Evidence for God from Science

Hugh I have already viewed videos on their repairs . I have a super hard time believing that you could have missed this .i won't ever say this to you out loud but I have a deep resist for your massive knowledge on the shroud but I can't help but feel there could be a subconscious bias in there somewhere .

bippy123 wrote:Hugh I have already viewed videos on their repairs . I have a super hard time believing that you could have missed this .i won't ever say this to you out loud but I have a deep resist for your massive knowledge on the shroud but I can't help but feel there could be a subconscious bias in there somewhere .

Lol bip, I'm sure you meant 'deep respect' but even when you're paying a complement you subconsciously turn it into a back-handed one.

Byblos wrote:

bippy123 wrote:Hugh I have already viewed videos on their repairs . I have a super hard time believing that you could have missed this .i won't ever say this to you out loud but I have a deep resist for your massive knowledge on the shroud but I can't help but feel there could be a subconscious bias in there somewhere .

Lol bip, I'm sure you meant 'deep respect' but even when you're paying a complement you subconsciously turn it into a back-handed one.

Hehe yea Byblos I did mean respect .i think my dorky side is always in the background .
Gosh I hate this iPhone spell checker. I hope Samsung one day invades Apple headquarters and takes it over lol

I guess my backhandedness comes from surviving with 2 incredibly backhanded brothers lol.

On a side note trump is making my decision to eventually move to Mexico very difficult lol

hughfarey wrote: Eusebius, in his detailed account of the Emperor Constantine and his wife's exploration of the site of the Holy Sepulchre, does not mention the discovery of any relics, all of which appeared over the years almost exclusively in Constantinople. Most of them were given some sort of 'provenance' as they appeared, but the lack of any mention of them until their appearance in Constantinople must give us pause for doubt.

Some thoughts on this...
If we accept Ian Wilson's theory that the "Cloth of Edessa"/Mandylion and the Shroud of Turin are one and the same, then this explains why Constantine was unable to find the burial cloth of Jesus during his search.
According to Christian tradition/legend, at around 50 AD the Mandylion was taken from Jerusalem to Edessa and given by the evangelist Thaddaeus to King Agbar V.
So by the time Constantine was exploring the holy sites of Jerusalem, the Mandylion was buried in the walls of Edessa due to earlier persecution of Christians by Rome.
The Mandylion remained buried in the walls of Edessa until it was rediscovered during the middle of the 6th century.
In 943 AD Byzantine Emperor Romanus sent an army to Edessa to 'negotiate' with the Muslims who now controlled Edessa for possession of the Mandylion... and the Mandylion finally made its way to Constantinople.

Even though the Mandylion was presented an an image of the face of Jesus "not made by hands", in 944 AD the archdeacon of Hagia Sophia delivered a sermon in which he said that the Mandylion bears 'the blood and water from his very side'. This indicates that the image on the Mandylion was not limited to just the face of Jesus, but it also contained images that included the pierced side of Jesus which we also see in the Shroud.

Now for a little physical evidence to link the Mandylion with the Shroud.
The path of the Mandylion takes us from Jerusalem to Edessa and then finally to Constantinople.
According to "The Resurrection of the Shroud"...
"these locations conform precisely to the geographical origins of the pollen that were found on the Shroud and identified by Dr. Max Frei."

Now does this definitively prove that the Mandylion and the Shroud are the same piece of cloth?
No

But I personally think that based on historical and physical evidence, a plausible and reasonable argument can be made that the Mandylion and the Shroud are one and the same.

To me, its simple:
The evidence for the shroud is there, people will do with it what they want.
The evidence against the shroud is basically the carbon dating and the issues people have with the supernatural.

The easiest and most definitive way to prove that the shroud CAN be forged and is man-made ( not that it IS a forgery or man-made) is to do it, make one. Period.

That address the possibility that it CAN be made.

Until that happens then, well...what we have is this:

Historical evidence that the shroud may be real.
Debatable scientific evidence that some parts are dated to the 14th century.
Or even these views:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... Jesus.html

And one question that seems to be begging to be asked:
If someone one made this, why make it on such a way that it can only clearly be seen as a "negative image" ??

In short:
There are many questions about the shroud and very few answers even in the 21st century.

That in of itself should give us all something to think about.

Paul: And one question that seems to be begging to be asked:
If someone one made this, why make it on such a way that it can only clearly be seen as a "negative image" ??

That is just one of the things that makes the notion of a medieval faker a joke. This, at the very youngest, is still a pre-scientific age artifact that has details that no ancient would even know about to fake, much less have the expertise to. NEGATIVE image, no paint, no broken blood platelets, the pollen evidences UNIQUE TO THE JERUSALEM AREA, 3-D spatial imagery (this is NOT a flat image, as the V-8 image scan (below) reveals. And the nail wounds are correct to testing and knowledge that they went into the wrists. The side is pierced. The wounds accurate to Scripture. All this, and it just HAPPENS to be an artifact long held to be believed to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus. What are the odds of all THAT???!!!







