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Shroud of Turin
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What is this? Vote in the poll in the right sidebar. Here’s an interesting article on the Shroud.
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Dear Father Longenenecker,How about “none of the above”? I think the relic may well be genuine but I am also certain that it is not a photograph or photographic negative.
The Blood and the Shroud is a pretty good read. There’s an article I read somewhere on the net that goes into scientific details about what Christ’s physical tortures were actually like based on what was provided by the shroud of Turin. Can’t rememeber where it was.I will read the article you link to.
The image is flat like a painting, or flat like a photograph. What is isn’t is curved, warped, and wrapped like a shroud.
What a waste of time!
I’ve read a lot of interesting articles lately on testing of miracles. In several instances, the Eucharist has turned to blood or in another manner “Holy Blood” has shown up. Along with the blood from the Shroud of Turin, all of it has tested to be AB type and specific to a person from the region where Jesus lived. Some documents even say the blood only has paternity DNA of one parent, rather than two. Lots of interesting information is out there. I can’t say for sure whether this shroud belonged to Jesus, but there is a lot out there that points to Him. I find it fascinating!
@OBpoet:The image is “flat” but codes three-dimensional information — very different from a painting or photograph. But that’s just the image itself. The blood stains, which are separate and distinct, do in fact appear in more natural positions when the cloth is wrapped around a human figure.
Seeker, I am pretty convinced that the shroud is genuine, but I have to point out that without reference samples, it would be impossible to determine the source of the DNA, whether from one or two persons. One question which fascinates me is how Jesus, obviously a male, got a Y-chromosome. I suspect that Mary in this case also was the rarest of the rare, a normal, fertile female who yet nontheless carried a Y-chromosome along with the normal female configuration of two X-chromosomes.
The image remains flat. The “coding” depends on how one decodes, and there is no way material wrapped around a body would be coded in the fashion it was. And the Carbon 14 dating from 3 separate independent labs all coming to the same conclusion, that the material simply did not exist in the first century.
Fr Greg,I think you are making it far more complicated than it needs to be. For Mary to have an extra Y would make her a Kleinfelter’s syndrome individual. In fact, Y confers maleness. Y chromosomes are a dime a dozen. I am quite confident God could come up with the One required. X chromosomes by contrast are infinitely more precious, thus making Mary the rare gem that we all know her to be.
Obpoet,If you read the linked article, you would know that the sampled cloth of the Shroud came from a repair. The dating was valid; however, the sample was not a correct representative sample.When you say it is flat, do you mean to say that it appears to be a projection like a photo, and it lacks the distortions one might expect with a flat surface wrapped around a 3D object?
Yes, exactly so. So that if you wrapped a painted manaquin in a cloth, the residual left behind would resemble nothing like the flat image on the cloth. Obviously the image was created to be viewed, much like a painting or a photo. It in no way resembles the impressions made from a body.
Obpoet: Actually, since women normally have two X chromosomes and no Y chromosomes, while men normally have one of each, it would seem that there are more X chromosomes than Y extant. In any event, I’m not sure how that’s relevant. Sorry for making your life complicated, but since Jesus was conceived “without seed”, the Y-chromosome had to somehow come from his Blessed Virgin Mother.
God creates the universe ex nihilo but He cannot create a Y chromosome for His son ergo it has to come from His mother? That logic simply baffles me. And the angel answered and said unto her, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that Holy Being who shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Hmmm….maybe there was a Y chromosome involved in there somewhere. Surely God could create one of those in His sleep. Again, you are bending over thrice backwards and making ever so much harder than it needs to be.
But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”Let go of the shroud, there is no there there.
“So that if you wrapped a painted manaquin in a cloth, the residual left behind would resemble nothing like the flat image on the cloth.”But the image wasn’t made by paint.
Oh yes, and because of the coming Sabbath, John, and the Marys and the converted soldier(s) and Nicodemus would only have had something like 30 to 15 minutes in which to bury Jesus. They would have just draped the shroud over, not wrapped.
I once met a ma who had done years of research on the Shroud and written a book about it. He was convinced of its authenticity and so am I. It is a shame that the carbon dating results “muddied the waters” because now too many people simply dismiss it as a fraud without examining the other evidence. i hope that in future some more accurate dating can be done of the Shroud.
