The Shroud of Turin

John P. Jackson, "An Unconventional Hypothesis to Explain all Image Characteristics Found on the Shroud Image" (1991)

2012-01-18T22:49:00.012+08:00

This paper by physicist and founding Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) member, Dr. John P. Jackson, proposing his

[Above: Dr. John Jackson (left foreground) about to begin STURP's five-day examination of the Shroud, 8-13 October, 1978: Wilson, I. & Miller, V., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, p.46a]

"Cloth Collapse theory" to explain the origin of the Shroud's image is, in my opinion, one of the most important things ever written about the Shroud of Turin. This is because it claims to, and I agree that it does, "explain all image characteristics found on the shroud image." Yet, it has never been published online and can only be found in a comparatively obscure, out-of-print book: Berard, A., ed., 1991, "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud," Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX. However, you can see Dr. Jackson's presentation of his theory at the St. Louis Symposium in the video, "What is Missing? "

I am publishing Dr. Jackson's paper here on my The Shroud of Turin blog , with the kind permission of Dr Jackson and his wife Rebecca's Turin Shroud Center of Colorado. The book's page numbers are in square brackets. Dr. Jackson has requested that I mention: 1) The paper represents his theological thinking as of 1991. Since the conference in St. Louis, he has completed advanced Biblical and Catechetical studies; and 2) The copyright belongs to Dr. John P. Jackson.

AN UNCONVENTIONAL HYPOTHESIS TO EXPLAIN ALL IMAGE CHARACTERISTICS FOUND ON THE SHROUD IMAGE^*

By John P. Jackson

^*© Copyright, 1991. All rights reserved by the author

With the permission of Turin Shroud Center of Colorado

DISCUSSION OF THE SHROUD IMAGE

In this paper, I would like to begin by discussing certain characteristics of the Shroud image that may shed light on its image formation mechanism. These characteristics are so distinctive that the genesis of the image likely involves a mechanism that is heretofore unknown to modern science.

A. Characteristics of Bloodmarks

First, let us begin with those characteristics that allow us to conclude, with reasonable certainty, that the Shroud covered a real human when the body and blood images were formed. To demonstrate that the Shroud enveloped a crucified body, Lavoie^l has brilliantly interpreted a certain blood feature, labeled A in Figure la, which cannot reasonably be attributed to artistic handiwork. He associates this with blood flowing down and under the forearm at the elbow where it pooled and dripped off the body. The arm must have been approximately in a crucifixion-like position in order for gravity to migrate the blood along such a path. Of course, this presents no problem since the Man of the Shroud appears to be a crucifixion victim. The elbow blood feature is then explained by asserting that the Shroud wrapped around the arm and received a clot imprint by direct contact.

Another indication that the Shroud enfolded a human body was described to me by Bulst.² He pointed out a connection between the blood trickle off the dorsal foot, labeled G1 in Figure la, and a blood mark of similar size and shape next to the foot region of the frontal image, labeled G-2. In our experiments where a volunteer subject was enfolded in a full-scale model of the Shroud with an image drawn upon it, we found, as Bulst indicated, that Features G-1 and G-2 align directly over one another. This cannot be a coincidence nor the result of a supersophisticated artist who anticipated such a detail. This congruence strongly suggests that the Shroud was folded lengthwise over the head of a body and that the feet [326] were wrapped so as to bring the dorsal bloodstain into contact with the frontal end of the cloth where blood residue was transferred.

Figure la

[327]

Figure lb.

There are, in addition, other aspects of the Shroud which indicate that the cloth enveloped a real body. This is demonstrated by the numerous bloodstains, labeled B-F in Figure la, which correspond to distinctly [328] different flow directions, consistent with a vertical crucifixion first, followed by a horizontal burial of a real corpse. Several examples that illustrate flows in the vertical position are the wound in the side (Feature B), trickles along the forearms (Feature D), puncture wounds on the head (Feature E) and the wrist wound (Feature C). Conversely, the bloodstain across the small of the back (Feature F) and the trickle at the dorsal foot (Feature G-1) correspond to a body oriented in the horizontal position. The latter set of bloodstains depict liquid and, therefore, presumably late time post-mortem flows. In contrast, the vertical bloodstain set corresponds to clot transfers and, hence, earlier flows that had dried to some extent. Thus, the bloodstains are consistent with crucifixion followed by burial.

The wrist bloodstain (Feature C) is particularly interesting because it provides an independent confirmation that the flow-path was in the direction of gravity. Ultraviolet fluorescence photography of the wrist clot shows a clear halo emanating into the cloth. This can be explained as a gravitational separation of serum from blood. If the two streams of this blood feature are then positioned so as to be in the downward direction of gravity, the accompanying hand and forearm assume a crucifixion position.

We should not overlook the fact that it was only through ultraviolet fluorescence photography that the "scourge" marks were observed to contain many finely spaced lines or scratches, consistent with what would be expected from a flogging of real skin. In addition, on the dorsal foot imprint, the 1970 examination discovered an abundance of microscopic dust or dirt, atypical of the rest of the image. This, of course, was likely transferred to the Shroud from the feet of a barefoot man. These subliminal details cannot reasonably be ascribed to a hypothetical artist because (1) he himself could not see them and (2) there was no reason to put them there since no one else could see them either. Therefore, these particular details, including the blood features, are consistent with the concept that the Shroud enfolded a wounded and dirty corpse, as opposed to a statue, who had been scourged and crucified.

The above interpretations of the bloodstains assume, of course, that they are indeed blood as opposed to a reddish iron oxide pigment, such as has been proposed by McCrone. In this regard, we are fortunate to have the published work of Heller and Adler³ which conclusively refutes the McCrone interpretation and shows, by a large number of independent [329] microchemical tests on samples taken from the Shroud in 1978, that the bloodstains are in fact blood. We should note that their work was presented before the Canadian Forensic Society in 1981 and subsequently published in the journal of that society after appropriate peer review. Heller and Adler's work has also been referenced in other refereed scientific journals. Unfortunately, the McCrone studies never were subjected to peer review and appeared only in a periodical published by the McCrone Institute, of which McCrone is the founder and head.

B. Characteristics of the Body Image

As a final demonstration that the Shroud covered a human body, I would like to refer to my own studies of the body image. These studies show that the intensities of the frontal Shroud image can be calculated using a single mathematical relationship of intensity versus distance between two surfaces. These surfaces correspond geometrically to an anatomically reasonable body shape and a cloth draping naturally over that shape.

What is significant about the ability to characterize the Shroud image in this way is that; (1) two complex surfaces can be related to the complex intensity structure of the Shroud image by a single and simple mathematical equation and (2) that the two surfaces correspond to realistic body and enveloping cloth. Figure 2 shows how the image intensity on the Shroud can be converted to a three-dimensional plot of cloth-body distance by a single mathematical function. Although this three-dimensional plot should be strictly plotted from a draping cloth surface to produce the originating body surface, the sense of an anatomically reasonable human form is, nevertheless, apparent. This effect cannot be an accident nor the clever handiwork of an artist; it is further confirmation that the Shroud covered a body shape at the time of image formation. Thus, I believe we are on solid ground to conclude that the Shroud covered a body when the body and blood images were formed.

C. Physical Significance of Image Structure on the Shroud

Once it is recognized that the Shroud image was generated from a real human body, a particular set of questions may be asked which otherwise would not be posed if one were to assume that this image was produced in an artist's studio. Immediately, we recognize that the image must have been generated by some principle whereby body structure became encoded into varying shades of intensity on the cloth. The three [330] dimensional brightness surface of Figure 2 makes this point most graphically. If such a mechanism were not operative that could, in effect, convert cloth-body distance to corresponding shades of image intensity, then the computer generated brightness surface would not appear as a physiologically reasonable body shape.

Figure 2.

Obviously, this has occurred to produce the Shroud image, but this conclusion brings forth certain problems. First, how could a physical mechanism act through the space between a body and cloth without blurring anatomical structures that are smaller than the projection distance, e. g., in the region of the lips? In a set of experiments I showed that images formed by direct contact exhibit high resolution, but lack gradation of intensity. On the other hand, images formed by diffusion or attenuated radiation from a body surface to an enveloping cloth contain shading gradations that correlate more or less with cloth-body distance, but suffer significantly in resolution. Yet, the Shroud image displays [331] simultaneously both a shading correlation with cloth-body distance and reasonably sharp focus.

A second problem concerns the directional relationship between points on the body to their corresponding image location on the Shroud. For example, a point on the side of the nose might conceivably be mapped perpendicular to the local body surface, or the local cloth surface where point is imaged, or vertically upwards from the nose point onto the Shroud. After careful study, I have concluded that body points are imaged essentially in the vertical upwards direction for the entire frontal image. This conclusion is further reinforced by noting that there are no side images about the frontal image and particularly in the space between the frontal and dorsal heads. If the image formation mechanism discolored the Shroud according to a principle that projected perpendicular to either the body or cloth surfaces, image shading should have occurred along the sides of the body and at the top of the head. On the other hand, a vertical mapping logically precludes shading in these regions where, in fact, no shading is observed.

We cannot, however, argue that the cloth was held away from the sides of the body as an attempt to explain the lack of side images, or that intervening material, such as burial spices, blocked image formation. Lavoie has shown that the blood feature off the elbow in Figure 1 could only have occurred by direct contact of the cloth with the side of the arm. Thus, the Shroud must have been in intimate contact with the body at that location and, yet, no image discolorations were formed there.

A similar argument follows from a consideration of the space between the frontal and dorsal heads. Geometrically, the Shroud must have been in intimate contact with the top of the head, as we have shown by enfolding a human body in a cloth model of the Shroud. Again, no image discolorations can be seen there. A hypothetical chin band may explain part of the void, but it is likely not to have covered the entire head and at the same time tuck neatly under the jaw.

A third problem arises in the comparison of the shading structures of the frontal and dorsal images. There are certain similarities between these images, for example, in color; however, there are noteworthy dissimilarities as well. The frontal image, appears as a blended, continuous shading structure that, as we have seen, contains a correlation with presumed cloth-body distance. The dorsal image, on the other hand, is discontinuous [332] in shading and has a mosaic-like appearance; see Figure l b. We see, in particular, that the shoulder region is bounded by a sharp, discontinuous change in intensity. However, running through this boundary, is a pattern of scourge marks. Since these marks contain dried blood material, they could only have been placed onto the cloth by direct contact. Accordingly, if the body image was correlated with cloth-body distance over the same several centimeter range deduced for the frontal image, the sharp discontinuity would not have occurred. Rather, we would have observed, at most, a blended intensity variation from the base of the shoulders to a several percent lower intensity in the small of the back. Instead, we see a complete and abrupt dropout of intensity at the base of the shoulders into the lower back region. Thus, the dorsal image has an intensity structure more like a direct contact image than one that is correlated with cloth-body distances over centimeter range as for the frontal image.

Still another significant characteristic of the Shroud image is the observation that the image discolorations penetrate only a few fibrils deep into the thickness of the threads comprising the Shroud cloth. Microscopic direct observations show that there exist yellow fibrils next to white fibrils. Thus, it appears as though the gross or microscopic shading structure that we see as the body image on the Shroud is determined by the ratio of yellow to white fibrils in a given area. In addition, the fibrils that possess the yellow color are, in fact, individually colored and there is no evidence of cementation or gluing between adjacent yellow fibrils such as would be expected if a paint pigment were applied to make the image. Direct chemical tests of the yellow fibrils have shown that the cause of the color is due to a dehydration phenomenon, as it is called, similar to the way linen is discolored, when scorched, say, by a hot iron. That is not to say that the body image was, in fact, set onto the cloth by heat, but only that the chemistry of the fibrils comprising the Shroud image appears to be similar to that caused by scorching. In fact, the scorching process, typically causes discoloration all the way through the thickness of the cloth such as was the case for the 1532 fire. In contrast, the depth of penetration of the Shroud image into the bulk of the cloth is completely superficial. Such an effect must be explained by any successful theory of image formation.

From the above discussion and the array of various facts about the Shroud, several conclusions seem warranted. First, the general arrangement of blood patterns on the Shroud and the intensity structure of the [333] body image are entirely consistent with the hypothesis that the Shroud image was formed from a cloth-covered human body shape. Because the blood stains tested positive for human blood and, because certain effects like serum separation are observed, we conclude that the body shape must have been that of a real human body that had been wounded and subsequently wrapped in the cloth at the time of image formation. As such, it is apparent that the image on the Shroud is not and cannot be the handiwork of an artist or craftsman.

The question becomes: what process was involved in creating the image of a human body onto the Shroud? This question is not straightforward, because most types of physical mechanisms can be excluded on the basis of certain characteristics we find on the Shroud image. For example, the idea that the frontal image on the Shroud was the result of a direct contact mechanism, i. e., where image discolorations were imprinted onto the cloth only where it touched the body is refuted by the gradations of image intensity that correlate with expected cloth-body distances. In other words, it seems as though the image formation mechanism acted through space, between the body and the cloth, such as for diffusion or radiation. However, these mechanisms must be excluded, because, although they can discolor the cloth at a distance, they cannot form a high resolution; sharp image, such as what we find on the Shroud. Thus, it appears as though the explanation of the Shroud image must be quite different from those that are based on direct contact, radiation, or diffusion.

There is, however, one particular observation that definitively places the Shroud image in a unique category. Consider Figure 3 which shows a view of the hands. If we examine this image region carefully, we can see, as recently pointed out by Carter,⁴ that the finger bones are visible well into the palm of the hands, extending right up to the base of the wrist. These cannot be interpreted as tendons, because tendons and ligaments are much too narrow. Rather, we see that the thickness of the fingers are individually preserved well into the palm of the hand. It thus seems as though we are looking at the internal skeletal structure of the hand imaged through the intervening flesh tissues onto the Shroud cloth.

In addition, at the base of the top hand, we see a diffuse discoloration with a color the same as the body image. In transmitted light, this feature is transparent like the rest of the body image, implying that it, too, must reside only on the surface fibrils of the cloth. Its intensity falls within the range of intensities found in the Shroud body image. Thus, it appears [334] that this discoloration, whatever it is, must be part of the body image.

Figure 3.

But, if so, what does this feature represent? An important clue is evident from the fact that are no thumbs visible in the hand image. Now, given the apparent fact that internal finger bones of the hand are imaged onto the Shroud, it is a small step to propose that this particular discoloration is, in fact, the thumb folded into the palm of the hand and likewise imaged through the hand onto the Shroud, in a manner similar to the finger bones found in the palm. If this interpretation is correct, then it follows that whatever mechanism produced the image of the body onto the cloth, it must be a radically different mechanism, than any physical mechanisms that have been considered to date. For what process is [335] capable of rendering internal body structure into the image patterns that we see on the Shroud?

A HYPOTHESIS OF IMAGE FORMATION⁵

Keeping in mind these varied and surprising characteristics found in the Shroud image, let us now turn our attention to the problem of how the image was produced. To be sure, finding a satisfactory mechanism for the origin of the Shroud image has shown itself to be a complex and difficult problem. Perhaps the reason why a satisfactory hypothesis has not been found is not so much due to a lack of image characterization but to an overcharacterization. That is, we seem to have a situation where the set of observables is so restrictive that all hypotheses posed thus far must be excluded, or at least be considered highly questionable, often on the basis of multiple objections.

Therefore, perhaps the time has come to ask if we ought to start thinking about the Shroud image in categories quite different from those that have been considered in the past. In particular, perhaps we need to be more flexible in our scientific approach and consider hypotheses that might not be found readily in conventional modern science; for it is conceivable that the Shroud image represents, if you will, some type of "new physics" that ultimately requires an extension or even revision of current concepts.