Does anyone sincerely believe an ancient could produce such images? And that we still can't do it today speaks volumes!

DBowling wrote:According to Christian tradition/legend, at around 50 AD the Mandylion was taken from Jerusalem to Edessa and given by the evangelist Thaddaeus to King Agbar V. So by the time Constantine was exploring the holy sites of Jerusalem, the Mandylion was buried in the walls of Edessa due to earlier persecution of Christians by Rome. The Mandylion remained buried in the walls of Edessa until it was rediscovered during the middle of the 6th century. In 943 AD Byzantine Emperor Romanus sent an army to Edessa to 'negotiate' with the Muslims who now controlled Edessa for possession of the Mandylion... and the Mandylion finally made its way to Constantinople.

This was quite a persuasive argument when first presented, but is not generally supported, if at all, by any of the historians who have made the Image of Edessa their principle study. Their main objection, as I understand it, is that the image is not identified as a shroud, or even a full length depiction, at any time during its history, even to the extent that different cloths actually were identified as the shroud of Jesus, kept at different places in Constantinople, at the same time as the Mandylion. However, that's not the main point of my remarks above, which was that there is no mention of any relics at all anywhere (except in retrospect) until the relic 'cult' emerges during the 5th century. Were they all hidden in walls for 300 years?

The Sermon of Gregory Referendarius in 944 is interesting, but not as persuasive to me as it is to others. If I have a 'subconscious bias', as Bippy suggests, I think it is less for or against authenticity, but an almost fanatical insistence on primary sources. I Googled "the blood and water from his very side" without finding anything, so I didn't know your source for that translation. I am more familiar with Marc Guscin's tranlation (https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/guscin3.pdf), based on André-Marie Dubarle's bilingual commentary (Greek text, French translation and commentary, at http://www.persee.fr/doc/rebyz_0766-559 ... _55_1_1935, which goes: "This reflection, however – let everyone be inspired with the explanation – has been imprinted only by the sweat from the face of the originator of life, falling like drops of blood, and by the finger of God. For these are the beauties that have made up the true imprint of Christ, since after the drops fell, it was embellished by drops from his own side." Another commentary can be found in Andrea Nicolotti, “From the Mandelion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin, the Metamorphosis and Manipulation of a Legend”, who also examines the Greek text in detail. Suffice it to say that there is nothing in the sermon that strongly suggests that Gregory had any idea that the Mandylion was a full length image.

But I personally think that based on historical and physical evidence, a plausible and reasonable argument can be made that the Mandylion and the Shroud are one and the same.

And indeed you are not alone. But it must be recognised that plausibility is not definitive, and that it is not absurd to reject it.

PaulSacramento and Philip, it's not obvious that you really want to understand the reasons why some people don't accept the Shroud's authenticity. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll have another try, but I sense that you're happy with your own conclusions, and don't want them challenged, so I'll wait till invited before responding to your incredulity, if that's OK.

PaulSacramento and Philip, it's not obvious that you really want to understand the reasons why some people don't accept the Shroud's authenticity. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll have another try, but I sense that you're happy with your own conclusions, and don't want them challenged, so I'll wait till invited before responding to your incredulity, if that's OK

Hugh, I have spent quite some time investigating why some don't believe. T o be honest more time on that then why some DO believe.
I am ok with why people choose to believe it to be real and why people choose to believe that it isn't and why some simply say they don't know.

Hugh: PaulSacramento and Philip, it's not obvious that you really want to understand the reasons why some people don't accept the Shroud's authenticity. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll have another try, but I sense that you're happy with your own conclusions

Hugh, I started out very skeptically. In fact, I was rather rude and abrasive to Bippy - who has brought great insights into the history and analysis of this artifact. I figured it to be just another bogus Catholic relic - a dime a dozen, correct? But just because the Catholic Church claims continuity as the very same origins in the first century church, doesn't take away from what the artifact's facts and analysis have shown. It is not what group now controls this artifact, it is only the facts surrounding it which interests me. And those facts show an artifact that is incredibly compelling and mysterious, and technically out of the reach of any pre-scientific age's person's ability to replicate. And no one using the very same tools that an ancient would have been limited to can come close to replicating this. It has aspects that no ancient could have possibly known about, much less been capable of replicating. Collectively, these are very powerful things. I've not see one thing that you or others have asserted that either explains it, or that has been able to refute that obvious mistakes where made with the carbon tests on a repaired section. So, you have two enormous hills to climb, IMHO, to refuting this. The astonishing technical attributes no ancient would know to or know HOW to do - this alone is exceptionally formidable. And you have completely failed to explain away the very understandable doubts surrounding the faulty carbon 14 testing.

