My take on the Shroud of Turin

[Pierson5]

I thought I'd summarize my view (and some theist's views with whom I agree) on the shroud. I don't plan on convincing people like Bippy. This is for many people who are on the fence (or perhaps convince me I'm wrong). I didn't want to post this in the other thread, as it seems like a collection of articles in favor of the shroud. This is a different take.

1. We are able to get a pretty good replications using primitive techniques:

"I have not proved much. Or, I do not think that I have," he wrote in Books and Culture. "Men and women who have believed in the Shroud will continue to believe. … What I have done is crudely demonstrate that such an image could easily be produced in a matter of weeks by wicked men with no scruples, a little imagination, and a little more skill."

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/st ... p?ID=60247
http://www.shadowshroud.com/images.htm
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/10/ ... HL20091005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_ ... age_origin

2. An authentic tomb from the actual time of Jesus was unearthed in Jerusalem, and archaeologists found a dead aristocrat wrapped in a shroud made from far less advanced a textile than the Shroud of Turin, which seems to use weaving techniques not found in the time of Jesus. As far as I know, there are no examples of the kind of twill weave on the Shroud of Turin until about a thousand years ago.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... prosy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_ ... al_fabrics

3. What about the Bishop's letter with the confession of the artist who created the relic? Is it just assumed he lied?
http://books.google.com/books?id=A9sj9X ... &q&f=false

4. The image of the man is 6' tall. In the biblical era that would have made Jesus a freakish giant and yet there is no mention of his height in the Bible at all (that I'm aware of)

5. The wounds show blood stains. The Bible clearly states the body was washed (John 19) and packed with spices and since dead bodies don't bleed there's no way for the bloodstains to have occurred. Also on this note, his face looks fine in the image on the shroud. Shouldn't his face be a little distorted based on the beatings he took prior?

6. From: http://susquehannachurchofchrist.org/CR ... 0Turin.pdf

JN 19:40, Taking Jesus’ body, the 2 of them [Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus] wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.

John 20:3-7, Peter therefore went out, & the other disciple, & were going to the tomb. So they both ran together, & the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down & looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, & went into the tomb; & he saw the linen cloths lying there, & the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.

I see a little benefit to be derived from legitimate findings which help to further confirm the truth of the Scriptures. To look for such in the shroud of Turin is to seek a false hope & in reality is an attempt to undermine what the Bible teaches with regard to certain aspects of the life & death of Jesus. And even if men were to find the strips of linen in which the body of Jesus was buried, God would want us to worship & adore Jesus—not the cloth that once encased His dead body.

Other "violations of scripture"?
http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/shroud.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_shro6.htm

Whether it is the authentic burial cloth of Christ or not, the Shroud of Turin is not to be worshiped or adored. The Shroud of Turin cannot be used as conclusive proof for the resurrection of Christ. The Shroud of Turin is perhaps the most amazing artifact in connection with the Person of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the Shroud of Turin is perhaps a fraud or an amazing work of art. Our faith in Jesus Christ does not rely upon the Shroud of Turin.

7. The face on the shroud is not stretched, but the shroud was supposed to have been wrapped around his body. If you rub ink on your face and then wrap a shroud around it, and then take the shroud off and lay it flat on a table, you won't end up with a normal image of your face, for the same reason that if you cut into a globe and flattened it out on a table you wouldn't have a perfect-looking map of the world. It would be distorted out of proportion by the change from a 3d surface to a 2d one.
http://www.merl.com/areas/images/3Dfacerec.jpg

8. Another test. Look at the image of the shroud. Look where the hands are crossed over (the crotch region). Try this yourself. Lie on the ground and try to cross your hands over this region. A quick test will show that no human could do that (and I don't think one of Jesus' powers was having gorilla arms).

