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This is the August & September 2020 issue of my Shroud of Turin News. The `smartest guys in the room' at Google have `improved' their Blogger interface such that, as one of their bloggers since 2007, over 13 years, I find it almost unusable and much inferior to their previous interface! And I am not alone in this - see this criticism which I fully agree with. In particular I won't be able to present my blog's statistics every month, so my Shroud of Turin News will now be mostly just news. Which may be a blessing in disguise! So I have removed the "Editorial and News" from the title. The articles' words are bold to distingish them from mine.
News:
"How the Black Plague turned the Shroud of Turin into a beloved relic," Religion News Services, 11 August 2020, Menachem Wecker "... For
[Above (enlarge): "Undated [sic 1931] full-length photographic negatives of the Shroud of Turin, taken at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Image courtesy of Creative [sic Wikimedia] Commons August 11, 2020" - article.]
centuries, relics have inspired and comforted in dire times.
[Right (enlarge)[2]: An ink drawing in the Pray Codex which is dated 1192-95[3]. As can be seen, Jesus is depicted nude with His hands crossed right over left, awkwardly at the wrists, covering His groin, identical to the Shroud[4]! These are only two of the at least "eight [and by my count twelve - see 27May12] telling correspondences between the Shroud and ... the Pray Codex"[5]! This is artistic proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Shoud existed at least 65 years before the earliest radiocarbon date of 1260[6] and 157 years before the latest date, 1352, that Vikan claims the Shroud was created[7] - see below!]
That's particularly true of the Shroud of Turin, which became a beloved relic during the Black Death. And the medieval history of relics has a lot to say to the socially distant craving human contact, according to Gary Vikan, former director of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum and author of the new book "The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death." While millions of believers hold the linen Shroud of Turin to be Jesus' actual burial cloth retaining his bodily imprint, Vikan sees it as "the greatest deception in the history of Christianity," he writes ... It is Vikan who is deceived! The Pray Codex alone (and it isn't alone - see below for starters) proves that Vikan's claim that the Shroud was created in 1350-52 by Naddo Ceccarelli (1320-47)[9] is false! Not only does Vikan provide no evidence that Ceccarelli forged the Shroud, he had already died in Italy in 1347, the year the Black Death began in France[10]!
"Former Walters director Gary Vikan chronicles ‘the greatest deception in the history of Christianity'," Baltimore Sun, 20 August 2020 A new book about the Shroud of Turin, by former Walters Art
[Above (enlarge): "Surrender of the Mandylion [the `Image of Edessa] to the Byzantines"[11]]. An eleventh century depiction by John Skylitzes (c. 1040–1101)[12] of the transfer of the Image of Edessa, behind the face image of which is the full-length Shroud [see 15Sep12], from Edessa (left) to Constantinople (right) via Byzantine general John Kourkouas (fl. 915–946) to Byzantine Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (r. 919–944) in 944 [see "944b"]. This is artistic proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Shroud (as the Image of Edessa "four-doubled" (Greek tetradiplon) - see 15Sep12] was in existence in Constantiople in 944 [see "944b"] and before that in Edessa in 544 [see "544"]. This is 316 and 716 years respectively before the Shroud's earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 408 and 808 years respectively before the latest date, 1352, that Vikan claims the Shroud was created [see above]!
Museum director Gary Vikan, was published in May ... Vikan is clear in his conclusion — that the famous Shroud of Turin was not, as long purported, the burial cloth used on the body of the crucified Christ But Vikan calls it "the greatest deception in the history of Christianity," not a miracle but a mysterious work of art. It does not date from biblical times and the Holy Land, he says, but from the Middle Ages, the time of the deadliest pandemic in recorded history, and a French hamlet called Lirey. The shroud suddenly appeared there, Vikan reports, with no explanation, no back story like those that accompany authentic relics ... This is false, as I pointed out in my post of 21Jun20, there is objective, historical evidence that the Shroud existed in Constantinople in 1201 [see "1201"]. Which is 154 years before the Shroud was exhibited at Lirey in c. 1355 [see "c.1355"], 59 years before the earliest radiocarbon date of 1260, and 151 years before the last date, 1352, that Vikan claims the Shroud was forged (see above)!
I have Vikan's book and, as promised in my May and June 2020 Shroud News, I will start reviewing it here, when I get time. Vikan is an art historian but there is no index entry in his book of the Pray Codex or John Skylitzes, for starters. So Vikan is yet another Shroud sceptic example of `the blind leading the blind' (Mt 15:14; Lk 6:39):
[Above (enlarge)[13]: "The Blind Leading the Blind," 1568, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569).]
I had intended splitting this "August & September 2020" post into two "August 2020" and "September 2020" Shroud News posts. But I couldn't find any September news articles about the Shroud worth mentioning, so I will end this post here. My next Shroud News post will be for "October 2020."
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]
2. Berkovits, I., 1969, "Illuminated Manuscripts in Hungary, XI-XVI Centuries," Horn, Z., transl., West, A., rev., Irish University Press: Shannon, Ireland, pl. III. [return]
3. Berkovits, 1969, p.19; Wilson, I., 1996, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, pp.114-13; Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, pp.150-151; Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, pp.162-163; Scavone, D.C., 1999, "A Hundred Years of Historical Studies on the Turin Shroud," Paper presented at the Third International Congress on the Shroud of Turin, 6 June 1999, Turin, Italy, in Minor, M., Adler, A.D. & Piczek, I., eds., 2002, "The Shroud of Turin: Unraveling the Mystery: Proceedings of the 1999 Dallas Symposium," Alexander Books: Alexander NC, p.64; Wilson, I., 1999, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, p.146; Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, p.116; Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.104; de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London, pp.179, 190. [return]
4. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," [1979], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.160; Wilson, 1996, pp.114-13; de Wesselow, 2012, pp.179-179. [return]
5. de Wesselow, 2012, p.190; Guerrera, 2001, p.105. [return]
6. Maloney, P.C., "Researching the Shroud of Turin: 1999 to the Present: A Brief Survey of Findings and Views," in Minor, 2002, p.33; Marino, J.G., 2011, "Wrapped up in the Shroud: Chronicle of a Passion," Cradle Press: St. Louis MO, p.53. [return]
7. Vikan, G., 2020, "The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death," Pegasus Books: New York NY, pp.xv, 134. [return]
9. Vikan, 2020, p.134. [return]
10. "Black Death in France," Wikipedia, 9 October 2020. [return]
11. "File:Surrender of the Mandylion to the Byzantines.jpg," in "Chronography of John Skylitzes, cod. Vitr. 26-2, folio 131a, Madrid National Library, Wikimedia Commons, 20 December 2012. [return]
12. "John Skylitzes," Wikipedia, 6 May 2020. [return]
13. "File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1568) The Blind Leading the Blind.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 1 July 2020. [return]
Posted: 14 October 2020. Updated: 22 February 2021.
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