evidence and are not motivated by a need to find evidence to support their faith?
You finished by stating that 'after analysing all the reliable historical and scientific data and through the application of critical thinking the only logical conclusion is that the Shroud of Turin is authentic and bears the image of Jesus Christ'. I agree with your method, but strangely enough I come to the opposite conclusion. If I were a shroud supporter, I would wonder why God, or even the Catholic Church, wasn't coming to my assistance with some evidence that no one could argue with. Perhaps God doesn't want his followers worshipping a piece of cloth, even if it is genuine? You know, false idols and all that sort of thing.
Hi Silly Beliefs team. Thank you for answering my comment. It was really a quite long one and it took me a long time to analyse it in full detail, but it was quite useful for going deeper into some subjects, namely the Vinland Map.
New Testament accounts on the death and burial of Jesus Christ do not contradict the Shroud, as I stated. In John's gospel account 19:40 he uses the Greek word 'othonia', which does not mean strips but cloth or clothes, so strips was a mistranslation of the original. The body of Jesus would have been wrapped in a long sheet — the Shroud — and perhaps tied with strips at the neck hands and feet. Wrapping with strips was not a Jewish burial custom but an Egyptian one, just recall mummies. Mark, Matthew and Luke are even more precise using the Greek word 'sindon' which means burial cloth or Shroud, 'And taking the body Joseph wrapped it in a clean linen cloth', Matthew 27:59, 'And he took it down and wrapped it in a cloth', Luke 23:53, 'And he bought a cloth and taking Him down, wrapped Him in fine linen', Mark 15:46. So it is not accurate to state that Luke's gospel mention strips as you did.
The question of burial spices being or not placed on the cloth is irrelevant in gospel accounts because they are in agreement in the most important issue, I mean the sufferings crucifixion death on the cross and burial of Jesus. I stated 'it is debatable that no burial spices were found on the cloth' because Shroud researcher Professor Baima Ballone forensic pathologist from Turin is mentioned in several articles as having found traces in former studies and even Professor Alan Adler in his excellent paper entitled 'A CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION ON THE SHROUD OF TURIN' first published in peer reviewed journal Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal 14(03)1981 when dealing with tests for organic species and funcional groups, clearly states, 'although all of the other organic tests are negative, this does not preclude the possibility that some of these substances may have resided on the cloth in the past and been lost over time through oxidation, degradation etc. For example the possible presence of fats and oils was checked… this does not preclude their possible past occurrence and loss through slow peroxidation'. So it is quite possible to reconcile the Shroud with all four synoptic gospel accounts and I sincerely hope this being settled once and for all.
Concerning the Vinland Map I have to agree not being updated and again I thank you the reference you provided. It was a starting point for an interesting but fastidious research. I have to admit Thomas Cahill PIXE method was criticized later but the Wikipedia article also acknowledges 'the McCrone team had also made mistakes' nonetheless carbon dating in 1995 dated the parchment to approximately 1434 A.D. and the discussion of Vinland Map being or not a 20th century forgery continues. Perhaps you should read the 'Conclusions and Outstanding Issues' from J. Huston McCulloch's paper 'THE VINLAND MAP SOME 'FINER POINTS' OF THE DEBATE (www.econ.ohio-state.edu) and recent Scientific American news July 22 'Pre-Columbian Map of North America could be Authentic — Or not', about a new study by Danish expert Rene Larsen who presented his team's findings at an international cartographer's conference explaining ink's anatase findings. Thus Vinland Map cannot be considered surely a 20th century's forgery as McCrone stated and of course if he right or wrong in this issue is meaningless for Shroud studies, but it's not so when he asserts the Shroud 'being a beautiful painting [is] nevertheless the work of an artist'.