To be sure, if authentic, this is just one evidence (albeit an astonishing one) for the authenticity of the New Testament accounts detailing the crucifixion. And, Hugh, I may be wrong, and if I am, I am, but I still wonder about your motivation to debunk the Shroud. There are a lot of false things that have been asserted about the historical Jesus, the Bible, etc. But you are laser-focused on this issue. It would really be helpful if I can truly understand your beliefs about the crucifixion/resurrection, as you did not make that clear in my followup questions.

Philip: You DO you believe that A) Christ was resurrected from the dead and B) that such a burial shroud of his once did exist, per Scripture - correct? And if you believe this - and let's forget about this particular Shroud artifact for a moment - do you have any reasons that it is impossible for it to still exist?

Hugh's response: Back to Philip. It is not scientifically impossible that the original shroud of Jesus, which I believe did indeed actually exist, still exists. There is plenty of archaeological evidence from the time, and considerably earlier. However I imagine that your next question is - so why can't the Shroud of Turin be that shroud?

So, Hugh, while you did answer the "B" portion of my question above, you didn't clearly answer the "A" portion. You indicated that you believe it is SCIENTIFICALLY possible (though far from certain) to be Jesus' burial garment, but my main questions are, do you believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, that His physical body was put to death by the Romans, that He laid dead over the three days Scripture indicates, and then He physically was resurrected back to life and was seen by many witnesses, over some 40 days, before exiting to Heaven? Is there any portion of what I've described here that you do not believe? I just want to make certain that your skepticism is coming from the standpoint of a person that has faith in a crucified and risen Jesus - and not just belief that some person was put in a tomb who remained dead. Because if Jesus was never resurrected, this is a pointless debate. Again, I don't want to assume anything, nor to offend, merely to understand your beliefs in this matter.

Well, it's a bit off topic, but related. I don't know what the resurrection was, but I do believe, as did the early disciples, that it was something. I think there is a distinction to be made here between knowledge and belief. What can't be denied is the consequences, but, rather like the big bang, it is very difficult to identify the causes of those consequences, and there isn't enough evidence to enable us to decide what, exactly, occurred. I'm afraid that's the best I can do.

Back on the Shroud, there does seem to be a lot of misunderstanding of the skill and knowledge required to produce the 'negative' and '3D' effects that were not discovered for another 700 years. I think this is because people don't understand what a medieval artist might have been aiming at. I don't think the person who made the shroud was aiming for a miraculous image. I don't think it was made with fraudulent intent to impersonate a miraculous image. There were plenty of those (such as the Mandylion) and they were all ordinary portraits, although supposedly 'not made by hands', and accorded the respect due to miracles, but I don't think the Shroud began like that. I think it was made to represent the image that a dead body covered with blood might leave on a Shroud, and as such, was automatically produced as a negative, without the artist knowing anything about them. I see nothing about the image that was beyond the skill of many 14th century artists, even without any knowledge of photographic negatives, although admit that the precise technique still escapes me. Many of the precise details turn out, on inspection, to be no such thing.

Hugh: I don't know what the resurrection was, but I do believe, as did the early disciples, that it was something. I think there is a distinction to be made here between knowledge and belief. What can't be denied is the consequences

Hugh, the early disciples/apostles didn't just believe the resurrection was something: They specifically believed: Jesus was/IS God, who took on the cloak of humanity. They believed he died a horrible death on a cross. They believed He was able to come back from the dead, fully alive and healthy, and that He appeared to themselves and many witnesses after rising from the dead.

Hugh, is there any of the above paragraph, that the Apostles believed, but you do not?

In fact, the Apostle Paul makes clear that the historical fact and belief in Christ's resurrection is central to being a Christian: Romans 10:9-10: " 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."

How does this apply to the Shroud, you ask? It has everything to do with it! Because if Jesus didn't miraculously rise from the dead, then our faith is pointless, and the shroud, even if actually Jesus', would not mean He was God and it means the entire premise of the New Testament and what the apostles believed was pure fiction. And thus NO Christian could any reason to KNOW they will be saved and in Heaven. The fact that He did, that this is a historical FACT, IS why Christians' faith saves them!

In medieval times, nails are represented as going through the palms (not wrists) and feet separately (not on top of each other). If it was medieval artistry, then the evidence suggests the image on the shroud is out of line with what people believed.

So hugh, you would have us believe that someone like Barrie Schwartz is totally mistaken on these very important points on the shroud?
You do know he's an Orthodox Jew and was sceptical of the shroud and is now a proponent of its authenticity .

Tell me why I should believe your opinion and totally disregard Barrie's ?

Byzantine coins (7th century) show 145 points of congruence to the shroud.
See also http://people.duke.edu/~adw2/shroud/byz ... coins.html which has videos overlaying the coin images on top of the shroud images. Quite compelling I think.

