Objections answered (2) #33
This is the fifth installment of "Objections answered (2)," part #33 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia, which will help me write Chapter "21. Objections answered" of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24. It follows my "Objections answered (1) #25" of 07Jul23.
I am basing this "Objections answered (2)" on an online article, "The
[Right (enlarge): Spencer McDaniel - Bad Ancient]
Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax," by a Spencer McDaniel." She (a transgender person) is described as:
"Spencer McDaniel is an aspiring scholar of ancient Greek cultural and social history. She graduated with high distinction from Indiana University Bloomington in May 2022 with a BA in history and classical studies (Ancient Greek and Latin languages), with departmental honors in history. She is currently a student in the MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis University. Some of her main historical interests include ancient religion, mythology, and folklore; gender and sexuality; ethnicity; and interactions between Greeks and "foreign" cultures. She is the author of the blog Tales of Times Forgotten, where she writes regular, in-depth posts about ancient history and related topics."
[Index #1] [Previous: Image of Edessa #32] [Next: To be advised #34]
As with the format of "Objections answered (1)," I will present McDaniel's objections to the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet under headings using her words as far as possible. They will be in bullet points, enclosed in single quotation marks as from an imaginary objector, which will be closer to what will appear in my book.
• `The Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style'
"Unfortunately, we can be virtually certain that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France in around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style as part of a faith-healing scam"[MS20].McDaniel is a scholar but her article is not scholarly. She cites no references for her assertions and neither does it have a bibliography of what Shroud literature she has read (if any).
Who was this "artist"? And who was the artist who "trained" him "in the Gothic figurative style"? McDaniels is postulating not one, but two unknown artists! Where are her supporting references from Gothic art experts that the Shroud is a work of mid-14th century Gothic art? And since the Shroud image is not painted (from my book in progress):
Not painted It has been known since at least the 1930s that the Shroudman's image is not painted. By examining the Shroud with a magnifying glass during the 1931 exposition, English Roman Catholic prelate Arthur Barnes (1861-1936), could see individual threads in the image area with no colouring matter covering them[BA34, 10-11, 14. See below]. Sceptics now admit that the man's image is not painted. Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001), then Director of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, when in 1988 collecting his laboratory's Shroud sample, examined the Shroud with a magnifying glass and satisfied himself that the image was not painted[WI98, 198]. Sceptic Joe Nickell (1944-) has admitted that, "...convincing evidence for any painting medium (that is, oil, egg tempera, etc.) on shroud image fibers is lacking"[NJ87, 99]. Former Nature editor Philip Ball (1962-), likewise conceded, "the shroud ... does not seem to have been painted ..."[BP05]. The Shroud of Turin Project (STURP) confirmed in 1981 that no paint, pigment, or dye constitutes the man's image[SS81].(and it is not a statue), the Shroud cannot be a work of Gothic art!
[Above (enlarge[11Jul16]): Photomicrograph taken by optical engineer Kevin Moran (1934-2019) of 15 microns (15 thousandths of a millimetre) diameter Shroud fibres attached to one of Max Frei (1913–83)'s Shroud sticky tapes. Each image (yellow) fibre can be clearly seen, with no colouring matter (paint, pigment or dye) covering it. The yellow colour of the image fibres is due to a physical change in the flax: dehydrative oxidation and conjugation of cellulose[27Jul24]. The boundaries between the image (yellow) and non-image parts of each fibre are only about 1 micron (1 thousandth of a millimetre) wide. No human artist/forger can paint, etc., with such precision. These fibres are too thin (about half the thickness of an average human hair, and there must be many millions of them), to be individually painted or dyed, etc, by a medieval forger!]
&bull `The Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD as part of a faith-healing scam'
The words "faith-healing scam" are Joe Nickell's, which McDaniel plagiarises by not putting them within quotation marks and not including a reference attributing them to Nickell[PGW]:
"In 1389 a bishop reported to Pope Clement VII that it had been used in a faith-healing scam in which persons were hired to feign illness, then, when the cloth was revealed to them, to pretend to have been healed, `so that money might cunningly be wrung' from unsuspecting pilgrims. `Eventually,' he said, after `diligent inquiry and examination,' the `fraud' was uncovered. The cloth had been `cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it' (D'Arcis 1389)"[NJ15]And it is Nickell who is running a `sceptics scam' in making a living off unsuspecting sceptics by continuing to repeat Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95)' false, "The cloth had been `cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it'" claim, when (as we saw above) Nickell admitted in 1987 (~37 years ago) that the Shroudman's image is not painted!