Some time ago, I decided to pursue such an approach to see where it might lead, having first spent many years trying to understand the Shroud image strictly in terms of conventional science. But given the apparent failure, or difficulty, of conventional transfer mechanisms to explain all characteristics of the image, I wondered if I could conceive of a principle by which the image might have been formed, even if such a principle contradicted current concepts of science. The result was a simple theory that I think accounts for the entire set of diverse image characteristics described above and, further, makes certain new predictions which could be tested during a future examination of the Shroud. As will be seen, this theory clearly contains certain aspects which do not fall within categories of modern science, but nevertheless is scientifically well-posed and internally consistent. Finally, because we are dealing here strictly with image formation; the conclusions contained herein are independent of the recent radiocarbon date and it is to be further noted that there is no attempt here to presuppose anything concerning the identity of the "Man of the Shroud." The hypothesis will be developed and argued strictly [336] from considerations of image properties and no support will be derived from extraneous speculations.

Let us now develop the hypothesis. It is useful to begin with three basic inferences concerning the image formation process which I think can be deduced from observations made directly from the Shroud image. These inferences, when considered collectively, lead naturally, if not compellingly, to the hypothesis proposed in this paper. This hypothesis can then be tested against all image properties as per the Scientific Method.

A. Inferences concerning image mechanism deduced from observational data

INFERENCE 1. The body and blood images were formed directly from a human body that was enveloped in the Shroud. As discussed above, this assumption certainly is implied by the fact that image intensity can be described consistently between two complex surfaces, one corresponding to an anatomically reasonable body shape and the other to a cloth draping over that shape, by a simple and global mathematical relationship. This is compelling evidence that a cloth-covered body was directly responsible for the image. This conclusion is further strengthened by various characteristics associated with the blood patterns, as pointed out above. In general, forensic opinion regards the blood patterns as representing authentic flows from a human corpse, owing to their flow characteristics and general appearance on the Shroud. Even at the microscopic level, there is no evidence of pigment that can be associated at any statistical significance with the macroscopic body image. Further, it has been shown that the alleged bloodstains are composed of blood or blood derived substances. It is difficult to see how these various image subtleties and characteristics could be the work of human craftsmanship. Hence, it is reasonable to conclude that the image on the Shroud was generated directly from a cloth-covered body by some process.

INFERENCE 2. Gravity was a significant factor in the production of the image. We noted above that if the Shroud drapes over a body lying in a horizontal or supine position, image features align more or less vertically above the corresponding body part. That this should occur is not immediately obvious because it is conceivable that image features could have been mapped, for example, perpendicular to either the body or cloth surfaces rather than strictly vertical. The significance of this result is that whatever mechanism was involved in producing the Shroud image,[337] it must have had the property of transferring body surface information in the vertical-only direction. But how could such a thing have happened? It would appear that, somehow, the image formation process must "know" the vertical direction at each point on the body. It is reasonable to suspect that gravity, because it naturally manifests a vertical symmetry, was responsible for the observed near-vertical alignment of the image with respect to associated body features. Without further information, it is not clear how gravity could have achieved this, but I am proposing its involvement in the image formation process because: (1) it possesses the required symmetry to account for the vertical alignment observed in the Shroud image, and (2) gravity is a natural physical phenomenon that unarguably must have been present during the time of image formation.

INFERENCE 3. The Shroud was in two different draping configurations when the body images were formed. Consider the bloodstains that appear in the hair along either side of the face as seen in Figure la. If we ignore the body image for a moment and ask where these bloodstains came from, we would find, by a simple draping experiment of a cloth over a face, as first noted by Lavoie⁶ that these bloodstains must have originated from the sides of the face. However, the sides of the face are visible in the body image and appear several centimeters inside the pattern denoted by the bloodstains. That is, the bloodstains and the locations where, according to the body image, they must have come from by direct contact do not coincide spatially on the Shroud. Therefore, if the body image and bloodstains were produced from the same body shape, it follows that the Shroud must have been in two distinct draping configurations when the body image and bloodstains were generated. The initial draping configuration must have been the one by which the bloodstains were transferred (because an independent observation pertaining to halos around the blood indicates that blood preceded the body image discolorations onto the Shroud). As can be seen in Lavoie's experimental photographs and discussion, this draping configuration corresponds to the way in which a cloth would drape naturally over a human face. Subsequently, when the body image was generated, the Shroud apparently deformed, for some reason, to a somewhat flatter draping configuration, the result of which laterally positioned the images of the sides of the face several centimeters inside the bloodstain pattern. These bloodstains now happen to be coincident with the hair images due to the geometrically induced shift of the bloodstains relative to the body image (note that the hair has nothing to do with the argument other than being a convenient way to describe the position of the bloodstains in question). [338]

B. Paradox posed by Inferences

The foregoing three statements concerning the Shroud image are logical inferences from certain empirical observations of image structure and layout. To my mind, their significance is not what they represent individually, but rather what they imply collectively. For I think that a specific picture of the image formation process is indicated. The problem, as I see it, is now to construct an image formation hypothesis that unites these three inferences and then test that hypothesis against all specific observations pertaining to the Shroud image.

How to achieve such a unification, however, is not immediately obvious, because, at first thought, Inferences 1-3 seem mutually contradictory. For example, according to the third inference, we apparently must require that the Shroud was flattened or straightened subsequent to the time when the bloodstains were formed. This flattening must have been significant in order to account for the several centimeter misregister between the locations of the bloodstains appearing in the hair image and those of the sides of the face where the bloodstains must have originated. Now, the second inference proposes that gravity was involved in the image formation process. Since obviously something must have caused the flattening or straightening of the Shroud, and gravity must apparently be incorporated into the image formation mechanism, it is logical to propose that the flattening was due to gravity. However, when considering the first inference that the formation of the body image involved an underlying, real human body, we encounter a logical difficulty in that the body structure would prevent the cloth from flattening under its own weight.

C. Proposed solution of Paradox and formulation of Hypothesis

Thus, it would appear as though the three inferences contain ideas that are not easy to reconcile. Yet, I think each one of them taken separately is a reasonable interpretation of certain documented characteristics of the Shroud image. If that is granted, the problem still remains as to what hypothesis of image formation is consistent simultaneously with all three inferences. It might be tempting to discard the concept of a cloth being flattened by gravity because of the apparent contradiction that the body prevents the collapse. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the collapse idea is a reasonable and natural synthesis of the two very different ideas contained in Inferences 2 and 3. If we retain the proposition of a [339] collapsing cloth, then it seems to me that we are left with only one alternative in order to unify all three inferences. We must assume that, according to Inference 1, the Shroud initially covered a body shape, but, for some reason, that body did not impede the collapse of the Shroud during the time of image formation.

Now, such a conclusion can be interpreted in two very different ways. On one hand, it might mean that the observational data or logic taken to arrive at this point are defective, for a violation of common sense appears to be required to reconcile the three inferences. On the other hand, it might mean that "common sense" or, more properly, currently accepted laws of physics, may be inadequate to explain the image on the Shroud.

In the remainder of this paper, I would like to develop the thesis that the second interpretation is correct; specifically, that in the case of the Shroud image, the cloth did collapse into and through the underlying body structure. As a physicist, I admit to having my own difficulties with this concept, but I also know that scientists must be ready to overturn even their most hallowed principles if observation warrants. The real test of any hypothesis is not so much the logic by which it was deduced, but its ability to explain observations, make predictions, and provide insight into how reality is constructed. And, let us keep in mind that, to date, no "conventional" hypothesis has been advanced, which successfully explains the Shroud image. To this end, I would like to ask the reader to put aside, for the moment, any reservations he or she might have concerning the "unconventional" nature of this concept and consider it merely as a hypothesis to be evaluated critically using the well established principles of the Scientific Method.

The concept of a cloth falling into the underlying body region and receiving an image, in essence, requires that two separate assumptions be made. First, we must assume that the body became mechanically "transparent" to its physical surroundings and, second, that a stimulus was generated that recorded the passage of the cloth through the body region onto the cloth as an image. With regard to the latter assumption, it is unclear in an a priori sense what to assume for the physical nature of the stimulus. However, we at least know that it was able to interact physically with cloth; otherwise, image discolorations would not have been formed. I propose that, as the Shroud collapsed through the underlying body, radiation emitted from all points within that body discolored the cloth so as to produce the observed image. As will be seen below, this assumption [340] explains the superficiality of the Shroud image and, perhaps, the differentiation in fibril coloring.

D. Image Characteristics explained by Hypothesis

Let us now show how this concept explains each of the image characteristics of the Shroud discussed at the beginning of this paper.

1. High Resolution. As various points on the Shroud intersect different topographical features on the body surface during the collapse process, radiation dose on the cloth begins to accumulate. If the radiation is assumed to be strongly absorbed in air, radiation effects on the cloth cannot begin until virtual intersection with the body surface occurs. Thus, a one-to-one mapping between a given point on the body to a unique point on the cloth is achieved for all points on the Shroud, which is equivalent to stating that the resulting image is well resolved.

2. Superficial Penetration of Image. Once the cloth enters the body region, radiation emitted from within the body volume interacts with each cloth fibril throughout the bulk of the cloth from all directions. However, fibrils on both surfaces of the cloth receive a greater dose than those inside because they are unobstructed by overlying fibril layers. These fibrils would probably be highly absorbing to the radiation because the air, which is less dense by nearly three orders of magnitude than cellulose, is assumed to be highly absorbing to account for image resolution. (See also discussion in Item 5 below pertaining to absorption in cellulose.) The net result is an exaggerated dose accumulation of the surface fibrils over those inside the cloth.

3. Correlation of Image Intensity with Cloth-Body Distance. The initial draping configuration of the Shroud over a body establishes the initial cloth-body distances. If, then, the Shroud overlying the body falls into the body region, different points on the cloth will intersect the body surface at different times depending upon how far that point was originally away from the body. Thus, each cloth point will receive a radiation dose in proportion to the time that it is inside the emitting body region. Since that time is inversely proportional to the initial cloth-body distance, it follows that the radiation dose, and hence image intensity, is likewise inversely proportional to the initial cloth-body distance. However, since the cloth on the dorsal side of the body does not move into the body, image discolorations are generated only at point of contact; hence, the [341] dorsal image appears as a direct contact image.

4. Absence of Side Images. As the cloth collapses into the body region, internal stresses within the cloth cause it to bulge away from the sides of the body and at the top of the head. Because the radiation is strongly absorbed in air, very little dose is accumulated in the side and upper head regions of the cloth and, hence, no image is visible there.

5. Chemical Nature of the Image. Electromagnetic radiation that is absorbed strongly in air consists of photons in the ultraviolet or soft x-ray region. It happens that these photons are also sufficiently energetic to photochemically modify cellulose. Such photons are strongly absorbed in cellulose over fibril-like distances. Experiments performed by the author have shown that subsequent aging in an oven of photosensitized (bleached) cloth by shortwave ultraviolet radiation produces a yellow-browned pattern like the Shroud body image composed of chemically altered cellulose. Thus, I posit that radiation from the body initially photosensitized the body image onto the Shroud. This pattern would have appeared, if the radiation was ultraviolet, as a white (bleached) image on a less white cloth. With time, natural aging would have reversed the relative shading of the image to its presently observed state where it appears darker than the surrounding cloth (which also aged or darkened with time, but not as fast). This mechanism is consistent with (1) the observed lack of pyrolytic products in microchemical studies of Shroud fibrils expected from high-temperature cellulose degradation (in this case image coloring occurs by natural aging at ambient temperatures over a long period of time) and (2) the absence of substances in the image areas that chemically colored the cloth (Note that image coloration is produced onto the cloth only by radiation and without any extraneous chemicals).

6. Blood on the Shroud. As the Shroud is initially draped over a body covered with blood, that blood is transferred naturally to the Shroud by direct contact.

7. Vertical Alignment of Image and Associated Body Features. As the Shroud collapses into the body region, each cloth point falls vertically downwards. Thus, relative to the initial draping configuration of the Shroud over the body, image features tend to align vertically over their corresponding body part. The only exception to this rule would be where stresses in the cloth are sufficient to perturb the otherwise vertical motion. Such stresses [342] would probably be significant mostly near the sides of the body image due to the flattening of the cloth and bulging away from the body as explained above.

8. Equivalence of Maximum Intensities of Frontal and Dorsal Images. Image intensity is determined solely by contact time of the cloth with the body region. Thus, assuming the radiation event is operative on a time scale less than the time for the upper part of the Shroud to fall completely through the body region, as discussed above, it follows that the interaction timed for cloth points, whether initially in contact with the frontal or dorsal surfaces of the body, are equal. Hence, the doses, or image intensities, at those initial contact points should be equal.

Thus, the hypothesis of the Shroud collapsing into a radiating body explains all the above characteristics of the Shroud image, something that other image formation hypotheses posed thus far fail to do.

E. Testable Predictions of Hypothesis

In addition, there are several other predictions of the theory which should be noted:

1. Possible Imaging of the Internal Body Structures. If the assumed radiation is homogeneously generated throughout the body region, then image intensity would be determined strictly by the length of time that a given part of the cloth is inside the body region. However, if the radiant emission varied with type of internal structure, such as tissue versus bone, then internal body structures, might be convoluted into the general image picture. However, the fact that the surface details of the body appear to dominate the image indicates that the assumed volumetric emission of radiation would have to have been nearly homogeneous. In the context of the collapse theory, the hand region might be an example where an internal body structure dominated the image which normally recorded body surface topography. In particular, the "elongated fingers" discussed above might actually be images of the internal bones of the hand extending into the palm region, which, as the cloth passed through the hand region, recorded a greater dose than the surrounding tissue.

2. Surface Discolorations on Both Sides of the Shroud for the Frontal Image. As noted above, the superficial nature of the image is explained by the theory. However, the above reasoning leads to one other prediction [343] concerning the superficiality of the image; the frontal image should reside on both sides of the Shroud, whereas the dorsal image should reside on only one side. The reason is that when the upper part of the Shroud falls into the body region, radiation from the body impinges upon both sides of the cloth. However, in the case of the dorsal image, radiation impinges from only one side because the cloth there never moves into the body. Unfortunately, there are no suitable data available to test this prediction because the reverse side of the Shroud has been covered since 1534 with a backing cloth. But if such a prediction could be confirmed by a future examination of the reverse side, then the theory proposed herein would be given considerable support. It is likely, however, that if a frontal image discoloration exists on the reverse surface of the Shroud, it would be somewhat less intense than the discoloration which is observed on the normal viewing side because that side presumably entered the body first. However, one complication might exist; depending upon how the body was actually wrapped in the Shroud, it is possible that the sides of the cloth were folded back onto the top of the body, making a double layer with the top part of the cloth. It is unclear how such a folding configuration might affect the generation of a possible frontal image on the reverse side of the Shroud.

3. Photochemical Modification of the Shroud Blood. Given that the assumed radiation stimulus induced a chemical change in the cellulose of the Shroud, which we refer to generically as the "body image," it is reasonable to ask if analogous chemical changes might also have been induced in the blood which remained attached to the Shroud during the hypothesized collapse. This possibility could be addressed by further direct chemical testing. In this context, I would like to note that the off-elbow bloodstain discussed above in Figure la is brown, whereas the blood flow to which it is connected on the forearm is red, suggesting a possible chemical difference between on-and off-image bloodstains. It is also possible that the collapse hypothesis might explain Barbet's "mirror image" effect of the bloodstains.⁷

F. Final Remarks

Thus, the hypothesis of a collapsing cloth into a radiating body appears to explain all known characteristics of the Shroud image and makes certain testable predictions, some of which have yet to be verified. I have endeavored to show that this hypothesis arises strictly from considerations of specific image characteristics. The major problem with the hypothesis [344] is, of course, to explain why a human body would behave in such a manner. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address this question and it is unclear how physics would have to be modified in order to accommodate the thesis presented here. But, in spite of the unconventional nature of the hypothesis, I think there exist sufficient reasons to seriously consider it per standard practices of the Scientific Method. I would hope, however, that it would not be rejected merely on the subjective grounds that it is "unconventional." As pointed out in the text, more studies and data are required in order to test the theory further.

