"Has Science Proven the Shroud of Turin to Be a Medieval Forgery?" (2): Shroud of Turin News - April 2016

Shroud of Turin News - April 2016
© Stephen E. Jones[1]

[Previous: April 2016, part #2] [Next: April 2016, part #4]

This is part #3 of the April 2016 issue of my Shroud of Turin News, being a continuation of part #2. I have spent too much time on this article and need to move on to another April news article before my May Shroud News in June! So those points I have not yet addressed, I have supplied links to my previous posts and footnoted others with "Reference(s) to be provided," in the faint hope that I will find time to complete them. The article's words are in bold to distinguish them from mine.

"Has Science Proven the Shroud of Turin to Be a Medieval Forgery?," Church Militant, Ryan Fitzgerald, March 27, 2016. ... There's still no known way of reproducing the image on the cloth using medieval technology. In fact there is no way of reproducing the image on the cloth using modern technology. Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development (ENEA)

[Above (enlarge): ENEA's Hercules-L XeCl excimer laser: ENEA FIS-ACC Excimer Laboratory Annual Report 2000-2001]

found that it would require a battery of excimer ultraviolet lasers powered by a total of 34 billion watts to recreate the total Shroud image:

"However, Enea [sic ENEA] scientists warn, `it should be noted that the total power of VUV [vacuum ultraviolet] radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts)'"[2] See also my 22Dec11.

But that hasn't been shown to be practically feasible, let alone considering what such a battery of lasers would do to the bloodstains which were on the Shroud before its image[3].

It couldn't have been painted, as the fibers on the cloth are not stuck together by any sort of paint. It was already known by at least the 1930s that the Shroud's image was not painted:

"The whole force of the case against the authenticity of the Shroud which was brought by Canon Chevalier [Ulysse Chevalier (1841–1923)] and so widely accepted, depended ... upon the assertion that the figures upon it were only paintings executed by a known artist of the fourteenth century. But it is abundantly clear, as soon as the Shroud itself is examined that they are nothing of the kind. There are at least five reasons which prove this ... They are as follows 1. The process of painting on a fabric at that time involved the deposit of solid particles of colouring matter upon the threads, so that these latter would become partially or entirely hidden. But in the case of the Shroud every thread is visible, and no trace of solid extraneous colouring matter can be detected even by microscopic examination. ... 2. Human work, however minute, necessarily shows outline and shading. It may be so fine as completely to deceive the unaided eye, but its nature at once becomes manifest when it is put under the microscope. But these figures on the Shroud have no outline and no trace of shading. ... 3. In the fourteenth century, in France, anatomy was very little understood and nothing was known of the laws of the circulation of the blood. But here the anatomical detail and proportion is exact, the behaviour of blood flowing from a wound is true to nature, and the contrast between living blood and dead blood is duly preserved. ... 4. The ... figures upon the Shroud are shown reversed in light and shade, something after the manner of a photographic negative. ... But no human being, even now, could paint in this way, not even if he were an expert retoucher of photographs, accustomed to work upon negatives. ... If that is so even to-day ... how much more was it so in the fourteenth century, when the very idea had not as yet occurred to men's minds. Nor ... could there have been any conceivable motive which would have led a painter to ... make his work so hard for others to understand. 5. ... We know well the limitations of the art of the fourteenth century, and France at that date was far behind Italy in such matters. Who was this unknown artist, a couple of centuries before his time, who was able to paint pictures anatomically correct and in a style completely true to nature? Such a picture, if it could be assigned with certainty to that date and country, would revolutionize all the history of art."[4].

But as leading anti-authenticist Walter McCrone (1916-2002) pointed out, painting was the simplest way a medieval artist would have forged the Shroud's image:

"I realize that there are still, perhaps, a majority of people convinced by the carbon-dating that the `Shroud' is medieval, who are still looking for an answer as to how the `Shroud' was produced. Many mechanisms have already been proposed. Some say it was draped wet over a bas-relief to which it was shaped then dabbed with powder or a paint. Some say a painting was prepared and transferred to a cloth in contact with it by pressure. However, I see no reason to doubt that an artist ... simply took up his brush and a dilute red ochre watercolor paint based on scraps of parchment as the vehicle and proceeded to paint the `Shroud.' Why go to all the work of preparing a statue or bas-relief or making a transfer of the image from a primary artist's rendering? A direct approach to painting a dilute watercolor image on a canvas of the proper size is a common sense assumption ..." (my emphasis)[5]

However, in 1978 and its aftermath, after a battery of different scientific tests, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) established that:

"There is no paint, dye, powder, or other foreign substance on the image fibrils that could account for the image"[6]

The coloration on the cloth is actually a change in shading on the fibers themselves. That is, it is not something added to the image fibres but water molecules lost from them, driven out of their inner structure by energy[7], a process called dehydrative oxidation of cellulose[8] or cellulose oxidation[9] (see below).