As for Nickell's `faith healing scam' claim, he bases this on d'Arcis claim in his 1389 memorandum that:
"This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, through out the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. And further to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked, certain men being hired to represent themselves as healed at the moment of the exhibition of the shroud, which all believed to be the shroud of our Lord"[WI79, 267] "There are multiple problems with d'Arcis' statement above: • d'Arcis' claim above is at best hearsay[SD89, 15; AM00, 152-153], or at worst he just made it up[AM00, 153]. d'Arcis provided no documentary evidence to support his claims[SD89, 15; AM00, 153]. And as we have seen (there was no "artist who painted" the Shroud because it is not "painted"!), and will see, key claims in d'Arcis' memorandum are false! • The evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud is "the shroud of our Lord." • So it is possible that there were real miracles of healing associated with that first undisputed exposition of the Shroud. • Neither Geoffroy I's widow, Jeanne de Vergy (c.1332–1428), nor the Lirey church, were wealthy after the c. 1355 exposition. Following her husband's 1356 death, Jeanne had to appeal to the young future king Charles V (r. 1364-80) for her infant son Geoffroy II (1352-98) to be granted the two houses in Paris that Charles'captured father, King John II (r. 1350-64) had promised Geoffroy I (c. 1306-56). And the small wooden Lirey church fell into disrepair[WI79, 213; SH81, 29; WI91, 25; TF06, 47] until it was replaced in stone over 170 years later in 1526[WI98, 287]. Yet according to d'Arcis and Nickell, Jeanne de Vergy, and/or the Lirey church, would have been fabulously wealthy from all that "money" they allegedly had "cunningly ... wrung from" the "multitude"! This is further evidence that d'Arcis was not simply mistaken, but was actually lying in his memorandum! Significantly, d'Arcis in his memorandum had to defend himself from the allegation that he was "acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself":
"The scandal is upheld and defended and its supporters cause it to be spread abroad among the people that I am acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself"[WI79, 269]McDaniel continues:
"We know this primarily because there is no definitive record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century and the earliest definitive record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed, but also because of a wide array of other factors. For instance, the shroud doesn’t match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD or the specific description of Jesus’s funerary wrappings given in the Gospel of John. The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages"[MS20].• `There is no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century' I have left out "definitive" here and next because the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: "firm, final, and complete; not to be questioned or changed," and so McDaniel is trying to win her argument by a definition!
This is both fallacious and false. It is fallacious that if there was "no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century," it would not automatically prove that the Shroud was "a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD by an artist." Shroud sceptics would need to prove that. But, as the Irish theologian Patrick Beecher (1870-1940) pointed out in 1928, even if there was no "documentary evidence" for the origin of the Shroud, it "carrie[s] in itself its own proof of its genuineness":"
"Some eighteen months ago the London Times had a photograph of a bronze statue that was found at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Experts examined it and pronounced it a genuine Greek statue. It was accepted as such; no one doubted the opinion that was expressed; and it will be labelled for all future time as a Greek statue. Suppose some one had objected and said: `No, I refuse to believe that it is a Greek statue unless I get documentary evidence as to when and where it was made, and how it came to be at the bottom of the sea.' Would that attitude be regarded as reasonable? ... NO, rather he would be looked upon as eccentric in not being able to see that the statue carried in itself its own proof of its genuineness. Very well, but we have vastly stronger intrinsic proof for the genuineness of the Shroud." (emphasis original)[BP28, 136-137].And it is false that there is no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century. For starters see in my "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell":
After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft.1216), the Keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection, recalled that in 1201[11Nov17] the collection included "the sindon [which] wrapped the un-outlined (Gk. aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"[11Jun16]. "sindon," "un-outlined," "naked." This can only have been the Shroud, 59 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 154 years before the Shroud first appeared in c. 1355, in undisputed history, at Lirey, France[27Jul24]!
• `The earliest record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed'
• `The shroud doesn’t match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD'
To be continued in the sixth installent of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
AM00. Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY,.
BA34. Barnes, A.S., 1934, "The Holy Shroud of Turin," Burns Oates & Washbourne: London.
BP05. Ball, P., 2005, "To know a veil," Nature, 28 January.
BP28. Beecher, P.A., 1928, "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin.
MS20. McDaniel, S., 2020, "The Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax," Tales of Times Forgotten, 24 February.
NJ87. Nickell, J., 1987, "Inquest on the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Prometheus Books: Buffalo NY, Revised, Reprinted, 2000.
NJ15. Nickell, J., 2015, "Fake Turin Shroud Deceives National Geographic Author," 23 April.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
PGW. "Plagiarism," Wikipedia, 7 December 2024.
SD89. Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA.
SH81. Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI.
SS81. "A Summary of STURP's Conclusions," October 1981, Shroud.com.
TF06. Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition.
WI79. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition.
WI91. Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.
Posted 16 December 2024. Updated 20 December 2024.
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