Philip wrote:Hugh, the early disciples/apostles didn't just believe the resurrection was something: They specifically believed: Jesus was/IS God, who took on the cloak of humanity. They believed he died a horrible death on a cross. They believed He was able to come back from the dead, fully alive and healthy, and that He appeared to themselves and many witnesses after rising from the dead. Hugh, is there any of the above paragraph, that the Apostles believed, but you do not?

Philip, I'm afraid I can't make my beliefs as clear-cut as that. I think that, had I been there with disciples, I would have accepted everything that they accepted, and so, since I wasn't there, I'm prepared to believe their story. I believe, but I do not know. I really can't do better than that.

How does this apply to the Shroud, you ask? It has everything to do with it!

No, don't think it does. Barrie Schwortz - see below - does not believe in the resurrection at all, nor the salvation that stems from it, nor that Jesus was God, but I find that he is at least as 'Christian' in his behaviour as I am, quite possibly better, in fact, and am certain that he is no less likely to spend eternity in heaven than I am.

Kureiou wrote:In medieval times, nails are represented as going through the palms (not wrists) and feet separately (not on top of each other). If it was medieval artistry, then the evidence suggests the image on the shroud is out of line with what people believed.

One of the interesting things about the Shroud is that not does not show the palms of the hands, so that it is quite incorrect to say that it shows the nails going through them. What people usually mean is that the site of the exit wound on the back of the hands suggests that the entry wound was through the palms. This may seem like quibbling, but the point is important. Forensic pathologist Fred Zugibe, for instance, thought the nail might have gone in at an angle, in through the palm and out through the wrist. Try this: 1) draw, with a sharpie, four dots on your knuckles, four more on the first joints of your fingers, and one big one on the back of your hand, which you think marks where a nail through the palm would exit. 2) repeat this exercise with a picture of the Shroud's hands (but use the exit wound marked by the blood). 3) Measure the lengths of your own first phalanges, and the lengths of the shroud's first phalanges, and the distances from the knuckles to the nailhole on both images. 4) Compare the relative distances between the nailhole and the knuckles on both images (not the absolute distance, as your hand could be wholly bigger or smaller than the Shroud's. 5) Ponder on the difference between the two...

bippy123 wrote:So hugh, you would have us believe that someone like Barrie Schwartz is totally mistaken on these very important points on the shroud? You do know he's an Orthodox Jew and was sceptical of the shroud and is now a proponent of its authenticity . Tell me why I should believe your opinion and totally disregard Barrie's ?

I know Barrie's views very well, and he knows mine, but we get on very well when we meet, as we both understand that our conclusions are our personal interpretations, but our evidence is the same. He too is a stickler for primary sources. I don't think you should "totally disregard" anybody's opinion, not even mine. You should a) read everybody's opinion, b) check that the evidence upon which they base their opinion is true, c) decide how justified those opinions are, based on the accuracy of the evidence cited, and d) form your own opinion.

Kureiou wrote:Byzantine coins (7th century) show 145 points of congruence to the shroud.

When I type "shroud" and "points of congruence" into Google, I get 4510 hits. Even without opening the irls, the first page gives:
1) no number
2) 188
3) 46
4) "more than 140"
5) 180
6) no number
7) no number
no number
9) 170
10) 170

I expect if I clicked on any of the 'no number's I would get something similar. What you never, ever get is a list of them. Or even a definition of a point of congruence. If you and I both scribbled randomly on squares of paper, and they were then overlaid, there would be dozens of 'points of congruence', all, of course, meaningless. On the other hand if we both drew as best we could, by copying a given drawing, the outline of rhinoceros, and overlaid the images, there could be very few points of congruence, even though both our drawings were clearly identifiable as from the same model. Anybody claiming these 'points of congruence' for the Shroud always claims that that in this or that court of law, you only need this or that number of 'points of congruence' in fingerprints or faces or facial recognition software. I have never seen any of this justified - my insistence on primary sources evident here! - and of course, none of it is true. Dozens of points of congruence between fingerprints can be completely obviated by a single clear demonstration of a point of lack of congruence.

Now let's turn to the coin. Specifically, the crease below the neck you use an illustration. If you refer to the two negatives of the Shroud at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... o_1898.jpg and http://www.aperture.org/wp-content/uplo ... _12307.png, and compare the creases visible when Secondo Pia took his photo compared to those visible when Giuseppe took his, you will see that the 'neck crease' did not exist in 1898, and is an artifact of the rolling up of the Shroud between 1898 and 1930. I need hardly add that it's gone again now!

So no, I do not find the points of congruence between the coin and the Shroud compelling. Nor the fact that after his return from exile, Justinian reverted to the earlier style of depicting Christ. Some numismatic historians think this was related to his political allegiances, and the styles of depiction common to each one.