It might be that a simple piece of cloth, known as the Shroud of Turin, represents a valid case for rethinking certain concepts of modern science. To this end, I would encourage my colleagues in science to realize that the image on the Shroud of Turin is far from being defined by one radiocarbon test, but could be one of history's greatest scientific puzzles.

ENDNOTES

1. G. Lavoie et al, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin: Part I," Shroud Spectrum International, June, 1983.

2. W. Bulst, "The Imprints of the Feet on the Shroud of Turin. A Complex Problem," private communication, 1987.

3. J. H. Heller and A. D. Adler, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Can. Soc. Foren. Sci. J., Vol. 14, No. 3, 1981.

4. G. Carter, "Formation of the Image on the Shroud of Turin by x-Rays: A New Hypothesis," ACS in Chemistry, No. 205, Archaeological Chemistry. -III, Joseph B. Lambert, ed., 1984.

5. J. P. Jackson, "Is the Image on the Shroud Due to a Process Heretofore Unknown to Modern Science?", Shroud Spectrum International, March, 1990.

6. G. R. Lavoie et al, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin: Part III," Shroud Spectrum International, Sept., 1987.

7. P. Barbet, A Doctor at Calvary, Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1963.

(Jackson, J.P., "An Unconventional Hypothesis to Explain all Image Characteristics Found on the Shroud Image," in Berard, A., ed., 1991, "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud," Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX, pp.325-344).

Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud has to be wrong!: #1 Introduction

2012-01-15T21:29:00.019+08:00

On Dan Porter's Shroud of Turn Blog I recently commented :

As I and others, especially Dan, have pointed out: 1. the Pray Codex (1192-95), 2. the Vignon markings unique to the Shroud on coins and art from the 6th century, 3. the exact match of bloodstains on the Sudarium of Oviedo (which has been in Spain since at least AD 840) and the Shroud, and now 4. the ENEA report showing that the Shroud's image is only "one fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter" and therefore it could not possibly have been created by a medieval or earlier forger. Because of any one of the above, let alone all four, lines of conclusive evidence that the Shroud is not medieval, the AD 1260-1390 medieval radiocarbon date of the Shroud simply has to be wrong. The only question now is: how did the three radiocarbon laboratories get it so wrong? The ball is now in the Shroud anti-authenticist court to try to find a face-saving answer. The pro-authenticity side no longer have to provide an answer since it no longer is (if it ever was) their problem. The 16th century invisible reweave theory is a possible explanation, among many, of how the radiocarbon labs got it wrong. If ... and his Shroud anti-authenticist ilk don't like that explanation, then let him/them find another. It's now his/their problem, not ours!

I have decided to flesh out those four lines of evidence (which I have called "proofs" in the title to reduce its length), in separate posts and in the order of their discovery:

1. the Vignon markings-which showed that unique features of the Shroud face were being copied by artists from the mid-6th century;

2. the Hungarian Pray Codex (1192-95), with its unique features of the Shroud image and cloth, dating from the 12th century;

3. the exact match of bloodstains on the Shroud head and the Sudarium of Oviedo which has been in Spain since at least AD 840; and

4. the ENEA report which found the image on the Shroud was only "one fifth of one thousandth of a millimeter" and therefore could not possibly have been created by a medieval or earlier forger.

Any one of these individually, let alone all four together collectively, provide conclusive evidence that the Shroud of Turin is not medieval and therefore the AD 1260-1390 medieval date of the Shroud has to be wrong.

First, some background to the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the

[Right (click to enlarge): Prof. E. Hall, Dr. M. Tite and Dr. R. Hedges on 13 October 1988 announcing the Shroud had been carbon- dated to "1260-1390!": Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud," 1998, pl.3b]

Shroud. On 16 February 1989, the leading science journal Nature reported that three radiocarbon dating laboratories, Arizona, Oxford, and Zurich had in 1988 radiocarbon-dated "very small samples from the Shroud of Turin" and the results, "provide[d] conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390":

"Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. ... The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... The age of the shroud is obtained as AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence" (Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 1989, pp.611-615, p.612).

Note that these were "Very small samples" (about 1.2 x 8 centimetres total, divided equally among the three labs - Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud," p.189), and that the Shroud is a very large cloth (about 4.37 x 1.11 metres - Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," p.18).

[Above (click to enlarge): The postage-stamp size of the "very small samples" used to radiocarbon-date the Shroud compared with only its the front image half: Benford, M.S. & Marino, J.G., "Discrepancies in the radiocarbon dating area of the Turin shroud," Chemistry Today, Vol 26, N0. 4, July-August 2008.]

According to an illustration given by Prof. Harry Gove, a pioneer of the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) method used to date the Shroud, if "The entire shroud could be covered by 8,800 standard 22-cent stamps. The amount of material the ... Three labs would need [is] seven-tenths of a stamp":

"Gove said speculation that the motive for reducing the number of labs from seven to three was to conserve the amount of shroud material that would have to be destroyed is specious. `As a homey example, let's measure it in terms of postage stamps,' he said. `The entire shroud could be covered by 8,800 standard 22-cent stamps. The amount of material the original seven labs would need is a sample the size of about two-and-a-half stamps. Three labs would need seven-tenths of a stamp. So what? It's like knocking a few dollars off the national debt.'" (Clark, K.R., "Shroud of Turin Controversy Resumes," Chicago Tribune, January 17, 1988).

But in fact "every laboratory [was] ... given a piece of material about the size of a stamp," i.e. the three laboratories were together given a total of three `stamps':

"In the crossfire of the polemic, Gonella justified the limited number of the laboratories by the fact that this would reduce to the minimum the damage of the Shroud. Gove, however, answered him by noting that the additional amount of fabric necessary for four laboratories did not justify their exclusion. He gave this example: the Shroud could be covered by 8,800 22-cent stamps. The amount necessary for the seven laboratories would have corresponded to two-and-a-half stamps. Three laboratories need seven-tenths of a stamp. [Fidelity, cit., p. 42] Actually, every laboratory would eventually be given a piece of material about the size of a stamp." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, 1996, p.47).

That is, the total sample of the Shroud that the three laboratories tested, was a miniscule 3/8,800 = 0.035% or about one third of a thousandths of the Shroud!

So there already was a potential major problem of the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud to AD 1260-1390, that the sample size was so very small that it was not necessarily representative of the whole Shroud. Which was in 2008 shown to be the case by in fact, by Los Alamos National Laboratory analytical chemist Robert Villarreal:

"The results of the FTIR [ Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy] analysis on all three threads taken from the Raes sampling area (adjacent to the C-14 sampling corner) led to identification of the fibers as cotton and definitely not linen (flax). Note, that all age dating analyses were conducted on samples taken from this same area. Apparently, the age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three thread samples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case. What was true for the part was most certainly not true for the whole. This finding is supported by the spectroscopic data provided in this presentation. The recommendations that stem from the above analytical study is that a new age dating should be conducted but assuring that the sample analyzed represents the original main shroud image area, i.e. the fibers must be linen (flax) and not cotton or some other material. It is only then that the age dating will be scientifically correct." (Villarreal, R., Schwortz, B. & Benford, M.S., "Analytical Results on Thread Samples Taken from the Raes Sampling Area (Corner) of the Shroud Cloth," August 16, 2008, "The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma, " 2008 Columbus Ohio International Conference, August 14-17, 2008).

Professor Christopher Ramsey Bronk, whose name ("C.R. Bronk") is on the 1989 Nature paper, as a

[Right: Dr Christopher Bronk Ramsey: Science Photo Library]

member of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory which jointly carbon-dated the Shroud as "medieval ... AD 1260-1390," and is now Director of that same Oxford laboratory, has conceded that, "There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow":

"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow and so further research is certainly needed. It is important that we continue to test the accuracy of the original radiocarbon tests as we are already doing. It is equally important that experts assess and reinterpret some of the other evidence. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the Shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information." (Ramsey, C.B., "Shroud of Turin Version 77," Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, 23 March, 2008)

As we will see, there are at least four different, independent, lines of evidence that not only "suggest," but in fact prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow! And therefore the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud has to be wrong!

To be continued with, "Four proofs that the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud has to be wrong!: #2 The Vignon markings."

Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #10 His death and burial matches the Gospels' description of that of Jesus Christ

2012-01-10T14:47:00.004+08:00

This is part #10, "His death and burial matches the Gospels' description of that of Jesus Christ," which is part of my series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!." The previous post in this series was part #9, "The man has wounds and bloodstains which match the Gospels' description of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus Christ" For more information about this series, which is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I am preparing, see parts "#1 Title Page" and "#2 Contents" .

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

Here are quotes under the categories of "Death" and "Burial", and within those categories in year order (oldest first), which serve as references to the above statements:

Death:

"Rigor Mortis After death the Body of Christ remained suspended on the cross for hardly less than two hours. Under the circumstances, it must have grown rigid much more rapidly than is normally the case. It was probably rather thoroughly stiffened by the time it was taken down from the cross. The body enveloped in the Shroud was already rigid. This is suggested by the general appearance of the two figures, but there are more precise indications. The arms had been brought down from their extended position, but the hands remained as they had been on the cross, stiffened with the spontaneous curvature of the fingers and the inward bend of the thumbs illustrated by Dr. Barbet's experiments. The feet also were stiffened in the position they had on the cross, sloped forward and inward. It is an unnatural position which could not have been maintained if the feet had been normally flexible. The left foot had been crossed over the right. This caused a bend in the left knee, which grew rigid in that position and remained bent upward while the body was enveloped in the Shroud. One looks in vain for realistic details like these in art. They are present in these imprints because the Shroud registered with the utmost fidelity the condition of the body that rested within its folds." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1954, Third printing, 1961, pp.46-47. Emphasis original).

"The shroud was made of ivory-colored, almost yellow linen, and was disfigured in several distinct ways. Wrinkles zig-zagged the 14½ -foot length and 3½-foot width of the cloth whenever it was hung for exposition. Burn marks from a fire in 1532 ran down the cloth's sides. Water marks resembling rough-cut diamonds, made when the sixteenth-century fire was doused, could be seen with the naked eye. Also appearing on the shroud were two softly diffused but distinct impressions of a body. They were difficult to see up close, but at a distance they stood out in subtle brown. It was as though the cloth had been wrapped around a body - not in mummy fashion, but lengthwise - beginning at the heels and proceeding up the back to the base of the skull, then over the head and down the face to the toes. The face was owl-like, almost grotesque. The eyes were open and staring, with what looked like pinholes for pupils. The nose was long and thin-a line in the center of the face. The mouth was a smudge beneath the nostrils. The hair appeared coarse and stringy, and hung almost to the neck in what appeared to be two braids. Between the hair and the sides of the face there was a curious space. The feet appeared to be missing from the frontal image, and the legs were little more than lines tapering from the trunk. But the thighs, knees, and calves could be discerned, and the hands were folded over the loins in repose. The stomach, chest, and arms were easily recognizable on the frontal image, whereas the head, shoulders, and buttocks stood out on the dorsal. The dull red stain of blood was everywhere. Large droplets from under the hairline suggested the entrance points of thornlike instruments. Small lacerations all over the body could easily have been the result of indiscriminate and interminable flogging. Wounds from nails resulted in large seepages on the hands as well as thin trickles on the arms. The gash in the side showed the most bleeding; blood had gathered around the hole, then flowed down the sides of the body and across the small of the back. These were the images Secondo Pia expected to see as he peered into the tray of chemicals and waited for the negative plate to develop. The year was 1898, and he had been commissioned to make the first photographs ever of the shroud. But what he saw as he held the dripping plate up to the red light was something far different. The face was alive with expression; its details were almost portrait-like. The eyes were closed and tranquil as though the figure were asleep. The mouth was full, with mustache above and beard below. The nose was long and prominent, with gradations of shadow down the sides. The hair, strands of which were matted with blood, appeared soft and smooth. What Pia was looking at were positive images, and what he saw on the cloth itself, the photographer concluded, must be negative images. Exactly how these images had been transferred to the shroud he could not say. What was clear was that Jesus had left not only his `photograph' on the shroud but also a visual record of what happened to him in the bloody hours before his death." (Wilcox, R.K., 1977, "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, pp.3-4. Emphasis original).

"THE SHROUD OF TURIN is a linen cloth, fourteen feet long and three and a half feet wide. The threads were hand-spun and the fabric hand-woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill. On the long fabric are two faint, straw-colored images, one of the front and the other of the back of a nude man who was apparently scourged and crucified, with the hands crossed over the pelvis. The images appear head to head, as though a body had been laid on its back at one end of the fabric, which was then drawn over to cover the front of the body. The cloth has many burn holes and scorches; the holes have been patched. There are also large water stains. Although the cloth appeared in France 630 years ago, its history is obscure." (Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, p.vii. Emphasis original).

"The conventional argument that the image on the Shroud is the true image of Jesus assumes that we all agree, as perhaps we may, that the image came from a dead man's body. Most reasonable investigators have firmly ruled out the possibility that the image was painted, and they are also persuaded that it could not have been effected by means of a scorch from a hot statue. In addition, experts in anatomy and forensic medicine have concluded that the image on the Shroud could only have come from a human body, and in fact from the body of a man who had died (rigor mortis is evident) the violent death indicated by the visible wounds. These conclusions, as we have seen, were first reported by Delage in his 1902 address to the French Academy, and they have often been confirmed: in greatest detail by physician Pierre Barbet, and most recently by Robert Bucklin, deputy medical examiner of Los Angeles County in California." (Drews, R., 1984, "In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Allanheld: Totowa NJ, p.27).

"From the ankle, a rill of blood appears to have broken away directly onto the cloth, and it is the seemingly post-mortem nature of this that has caused most interest. While all previously discussed bloodstains have theoretically flowed while the body was upright on the cross, dried on the body, then somehow become transferred after death, this ankle rill must have been of a different nature, presumably an accidental spillage as the body was laid on the cloth for burial. There is even a counter-impression where the cloth would appear to have been slightly wrinkled at the time. The fifth and final of the Shroud's visible injury groups is indicated by an elliptical wound 4.4 centimeters wide immediately adjacent to one of the 1532 fire patches and, on the body of the man of the Shroud, locatable in the right side. Even to the layman this looks obvious as the entry point of some spear, from which blood appears to have flowed for some 15 centimeters while the body hung upright on the cross. But it is inevitably the pathologists for whom, again, the injury is most meaningful. There is general agreement that the exact point of injury would have been in the fifth intercostal space, immediately above the sixth rib, and it is to be noted that the wound is angled perfectly for such a between-the-ribs location. Some investigators even see slight interruptions in the flow of the blood downward exactly corresponding to the spacings of the middle ribs. The most dramatic aspect of this injury is that, as in the case of the foot wound, there is a post-mortem spillage associated with it, in this instance in the form of a copious and intricate splashing of blood visible right across the small of the back on the dorsal image, extending out to each side. Among the pathologists, there is general agreement that this spillage would have occurred as the heavy body was inevitably heaved onto the cloth at the time of burial." (Wilson, I., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, pp.24,26).