LOVE THIS SUBJECT! There is so much interesting information on this. Did you hear about a recent find, when the shroud was made into a large hologram? No, I’m not talking about the 3 dimensional image… I mean an actual hologram. This made visable some very interesting new details. Check out http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/Somewhere on there He has that info, and it is really cool!-g-
Oh… here it is http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2008/11/are-three-hebrew-letters-on-shroud.html-g-
One last thing, one ought to look into “the Mandilion” which is the supposed head wrap that would go on the outside of the cloth. This thing is of great interest… when its image is overlaid on the shroud… wow! Also, this thing shows up rather early. Info on that also found on the Shroud Blog noted above.The cool thing about this, is that it was traditionally thought to be a present to Abgar of Edessa from Thaddeus… and that is where it originally showed up (hidden in the city wall entrance/gate). Fascinating!-g–g-
You could easily conduct the experiment at home with your own face, or a styrofoam model. You simply cannot obtain the flat image seen on the shroud with a 3D form. It is a 2D projection or image. Whether the material was wrapped or draped hurriedly does not matter, you still cannot produce the end result.
Obpoet,I understand your objection about the “lack of distortion” of the image. However, it seems to me that your objection is premature. We don’t know the process that imprinted the image on the shroud. Certainly, there are body fluids present (e.g., sweat, blood), but knowledge of the imaging process would address or point to the technical aspects that you raise (like the tension/looseness of the cloth draped around the body).Since God created the universe ex nihilo, He may have used a process unknown to us. I’m okay with that.I think the singular nature of this shroud makes it compelling. The only thing the evidence can do is rule out the Christian/miraculous aspect of the shroud. I don’t see how evidence can definitively prove that it is Christ’s shroud. I judge that the jury is still out.
The single greatest man to ever live, and there is not a single first hand image of him preserved anywhere. So compelling, it almost cannot be by accident.Look at the shroud. A front, a back. No sides, no top, no bottom. Just a set of two 2D images. But whatever it is, it cannot be an impression made by a cloth laying on a body. A class of 5th graders could prove that in an hour.
obpoet, I think believers in the shroud contend that first of all, they did wrap the body in one long sheet from head to toe, over the top and down the back as the shroud seems to be, and secondly, that the image was produced by the radiation and burst of light resulting from the resurrection, thus producing a photographic negative on the cloth.
If the cloth had been carefully stretched on a frame, above and below the body, as an artist would a canvas before applying the gesso, then I could see that happening. But apply some paint to your face, lay a napkin across it as someone would a burial cloth, lift it up, view the impression, and it will all make sense.The same phenomenon would also apply to Veronica’s napkin.
you should read more about the shroud. One thing is clear: the image is not paint or pigment of any kind. It seems to have been burnt or radiated onto the very threads of the cloth itself. One very curious aspect is the elongated hands. This seems to be a kind of x-ray image–we are seeing not just the finger bones, but the long bones of the hands as well.The image really is unique and I have not found any natural explanation for it.
It is not a question of substance, but one of perspective.It amazes me how people will cling to this piece of cloth while abandoning the Gospel itself.
“Obviously the image was created to be viewed, much like a painting or a photo.”Precisely.
Yes, much like Leonardo’s craft.
God’s a better artist than him.Even Leonardo Da Vinci had not the capacity to paint something like that, anticipating what it would look like in the negative.Of all the fascinating evidence the shroud has to offer, that one is kicker: that if it is to be explained as a fraud, then it means that some fraudster would have had to express realistic, life-scale details of anatomy, crucifixion, botany and so forth – and to do it ALL IN THE NEGATIVE, just happening to know exactly how it would resolve when photographed in the negative.Oh yes, and to do it without paint; to do it by somehow ‘burning’ the linen fabric without really burning the fibers.Explain that one, please someone?
It isnt burned, its oxidized, something man has been doing for ages.
I don’t know if anyone visited the blog that I mentioned above, but one interesting part of the process may have been something related to the same thing that makes beer brown and toast brown. It is something having to do with the body releasing a particular gas once dead.In my mind the facts are overwhelming. One can believe in such a cloth, and not abandon the gospel. The Gospel is much more compelling obviously, and the shroud is in my mind only a fun bonus.-g-
They say it would take the force of an atom bomb to make the same marks that are on the shroud.Burned but not burned/charred.
Or the force of a bacterium, which can devour your flesh as you sleep, and not even wake you.Some people will read all about this shroud, and not even know the words of Jesus.
