[Previous: July - September 2024] [Next: January - June 2025].
This is the second installment of my Shroud of Turin News for September - December 2024 . As previously posted, I will continue from late September in this edition. The articles are in date order (earliest first). My words will be in [bold square brackets] to distinguish them from the articles' words.
"Nuclear engineer says latest research confirms first-century date of
[Right (enlarge): The radioactive isotopes chlorine-36 (Cl-36) and calcium-41 (Ca-41), and stable isotope chromium-53 (Cr-53), that according to Mark Antonacci's theory should be still detectable on the Shroud. See 01Nov13]
Shroud of Turin," 28 September 2024, Martin Barillas. For centuries Christians have attributed a first-century date to the Shroud of Turin. Nuclear engineer Robert Rucker says that his latest research on the shroud verifies that. "The Shroud of Turin is the second-most valuable possession of the human race next to the Bible itself," Rucker told CNA.[Agreed!] The shroud is currently preserved in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud adjacent to St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Turin (Torino), Italy. For more than 10 years, Rucker has studied the physics of the disappearance of the body of Jesus and its imprint on the shroud. His website, Shroud Research, challenges conclusions that the shroud dates to the period of 1260 to 1380 A.D., leading skeptics to conclude it is a medieval fake. ... In 1988, scientists used tiny samples snipped from the shroud to determine the amount of carbon 14 isotopes they contained, destroying the samples in the process. The radioactive carbon 14 isotope is a variant of carbon-containing excess neutrons, which are particles smaller than atoms. Over time, carbon 14 decays into nitrogen 14 in organic materials such as bone and plant matter. The ratio of carbon 14 atoms remaining in a sample provides the data needed to estimate the sample's age. Rucker said his calculations show that the 1988 carbon 14 dating is erroneous because it does not take into account the radiation emitted from Jesus' body at the resurrection, which included neutrons that were absorbed by the shroud and formed new carbon 14 atoms, thus leading to a misinterpretation of the data. ... "[I have not studied Rucker's or Antonacci's Neutron Flux Theory which attempts to explain why the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was wrong. So the following are my generic criticisms of the theory (see also 23Jul15). This will help me write chapter 16, "Were the laboratories duped by a hacker?," of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24. • No Biblical support While there is Biblical support for the Light Radiation Theory (see 25Oct24), there is none for the Neutron Flux Theory. Paul, on the topic of the resurrection of Christians' bodies, taught: 1Cor 15:51-53: "we shall all be changed" when "this perishable body must put on the imperishable" and in Php 3:20-21 Jesus, at his return "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body." In his resurrection body Jesus could pass through walls (Jn 20:19, 26), and instantly appear and disappear (Lk 24:31, 36)[AM00, 235; OM10, 244]. Clearly Jesus' resurrection involved a qualitative change of his earthly body, not a quantitative change to it that the removal of neutrons would be.• Source of the neutrons The source of the neutrons is presumably Jesus' body. Otherwise God could have created neutrons out of nothing, in which case he might as well have created new C-14 atoms out of nothing and there would be no need for the Neutron Flux Theory! About 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus[CHB]. Oxygen has 8 neutrons, carbon has 6, hydrogen 0, nitrogen 7, calcium 20, and phosphorus 16[PNE]. If each element, excepting hydrogen, loses 1 neutron, it becomes respectively: oxygen-15 (which has a half-life of ~2 minutes and decays to nitrogen-15), carbon-11 (with a half-life of ~20 minutes and decays to boron-11), nitrogen-13 (which has a half-life of ~10 minutes and decays to carbon-13), calcium-39 which decays instantly to potassium-39), and phosphorus-30 (which has a half-life of ~2.5 minutes and decays to silicon-30). The loss of some oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus may be incompatible with human life, depending on how many neutrons are lost from them. And it would not be a valid explanation that it didn't matter if Jesus' resurrection body was not viable as a human body. The risen Jesus went out of his way to impress on his disciples that his resurrection body was still a human body. To the two disciples on the road to Emmaus he told them to see and touch his hands and feet, with their nail wounds, to confirm that his resurrected body was still "flesh and bones"(Lk 24:39). To the disciples in a locked Jerusalem room, Jesus showed them the wounds in his hands and side and even asked Thomas to feel them (Jn 20:19-20; 26-27). ]
To be continued in the third installment 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.
CHB "Composition of the human body," Wikipedia, 28 December 2024.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
PNE. "Protons Neutrons & Electrons for All Elements," The Chemical Elements, 2025.
Posted 12 January 2025. Updated 13 January 2025.
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