Max Frei was a respected Swiss criminologist and pallinologist and was one of several experts asked to pronounce on Hitler Diaries authenticity, as a matter of fact very few web articles on this subject make reference to him, main expert was English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper. The truth is that Dr. Max Frei and American expert Ordway Hilton were given several photocopied pages of the purported Hitler Diaries and were asked to compare them with other samples of Hitler's handwritings, purportedly retrieved from the German Federal Archives and I say 'purportedly' because later it was discovered that they were also forgeries produced by the same individual who forged Hitler Diaries whose name was Konrad Kujau, an Hitler enthusiast and collector of relics from the Third Reich. So being it turns out that even carefully comparing the documents provided, the conclusion could be no other than 'the handwriting was a match'. Thus Dr. Max Frei was mistaken as any other expert with that provided material would be, and that can absolutely be no claim to cast doubts on his honesty concerning his studies on Shroud pollens.
You will object saying that seeing flowers on the Shroud is the same as seeing faces in the clouds. I'm sorry but I utterly disagree and I invite you to look at the famous image of Chrisantemum Coronarium located at the right top of the head's image. I guess nobody can deny there is a flower image. Remember that if you look at a chest X-ray may be you can identify the left ventricle or the ribs but you surely won't notice the image of an early growing lung cancer but a trained radiologist will detect it easily and at first sight. This image was discovered in 1983 by German physicist Oswald Scheuermann who got similar flower images on cloth by using coronal discarge. Professor Danim asserts that plant images are not random artifacts and he saw and classified several plant species including Gundelia Tournefortii, Zigophillum Dumosum and Cistus Creticus which is a very important discovery that allows us to conclude by itself that the Shroud had been in an area between Jerusalem and Hebron once in his lifetime and in March or April because it is blooming time of those plants. Plant images were identified in Pia's 1898 photographs Enrie 1931 and Vernon Miller photos in 1978 including U.V. photos where they are more clearly apparent. Actually there are two Chrisantemum flower images at each side of the top of the head of the Shroud's ventral image and if you look at the 6th century Byzantine icon Christ Pantocrator located at St. Catherine's Monastery in Mount Sinai there are the same flower images at the same relative location. This facial image shares enough congruence points with the face of the Man of the Shroud as determined by Polarized Image Overlay Technique that allows us to conclude that the 6th century unknown artist who painted it did so watching the Shroud.
And that happened a few years after the rediscovery of the Edessa Cloth in 544.
About the Edessa cloth being actually the Shroud of Turin you stated 'this claim only works if they reject the historical reference to it while Jesus was still alive, and only highlight mention of it after he died. They must also explain why most people didn't know or else didn't care that the cloth contained a full body image and not just the face.'
Actually there are no historical references of the Edessa Cloth until the 6th century, there is just the Legend of King Abgar and the syriac writings of the Doctrine of Addai and Apocriphal Acts of Thaddeus from the 5th century and legends are allegories, but from those writings historians can conclude that 'something' came from Jerusalem to Edessa and was named the Edessa Cloth and it's a historical fact that the army of Byzantine emperor Romanus Lecapenus retrieved the Edessa Cloth in 944 — it is no coincidence that there is a picture dated from that time showing the emperor receiving a full length cloth and not a kind of towel. This fact, the Gregorius Referendarius sermon in August 16th 944 in Constantinople and several historical references to the Shroud of Christ in Constantinople allow historians to make the Edessa connection. For a thorough understanding I invite you to read historian Jack Markwart's interesting paper about ancient Edessa — www.ohioshroudconference.com
About the issue of invisible mending of the area where the carbon sample was taken in 1988, it is now sure to state that the art of French Weaving allowed skilled artisans to make perfect repairs and despite Turin's textile expert Metchild Fleury-Lemberg denial of such a possibility, other independent textile experts had the opposite opinion when observing magnified photographs of the area. When Sue Benford and Joe Marino presented their work about the invisible reweaving in a Shroud congress in Orvieto 2000 that was considered of the lunatic fringe even by Shroud authenticity supporters, and Professor Raymond Rogers' aim to study the samples he had in his possession was to dismiss them, but he really concluded they were right. Professor Rogers was a respected chemist and very objective, he always applied the scientific method to the study of the Shroud of Turin. Perhaps you should read his article in scientific articles — www.shroud.com. All later studies confirmed Professor Roger's conclusions namely Professor John Brown, Robert Villarreal and his team from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Dr. Thibault Heimburger.