True enough. And there are those who make an idol of the Bible. If the shroud is false then let those say it is false, and give their reasons. It’s best to leave the “at the cost of the Gospel” remarks to those who believe in the shroud’s authenticity.The markings on the shroud are not of eaten, nor devoured fibers. The ‘burned’ fibers remain fully intact. (a.k.a. The light burst of an atom bomb ingraining into fibers said markings without disintegrating them)Read up on it.
The carbon dating and the shroud’s history show it to be medieval. Better to believe it a forgery and await proof to the contrary.”The light burst of an atom bomb ingraining into fibers said markings without disintegrating them.” Yes, and malaria is caused by swamp gas afterall.Again… “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Yet radiation alters carbon dating, which scientists have admitted for years isn’t the most accurate dating system.Hmm. It seems you really are refusing to do any research on the shroud itself…
“Yes, and malaria is caused by swamp gas afterall.”Okay. Whatever. This is my last remark on this post, and it is nothing more than what I’ve commented before: go to the sources and read them for what they scientifically present.The evidence is there to be read, and as such it does not incur an impediment to your salvation. The markings are significant enough. But the way the markings are imprinted in the linen fibers is a subtle, inexplicable phenomenon to itself.They are made in such a way that leads scientists to deduce, and ruling out other possibilities, that the markings are made as by a strong source of light.And the nearest parallel they can liken the force of this light source to is the force of an atom bomb.
And what is the sentinel piece of evidence that equates the image with something equivalent to atomic radiation? To draw such a conclusion would take a very specific finding, otherwise it would just be hearsay (or is that heresy?).The historical record and the carbon dating stand together suggesting the cloth is less than a millenium old. I think that is why some scientists came up with explanations like “mold spores” in an attempt to refute the findings.
As someone who has studied art and medieval history, I think you’re all missing an important point. No one in the middle ages would or could have made such a thing. And I say this as a person who has little patience for the many people who think that everyone in the past was either stupid or clumsy or both. This is nothing like medieval art and nothing like a medieval forgery. For one thing, medieval artists did not depict crucified bodies with nails through their wrists — but if this is a forgery, the forger knew that that was where Romans nailed their victims and was careful to depict it too. Likewise, medieval sculpture (the “painted manequin” theory) was very detailed but not particularly faithful to the actual human figure. Not that someone COULDN’T have made an anatomically correct sculpture — but no one at the time DID.We know the Shroud’s history FROM the middle ages, so it wasn’t made after that. It has to have been made before or during the middle ages.The best explanation for it as a forgery is that someone hundreds of years ago discovered a still-secret method of making this image (which could be — many processes have been lost) from the body of a dead person (scientific study shows that it is the anatomically correct image of a person who was beaten, scourged, and crucified). Then this person or persons went to Jerusalem, or somewhere nearby (remember all the pollen?), where he/they beat, scourged, and crucified the unknown man, wrapped him in a piece of fine linen, and did whatever was necessary to make the extremely faint image — ignorant of the fact that centuries later photographs, x-rays, and other scientific equipment would allow people to see far more than the visible image itself, including the positions of bones not visible from the image, and the direction of blood spatters from the scourging.Then this person or persons sold the shroud to Geoffry de Charney for a tidy sum and never did it again.Oh, except for the face on the “Mandilion,” which exactly lines up with the face on the Shroud.Finally, I have a few friends who study medieval and ancient textiles. It’s a precise science. I don’t know who did the study on the Shroud, but if a textile expert that my friends respected told me that the section the carbon dating came from was a medieval patch, then I would believe it. I don’t know what the Shroud is. I find things like this more creepy than anything else, and I long ago realized that I am not the kind of person whom bleeding hosts and weeping statues appeal to. But the idea that some medieval forger who could make money peddling easily acquired bones and skulls would go to the lengths required by this story is pretty laughable. As I read it, the evidence points to it being genuine.
The evidence says it is no more than 1000 years old.Romans drove nails through the wrists, and we know this, but somehow no one between now and the first century knew this?A 2D image is produce by a 3D form? That would be a projection or a rendition. You still have not applied paint to your face and moade the test.”No one in the middle ages would or could have made such a thing.” I look at “The David” and think, no one today could make such a thing. And they cannot.
Apparently the whole idea of a medieval patch is itself a fraud, validating the original Carbon 14 dating. It is all very interesting I admit, but I think we should put our faith in the authentic Jesus, not in a fake shroud. To read more, go here:http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic//shroud/articles/rogers-ta-response.htm