[Above (original): Extract of a diagram of the dehydrative oxidation of cellulose[10]. As can be seen, a molecule of cellulose C₆H₁₀O₆ (left), loses water H₂O (middle) with two cellulose variant results C₆H₄O₅ and C₆H₂O₅. In both there is a loss of hydrogen leaving higher relative proportions of oxygen and carbon. The loss of water is what is meant by "dehydrative"[11] the higher relative proportion of oxygen causes new oxidation reactions, hence "oxidised"[12] The higher relative proportion of carbon results in two double carbon bonds in each image cellulose molecule, which is termed "conjugated carbonyl"[13]. It is the double carbon bonds which give the image fibres their distinctive yellow colour[14].]

Embalming methods have similarly been discredited as possible ways the image. The Jews didn't embalm their dead, that is, remove their internal organs and pickle their body to preserve it intact[15], but the Egyptians did[16], and of the countless Egyptian human mummies, none has an image of its dead body on its mummy cloths[17]. The Jews buried their dead whole under a simple shroud[18], that decomposed with the body[19], which is why, apart from the Shroud, only fragments of Jewish shrouds have been found[20].

Further, the image contains three-dimensional properties in the varying intensities of its shading. Jackson, et al. discovered this in 1977, when they placed a 1931 Enrie photograph of the Shroud under a VP-8 Image Analyzer[21]. The VP-8 is a computer which converts degrees of brightness into three-dimensional relief maps[22], for example, photographs of weather systems[23]. It has often been stated that the VP-8 was used by NASA and/or the USA's Space Program[24], but it never was[25]. The degrees of brightness in ordinary photographs are not caused by distance from the camera, so they don't have three-dimensional information encoded in them and appear distorted in the VP-8[26]. But photographs of the Shroud image do appear in three-dimensional relief on the VP-8, showing that its degrees of brightness are caused by cloth/body distance[27], that is, distance of points on the body from the `camera' which is the Shroud acting as a `photographic film'[28]. This cloth/body distance is in turn explained by STURP physicist John P. Jackson's Cloth Collapse theory[29].

As Nello Balossino of the University of Turin explains, "The image on the Shroud contains this information, which is codified in a series of nuances. Presumably by "nuances" Prof. Balossino means `pixels' (see 23Mar16) containing three-dimensional

[Above (enlarge): "Professor Nello Balossino explains his work that allows the blind to `see' the Shroud"[30].]

information on the distance between each point on the body and the linen cloth over that point. Clearly a medieval forger could not have encoded three-dimensional information (in negative) within Jesus' image on the Shroud[31]!

In other words, what we have before us is an image formed through a three-dimensional process, which cannot yet be explained and simulated in practice in order to obtain replica images of the Shroud." What Shroud scholar Ian Wilson wrote in 1998 is still true today, ~18 years later:

"Indeed, if anyone had come up with a convincing solution as to how and by whom the Shroud was forged, they would inevitably have created a consensus around which everyone sceptical on the matter would rally. Yet so far this has not even begun to happen."[32]

And that necessarily includes a replication of the full Shroud image, including every major feature (photographic negative, three-dimensional, no paint or other added colouring matter but dehydrative oxidation of image fibres, etc), using pre-1350s technology. Even if the Shroud image

In addition, soil and pollen specific to Jerusalem have been detected on the cloth of the Shroud, even though it hasn't been to that area in its known history. On "soil" see "travertine aragonite" in 20Jan16, 11Aug15, 12Jun15, 30Mar15 & 22Mar13. On "pollen specific to Jerusalem have been detected on the cloth of the Shroud," I will eventually cover all these key items of evidence for the Shroud's authenticity in my "The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is authentic!" series.