"If the Shroud is genuine, obviously such a dramatic chest injury must have been caused by a blow intended to cause death. But, quite aside from this, doctors and pathologists have pointed to other evidence that the man of the Shroud was indeed dead when laid in the cloth. As Professor James Cameron of the London Hospital has observed, if the man of the Shroud had been still breathing when laid in the cloth, the natural effect of his inhalations would have been to suck the linen into his mouth and nostrils, as indeed occurred in one modern case which Cameron was called upon to examine. This would inevitably have distorted the Shroud facial image; yet it shows no sign of this. Cameron also interprets the already noted stiffness of the arms in the burial position as due to rigor mortis. He argues that the arms had become fixed in the attitude of their suspension on the cross, and those who took the body down therefore had forcibly to break this rigor at the shoulders in order to place the arms in the burial position. Cameron also offers an interesting explanation for the oddly skeletal appearance of the hands. He points out that a nail through the wrist would be likely to hit not only the median nerve but also the main artery, thereby partially draining the hands of blood and creating an early post-mortem tissue-drying effect he refers to as `de-gloving.'" (Wilson, I., 1986, pp.25-26).

"There are at least three signs on the Shroud that Jesus was dead when He was buried. First, the body of the man in the Shroud is in a state of rigor mortis, in which the muscles stiffen, keeping the body in the position the person occupied just prior to death. Such a state is complete in about twelve hours after death, begins to wear off in twenty-four hours, and disappears in thirty-six to forty hours. Of course, these times are variable and imprecise, and therefore somewhat unreliable. Closely related to rigor mortis is a state called cadaveric spasm, an immediate stiffening, a rather sudden contraction of the muscles that occurs quickly after some violent deaths. Rigor mortis is observable on the Shroud in several places. The head was bent forward, the feet were somewhat drawn up, and the left leg in particular had moved back toward its position on the cross. Especially visible in the three-dimensional image analysis of the Shroud are the retracted thumbs and the `frozen' posture of the chest and abdomen. As was also noted by Bucklin, the entire body was quite rigid and stiff, occupying some of the positions it did on the cross. The second evidence of death in the man of the Shroud is the post-mortem blood flow, especially from the chest wound. If the heart had been beating after burial, the blood literally would have been shot out onto the cloth. But the blood oozed out instead. Also, a comparatively small quantity of blood flowed, and there was no swelling around the wound. Finally, the blood from the chest, left wrist, and feet separated into clots and serum and was much thicker and of much deeper color than it would have been prior to death. Zugibe also mentioned a third piece of evidence based on his medical experience. If Jesus had been alive after the spear wound, the soldiers and others at the site would have heard a loud sucking sound caused by breath being inhaled past the chest wound. Zugibe related that when answering a distress call after a man had been stabbed in the chest, he heard the loud inhaling of the unconscious man all the way across the room. He saw this phenomenon as `a direct refutation of the theory that Christ was alive after being taken down from the cross." [Zugibe, F.T., "The Cross and the Shroud," Angelus Books: New York NY, 1982, p.165]" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1990, "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, p.113. Emphasis original).

"There are essentially four categories of injuries that anyone, whatever their viewpoint, may reasonably `see' and identify on the Shroud: (i) a set of injuries as from a severe whipping (ii) a set of injuries as from various forms of incidental abuse (including apparent `crowning with thorns') (iii) a set of injuries as from piercing at the hands and feet (iv) a single injury as from the driving of a bladed weapon through the chest To which may be added as a final category: (v) evidence of apparent post-mortem blood spillages from (iii) and (iv)" (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.31).

"Which brings us to the fifth and final category of readily visible injury marks on the Shroud, apparent post-mortem spillages, that is, bloodflows that do not appear to have come from the body during life or its immediate expiry, but which broke loose from it while it was being laid in the Shroud. Two examples of this may be cited, both readily visible on the back-of the-body image. First, by the right foot there can be seen a spillage that has broken away at the level of the ankle, extending several centimetres laterally ... Second, right across the small of the back can be seen a large, similarly lateral splash of blood ... In the case of this latter, from its position and from the absence of any other obviously related injury, it can only have come from the lance wound in the chest. As interpreted by Dr Joseph Gambescia, a professor of medicine at the Hannemann University Hospital, Philadelphia, this: `... makes sense only if the body were tilted on its side with the side-wound oriented momentarily toward the ground and then turned up on the other side so that the flow could make its way transversedly across the back toward the ground." (Wilson, 1998, p.38).

"Further evidence of the man's death on the cross is found in the numerous identifications of rigor mortis apparent on the Shroud image. Rigor mortis develops because of complex chemical processes that cause all body muscles to stiffen. The actual stiffening typically begins four to six hours after death and continues for another twelve hours. Once complete, rigor mortis gradually declines over the next twelve to twenty-four hours and the muscles relax again. The onset of rigor mortis can be accelerated by muscular exertion before death, an elevated body temperature, or warm weather. In cases where physical activity has been strenuous and intense, as would be the case in a crucifixion, rigor mortis can set in immediately after death, especially in a hot climate. If the corpse were then placed in a cool environment, such as a tomb, rigor mortis would tend to remain longer. When looking at the back of the man's legs and feet, we see that his left leg is raised slightly and that both feet, especially the right one, are flat and pointed down. For the lower extremities to have remained in such an awkward position indicates that rigor mortis set in while the man remained crucified. Moving up the back of the man, we notice that the thighs, buttocks, and torso are not flat, but instead are stiff and rigid. If rigor mortis had declined and the muscles had relaxed, these parts of the body would appear flatter and wider. On the frontal image we see the chin drawn in close to the chest and the face turned slightly to the right. For the head to remain in this position inside the burial cloth without rotating further to the side requires the presence of rigor mortis. The man's expanded ribcage is a sign of asphyxia, and the enlarged pectoral muscles drawn in toward the collarbone and arms provide evidence that the man had been pulling himself up to breathe. That these parts of the body remained in such positions further indicates that the onset of rigor mortis occurred while the man hung suspended. Rigor would also maintain the thumbs in the positions held during crucifixion. ... All of the data gleaned from extensive study of the pathology evident on the Turin Shroud tells us this piece of linen was wrapped around the corpse of a man who was crucified and died while still nailed to a cross. We also know that the man's corpse lay inside the burial linen for no more than two or three days. Had he been there longer, decomposition stains would be present on the cloth, but the Shroud contains no signs of bodily decomposition." (Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, pp.32-33).

"J. Malcolm Cameron, British Home Office pathologist, notes that the arms of the Man on the Shroud were forcibly bent across the lower abdomen to break the postmortem rigor (muscle stiffening) of the shoulder girdle (a common problem for morticians regardless of the cause of death, in order to get a body into position for burial). Drs. Jackson and Jumper of the STURP scientific team noticed, when their computer projections were developing three-dimensional images from the Shroud data, that the head was bent forward as a result of rigor mortis. Knees bent by the rigor are also observable, especially the left. Moreover, their three-dimensional images have further special value for medical studies of the Shroud because they show, for instance, the degree of swelling in the right cheek, and the overextension of the chest and abdominal muscles." (Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, p.100).

"Did Jesus die on the cross or after he was taken down? This has often been raised by skeptics and critics of the Shroud. Scientists studying the Shroud no longer have doubts on that point, for a variety of reasons. Professor Giovanni Tamburelli of Turin University has used the computer in his study of blood flows on the Shroud. For instance, he has found that all streams of blood on the face flow down the face; none of them flow toward the ears or back of the neck or head. Thus it is clear that the death of the Man of the Shroud caused the blood to stop running while he was still on the cross. If he were alive when removed from the cross, the blood would have still been flowing, and as he lay on his back it would have flowed toward his back. Tamburelli also noticed a drop of blood from the right nostril that did not fall because its weight was not sufficient. The drop was pointed, not round, proving that the blood ceased to flow because of death while he was still on the cross. Another significant characteristic is that the Shroud bloodstains have a `halo effect' that is typically suggestive of the separation of blood and serum, which happens after the heart has already stopped-evidence of death on the cross." (Tribbe, 2006, p.101).

Burial:

"If genuine, the Shroud is a record of a burial, a Jewish burial that reputedly took place nearly two thousand years ago of none other than Jesus Christ. Among the key questions therefore to be considered are the extent to which it is compatible with known Jewish burial customs of the time and, above all, the specifically recorded burial of Jesus Christ. In entering this field, we come upon one of the most difficult areas of Shroud studies. From the rise of the Herodian dynasty to the first half of the second century A.D., Jewish burial custom would seem to have been first to wash the body, a practice normal in most cultures. Then it was dressed in clean linen clothes, generally the white garment worn by the deceased for festivals, and bound at the chin, wrists, and feet. Such a custom would seem to be quite explicit from the description of the raising of Lazarus in which we are told, `The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with bands of stuff and a cloth round his face. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, let him go free"' (Jn. 11:44). So far this seems reasonable enough. Had Lazarus been swathed in bands, mummy fashion, it would have been impossible for him to move at all. Instead he appears to have been at least able to shuffle forward at the command `Come out,' requiring only the chin, hand, and foot bindings to be severed for him to resume normal life." (Wilson, I., 1978, "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, p.38).

"Some of the details visible on the Shroud are consistent with such practices. As in Jewish custom we can be reasonably sure that the man of the Shroud was laid out flat and intact in some sort of prepared tomb. ... The position of the body with the hands across the pelvis is also identical with Jewish burials of the Essene sect ... in the area of Qumran. We can also detect that, as in Jewish custom, the man of the Shroud seems to have been bound at head, hands, and feet. On the Shroud there is a distinct gap between the frontal and dorsal images of the head, almost certainly indicating the presence of a chin band tied around the face. At the region of the wrists we may perceive that there is an apparent break in the blood flow immediately to the left of the covering hand. A binding cloth or cord at this point would almost certainly have been functionally necessary to counteract the effects of rigor mortis, which according to some medical opinion would have tended to return the arms to the original crucifixion position. In the area of the feet, the possible presence of a similar cord or binding cloth is less obvious, but there is a blank in the image at precisely the most likely position." (Wilson,1978, p.39).

"... the Turin Shroud ... This length of ivory-coloured cloth measures 14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches, or 4.36 metres by 1.10 metre. Its exact age has not yet been determined, but it is at least six hundred years old, and there is nothing in its fabric or weave to invalidate the claim that its manufacture is of the first century AD. From the purely textile angle it can be described as a three-to-one herring-bone twill, the material being linen with a small admixture of cotton (as the Belgian Professor Gilbert Raes reported in 1976 after his microscopic examination of carefully selected and extracted threads of it in his textile laboratory at Ghent University). The presence of cotton fibres in the weave is considered by experts to be conclusive in ruling out a European provenance for the fabric of the Shroud, since cotton was not grown or used in Europe in any possible epoch of the manufacture of this cloth. But it is entirely consonant with a Palestinian provenance, as the fibres are of the Gossypium Herbaceum variety which is cultivated in the Middle East. The total absence of wool in the Shroud's composition is instructive to anyone versed in the Mosaic Law with its prohibition of textile mixture, for Leviticus 19:19 commands: `Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.' The presence of even one wool fibre would have excluded this cloth from ever having been a Jewish burial shroud." (McNair, P., "The Shroud and History: fantasy, fake or fact?," in Jennings, P., ed., "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, 1978, pp.21-22).

"Jewish Burial Customs. The first point of comparison is the cloth itself. The gospels say that Jesus was buried in a cloth (or cloths); the Shroud of Turin appears to be a burial cloth which medical experts say once held a dead body. The image reveals a man lying on his back with his feet close together. His elbows protrude from his sides and his hands are crossed over the pelvic area. We can ascertain that the linen sheet was wound lengthwise up the front and down the back of the corpse. ... Is this kind of burial compatible with the New Testament reports? It is at least compatible with Jewish customs as we know them from extrabiblical sources. Recent archaeological excavations at the Qumran community found that the Essenes buried their dead in the way represented on the Shroud. Several skeletons were found lying on their backs, faces pointing upward, elbows bent outward, and their hands covering the pelvic region. The protruding elbows rule out an Egyptian-type mummified burial. Also very instructive is the Code of Jewish Law, which discusses burial procedures in its `Laws of Mourning.' It instructs that a person executed by the government was to be buried in a single sheet. This is another parallel with the Shroud." (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, p.46. Emphasis original).

"Ancient Jewish Beliefs Regarding Death, Burial and Resurrection Let us first provide some background on the evolution of ancient Jewish theological thought, especially during the Second Temple Period regarding death, burial and the idea of resurrection. ... When an individual died, the family was required to bury him as quickly as possible because of the climatic conditions favoring the onset of decay. Primary burial involved burial in either a wooden coffin in the ground or in a shroud in a cave-tomb cut from the soft limestone rocks. In the area of Jerusalem, most people were buried in the cave-tombs carved out of the soft limestone outside and near the walls of the city. Cemeteries were required to be outside the city walls. .... The body was usually enveloped in a shroud (a large linen sheet called a sindon in the New Testament) and laid on a stone shelf in the cave-tomb. ... The burial of Jesus was consistent with the primary burial procedures of the Jews. The New Testament relates that Joseph of Arimathea (a distinguished member of the Sanhedrin - the Jewish religious ruling body) buried Jesus in a cave-tomb cut from the rock nearby the crucifixion site on Golgotha (Calvary) and enveloped Him in a shroud. `Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and placed it in his new tomb which he had hewn in the rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the entrance of the tomb and went away' (Mt 27:59-60). Rt. Rev. John A.T. Robinson notes: `The corpse of Jesus enfolded in a simple linen cloth passing lengthwise over the head and covering the whole body back and front is not, I submit, what any forger with medieval or modern presuppositions would have thought of; but it makes complete sense of the texts and conforms with the other ancient evidence.' [Robinson, J.A.T., "The Shroud of Turin and the Grave-Clothes of the Gospels," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Albuquerque NM, 1977, p.25] It was not customary in the ancient or medieval world for an artist to paint on linen, and painting Jesus naked was unheard of. The Shroud represents a true Jewish burial in a linen shroud." (Iannone, J.C., "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, 1998, pp.75-76. Emphasis original).

"Lazarus died a natural death. In accordance with normal Jewish practice he would have been washed, interred fully dressed in his Sabbath best, tied up with a few binding strips to keep his jaw and limbs suitably together, and provided with some kind of face cloth for screening purposes. Jesus, in contrast, died a very bloody death, and stark naked, his clothes having been removed from him at the time of his crucifixion. [Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, John 19:23] In his case Jewish law prescribed something very different. As has been carefully explained by Jewish-born Victor Tunkel [Tunkel, V., "A Jewish View of the Shroud," Lecture to the British Society for the Turin Shroud, London, 12 May 1983] of the Faculty of Laws, Queen Mary College, University of London, the belief among the Pharisees of Jesus's time, shared by Jesus's own followers, was that everyone's body would be physically resurrected at the end of time. This meant that as far as humanly possible everything that formed part of that body, including particularly the life-blood, should be buried with it. As expressed in the Jewish Code of Laws, `One who fell [e.g. in battle] and died instantly, if ... blood flowed from the wound, and there is apprehension that the blood of the soul was absorbed in his clothes, he should not be cleansed.' [Gansfried, 1927, Vol. IV, ch. CXCVII, Laws Relating to Purification (Tahara nos 9 and 10), pp.99-100] In these circumstances, therefore, those preparing the dead person for burial had to wrap a `sheet which is called a sovev' straight over any clothes, however bloodstained. This sovev had to be an all-enveloping cloth, that is a `single sheet ... used to go right round' the entire body. Such a sovev readily corresponds to the `over the head' characteristics of Turin's Shroud. " (Wilson, I., "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, 2010, p.52).

The next post in this series will be part #11 "Science has been unable to explain how the image was formed on the cloth."

Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

My response to: "The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it," by Tom Chivers, The Telegraph, 20 December 2011

2012-01-06T22:36:00.005+08:00

I had planned to write a general "Response to Critics of the ENEA Report" but I have now decided to first respond to this article by Tom Chivers in The Telegraph . His words are bold to distinguish them from mine.

The Telegraph

The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it

By Tom Chivers Science Last updated: December 20th, 2011

[Above (click to enlarge): Diagram of ENEA's excimer laser experimental setup: Paolo Di Lazzaro, et. al., "A Physical Hypothesis on the Origin of the Body Image Embedded into the Turin Shroud," in "The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma," Proceedings of the 2008 Columbus Ohio International Conference, August 14-17, 2008]

First things first. The "authenticity" or otherwise of the Shroud of Turin does not have any implications for whether or not Christ was real, or whether He was divine. If it was a medieval forgery, it doesn't mean the stories aren't true; if it really was made in the first century AD, it doesn't mean they were.

Agreed that the Shroud of Turin could be false and Christianity true. And that the Shroud could be first century, and yet it not be Jesus'. And that it could be Jesus' and yet Christianity could be false. But if the Shroud of Turin is Jesus' (as the vast preponderance of the evidence points to), and it bears the image of His crucified body, then it would be additional extrabiblical evidence that Christianity is true.

Until we find a reliable method of linking the shroud with Christ Himself - a nametag stitched in it by His mum, perhaps - the existence of a 2,000-year-old cloth does not imply that a particular person who died around the time it was made was the Son of God.

Chivers is wrong that there is no "reliable method of linking the shroud with Christ Himself." It is the same "reliable method" that courts everyday sentence persons to prison and even execution, based on forensic evidence: improbability. The atheist and Shroud anti-authenticist Steven Schafersman admitted that if the Shroud is not a forgery, then the odds are less than "1 in 83 million that the man on the shroud is not Jesus Christ":

"As the (red ochre) dust settles briefly over Sindondom, it becomes clear there are only two choices: Either the shroud is authentic (naturally or supernaturally produced by the body of Jesus) or it is a product of human artifice. Asks Steven Schafersman: `Is there a possible third hypothesis? No, and here's why. Both Wilson [Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin," 1979, pp.51-53.] and Stevenson and Habermas [Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud," 1981, pp.121-129] go to great lengths to demonstrate that the man imaged on the shroud must be Jesus Christ and not someone else. After all, the man on this shroud was flogged, crucified, wore a crown of thorns, did not have his legs broken, was nailed to the cross, had his side pierced, and so on. Stevenson and Habermas [Ibid., p.128] even calculate the odds as 1 in 83 million that the man on the shroud is not Jesus Christ (and they consider this a very conservative estimate). I agree with them on all of this. If the shroud is authentic, the image is that of Jesus.' [Schafersman, S.D., "Science, the public, and the Shroud of Turin," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 6, No. 3, Spring 1982, pp.37-56, p.42]" (Nickell, J., "Inquest on the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Prometheus Books: Buffalo NY, Revised, 1987, Reprinted, 2000, p.141. Emphasis original).

This was because of the exact correspondence of the pattern of wounds of the man on the Shroud with the Gospels' description of the suffering, crucifixion, death and burial of Jesus, and which at least one, the crown of thorns (Mt 27:29; Mk 15:17; Jn 19:2,5), was true of no other crucifixion victim, because it was done to mock Jesus' claim to be King of the Jews (Mt 27:29; Mk 15:18; Jn 19:3).

The Rev. Herbert Thurston (1856 -1939), another arch-enemy of the Shroud's authenticity, admitted that, "As to the identity of the body whose image is seen on the Shroud ... The five wounds, the cruel flagellation, the punctures encircling the head ... In no other personage since the world began could these details be verified":

"Father Thurston, for example, writes of the Shroud of Turin: `As to the identity of the body whose image is seen on the Shroud, no question is possible. The five wounds, the cruel flagellation, the punctures encircling the head, can still be clearly distinguished in spite of the darkening of the whole fabric. If this is not the impression of the Body of Christ, it was designed as the counterfeit of that impression. In no other personage since the world began could these details be verified.' [Thurston, H., "The Holy Shroud and the Verdict of History," The Month, CI, 1903, p.19] We shall see that there is much more than the five wounds, the scourging and the crowning with thorns to show that Christ and the Man of the Shroud are one and the same." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1954, Third printing, 1961, p.40).

I mention this because today, we report that a group of scientists - working, unexpectedly, for the Italian sustainable energy agency ENEA - claim that the marks on the cloth may have been made by ultraviolet radiation. [Note: originally I quoted them as saying it could "only" have been made by UV. Dr Paolo Di Lazzaro of ENEA has emailed to say that's not the case, so I've updated it.] They say that "When one talks about a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things like miracles and resurrection," and that they "hope our results can open up a philosophical and theological debate". They do, however, say "as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes."

Chivers fails to inform his readers what the ENEA report [http://opac.bologna.enea.it:8991/RT/2011/2011_14_ENEA.pdf], translated from Italian to English by Google translate, with only my minor editing for style, stated:

The Shroud image is "extremely thin, one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter ... corresponding to the thickness of the primary cell wall of a single linen fiber" (pp.4,8). Clearly no medieval or earlier forger could make even a single mark on linen that thin, let alone create the image of a man, front and back, on a linen sheet, of that extreme thinness.
The "total power of the VUV [vacuum ultraviolet] radiation required to instantly color the surface of linen corresponding to a human body of medium height is equal to 34 thousand billion watts" and "this power can not be produced by any light source VUV built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts)" (p.22).
It would require "a battery of ten thousand excimer lasers to accurately reproduce the image on the Shroud" (p.22). That is, instantaneously. And, although the report does not says it, they would have to be directed by a computer which followed a digitized map of the Shroud.

The implication, of course, is that a divine light shone when Jesus's body was resurrected, and that this emitted a burst of high-frequency photons which burned an image on the cloth around him.

The implication is indeed, that "when Jesus's body was resurrected, and that this emitted a burst of high-frequency photons which burned an image on the cloth around him." As Ian Wilson pointed out as far back as 1978, the evidence was pointing to the Shroud image being "a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection":

"Even from the limited available information, a hypothetical glimpse of the power operating at the moment of creation of the Shroud's image may be ventured. In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood, on a stone slab. Suddenly, there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant the blood dematerializes, dissolved perhaps by the flash, while its image and that of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, p.210).

This possibility has been discounted in the past by Raymond Rogers, a member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (Sturp) which examined the fabric in the 1970s, who said: "If any form of radiation degraded the cellulose of the linen fibers to produce the image color, it would have had to penetrate the entire diameter of a fiber in order to color its back surface", but that the centres of the fibres are unmarked.

Ray Rogers' 2002 claim that:

"If any form of radiation (thermal, electromagnetic, or particle) degraded the cellulose of the linen fibers to produce the image color, it would have had to penetrate the entire diameter of a fiber in order to color its back surface. Some lower fibers are colored, requiring more penetration. Radiation that penetrated the entire 10-15-μm-diameter of a fiber would certainly color the walls of the medulla. All image fibers show color on their surfaces but not in the medullas." (Rogers, R. & Arnoldi, A., 2002, "Scientific Method Applied to the Shroud of Turin - A Review")

is simply wrong! If Chivers bothered to Google translate the ENEA report and then read it, he would discover that it explains why the high-energy, narrow frequency, ultraviolet light of the ENEA experiments coloured only the "outer skin is called the primary cell wall" of the flax fibrils which is made of hemicellulose, while leaving the "inner (medulla) of pure cellulose" unaffected:

"Each linen thread is made up of about 200 elementary fibers having a cylindrical structure with an average length of 30 mm and average diameter of 20 micrometers, called fibrils. Each linen fiber has an inner (medulla) of pure cellulose, and a thin (0.2 μm [micrometers]) external film composed of hemicellulose, cellulose and other minor components. This outer skin is called the primary cell wall. The ... color of the extremely superficial image on the Shroud was formed by an unknown process that caused oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the structure polysaccharide of flax fibers, to produce a conjugated carbonyl group as a chromophore. In other words, the color is the result of a process of accelerated aging of linen. [There are] two different chemical transitions probably involved in forming the image on the linen of the Shroud. .... There are two possible transitions ... that convert the cellulose and hemicellulose in a chromophore consisting of carbonyl groups married after undergoing processes of oxidation and dehydration. The double bonds ... are the main responsible for the yellow image of the fibers of the Shroud of Turin. ... The different thicknesses of staining obtained with lasers and excimer XeCl ARF ... can be due to different wavelength. In fact, a shorter penetrates less into the tissue and consequently the energy absorbed per unit volume is greater. However ... there [is] only a 11% difference in absorption between the flax 0.193 and 0.308 μm ...Then you must find an additional mechanism to explain the different thicknesses of light penetration fibrils and in different color, ie yellow or yellow-sepia after irradiation to 0.193 μm -or light brown after irradiation at 308 μm. This mechanism could be promoted by additional absorption band at 0.260 μm below the ketone carbonyl groups ... that promote yellowing of the hemicellulose in primary cell wall. In other words, the VUV radiation at 0.193 μm is absorbed by the ketone carbonyl and leads to photolytic degradation of hemicellulose, causing the dissociation of molecular bonds that promotes the chemical reaction ... At the macroscopic level, such reactions produce the yellow-like Shroud ... Note that the UV radiation at 0.308 μm is too long to fit in the absorption band of carbonyl ketone, while it can be absorbed by the aldehyde groups ... Thus, the UV radiation is not able to begin the process with many steps that leads to yellowing of the above-described cellulose and hemicellulose." (pp.19-20)

That is, it is the chemical structure of the hemicellulose of the flax fibril's "outer skin" or "primary cell wall" that absorbs the energy of "VUV radiation at 0.193 μm [which] leads to photolytic degradation of hemicellulose, causing the dissociation of molecular bonds that promotes the chemical reaction" and "At the macroscopic level, such reactions produce the yellow-like Shroud." The flax fibril's "inner (medulla) of pure cellulose" does not absorb the VUV energy and therefore its chemical structure is not changed so does not change colour.

There are many hypotheses about how the images could have been made, and they have each come in and out of favour. Without wanting to be too cocky, when the ENEA scientists say that radiation is the "only" way the image could have been made, I imagine that many of their fellow researchers will say it's the only way that they managed it.

There are indeed, "many hypotheses about how the images could have been made, and they have each come ... out of favour"! That is because, as the ENEA report itself states, none of them until now had been able to reproduce "one of the most distinctive features of the Shroud image" it is "extremely thin, one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter":

"The interest of these studies is that the attempts to replicate the Shroud image is of chemical and physical methods have proved so far unsuitable obtain the characteristics of the image. In particular, the chemical methods do not allow to get in contact one of the most distinctive features of the Shroud image, color or thickness of extremely thin, one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter." (p.4).

Chivers can "imagine" whatever he likes what "many of their fellow researchers will say" that "it's the only way that they managed it." But for any researcher to challenge the ENEA scientists' finding, they would need to produce marks on linen that are: 1) the same colour as the image on the Shroud; and 2) the same extreme thinness. I predict now (6 January 2012) that no researcher ever will discover another way, other than radiation, to manage it.

However it was made, if - as many have claimed - the Shroud was made in the 13th century, then it isn't a relic of Christ, for obvious reasons. Radiocarbon dating has repeatedly placed the Shroud as medieval in origin - specifically, between 1260AD and 1390AD.

Based on the above ENEA report's findings, the image on the Shroud could not possibly be the work of a medieval, or earlier, forger, because as Chivers' colleague Nick Squires pointed out, it "could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period":

"Italian scientists have conducted a series of advanced experiments which, they claim, show that the marks on the shroud - purportedly left by the imprint of Christ's body - could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period." ("Italian study claims Turin Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe," Nick Squires, The Telegraph, Rome, 19 Dec 2011).

Therefore, my comment on Dan Porter's Shroud of Turin blog stands true:

"Therefore, ALL medieval forgery theories for the creation of the Shroud image (whether painting, hot statue, primitive photography, crucified victim, etc) are WRONG. And also the 1988-89 radiocarbon date of the Shroud linen to between 1260-1360 AD is WRONG!"

That is, since a medieval or earlier forger could not possibly have reproduced an image on linen that is only "one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter" thick, the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud as "medieval ... (AD 1260-1390)":

"Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. As controls, three samples whose ages had been determined independently were also dated. The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval. ... The age of the shroud is obtained as AD 1260-1390, with at least 95% confidence" (Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 1989, pp.611-615, p.612).

simply has to be wrong! Indeed, doubly wrong because the AD 1192-95 Pray Codex with its artist's depiction of the Shroud, complete with nude Jesus, hands crossed in front, no thumbs, nails in the wrist, herringbone flax weave, and L-shape poker holes, already proved that the Shroud was in existence in the twelfth century AD, well before the earliest possible 13th century radiocarbon date of AD 1260.

There have been suggestions that the radiocarbon process got it wrong - but this is unlikely, according to Professor Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, one of three labs which carried out the research. "We're pretty confident in the radiocarbon dates," he told me. "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up.

Chivers may not be aware that Ramsey's full name is Christopher Ramsey Bronk and that he is the "C.R. Bronk" whose name is listed first of those at Oxford University in that 1989 Nature paper which claimed that the linen of the Shroud was "medieval ... AD 1260-1390":

"Nature 337, 611 - 615 (16 February 1989) ... Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin .... C. R. Bronk , E. T. Hall , R. E. M. Hedges , R. Housley , I. A. Law , C. Perry , ... Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QJ, UK ..."

That Prof. Ramsey Bronk's name is listed first of those from Oxford, indicates that he was the scientist at Oxford who actually did the radiocarbon dating. Therefore, he is far from being a disinterested party in defending that now doubly discredited AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date. The only question now is how did the three labs get it so wrong? The most likely explanation is that the tiny 1.2 cm x 0.8 cm (0.012 x 0.008 m) sample of the 4.37 x 1.11 m Shroud that was divided equally among the three labs for testing, was actually a medieval patch, not part of the original main body of the Shroud (see Benford, M.S. & Marino, J.G., "Discrepancies in the Radiocarbon Dating Area of the Turin Shroud," Chemistry Today, Vol. 26, No. 4, July-August 2008).

"One is that the samples were contaminated. But that doesn't work, because to make an 2,000-year-old object appear just 800 years old, about half the material would have to be contaminant, and that's if it was all modern. If it was older, it would have to be even more. Various tests done at the time of the original measurements also suggested that the material was fairly pure.

Agreed that it is unlikely that if the linen was 1st century AD, there could be enough new carbon contamination on it to make it appear to be between AD 1260-1390, i.e. in 1988 between 728 and 598 years old (not "800 years old"). But since the AD 1260-1390 radiocarbon date has to be wrong, in that the image could not possibly have been created by a medieval forger (see above) this leaves only three alternatives: 1) the three labs bungled the tests; or 2) they committed fraud; or 3) the sample they dated was not part of the original Shroud itself and it was between 728 and 598 years old.

Various tests done at the time of the original measurements also suggested that the material was fairly pure.