9. In the original 1989 report, the three different labs that had sub-samples of the shroud tried a variety of pretreatment and cleaning methods. No matter what pretreatment method was used, the dates all turned out to be the same. The 1988 analyses were also performed alongside similar pieces of cloth and linen which had previously been dated using other methods.
http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm

I know there are plenty of objections to the testing methods (ad hoc hypotheses), but until it's retested, it seems to have been dated medieval (~1350 CE). Personally, I'd like to see it done. If it's a genuine artifact, it's incredibly interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis

Mr Garlaschelli said he expected people to challenge his research.

"If they don't want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world's best laboratories they certainly won't believe me."

10.

And of course 'authenticity' is not really a scientific issue at all here: even if there were compelling evidence that the shroud was made in first-century Palestine, that would not even come close to establishing that the cloth bears the imprint of Christ.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050128/ ... 24-17.html

11.

How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ's death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet? - John Calvin

From a fellow Christian:

My biggest complaint with it (aside from the fact that someone thought it would be okay to make this forgery), is that people wrap their faith up in it. Whether it's real or not doesn't change the fact that your faith should be in Christ, not some piece of cloth. It seems there's this attitude that if it is a fake then their faith is shaken. Why? That's the crux of your faith? I would recommend these people reread their Bible.

12. The face depicts a long-haired, mustached man, with an Italian or European shape. Jesus would have absolutely been an olive-skinned man with short hair - long hair was considered slovenly in that era. Further, his features would be Middle-eastern, not European.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... cs/1282186
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/11-14.htm
http://susquehannachurchofchrist.org/CR ... 0Turin.pdf (see pg 6)

Combine that with the radiocarbon date of 1300 AD, the incorrect measurements of the face, the improper shape for a lay-over image, the inverse image of the face (it was a radiant image, not a contact image) and the ratios problem, this definitely fits the bill of a piece of artwork or a forgery made around 1200-1300 AD in the spirit of the bible. Of all the potential ways an omnipotent being might make its presence known, I'm not convinced by a dirty face on a towel.

[Icthus]

You raise some interesting points, Pierson. Now, before I say anything further, I want to clear on one point - I am agnostic about the authenticity of the Shroud. It may, as far as I am concerned, be real, or it may be fake. I'm sure Blippy will have a great deal more to say about the matter than I do, but I'd like to make a few observations about the objections you raised.

First, concerning attempts to replicate the sort of image the Shroud has, I don't think any of these attempts are very good. I have seen A LOT of proposed explanations for a naturalistic method, none of which are very convincing. This is not to say that the Shroud can't be reproduced, just that it hasn't. Attempts that have been made invariably require some factor (such as intense heat, the use of paints, chemical reactions with decaying matter, etc) that have been thoroughly demonstrated to be incompatible with the actual Shroud image (which wouldn't have survived heat properly, is not painted on, and shows no signs of having a DECAYING corpse under it). Furthermore, these attempts never manage to imitate every aspect of the Shroud, such as the negative image, 3D stuff, or the distribution of color on the fibers. I'm not saying that this proves the Shroud to be authentic or even really suggests it, just that comparing any imitation created so far to the original is like saying a stick of dynamite is the same thing as an atom bomb and doesn't help the case for inauthenticity.

As for being six feet tall, I mentioned that I found that interesting in the other topic. I think calling him a giant is a bit of an overstatement. He would have been pretty tall for the time, but it's quite possible. And one shouldn't be surprised that the New Testament makes no mention of his height as one is hard pressed to find any information about his physical appearance at all. The writers were not at all concerned with the man's looks. I don't know about the arm length, though. (I wonder if Lincoln could do that with his hands.)

I too would like to see the Shroud retested. It would, hopefully, put an end to a lot of debate, whatever the results are. I don't think, however, that when Shroud proponents claim the radiocarbon dating is inconclusive, that they mean that the tests themselves were flawed. According to some of the researchers I've read, it was originally intended that more samples would be taken than just three and that they would be taken from multiple locations on the Shroud to insure a good measurement. This method was unused, however, and only three were taken, all from what some claim is the worst spot on the cloth. I certainly don't know if the objections raised stand up to scrutiny or not, but some have come from pretty prominent Shroud researchers, and I hope that, if nothing else, all the fuss made will lead to a more thorough dating in the future.