There's also evidence in art and devotional history of Christians being aware of the Shroud prior to the radiocarbon dating of the 13th century, as documented in this BBC documentary. See my previous post on the Holy Face of Laon and the Pray Codex.

And what about the dating tests conducted on the cloth that assign its origins to the late medieval years? Some experts on the Shroud believe the results could have been skewed by the fact that scientists tested only the edge of the corner of the cloth. Doing so could have produced a sample that was part of a medieval repair to the cloth, or that was contaminated by bacteria or carbon monoxide. No. As I wrote in my comment under this post (with minor corrections):

>It seems like Farey [Hugh Farey, the anti-authenticist editor of the British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter] kept banging home that Whanger doesn't want to deal with the fact that if there was a research that there would need 2/3 Of the sample taken would have to be not original for it to date from the 13th or 14th century" [typos corrected]

Sorry, but Farey is right on that. See my `Conventional explanations of the discrepancy all fail' in my `The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacking #1.'

The ONLY viable explanation of why the authentic 1st century Shroud had radiocarbon date of 1260-1390, the midpoint of which is 1325 ±65, which `just happens' to be ~30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France in 1355, was because the fully computerised AMS radiocarbon process was hacked. Allegedly by Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy W. Linick, aided by German hacker Karl Koch on behalf of the KGB. See my series, "The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacking."

The Shroud pro-authenticity community is going to continue to lose this debate with anti-authenticists by claiming that the radiocarbon date of the 1st century Shroud was shifted ~13 centuries into the future, by carbon contamination/bioplastic coating/invisible repair/neutron flux (take your pick!), to 1325 which `just happened' to be ~30 years before 1355, when the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France; until it adopts the TRUE explanation that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud was the result of a computer hacking."

More recent tests have also been performed that date the Shroud to a period well before the 13th century. Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua, led a team of researchers through three tests of Shroud fibers that were in the piece of cloth used in the 1988 radiocarbon tests. The tests used infrared light and Raman spectroscopy as well as a way of analyzing mechanical parameters related to voltage. The tests' conclusion dated the Shroud to some time between 300 BC and 400 AD. See my 21Apr13, 02Apr13 and 27Mar13

The new body of evidence in favor of the Shroud of Turin, while not enough to convince hardened skeptics, has at least been sufficient to keep the question alive. Merely "... sufficient to keep the question alive"? See my previous post on, "If this is the `Church Militant' I would hate to see the `Church Pacifist'!" After presenting such compelling evidence of the Shroud's authenticity, to finish with "at least been sufficient to keep the question alive" is a letdown. As I pointed out in previous posts (10Dec15 & 07May16) since the Shroud is authentic, as the evidence overwhelming indicates, it is a miraculous work of Jesus[35]. So non-Christian "hardened skeptics," who know the overwhelming evidence for the Shroud's authenticity, but refuse to accept it, and Him, are in the same position as the residents of those towns in Israel which witnessed Jesus' miraculous works but refused to accept them and Him:

Mt 11:20-22. "20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you."

Lk 10:13-15. 13 "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades."

That is, on the principle which in that context Jesus stated:

"Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required ..." (Lk 12:48)

those "hardened skeptics" to whom "much was given" in evidence that the Shroud is authentic (and therefore Christianity is true), will be subject to a more severe judgment by Jesus (Mt 16:27; 25:31-32; Ac 10:42; 2Cor 5:10; 2Tim 4:1, 1Pet 4:5), the Man on the Shroud:

[Above (enlarge): The Face of the Man on the Shroud[33]

"`Were those the lips that spoke the Sermon on the Mount and the Parable of the Rich Fool?'; `Is this the Face that is to be my judge on the Last Day?'"[34].]

than those who rejected Jesus' but did not know His miraculous work in the Shroud.

Continued in part #4 of this April 2016 issue of my Shroud of Turin News.