When you mentioned why S.T.U.R.P. scientists did not object 'when an obvious patch was selected as the test sample' and Alan Adler was a S.T.U.R. P. member we have to analyse the facts in a chronological order and not as you presented them. The sample for radiocarbon tests was cut in 1988, the protocol was not followed and that happened in disagreement with S.T.U.R.P. scientists. Dr. Alan Adler's statement 'That's an area which has obviously been repaired. There's cloth missing there. It's been rewoven on the edge. They even cut part of it off because it was obviously rewoven on the edge.' This statement was done in 1996 following a paper of the same year entitled 'UPDATING RECENT STUDIES ON THE SHROUD OF TURIN' published in journal Archeological Chemistry: Organic Inorganic, and Biochemical Analysis 1996 and also in the Orphaned Manuscript. So it turns out that S.T.U.R.P. scientists had nothing to do with area selection for radiocarbon sample.
You made a curious assertion about Shroud repairs '...The Catholic Church is obscenely wealthy, yet we're expected to believe that the shroud is in its present state of disrepair because they couldn't afford to repair the shroud or weren't prepared to wait for the weeks it might take… it never occurred to them to repair the burn marks on the shroud from the 1532 fire. Why not?'
I think you should study a bit of Shroud History. At the time of Chambery's fire in 1532 the Shroud was not in possession of the Catholic Church, it belonged to the noble Savoy family so direct that question to their descendants.
And another still more curious 'Unfortunately since shroud supporters now insist that the shroud contains many invisible patches, they could never be confident that another patch was being tested.' Can you tell me please where you got that stunning information? Was it in a peer reviewed paper or any news article?
Scientists who seriously study the Shroud don't want to convince anyone of Shroud's authenticity, they are just responding to the challenge of studying such a curious artifact. Nevertheless their discoveries can lead to the conclusion that the Shroud is not a forgery. The Shroud is not a well known subject among scientific community as it is not even by Christians, but there is actually a growing number of scientists interested on it, just read all new names that appear in new papers and Shroud Conferences whereas I know few skeptic scientists seriously studying the Shroud, and besides their information is not quite updated, see for example Dr. Steven Shaffersman website is not updated since 2006.
It is well known that the Shroud image is not a painting, its color results from chemical changes in a very thin polysaccharide layer of topmost fiber threads . The chromophore has been determined as a carbonyl group with conjugated carbon bonds produced as a result of oxidation and dehydration. It's amazing how colored fibers are side by side with colorless ones, Science cannot yet explain this fact and there is no technology to produce such effect at microscopic level. And what caused those chemical changes?
Unlike skeptics who always have their own explanation how the image was made, scientists that seriously study this issue don't have yet an answer although I believe in the future they will. Nevertheless even if it's concluded that what caused the chemical changes was for example an electromagnetic radiation with a certain wavelength or something else, the problem will not be solved. The fact is that even if the image by itself might perhaps be explained in a near future by science, that mysterious event happened only once in the History of Mankind and allegedly with one man whose name was Jesus Christ.
When I finished my previous comment stating 'The only logical conclusion is that the Shroud of Turin is authentic and bears the image of Jesus Christ', your reply was, 'but strangely enough I come to the opposite conclusion'. For me it was not strange at all, I was really expecting such a conclusion. I agree with Ray Shneider when he stated in a previous comment for you to read Shroud literature 'with a conscious effort to remove your own blinders'. If that will ever happen perhaps you will change your mind.
Till now science could not disauthenticate the Shroud and I recall a sentence from Shroud researcher Dan Porter, 'SCIENCE CANNOT RULE OUT A MIRACLE BUT IT CAN AND DOES RULE OUT FAKERY'.