Personally, I don't see the fact that the image isn't mentioned until a long while after the first century to be all that convincing. None of the New Testament writers claimed to be compiling a complete list of all the miracles associated with Jesus, and to anyone who had seen him raised or experienced the formation of the early Church, I doubt seeing his image on a cloth would be quite so fantastic. In an oral culture, the testimony of the early Christians would likely have been much more valuable than the Shroud, which didn't prove anything. Some researchers have even suggested that the image may not have become clear until decades after its creation.

Anyway, I'm not trying to lay out a case for the Shroud's authenticity, as I have my own qualms about considering it to be the real thing. Still, I thought I might help get the discussion started by listing a few answers I've seen from the Pro-Shroud people. I'm sure Blippy will arrive on the scene eventually, and then we shroud skeptics and agnostics will really be in for it, buried under a pile of research I'm too lazy to do.

[bippy123]

As I said many times before Pierson , pulling a bunch of articles from non peer reviewed sources doesn't give us anything solid to go on. I've been to the shadow shroud site and it's yet another site that attempts to replicate the shroud and it possesses none of the unique characteristics that the shroud has on it. These arent new criticisms but they have all been debunked.

What I have posted is far more than just a series of articles. The scientists that have studied and done research in the shroud have allready answered these unscientific criticisms and that is why they are no longer being taken seriously by the scientific community.

Try arguing from the peer reviewed literature of which the skeptics have very little to go on.
The info that I and the other people have posted gives more than enough info to debunk this stuff.
Idts let the new people that come into this site look at the non peer reviewed scientific data that your links have than have a look at mostly peer reviewed info in the other shroud forum and let's let them make up their own mind.

As far as the shadow guy , Dan Porter has sufficiently debunked his non peer reviewed work.
I simply won't waste hours regurgitating the same info debunking the non peer reviewed shroud skeptics that I have allready posted.

As far as a fellow Christian saying that we shouldn't worship the shroud, I completely agree with him. Please let us know who is worshipping the shroud and I'll tell them the same thing.
As far as putting all our faith in the shroud, I agree also as I believe it's more of a supplement or booster then the foundation of our faith.

If all apologists listened to that guy we wouldnt have the incredible historicity brought to us by many Christians like Sir William Ramsey(whose digs showed the incredible historically accuracy of Luke) and people like Gary Habermas who talks about the historicity of the resurrection and his minimal facts data.

Christianity isnt fiedism, it's a reasonable faith.

God brought all of us to him in many different ways.

[Byblos]

The info that I and the other people have posted gives more than enough info to debunk this stuff.

For further reference to other readers, here's the link to the other Shroud thread where Bippy has done a marvelous job of linking to peer-reviewed research and answering skeptics. 'nough said.

[Pierson5]

First, concerning attempts to replicate the sort of image the Shroud has, I don't think any of these attempts are very good. I have seen A LOT of proposed explanations for a naturalistic method, none of which are very convincing. This is not to say that the Shroud can't be reproduced, just that it hasn't. Attempts that have been made invariably require some factor (such as intense heat, the use of paints, chemical reactions with decaying matter, etc) that have been thoroughly demonstrated to be incompatible with the actual Shroud image (which wouldn't have survived heat properly, is not painted on, and shows no signs of having a DECAYING corpse under it). Furthermore, these attempts never manage to imitate every aspect of the Shroud, such as the negative image, 3D stuff, or the distribution of color on the fibers. I'm not saying that this proves the Shroud to be authentic or even really suggests it, just that comparing any imitation created so far to the original is like saying a stick of dynamite is the same thing as an atom bomb and doesn't help the case for inauthenticity.

As for being six feet tall, I mentioned that I found that interesting in the other topic. I think calling him a giant is a bit of an overstatement. He would have been pretty tall for the time, but it's quite possible. And one shouldn't be surprised that the New Testament makes no mention of his height as one is hard pressed to find any information about his physical appearance at all. The writers were not at all concerned with the man's looks. I don't know about the arm length, though. (I wonder if Lincoln could do that with his hands.)