Ramsey Bronk cannot have forgotten that it was his own Oxford laboratory (perhaps he himself) which found that the Shroud sample was contaminated with cotton, which was "a fine, dark yellow strand, possibly of Egyptian origin and quite old":

"Staff at a Derbyshire laboratory have been working on one of their most unusual and fascinating problems ever to help unravel a second mystery concerning the world-famous Turin Shroud. The true age of the Shroud was announced recently following exhaustive tests by laboratories in Britain, Switzerland, and the USA. Precision Processes (Textiles) Ltd. in Ambergate, Derbyshire, earned the distinction of being the only lab in the UK to assist Oxford University with the prestigious assignment, their task being identify `foreign' bodies found in the cloth. Managing director Peter South explains, `It was while the sample was undergoing tests at the radiocarbon acceleration unit in Oxford that Professor Edward Hall noticed two or three fibres which looked out of place. He mentioned this to his friend Sir James Spooner, chairman of Coats Viyella, to which our firm belongs. Consequently, after several telephone calls, the minute samples, which looked like human hair, were sent to us.' The strange fibres were magnified 200 times under a microscope and were immediately identified as cotton. `The cotton is a fine, dark yellow strand, possibly of Egyptian origin and quite old. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say how it ended up in the Shroud, which is basically made from linen,' said Mr. South. `It may have been used for repairs at some time in the past, or simply became bound in when the linen fabric was woven. It may not have taken us long to identify the strange material, but it was unique amongst the many and varied jobs we undertake." ("Rogue fibres found in the Shroud," Textile Horizons, December 1988, p.13).

So either: 1) this cotton was part of the original Shroud and was "quite old", in which case the labs AD 1260-1390 date must be wrong (especially Tucson and Zurich labs which did their tests 2-3 months before Oxford and did not find the cotton); or 2) the cotton was part of a medieval repair and was dyed yellow to appear "quite old" amongst the yellowed linen.

It's also been hypothesised that the patch we tested was a modern repair, but most of us agree that's implausible, because the weave is very unusual and matches the rest of the shroud perfectly. Then there are more complicated notions, like contamination with carbon monoxide, but tests have shown that carbon monoxide doesn't react with the fabric under the circumstances that you might expect."

Ramsey's reason for why "the patch" (Freudian slip!) tested was not a modern (i.e. medieval) repair, "because the weave is very unusual and matches the rest of the shroud perfectly" is amazing and shows that he has never bothered to take the time to read Benford & Marino's Invisible Reweave Theory:

"It was a brilliant bit of detective work. Sue Benford and Joseph Marino consulted with several textile experts. They examined the documenting photographs of the carbon 14 samples and other close up photographs of the Shroud. They found clear indications of a discrete repairs to the Shroud. The repair seems to have been what modern tailors call invisible reweaving. This results in an intermingling of new and older thread. Threads are even spliced together. The newer thread is carefully dyed to match the older material so as to make it almost invisible to the naked eye. This was a common method by which artisans repaired valuable tapestries during the middle ages. Enough newer thread was identified so that Ron Hatfield of the Beta Analytic, one of the world largest carbon 14 dating firm, to estimate that had the cloth of the Shroud been 1st century and the new cloth 16th century, the results would have been what the carbon 14 tests had revealed." (Daniel Porter, "Medieval Reweaving the Shroud of Turin," Shroud of Turin Skeptical Spectacle, 2008).

Obviously an invisible repair of the Shroud would "match... the rest of the shroud perfectly"!

Regarding the ENEA findings, he is similarly sceptical. "There are several possibilities, and it could just be a chance effect due to a number of different phenomena," he say. "But in archaeological science, being able to reproduce something doesn't imply that that's the technique used; it may simply show that you've got a new technique you want to try out." He adds that the confidence in the medieval result is such that, were it not suggested to be a relic, there would be no more discussion over its age.

Ramsey Bronk's reply indicates that he has not even bothered to read the ENEA report. The best response to Ramsey's continued claim that "the radiocarbon dating results putting it at 1260 - 1390AD were reliable" was from "one of the lead authors of the Italian [ENEA] study, Dr Paolo Di Lazzaro" via Chivers:

"I have no experience of radiocarbon dating. As a consequence, I have to accept the opinion of Prof Ramsey. However, I note we have a problem: there is an object dated 1260AD that has a microscopic complexity such that it cannot be made by a forger in 1260AD. Does Prof Ramsey have any idea how to solve this contradiction? Can we collaborate to find a solution? Is it possible to organise a team of experts that reconsider both dating and microscopic characteristics of this extraordinary image?" ("The Shroud of Turin: forgery or divine? A scientist writes," Tom Chivers, The Telegraph, December 30th, 2011

So what is Prof. Ramsey Bronk's answer to the contradiction that the Shroud "is an object dated 1260AD that has a microscopic complexity such that it cannot be made by a forger in 1260AD"? As far as I am aware, neither Prof. Ramsey nor Tom Chivers has resolved this contradiction. Clearly since the Shroud's image "has a microscopic complexity such that it cannot be made by a forger in 1260AD," then the radiocarbon date of AD 1260-1390 must be wrong!

So there remain questions about how the Shroud of Turin was made, but there seems to be little reason to think that it's anywhere near

That "reasons: are overwhelming that "the Shroud of Turin is ... old enough to have been Christ's." The problem is that Chivers, like other Shroud sceptics, does not want to accept those reasons and like a drowning man clutching at a straw clings to any excuse he can to not believe in the Shroud's authenticity.

(Interestingly, John Calvin in 1543 already thought it was a fake: he pointed out that according to the Gospel of St John, two cloths were used to shroud Jesus, one on His body and one on His face;

Those two cloths exist today: the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo!

he also suggests that it is strange that none of those recording his death in the Gospels mentioned a miracle "so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet".)

Calvin's arguments against the Shroud are fallacious. See my Re: John Calvin on the Shroud #1 and #2.

Also, the ENEA report (if Chivers had bothered to read it) found a mechanism for the Shroud image to be latent and only become "visible after some time (years) from when it was formed":

"We obtained similar results ... using the XeCl laser verifying that the staining appears after a latent natural aging over a year, while the linen in irradiated threshold in a drawer in the dark . The importance of these latent staining results is twofold. On the one hand there is the scientific interest of a double synergistic mechanism of coloration (UV and VUV light that breaks some chemical bonds favoring the effect oxidizing and dehydrating heat) .... On the other hand there is the interest of historians, attracted by the possibility that the image on the Shroud could have made visible after some time (years) from was formed when the same image" (p.15).

"After laser irradiation, which does not produce a visible color, color is a latent artificial aging of the flax plant ... or a year later for natural aging. The underlying color is important both for the double staining synergistic mechanism, both for historians, attracted by the possibility that the image on the Shroud could have made visible after some time (years) from when it was formed."(p.22)

So it is possible that the image did not become visible until after the Gospels had been written or even after the New Testament writers had all died. Indeed, this is a possibility that Shroud pro-authenticity theorists had proposed:

"Also, the Gospel accounts do not mention an image on Jesus' burial sheet. These omissions are one reason Bishop d'Arcis believed the Lirey Shroud could not possibly be the one referred to in the Bible. Wouldn't the Gospel writers have said something about preserving Jesus' burial linen with his precious blood on it? Wouldn't they have mentioned if it had contained a portrait of Jesus himself? As Bishop d'Arcis argued, this would seem to be proof that the Lirey Shroud with its image was not the same as the shroud of the Gospel accounts. One explanation may be that the image was not yet visible on the cloth. Perhaps it only darkened little by little. (Remember what was said about the slow yellowing of linen.) If an image could not yet be seen on Easter morning, then the Evangelists (Gospel writers) could not mention one." (Scavone, D.C., "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, 1989, p.70).

It's a fascinating and mysterious object, but it says nothing about the questions of whether Christ was a historical figure, whether He was the Son of God, or whether He rose from the dead.

Chivers is deceiving himself. Remember what the atheist Steven Schafersman pointed out, "If the shroud is authentic [i.e. not a forgery], the image is that of Jesus."

But since the Shroud, which has a continuous documented history since the 1350s, "could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period" and "is an object dated 1260AD that has a microscopic complexity such that it cannot be made by a forger in 1260AD," then it is not a forgery. Therefore it "is authentic" and therefore "the image is that of Jesus."

Therefore, the Shroud does answer "yes" to the question "whether Christ was a historical figure." If Chivers regards it as a valid "question ... whether Christ was a historical figure" then it would reveal how extreme is his anti-Christian position (on a par with arch-atheist Richard Dawkins). Clearly someone who "questions ... whether Christ was a historical figure" is not going to believe that the Shroud is authentic, let alone "whether He was the Son of God, or whether He rose from the dead."

But the Shroud does answer the question, to those whose minds are not closed against it, "whether He [Jesus] rose from the dead." Clearly if the image had to be formed by the equivalent of to "a battery of ten thousand excimer lasers "delivering the energy of "34 thousand billion watts," from His dead body, then Jesus did rise from the dead and He is "the Son of God" as He claimed to be (Mt 27:43; Mk 14:61-62; Jn 5:25; 10:36; 11:4).

More importantly, I think, the rush to suggest that it does is a bit undignified. The intelligent faithful don't need trinkets like this to justify their belief, surely?

The Shroud of Turin is not a "trinket." If Chivers really thought it was, why is he wasting so much time writing about it? And while Bible-believing Christians don't "need" the Shroud to " justify their belief," it is extrabiblical evidence that helps to "justify their belief" to others.

We are constantly told that science cannot disprove God; that it is a non-scientific question, that the two fields of science and religion are non-overlapping.

We are "constantly told" by the Richard Dawkins' of this world that science has disproven God! And Christian apologetics has long presented scientific evidence to supports its arguments for the truth of Christianity. It was only the "Non-overlapping magisteria" position of the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould" which held that "the two fields of science and religion are non-overlapping," but few have accepted that position.

This ENEA report itself is evidence that "science and religion" (i.e. Christianity) are overlapping, and that science can in fact help support the truth of Christianity.

But then, when something which goes the other way occurs - something which might suggest that one or other given Bible story is true - suddenly all that goes out of the window.

Agreed for those who argue that "the two fields of science and religion are non-overlapping" but few do. Chivers himself here tacitly admits that science can help "suggest that one or other given Bible story is true" in this case the all-important account of the suffering, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection" of Jesus.

The Turin Shroud is (almost certainly) fake. It makes no difference to anything. Get over it.

No. The ENEA report is yet another major piece of evidence that the Turin Shroud is certainly NO fake. And again, if it "makes no difference to anything," why does Chivers bother to write about it? Chivers (and his ilk) would like to be able to "Get over" the Shroud but the evidence won't let them!

Tom, if you are reading this: The Turin Shroud is NO fake. It is objective (i.e. true whether it is believed or not) evidence that Jesus lived, suffered, died on a cross for the sins of those who put their trust in Him (John 3:16) , was buried, and rose from the dead. That makes all the difference to everything. Accept it!

Because the Face on the Shroud is of Him who is to be your Judge (and mine) on the Last Day (Jn 5:26-27; Act 10:41-42; 17:31; Rom 2:16; 2Cor 5:10; 2Tim 4:1):

"In this context, although there are many individuals who are quite happy to accept that the shroud was faked in the fourteenth century, and regard it as of supreme unimportance in their everyday lives, there are others, including myself, for whom the question `Was this what you really looked like?' simply refuses to go away. Not only is the shroud as difficult to attribute to a fourteenth-century artist as the Sistine Chapel ceiling is attributable to Van Gogh, there is not even any comfort in not being able to dismiss it in such a way. For if that face, however subjectively, seems as though it has transcended two thousand years, it is as if neither time, nor the grave, have any meaning. It bespeaks the very same questions as those that wracked the pilgrims to the Veronica: `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?'" (Wilson, I., "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, 1991, p.189).

Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Italian study claims Turin Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe

2011-12-22T21:31:00.029+08:00

Here are my comments (bold) on an article in The Telegraph, on Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development (ENEA)'s finding that the Shroud's image can only be replicated by a high-energy excimer laser ("a form of ultraviolet laser": Wikipedia).

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

"Italian study claims Turin Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe," Nick Squires, The Telegraph, Rome, 19 Dec 2011. Just days before Christmas, a new study has emerged that suggests that one of Christianity's most prized but mysterious relics - the Turin Shroud - is not a medieval forgery but could be the authentic burial robe of Christ. The evidence already is overwhelming (see for example my "Bogus: Shroud of Turin?" series) that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus, bearing the image of His crucified and resurrected body! Italian scientists have conducted a series of advanced experiments which, they claim, show that the marks on the shroud - purportedly left by the imprint of Christ's body - could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period. This is an important new approach. Unlike those who claim that the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud to 1260-1390AD proved the Shroud was "medieval" but then (like the late Prof. Edward Hall, head of Oxford University's radiocarbon dating laboratory), refuse to explain how a forger could have created the Shroud's image in the fourteenth century:

"And of the Shroud itself, and the utterly valid question of how, if the carbon-dating method really is right, someone of the fourteenth century produced a fake that `good', one looks in vain for the slightest light on this in Gove's book [Relic, Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud]. Professor Hall said likewise that this question was of absolutely no interest to him and he would be giving no thought to it. But the Shroud simply cannot be left in such limbo. The carbon-dating verdict was either right or it was wrong. And if it was right, just how could someone have produced something like it back in the fourteenth century?" (Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, p.194. Emphasis original).

this group of scientists actually considered seriously what it would take to recreate the Shroud's image. And they found that "it could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period." The research will be an early Christmas present for shroud believers, but is likely to be greeted with scepticism by those who doubt that the sepia-coloured, 14ft-long cloth dates from Christ's crucifixion 2,000 years ago. There are those for whom no amount of evidence for the Shroud's authenticity would be sufficient. They are the self-styled "Shroud sceptics" who are really true believers in the Shroud's inauthenticity. For them the old saying applies: "There are none so blind as those who will not see." Sceptics have long claimed that the shroud is a medieval forgery, and radiocarbon testing conducted by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona in 1988 appeared to back up the theory, suggesting that it dated from between 1260 and 1390. The Hungarian Pray Codex (1192-1195) with its faithful reproduction of the Shroud's L-shaped poker holes alone proves the radiocarbon date of 1260-1390 has to be wrong. The only question is how did the radiocarbon dating laboratories get it so wrong? But those tests were in turn disputed on the basis that they were skewed by contamination by fibres from cloth that was used to repair the relic when it was damaged by fire in the Middle Ages. This is the most likely explanation: the radiocarbon laboratories dated a patch on the Shroud that was medieval! The new study is the latest intriguing piece of a puzzle which has baffled scientists for centuries and spawned an entire industry of research, books and documentaries. "The double image (front and back) of a scourged and crucified man, barely visible on the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin, has many physical and chemical characteristics that are so particular that the staining ... is impossible to obtain in a laboratory," concluded experts from Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development. The ENEA report is at http://opac.bologna.enea.it:8991/RT/2011/2011_14_ENEA.pdf. It is in Italian but after saving it to one's hard disk, it can then be translated into English using Google's translate facility. Thanks to Dan Porter for the following instructions:

Translating the whole ENEA report into English with Google by episcopalian A reader writes: This will do a good job of translating 2011_14_ENEA.pdf. The format gets a tad messed up and the pictures disappear so print out an Italian copy to refer to. Save this file to your computer: http://opac.bologna.enea.it:8991/RT/2011/2011_14_ENEA.pdf Load this URL in your browser: http://translate.google.com Click on "translate a document". Click Chose File and select the saved file on your computer. Click Translate and wait a minute.

However those instructions did not work `out of the box' for me. Only when I selected "Italian to English" and then copy-and-pasted the resulting web page document, "2011_14_ENEA.htm," into Microsoft Word did I obtain a readable copy. The scientists set out to "identify the physical and chemical processes capable of generating a colour similar to that of the image on the Shroud." They concluded that the exact shade, texture and depth of the imprints on the cloth could only be produced with the aid of ultraviolet lasers - technology that was clearly not available in medieval times. The report found that the depth of the image on the cloth is only "one fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter" (0.0002 mm) which is "the thickness of the primary cell wall ... [of] ... a linen fiber":

Furthermore, the color of the image resides on the outer surface of the fibrils that make up the threads of the cloth, and recent measurements of fragments of the Shroud show that the thickness of staining is extremely thin, around 200 nm = 200 billionths of a meter, or one fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter, which corresponds to the thickness of the primary cell wall of the so-called single linen fiber. ("The Shroud is not a fake," Marco Tosatti, The Vatican Insider, 12/12/2011).