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. Permission is granted 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 subject heading, its date, and a hyperlink back to it. [return]
2. Tosatti, M., 2011, "The Shroud is not a fake," The Vatican Insider, 12 December. [return]
3. Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, p.203; Wilson, I., 1998,, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY pp.88-89; Adler, A.D., 1999, "The Nature of the Body Images on the Shroud of Turin," in Adler, A.D. & Crispino, D., ed., "The Orphaned Manuscript: A Gathering of Publications on the Shroud of Turin," Effatà Editrice: Cantalupa, Italy, 2002, pp.103-112, 104-105; Adler, A.D., 2000b, "Chemical and Physical Characteristics of the Bloodstains," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, pp.129-138, 129; Rogers, R.N., 2008, "A Chemist's Perspective on the Shroud of Turin," Lulu Press: Raleigh, NC, p.36. [return]
4. Barnes, A.S., 1934, "The Holy Shroud of Turin," Burns Oates & Washbourne: London, pp.14-15. [return]
5. McCrone, W.C., 1999, "Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin," Prometheus Books: Amherst NY, p.122. [return]
6. Habermas G.R., "Discussion: Antony G. N. Flew, Gary R. Habermas, Terry L. Miethe, and W. David Beck," in Habermas G.R., Flew A.G.N. & Miethe T.L., ed. , 1987, "Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?: The Resurrection Debate," Harper & Row: San Francisco CA, p.119. See also STURP, 1981, "A Summary of STURP's Conclusions," October; Adler, A.D., 2000c, "Chemical and Physical Aspects of the Sindonic Images," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, pp.10-27, 25; Adler, A.D., 2000a, "The Shroud Fabric and the Body Image: Chemical and Physical Characteristics," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, pp.113-127, 122; Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, pp.139-140. [return]
7. Weisberg, L., 1987, "Shroud Splits Scientists," The Scientist, Vol. 1, No. 17, 13 July, p.1; Benford, M.S. & Marino, J.G., 2001, "Finding the Shroud in the 21st Century," Collegamento pro Sindone Internet, December. [return]
8. Heller, J.H. & Adler, A.D., 1981, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, p.43; Carter, G.F., 1982, "Formation of the Image on the Shroud of Turin by x-Rays: A New Hypothesis," in Lambert, J.B., ed., 1984, "Archaeological Chemistry III: ACS Advances in Chemistry, No. 205," American Chemical Society, Washington DC, pp.425-446, 427,428; Adler, 1999, p.105; Adler, A.D. & Schwalbe, L.A., 1993, "Conservation of the Shroud of Turin," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, p.73; Adler, 2000c, pp.22,25; Adler, 2000a, p.113. [return]
9. Dinegar, R.H., 1982, "The 1978 Scientific Study of the Shroud of Turin," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 4, September, pp.3-12, 3; Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., 1982, "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, No. 1, 1982, pp.3-49, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co: Amsterdam, p.44; Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1990, "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, pp.27-29, 38; Adler, A.D., 1991, "Conservation and Preservation of the Shroud of Turin," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, pp.67-71, 70; Adler, A.D., 1996, "Updating Recent Studies on the Shroud of Turin," in Adler & Crispino, 2002, pp.81-86, 84-85; Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.66. [return]
10. Murra, D., Di Lazzaro, P., Santoni, A. & Baldacchini, G., 2012, "Shroud-like coloration of linen by nanosecond laser pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet," Research Gate, September. [return]
11. "Dehydration reaction," Wikipedia, 20 February 2016. [return]
12. "Redox," Wikipedia, 13 May 2016. [return]
13. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
14. Murra, D., et al., 2012, Figure 14. [return]
15. Sartoris, L., 1985, "The Embalmment [sic] of Corpses as Practiced by the Egyptians and by the Hebrews," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 16, September, pp.17-22, 17; "Making an Ancient Egyptian Mummy," Eyewitness to history.com, 1 November 2010. [return]
16. Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, p.83. [return]
17. Green, M., 1969, "Enshrouded in Silence: In search of the First Millennium of the Holy Shroud," Ampleforth Journal, Vol. 74, No. 3, Autumn, pp.319-345; Drews, R., 1984, "In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD, p.14. [return]
18. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
19. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
20. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
21. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
22. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
23. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
24. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
25. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
26. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
27. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
28. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
29. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
30. "Shroud Exposition Opens In Turin," Shroud.com, 2000 [return]
31. Reference(s) to be provided. [return]
32. Wilson, 1998, p.235. [return]
33. "Shroud University - Exploring the Mystery Since 33 A.D.," Shroud of Turin Education Project, Inc., Peachtree City, GA. [return]
34. Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, p.189. [return]
35. Morgan, R., 1980, "Perpetual Miracle: Secrets of the Holy Shroud of Turin By an Eye Witness," Runciman Press: Manly NSW, Australia, pp.174-177. [return]

Posted 19 May 2016. Updated 24 October 2024.