True no one has been able to replicate the shroud with exact precision, and you are correct, it doesn't validate or invalidate the shroud. But, Mr. Wilson has created a very good replica using primitive supplies (glass, oil paint and sunlight). The 3D stuff, negative image, brush strokes, etc.. are accounted for. Again, it's not exact, but it's pretty close. As he says: "What I have done is crudely demonstrate that such an image could easily be produced in a matter of weeks by wicked men with no scruples, a little imagination, and a little more skill." His recreation was merely an image making process. So keep in mind, it has not been looked under a microscope (which may be another objection to how accurately it portrays the shroud).

Your question about Lincoln is pretty good, and actually there has been a comparison done using his dimensions. Not the arms exactly (although his body, arms and legs were so long it has been suggested he may have suffered from Marfan's syndrome) but how they relate to the size of his cranium (see below). I think if Jesus had these features, it would be hard not to notice. It's hard to believe that these things wouldn't be written about, but that's obviously speculative.

I too would like to see the Shroud retested. It would, hopefully, put an end to a lot of debate, whatever the results are. I don't think, however, that when Shroud proponents claim the radiocarbon dating is inconclusive, that they mean that the tests themselves were flawed. According to some of the researchers I've read, it was originally intended that more samples would be taken than just three and that they would be taken from multiple locations on the Shroud to insure a good measurement. This method was unused, however, and only three were taken, all from what some claim is the worst spot on the cloth. I certainly don't know if the objections raised stand up to scrutiny or not, but some have come from pretty prominent Shroud researchers, and I hope that, if nothing else, all the fuss made will lead to a more thorough dating in the future.

I'm aware of the objections. It seems to go back and forth with the scientists who tested the actual samples vs. the shroud researchers. For now, I'm going to go ahead and trust some of the leading experts in these types of dating techniques. If a re-test shows otherwise, great. But until then, these just sound like ad-hoc hypotheses and rationalizations. If this test had been done on anything else besides a religious relic, it would have been done and over with.

Personally, I don't see the fact that the image isn't mentioned until a long while after the first century to be all that convincing. None of the New Testament writers claimed to be compiling a complete list of all the miracles associated with Jesus, and to anyone who had seen him raised or experienced the formation of the early Church, I doubt seeing his image on a cloth would be quite so fantastic. In an oral culture, the testimony of the early Christians would likely have been much more valuable than the Shroud, which didn't prove anything. Some researchers have even suggested that the image may not have become clear until decades after its creation.

That's a pretty good rationalization. I am obviously going with the presupposition that the image was visibly there in the first place.

Anyway, I'm not trying to lay out a case for the Shroud's authenticity, as I have my own qualms about considering it to be the real thing. Still, I thought I might help get the discussion started by listing a few answers I've seen from the Pro-Shroud people. I'm sure Blippy will arrive on the scene eventually, and then we shroud skeptics and agnostics will really be in for it, buried under a pile of research I'm too lazy to do.

There is plenty of research done on both sides, basically claiming the other side is wrong or flawed. If re-testing the age brought the same results, eh. If not, the debate would continue. I personally think the research is a waste of time based on the bodily proportions on the shroud...

Bippy asks for "peer-reviewed" sources. You need a peer-reviewed source to lay on the ground and cross your hands over your midsection? Do you need a peer-reviewed source to compare the claims to biblical scripture? A peer-reviewed source comparing 2D images created from 3D structures? That is silly. I have briefly looked through the shroud.com site and your thread and couldn't find any peer-reviewed sources addressing the issue of the arms being abnormally long or the head being abnormally misshapen. You mention Dan Porter critiquing the shadow shroud site. The author addresses some of the issues he raises, as well as concedes on a point or two. The author never claimed it was an end all debunking/solution to the shroud, but merely demonstrated it is possible to create very similar images using medieval techniques. Regardless, it is not necessary to reproduce an exact artist rendering to "debunk" the shroud.