The Shroud of Turin is a true message and it is up to each one to accept it or not.
best regards
Hi Maria, thanks for your comments. I wasn't really sure how to reply. None of your challenges shake my view of the shroud, and I can explain why if you're really interested, but I realised that this backward and forward rebuttals of minor claims concerning the shroud is side-stepping the crucial difference between our worldviews. We both approach this debate with different assumptions. You highlighted this difference in your opening paragraph: 'I'll try not to get into religious subjects like God's existence or not as you are always doing.' You and other shroud supporters want to limit the shroud debate to the natural world, to physical details that can be examined by scientific and historical research. And yet if pushed, you will acknowledge that a supernatural God is at the very crux of the debate, that ultimately it all hinges on what God did 2000 years ago. But a suggestion from me that this god might not even exist annoys you, or at the very least, you think it is trying to deny the obvious and that discussion about god is thus unnecessary.
Let me explain. Let's say we both agree that a murder has been committed, but you believe the murderer is Person A whereas I believe it was Person B. We can each present evidence and arguments that point to either Person A or B. We each agree that whoever presents the best case will have identified the murderer. Now let's add to this scenario a friend who doesn't even believe that a murder has even been committed. They say that it is meaningless to accuse either Person A or B since there hasn't been a murder for them to be guilty of. Thus, before we can find either person guilty to our friend's satisfaction, we must first prove to them that someone has actually been murdered. Only once we've established that a murder has happened can we try and show them who might have done it. Only once we all agree that a murder has actually been committed can we rationally debate who did it.
For many the shroud debate is like this murder scenario. Many people believe God exists and that Jesus was resurrected. On discovering the shroud they now want to debate whether it was connected to Jesus and God. However I'm like the friend, people like myself don't believe God and Jesus even exist, so it seems silly to debate whether a piece of cloth might have belonged to a mythical person. Like the murder, you take God and Jesus as a given, and concentrate solely on the shroud. You can debate with others who don't believe in the shroud but who do still believe in God and Jesus, and both of you will easily overlook evidence that might suggest God and Jesus don't exist, because God's existence is not what you're questioning. For these believers, I suspect that neither side would be all that concerned if their debates and examination of evidence caused them to change camps. Their faith in God and Jesus remains strong no matter whether they believe in the shroud or not. The shroud's authenticity is a relatively minor thing on the scale of belief in God, and thus they are happy to debate pollen spores, invisible weaving and how bacteria might skew carbon dating, content in the knowledge that either side of the debate would still allow them to maintain their belief in God, Jesus and salvation. Whether they believe in the shroud or not, they are both still Christians and both know that the other side isn't going to ask embarrassing questions that might shake their faith. They're like two lovers of ice-cream arguing over which is the best flavour. Neither side is contemplating giving up ice-cream for chocolate.
Effectively you want me to name the murderer when I'm not even convinced a murder has occurred, which is why we are talking at cross-purposes. You would need to convince me that God and Jesus exist before you would have a hope in hell of convincing me that the shroud is genuine. Without me adopting this prior belief, at most all you could ever do is convince me that the shroud was an authentic 1st century burial shroud of a crucified man. However this would in no way prove that Jesus was that man. Through lengthy correspondence you could possibly cause me to doubt the likes of the carbon dating result, but without discussion of God's place in all this, you would have achieved little. We could quibble about pollen, weaving and Bible translations, but at the end of the day you wouldn't have brought me any closer to believing your claim that 'The Shroud of Turin is a true message', which sounds as though you're willing to get into religious subjects when it suits.
I guess you need to remember that I'm an atheist and not simply a Christian skeptical of the shroud, thus any debate that would cause me to change my view of the shroud must naturally include a large debate about God. Forcing me to wear blinders that shield me from thinking about God and that focus my attention solely on the shroud might turn me into a believer, but it would be an empty victory. A conversion gained only because I had been denied the chance to consider all the evidence and all the arguments. By all means raise your concerns about pollen and invisible weaving, but don't forget the foundation that this whole debate rests on — the existence of God. Without God, the shroud is just a curiosity. If you can't defend God, then the shroud is just an old relic, and the only question is, how did they make it?
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