This is the final nail in the coffin of all medieval forgery theories, whether painting, hot statue, camera obscura, etc.

As one of Dan Porter's readers pointed out, even Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince will have to concede that their theory that Leonardo da Vinci improved on an earlier version of the Shroud by inventing photography:

I asked Lynn and Clive to tell me more. For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with your books, could you briefly outline your theory regarding the connection between Leonardo da Vinci and the Turin Shroud? In our 1994 book Turin Shroud: In Whose Image?, revised in 2006 as Turin Shroud: How Leonardo da Vinci Fooled History, we argued that he faked the alleged holy relic - believed to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus, miraculously imprinted with his image and bearing his redemptive blood. We also argued, based on intensive research, that he created the image using a basic form of photography - a camera obscura - which is why it has puzzled so many people for so long. And to cap it all, we believe that he used his own face as the model for that of Christ. All of this was not only within his capabilities - he was known to experiment with camera obscuras, for example - but it also perfectly fits his mind-set. We believe that Leonardo's Shroud was first displayed in 1494 in a town very close to Milan (where he was working at the time) and replaced an earlier, cruder, and more obviously faked "Holy Shroud" which had been exhibited in France. ("Da Vinci and The Turin Shroud Did Leonardo fake the face of Christ?," James Clark, The Morton Report, November 17, 2011).

is now refuted, unless they want to claim that Leonardo invented the laser!:

Email of the Day: Picknett and Prince Changed Their Mind December 19, 2011 episcopalian ... A reader writes: Just heard from Picknett and Prince. After reading the ENEA Report the conspiracy theory duo have changed their mind. Leonardo used an excimer laser instead of a camera obscura, they now tell us. Look for a new book and National Geographic special.

The scientists used extremely brief pulses of ultraviolet light to replicate the kind of marks found on the burial cloth. Not only did not anyone even know about "ultraviolet light" until the 19th century, the actual "total power of VUV [vacuum ultraviolet] radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen" of the Shroud is about "34 thousand billion watts":

However, ENEA scientists warn, "it should be noted that the total power of VUV 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 )" (Tosatti, The Vatican Insider, 12/12/2011).

They concluded that the iconic image of the bearded man must therefore have been created by "some form of electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short wavelength)."That the image on the Shroud was formed by some sort of radiation, as Jesus' body was resurrected, has long been the explanation that best fits the facts. In 1978, Ian Wilson concluded his first book on the Shroud by hypothesising that the Shroud's image is "a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection" "indelibly fused onto the cloth" by "a burst of mysterious power from it":

"Even from the limited available information, a hypothetical glimpse of the power operating at the moment of creation of the Shroud's image may be ventured. In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood, on a stone slab. Suddenly, there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant the blood dematerializes, dissolved perhaps by the flash, while its image and that of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection." (Wilson, I., 1978, "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, p.211).

Although they stopped short of offering a non-scientific explanation for the phenomenon, their findings will be embraced by those who believe that the marks on the shroud were miraculously created at the moment of Christ's Resurrection. This "a non-scientific explanation for the phenomenon" is an example of the modern confusion of "scientific" with the philosophy of Naturalism, i.e. the unproven and unprovable assumption that `nature is all there is - there is no supernatural.' But if the Shroud's image is in fact a byproduct of Jesus' resurrection, then that is the truth and if science is a search for the truth, it is therefore a "scientific explanation for the phenomenon." Unless the proposition is that it is better for science to embrace a false naturalistic explanation than a true super-naturalistic one! "We are not at the conclusion, we are composing pieces of a fascinating and complex scientific puzzle," the team wrote in their report. It is sufficient that the ENEA team conducted the tests (over a 5-year period 2005-2010) but stopped short of actually drawing a supernatural conclusion. Such is the dominant irrational prejudice within science that it would probably lead to them being persecuted and their paper being forcibly retracted (as happened to the Smithsonian Institution's Richard M. Sternberg). Prof Paolo Di Lazzaro, On Googling "Paolo Di Lazzaro" I discovered this 2008 paper on this very topic, which either I was not aware of, or had forgotten:

"Abstract. The body image of the Turin Shroud has not yet been explained by traditional science; so a great interest in a possible mechanism of image formation still exists. We present preliminary results of excimer laser irradiation (wavelength of 308 nm) of a raw linen fabric and of a linen cloth. The permanent coloration of both linens is a threshold effect of the laser beam intensity, and it can be achieved only in a narrow range of irradiation parameters, which are strongly dependent on the pulse width and time sequence of laser shots. We also obtained the first direct evidence of latent images impressed on linen that appear in a relatively long period (one year) after laser irradiation that at first did not generate a clear image. The results are compared with the characteristics of the Turin Shroud, reflecting the possibility that a burst of directional ultraviolet radiation may have played a role in the formation of the Shroud image." (Giuseppe Baldacchini, Paolo Di Lazzaro, Daniele Murra, and Giulio Fanti, "Coloring linens with excimer lasers to simulate the body image of the Turin Shroud," Applied Optics, Vol. 47, Issue 9, pp. 1278-1285 (2008).

the head of the team, said: "When one talks about a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things like miracles and resurrection." Indeed! Dead bodies do not naturally emit "a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen," let alone one with the energy of "34 thousand billion watts"! That it occurred on the Shroud purported to have covered Jesus' body, which according to Christianity was resurrected and changed instantaneously (1Cor 15:50-52) from a "natural body" into a "glorious" (Php 3:20-21 ) "spiritual body" (1Cor 15:35,41-44), should be sufficient proof of Christianity being true to those whose minds are not closed to that possibility. "But as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes. This is perhaps understandable but reflects a physical science view of "scientific processes." But that does not stop many branches of modern science drawing conclusions from "verifiable scientific processes." For example, Forensic Science presents its conclusions in such a way that juries and judges convict those accused of crimes to prison and even execution, on far less evidence than there is for the Shroud being the burial sheet of Jesus. We hope our results can open up a philosophical and theological debate but we will leave the conclusions to the experts, and ultimately to the conscience of individuals." I agree with this. In the end, God allows those who deny the evidence that He has graciously provided in the Shroud, the freedom to do so. But they will have to explain to Jesus their Judge (Jn 5:26-27; Act 10:41-42; 17:31; Rom 2:16; 2Cor 5:10; 2Tim 4:1) why they refused to accept that evidence. The research, conducted in laboratories in Frascati, a town outside Rome famous for its white wine, backs up the outcome of tests by a group of 31 American scientists between 1978 and 1981. The Americans - who called themselves the Shroud of Turin Research Project or STURP - conducted 120 hours of X-rays and ultraviolet light tests on the linen cloth. They concluded that the marks were not made by paints, pigments or dyes and that the image was not "the product of an artist", but that at the same time it could not be explained by modern science. In a sense the image now has been explained by modern science, but it is not the explanation that naturalistic science expected! The mythology of modern naturalistic science is that "science" (being objectively true) will continually advance and "religion" (being objectively false) will correspondingly continually retreat before it. Or as Darwin's "bulldog" Thomas Henry Huxley famously put it, "extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules [; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain]":

"But myths also were used to promote science, as in Huxley's statement that `extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules.' [Huxley (1894) Vol II p 52].Like the infant Hercules, science grew in power. Huxley's symbolic inversion in casting theologians as serpents could not have been lost on his audience." (Caudill, E., 1997, "Darwinian Myths: The Legends and Misuses of a Theory," The University of Tennessee Press: Knoxville TN, p.136).

That modern science could actually help prove that Christian theologians were right after all, is almost unthinkable to those brought up to accept uncritically that foundational scientific myth. "There are no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image, nor can any combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances explain the image adequately." The US team - which included nuclear physicists, thermal chemists, biophysicists and forensic pathologists - concluded: "The image is an ongoing mystery." That was in 1978. But now with these findings, the mystery has effectively been solved. The image on the Shroud was created by Jesus' resurrection, as His body underwent a change of physical state. One of Christianity's greatest objects of veneration, the shroud appears to show the imprint of a man with long hair and a beard whose body bears wounds consistent with having been crucified. And with having been resurrected! Each year it lures millions of pilgrims to Turin Cathedral, where it is kept in a specially designed, climate-controlled case.There it has remained, except for short periods, since 1578 - over 400 years! God's ongoing gracious miracle to the world He so loves (Jn 3:16). Further proof that God "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think" (Eph 3:20 KJV)! Scientists have never been able to explain how the image of a man's body, complete with nail wounds to his wrists and feet, pinpricks from thorns around his forehead and a spear wound to his chest, could have formed on the cloth. Now they can. But will they accept the explanation? The Vatican has never said whether it believes the shroud to be authentic or not, although Pope Benedict XVI has said that the enigmatic image imprinted on the cloth "reminds us always" of Christ's suffering. It will be interesting to see if, after this, the Vatican drops this official pretense and comes right out and states that, on the basis of the overwhelming weight of the evidence, the Shroud of Turin is the very burial sheet of Jesus' and bears the imprint of His crucified and resurrected body. Because it does! Other news articles on this include (in date order-earliest first):

"The Shroud is not a fake," Marco Tosatti, The Vatican Insider, 12/12/2011.
"Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural," Michael Day, The Independent, 20 December 2011.

"The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it," Tom Chivers, The Telegraph, December 20th, 2011.

"The Shroud of Turin Wasn't Faked, Italian Experts Say," Suzan Clarke, ABC News (blog), Dec 21, 2011.

"Turin Shroud 'was created by flash of supernatural light': It couldn't be a medieval forgery, say scientists," David Wilkes, Mail Online, 21st December 2011.

"Shroud Of Turin, Jesus' Proposed Burial Cloth, Is Authentic, Italian Study Suggests," Ileana Llorens, The Huffington Post, 12/21/11.

"Shroud of Turin can’t be a fake, researchers say: Scientists unable to replicate cloth’s Christ-like image," Rheana Murray, NY Daily News, December 22 2011.

"Mystery of Turin Shroud revealed," Milena Faustova, Voice of Russia, Dec 22, 2011.

"Was Holy Shroud created in a flash? Italian researchers resurrect claim," Alan Boyle, MSNBC, Dec. 23, 2011.

"Scientists say Shroud of Turin authentic, of supernatural origin," Nancy Houser, Digital Journal, Dec 23, 2011.

"Vatican's official newspaper says science cannot explain Turin Shroud," Nick Squires, The Telegraph, 29 Dec 2011.

"Italian state experts create similar colorations seen on Turin shroud," Carol Glatz, The Pilot, 12/29/2011.

"The Shroud of Turin: forgery or divine? A scientist writes," Tom Chivers, The Telegraph December 30, 2011.

Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #9 The man has wounds and bloodstains matching the Gospels' description of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus Christ

2011-12-14T09:12:00.005+08:00

This is part #9 "Has wounds and bloodstains matching the Gospels' description of the death and burial of Jesus Christ." which is part of my series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!." The series is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I am preparing. The previous post in this series was part #8 "Bears the faint image, front and back, head to head, of a naked man." For more information about this series, see parts #1 "Title Page" and #2 "Contents".

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

Here are some quotes, in date order (earliest first), referencing the above points:

"What Is the Turin Shroud? In the summer of 1978 three million tourists visited Torino (Turin), Italy. They had come from all over the world to wait in line and to look upon a linen cloth which had been in Turin for more than four hundred years. They knew that the cloth had not been shown to the general public for almost fifty years and that this would likely be its only display in their lifetime. As they entered the cathedral of St. John the Baptist they could see a large, narrow cloth measuring 14.3 feet long by 3.5 feet wide. It was flood-lit and was mounted in front of the main altar at the far end of the church. Gradually, as they neared the altar, they began to notice on the cloth an extremely faint, reddish-colored, life-sized image of a bearded man. The man looked strikingly like traditional images of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the cloth known as the Shroud of Turin is thought by many people to be the actual burial wrapping of Jesus. Both the front and the back of the body can be seen on the cloth. From either end the figure appears feet-head, head-feet. This tells us that he may have been placed on one half of the cloth. The other half would then have been pulled over the front of the body. There are stains on the body that resemble blood stains from an ancient Roman scourging and crucifixion with nails. On the front, there are trickles of blood on the man's forehead, a large stain on his right side, and stains from a wound in one wrist. (The other hand cannot be seen.) Both arms show blood runoffs from the hands to the elbows. On the back can be counted about 120 small stains which conform to the shape of a Roman whip. More blood trickles are seen on the back of the head. The feet are bloodied from apparent nail wounds. In short, the wounds on the image of the Shroud conform to the story of Jesus' crucifixion as told in the Gospels. There are other visible marks. The Shroud has two long burn lines running down its whole length. It has fourteen triangle-shaped patches covering burn holes. There are also several diamond-shaped water marks. The cause of these marks is well known: The Shroud was once damaged in a fire in Chambery, France, in the year 1532. Finally, along one whole side, a strip of linen cloth has been sewn on." (Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, pp.6,8. Emphasis original).

"Measuring 14 ft. 3 in. long by 3 ft. 7 in. wide and known to exist since at least 1354 A.D., the Shroud might at first appear to be an odd object for the serious studies and debates which have characterized its most recent history. Caught in a fire in 1532 and almost destroyed by dripping molten silver, the Shroud survived with a twin series of burn marks down its entire length. Almost every destructive burn is mirrored by a similar one across from it, reminiscent of paper doll cutouts. But most compellingly, this cloth reveals the frontal and dorsal images of a man, the whole body of an apparent crucifixion victim. The double image, arranged head to head with the feet at opposite ends of the cloth, appears to have been created after being wrapped lengthwise around the dead body. The person apparently suffered wounds popularly associated with crucifixion-a pierced scalp; serious beatings in the face and down the length of the body, both front and back; pierced wrists and feet; and a larger wound in the side of the chest." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1990, "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, pp.11-12).

"Shroud aficionados entering the Cathedral of John the Baptist in Turin are confronted, outside the Royal Chapel, with a full-size, colour photograph of the Turin Shroud. That will have to satisfy their curiosity. The shroud itself is stored, elaborately coffined, on an altar behind a triply locked iron grill in the cathedral's chapel. It is only displayed to the public on special occasions every forty years or so. The photograph shows an altogether impressive and beautiful stained linen cloth the colour of old ivory, 14' 3" long and 3' 7" wide. It bears the faint front and back imprint of a naked crucified man with hands folded modestly over his genitals. The image depicts all the stigmata of the crucifixion described in the Bible including a large blood stain from the spear wound in the side. The linen weave is a three to one herringbone twill. A seam or tuck divides the main body of the shroud from a 6" side strip of the same weave which runs almost the entire length of the cloth. A backing cloth of basket weave covering the entire back area of the shroud is exposed at both ends of this side strip where pieces of the side strip have either been removed or never existed. The most notable feature of the shroud is the sixteen patches that were applied symmetrically in pairs to the front of the shroud in 1534, two years after it was damaged in a fire that occurred in the chapel in Chambery, France, where the shroud was stored in a silver chest. Gouts of molten silver burned through the shroud, fortunately outside the image, in a symmetric fashion due to the way in which it was folded in the chest. The shroud was doused with water before the fire damage could spread to the image." (Gove, H.E. , 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK, p.1).