//www.infidels.org/kiosk/article815.html

I haven't seen any "peer-reviewed" articles addressing these serious issues (maybe they are out there and I'm wrong?). Please refrain from ad-hominem attacks on the site and just address the issues please. The argument summarizes the size of the head, the forearm length and position problems. Those are the main ones I am concerned about. No need to attack references to Joe Nickell or the recreation attempts. I'm only curious about the body part ratios.

[Danieltwotwenty]

A few problems I have with the body length rebuttel is that they theorise the body was not in contact with the sheet due to the muscles not being squished on the back from the tomb surface and the body would have been floating at the time the image was made, then there was an explosion of light which created the image. It would be safe to assume that the image may not be in exact propartion to the actual body because it was not the body that made the image but the light coming from it. The hand and arms may have been longer due to dislocation from the elbow and shoulder socket, being stretched from being hung on the cross.

Just my thoughts.

[Icthus]

Interesting post, Pierson. For the most part I'm with you on the bodily distortion stuff. I'm interested in seeing what answers proponents of the Shroud give.

[bippy123]

Interesting post, Pierson. For the most part I'm with you on the bodily distortion stuff. I'm interested in seeing what answers proponents of the Shroud give.

Icthus, may I ask why you are in agreement with Pierson on the body distortion stuff.
Have u studied the artist and forensic expert research on the shroud?
If you had u would have seen that it was determined by the experts who were trained to spot this that the head was slightly bent and the knees bent. now let's ask the sultan of shroud misinformation to lay down , with his knees bent and he will see that this is a perfect anatomical position for the body to be and they actually found corpses in this region to have been buried exactly this way.
http://www.shroud.com/piczek.htm

THE TRUE POSITION FOUND

The difficulties experienced by the artist trying to recreate the circumstances which would allow to paint a Shroud-like painting, lead, however, to a substantial discovery.

The untrained human eye does not note the differences created by anatomical foreshortening on the frontal and dorsal image of the Shroud. Foreshortening and the TRUE DISTANCES of body parts from the surface go hand in hand. While a general research opinion sees a flatly reclining body on the Shroud, the professional figurative artist with extensive training in art anatomy can see substantial differences to caution him/her to accept the flatly reclining position as true.

The foreshortenings describe very precise angles which the torso creates with the pelvis, the pelvis with the thighs and the thighs with the lower legs. The problem with all the time was that these angles could be easily calculated from a profile view, but the profile view is missing on the Shroud. Art anatomy, however, can restore that information. (FIG. L, M, N & O)

Icthus please do your research and you wil then understand that Pierson is not doing any research at all.
He is only copying and pasting stuff that has been debunked by the true experts in many different scientific fields.
Dame piszek is just one of the many experts that have determined this, plus they found buried corpses in that region that from the time of Jesus which were buried the same exact way.

If Pierson was an honest researcher he would have seen that these idiotic theories like the one I just debunked were debunked long ago by the experts.

The first clue that Pierson was a typical atheist who has not put in time to actually research the shroud was when he brought links from Walter mccrone and nickell , both of whome have been thoroughly debunked by the real experts in the field. Jesus's arms and his body are in the right anatomical position, and he doesn't have gorilla arms, but I would suppose the one spreading links like these might have a gorilla brain.
As I said before the shroud will cause an atheist to abandon science, reason, and rationality because their worldview is an emotional one and not a rational one.

This post is not for Pierson but to make sure he doesn't deceive any newbies to his copy and paste lies.

It's obvious Pierson is afraid of doing real research into the shroud and instead chooses to waste our time with this load of garbage.

Icthus, please visit shroud.com as they have all of the most up to date info on every aspect of the shroud.
I won't waste any more time with Pierson .
Pierson , don't be afraid of he'll my friend, our awesome lord went through his agony so we could all be saved from it.
Start doing some honest research and you will be surprised as to where it will lead u.
God bless you
And this is really my last post on ur dishonest thread until u really start doing some unbiased research

[DRDS]

By and large Bippy, I agree the op is being very emotional especially with his link pasting. I mean come on, infidels dot org????!!! I went there several years ago to just ask them simple, calm, honest questions about why they are atheists and to give reasons for the lack of hope that is within them, and all I got back was vulgar, crude, angry hate speech, insults, and threats. It's really a angry mob, schoolyard bully type of a atmosphere for everyone that goes there except for atheists of course. To me, it's the go to site for atheists to see how NOT to do atheism. But then again, virtually all if not most atheists tend to act this way.

[Reactionary]

When we put links to Christian sites, they'll chuckle, "LOL, a Christian site. How objective." But linking to atheist sites is fine. DRDS, I know what you're talking about because I've visited a couple of such sites and I was shocked by the amount of logical fallacies, lack of objectivity (they'll cheer to anything anti-Christian, no matter how wrong it may be), lack of understanding of basic philosophy (they claim it's useless anyway precisely because they don't understand it), lack of manners, frustration and most of all, hate.

Denial is a nasty mechanism.

[Icthus]

Alright, Blippy, you win. I hadn't really heard of the distortion objections before, and to a Shroud laymen, they sounded pretty good. And yes, I'm well aware of some of the stuff on the Infidels site. At least I'm learning something in this topic, even if I have to make an ignorant fool of myself first.

[Byblos]

Regardless of your stance, please keep the posts clean and to the point. Refrain from name-calling, personal attacks and assumptions about other people's positions. If in doubt, ask (nicely). There's a tremendous amount of material surrounding the shroud's authenticity but it does no good to mask it with ugly discourse.

[bippy123]

By and large Bippy, I agree the op is being very emotional especially with his link pasting. I mean come on, infidels dot org????!!! I went there several years ago to just ask them simple, calm, honest questions about why they are atheists and to give reasons for the lack of hope that is within them, and all I got back was vulgar, crude, angry hate speech, insults, and threats. It's really a angry mob, schoolyard bully type of a atmosphere for everyone that goes there except for atheists of course. To me, it's the go to site for atheists to see how NOT to do atheism. But then again, virtually all if not most atheists tend to act this way.

So true DRDS, if you want a prime example of this you should look at how perry Marshall was treated when he went there and after a long time they admitted that DNA is a code.

Byblos, you have a very good point also. I will try to be more Christ-like in my responses in the future

[bippy123]

Alright, Blippy, you win. I hadn't really heard of the distortion objections before, and to a Shroud laymen, they sounded pretty good. And yes, I'm well aware of some of the stuff on the Infidels site. At least I'm learning something in this topic, even if I have to make an ignorant fool of myself first.

Icthus, actually it is me who acted like an arrogant fool. Your truth seeking about the shroud actually made the case for authenticity of the shroud that much stronger
You have taught me alot my friend, and I hope I can apply it in my future responses .

[Pierson5]

Regardless of your stance, please keep the posts clean and to the point. Refrain from name-calling, personal attacks and assumptions about other people's positions. If in doubt, ask (nicely). There's a tremendous amount of material surrounding the shroud's authenticity but it does no good to mask it with ugly discourse.

Thankyou Byblos. I even stated in my post try to refrain from ad-hominem attacks because I knew it was going to happen. I'm only asking questions here. I'll be the first to admit I haven't looked into the shroud as much as others. If someone asks an honest question and links to a creation website, I don't attack them for it, I'll point out where they are wrong. That's all I'm expecting in return. DRDS and Reactionary contributed nothin to the discussion but hateful comments about the website and atheists in general. In the time I've been a member here, I have not once attacked a Christian for merely being a Christian, despite of conflicting views. All I'm asking is to be givin the same respect in return.

Byblos, you have a very good point also. I will try to be more Christ-like in my responses in the future

That's all I ask. Thanks bippy. Also, thankyou for taking the time to respond to the thread. I understand you've probably heard these objections before. I can tell you, I'm not trying to be dishonest here. I went to you're thread and the shroud website. I used the search function for the objection raised about the ratio of the limbs depicted and couldn't find anything. Thanks again for the response, I will need to look into it. As Icthus pointed out, we are learning something here. If I have any objections it will have to be at a later time (this is posted from my phone)