"The Shroud is in the form of a cloth strip, yellowish-white in colour, 4.37 metres long, 1.11 metres wide and 1.450 kg in weight. It shows, close to each other at the head, the front and rear imprint of the body of a man. From the archaeological standpoint, the Shroud is a burial-sheet, wrapped round a corpse on the table in the tomb where the body was laid. To forensic medical examination, the image of the body seems to be stiffened by rigor mortis, and reveals a whole series of wounds and injuries corresponding to those recounted in the Gospels as being inflicted on Jesus. Signs of flagellation over the whole body, small wounds in the scalp caused by a helmet of thorns, two torn areas in the left scapula zone and the right super-scapular zone, holes in the wrists and at the feet, which could be caused by the penetration of nails, and a wide injury caused by a steel weapon in the lower right rib region." (Cassanelli, A., 2002, "The Holy Shroud," Williams, B., transl., Gracewing: Leominster UK, p.15).

The next post in this series is part #10 "His death and burial matches the Gospels' description of that of Jesus Christ."

Stephen E. Jones, B.Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #8 Bears the faint image, front and back, head to head, of a naked man

2011-11-22T06:16:00.005+08:00

This is part #8 "Bears the faint image, front and back, head to head, of a naked man" which is part of my series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!." The series is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I am preparing. The previous post in this series was part #7 "Kept in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy, since 1578." For more information about this series, see parts "#1 Title Page" and "#2 Contents" .

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

Here are some quotes in date order (oldest first) which serve as references to the points I make in the PowerPoint slide:

"FOR MORE than half a century, scholars in the most divergent fields have been at loggerheads over the authenticity of what is commonly called the Shroud of Turin. An immense literature both pro and con has grown up over the decades. The Cloth in question is a piece of linen, 171 inches long by 43¼ inches wide (4.36 by 1.10 m.), preserved in a chapel of the cathedral of Turin. The Cloth today is marred by numerous burn marks and water stains, sustained in 1532, during a fire in the castle chapel of Chambéry. But over and above these, it has peculiar markings of its own-the frontal and dorsal image of a full grown man." (Bulst, W., 1957, "The Shroud of Turin," McKenna, S. & Galvin, J.J., transl., Bruce Publishing Co: Milwaukee WI, p.1. Emphasis original).

"There are marks on the Turin Shroud. Some (the most obvious) are accidental and easily explained. Other are remedial and present no problem. But the central markings seem to be intentional and baffle all natural explanation. The accidental marks are burns and singes caused by molten silver in a fire which broke out in the Sainte-Chapelle at Chambéry on the night of 3-4, December 1532. The remedial marks are triangular linen patches applied to the worst of these burns by the Poor Clares of Sainte-Claire-en-Ville in April 1534. But the marks down the centre of the Shroud's length are mysterious in the extreme. Quite what they are, or how they were caused, no one can honestly say, least of all the scientists who have examined therm. They are not marks caused by paint or any pigment. They have not penetrated the linen fibres, as paint would have done, nor have they insinuated themselves between the fibres, nor do they appear on the back of the cloth. These marks have shape and figure. At first sight they might suggest two ghostly brass-rubbings of some medieval knight bereft of armour. On closer inspection they are seen faintly but perceptibly to represent the naked body - both back and front - of a mature bearded male with long hair who would have stood about 5 feet 11 inches [178 cms] tall and weighed in the region of 12½ stone, or 175 pounds [79.5 kgs]. It appears that he has been laid supine on one half of the cloth, while the other half has been doubled back to cover him from face to feet, so that the two life-size images lie head to head down the centre of the Shroud." (McNair, P., "The Shroud and History: fantasy, fake or fact?," in Jennings, P., ed., 1978, "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud ," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, pp.22-23).

"The Turin Shroud is a linen cloth the color of old ivory measuring 4.4 by 1.1 m. It bears the faint front and back, head to head, imprint of a naked man. This remarkable image depicts all the stigmata of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as described in the Bible. As a result, it is thought by many to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus. The shroud's known history dates back to about the year 1357 when it was displayed in a church in Lirey, France. The shroud, or some version of it, eventually passed into the hands of the House of Savoy. The shroud was stored in a silver chest in a chapel in Chambery, France and in 1532 a fire raged through the chapel. Part of the chest melted and gouts of molten silver burned through the shroud, fortunately outside the image, in a symmetric fashion due to the way it was folded in the chest. The shroud was doused with water before further damage could occur and the burn holes were later patched. In 1578 the seat of the House of Savoy was moved to Turin, Italy and the shroud moved with it. In 1983 the last king of Italy, Umberto II, a member of the House of Savoy, willed the shroud to the Vatican. It is presently stored in a silver reliquary in a glass case behind the main altar of the Cathedral of John the Baptist in Turin, under the custody of the Archbishop of Turin." (Gove, H.E., Mattingly, S.J., David, A.R. & L.A. Garza-Valdes, 1997, "A problematic source of organic contamination of linen," Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research - Section B, pp.504-507, p.504. My emphasis).

"In November 1973, while I was living in Bristol, England, a call came through from the United States alerting me that for the first time in forty years the Shroud was to be brought out for public gaze from its then normal repository in the Royal Chapel. It was to be shown on Italian television, and there was also to be an unprecedented opportunity for journalists and interested individuals such as myself to view the cloth at first hand. ... By lunch-time on 22 November I found myself, with some thirty others, being given a brief preliminary introduction by Turin's then archbishop, Cardinal Michele Pellegrino. The group was escorted up a grand marble staircase of Turin's Royal Palace and into a huge, frescoed hall, the Hall of the Swiss. At the far end of this the Shroud hung upright in a simple oak frame, its fourteen- foot length brilliantly illuminated by high-powered television lights. ... It did not look at all as I had expected. Everything that I knew of the Shroud up to this point - and I thought I knew quite a lot - had been based on black-and-white photographs that, whether they are in positive or negative, make it look a lot darker than it really is ... To see the original's faintness and subtlety was really quite breath-taking. Framed by the burns and patches from the other fire in which the Shroud came perilously close to destruction - a similarly ruinous chapel blaze while it was being kept at Chambéry in 1532 - there was the familiar `body image' that to me was the Shroud's central mystery. If you stood back you could make it out readily enough: a bearded face, a pronounced chest, crossed hands, legs side by side, together with, as one looked up at the back-of-the-body image, a long rope of hair, taut shoulders and buttocks, and soles of the feet. But the image colour was the subtlest yellow sepia, and as you moved in closer to anything like touching distance .. it seemed virtually to disappear like mist. Because of the lack of outline and the minimum contrast to the ivory-coloured background, it became well-nigh impossible to `see' whatever detail you were trying to look at without stepping some distance back again. To me, as a practising life-painter and an enthusiast of art history, it seemed absolutely impossible that any artist-faker could have created an image of this kind, certainly not one of centuries ago. The succeeding day and a half during which I was allowed some eight hours of further direct examination served to reaffirm my conviction, despite all the obvious rational objections, that this cloth simply had to be genuine." (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.3-4. Emphasis original).

"All around the forehead of the face can be discerned overlying trickles in a distinctively redder colour. Although the only logical interpretation of these trickles is as blood stains, their colour under artificial lighting is more magenta than is normally associated with blood which is even a day old, let alone twenty centuries. In room interior daylight ... they can appear more maroon, deepening in places where the trickling of droplets has terminated. In this same colour there is also a large `blood' flow overlying the right-hand side of the figure's chest. More, similar-coloured `blood' trickles down the figure's forearms, one larger, distinctively V -shaped stain at the one visible wrist seemingly indicating the source of this. In the `body' image colour, bony-looking hands are very clearly discernible crossed over the genitals region. And yet more `blood' is apparent at the cloth's far left end, where the figure's feet might be construed to have been. ... When we turn our attention to the right-hand half of the cloth there are several more `blood' trickles in the back-of-the-head area, resembling those earlier noted on the forehead. These trickles overlie a head-shaped `body' image suggestive of long hair, together with what seemed ... to be an unbound pigtail lying in parallel with the spine ... Again in the `body' image coloration, there is the impression of shoulders that became peppered with faint but distinctively regular-size marks, each having a characteristic dumb-bell shape. In the `blood' colour a chain-like complex of rivulets runs across what would appear to be the small of the figure's back, while a scattering of more 'body'-coloured dumb-bells can be discerned on faintly indicated buttocks. Limbs are similarly vaguely indicated in the `body' image colour, the back of the figure's upper or left-hand leg seemingly slightly more strongly imprinted than its partner. At the cloth's far right we can make out the surprisingly well-defined sole of a foot, with its `body' image colour almost completely covered over with heel-to-toe `blood'. From the heel/ankle area a rill of more `blood' seems to have spilled sideways directly onto the cloth, arguably as the figure was laid in it, while a complex of further `bloodstains', as from a second foot, is also evident, though rather less clearly delineated. Yet, although this enigmatic `body and blood' imprint is the Shroud's very raison d'etre ... it is by no means its most conspicuous feature. That most doubtful `honour' must instead go to two lines of brownish marks and add-on patches that each run the length of the cloth transversely, only just beyond the sides of the two head-to-head figure imprints, thereby effectively framing these. These brownish marks are scorches from a fire in December 1532, when the Shroud was being kept in the Savoys' then capital of Chambéry, high in what are now the French Alps. As the cloth lay in an ornate silver casket, secure behind a multi-locked iron grille, the Savoys' Sainte Chapelle burst into flames, leaving no time for the clergy to obtain the keys from the various worthies holding them. Although a hastily summoned blacksmith managed to prise the grille open in the nick of time, the Shroud's casket was found to have melted in the heat. Inside the cloth had been stored away folded up in forty-eight folds, and upon its being opened up a drop of molten silver fell on one corner, causing it to burst into flame, and necessitating a hurried dousing with water. Although the Shroud had not been destroyed, as some rumoured at the time, it was undeniably seriously scarred and blemished with a sorry patchwork of burn-holes, scorchmarks and water-stains." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, pp.19-22).

"The Shroud of Turin ... is a sheet of linen fourteen feet six inches long by three feet nine inches wide [442.5 cm x 113.7 cm], these dimensions being a broad approximation because of two missing corners. Most of those who have had the opportunity to view it close up describe its general background coloration as ivory. Even so, one of the first surprises on any viewing is just how clean the fabric appears for an object theoretically two thousand years old. ... Another surprise is the Shroud's general state of repair. Any examination in close-up clearly reveals the cloth's tight herringbone weave, and how fundamentally strong it remains, with no sign of disintegration. Yet the texture is not at all coarse in the manner of sailcloth or sacking. Instead, as was possible to determine with a surreptitious touch during the 1973 showing, it has the basic lightness of a modern-day linen bed- sheet. But what principally draws the eye during any direct viewing is the Shroud's famous and all-important double image. Like the subtlest of shadows, cast on the cloth can be seen faint imprints of the back and front of the body of a man with long hair and a beard. He seems to be quite naked, bloodstained in places, and laid out in the attitude of death. To those unfamiliar with the Shroud, the head-to-head arrangement of the two imprints ... can only appear most curious without some explanation of the basic theory behind how they seem to have been formed. First the body the Shroud wrapped was laid on one half of the cloth, thereby creating the back-of- the-body imprint; the remaining half of the cloth was then drawn over the head and down to the feet, creating the front-of-the-body imprint. Given a corpse soaked in sweat and blood, each side of the body thereby acted like some kind of printing plate. Yet another of the surprises arising from viewing the Shroud directly rather than via a photograph is discovering just how pale and subtle the two body imprints appear. First-hand assessments of their colouring range from straw-yellow to sepia, much depending on the prevailing light conditions. Nevertheless there is universal agreement on their most enigmatic property: the closer one tries to examine them, the more they seem to melt like mist." (Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.6-7, 311n1).

The next post in this series is part #9, "The man has wounds and bloodstains matching the Gospels' description of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus Christ."

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #7 Kept in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy, since 1578

2011-11-14T22:09:00.007+08:00

This is part #7, "Kept in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy, since 1578" which is part of of my series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!," which is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I am preparing. The previous post in this series was part #6, "An old, yellowed, rectangular, linen sheet about 4.4 x 1.1 metres." For more information about this series, see parts "#1 Title Page" and "#2 Contents" .

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

Here are some more quotes, in chronological order (earliest first), which mention the Shroud being kept in in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy, since 1578, i.e. over 430 years, except for comparatively brief periods, e.g. when it was moved to a secret location southern Italy, later revealed to be the Abbey of Montevergine, in Avelino, Italy:

"What is the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud of Turin is a large piece of linen cloth (14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches) which is preserved today in a chapel attached to the cathedral in Turin, Italy. It is called the Shroud be cause tradition says that the Body of Christ was wrapped in this cloth at the time of His burial. It is called the Shroud of Turin because since 1578 the Shroud has been preserved in Turin. Historians trace the cloth back to France where in 1389 it was the subject of a controversy between the Canons of the Cathedral at Lirey and the Bishop of Troyes. The Canons claimed that it was the Burial Cloth of Christ, while the Bishop said that the image on the cloth was a painting. .... From May 25th to June 2nd, 1898 the Shroud was displayed publicly in the Cathedral at Turin. Permission was sought to photograph the cloth for the first time ... When permission was granted, Secondo Pia was chosen to take the photograph. ... The resulting photograph was anything but routine. .... The image on the glass plate was not negative, but positive! ... the only possible explanation for the positive image was that the image on the cloth ... was itself a negative image! But how could this be? Photography was less than a hundred years old. This cloth was certainly five hundred years. It existed long before anyone knew what a negative image was. When Pia's discovery was reported in scientific journals, scientists became curious about the origin of this `negative' image which ante-dated photography by several hundred years. In Paris at the Sorbonne University under the direction of Dr. Paul Vignon a group of scientists studied the glass plates provided by Secondo Pia. The group included ... Dr. Yves Delage, a member of the French Academy of Science and, incidentally, a professed agnostic. After an intensive investigation of eighteen months the scientists were convinced of the authenticity of the Shroud, and they believed that they had discovered a process by which the imprints could have been formed (Vignon's vaporograph theory). On April 12, 1902, Delage presented a report to the French Academy of Science. Delage rejected categorically the possibility that the image had been painted. All evidence indicated that the image was actually the imprint of a human corpse. Accepting the Gospels as historical records, Delage the agnostic, went one step further and on purely scientific and circumstantial evidence accepted the identification of the Man of the Shroud as Christ of the Gospels." (Otterbein, A.J., "Introduction," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., 1977, "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, pp.3-4).

"Evasively was also the way Cardinal Fossati had answered the Nazis' repeated request, during World War II, to see the shroud. Although they said they wanted to view it for scholarly and devotional purposes, the cardinal had already spirited the shroud from its resting place over the altar in the shroud chapel to a stone fortress overlooking Avellino, 140 miles south of Rome. Built in the twelfth century and accessible only by a dirt road, the building now was the Benedictine monastery of Monte Vergine. When the shroud arrived, it was placed in a wooden box, sealed, and placed under the main altar in the chapel. If the monastery were bombed, the monks could rush it to a cave in the heart of the mountain. In 1946, in gratitude for their preserving the shroud while war raged up and down the country, Cardinal Fossati gave the monks and several invited guests a private showing of the shroud." (Wilcox, R.K., 1977, "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, p.18).

"Except for the duration of the Second World War (when it was hidden high up in the Southern Italian Province of Avellino in the crypt of the Abbey of Montevergine ... the Shroud has remained for the last four hundred years at Turin. It was brought there from Chambéry in September 1578 (hence its exposition throughout the month of September 1978 and the date of the publication of this book), ostensibly to shorten the journey of the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, St Charles Borromeo (1538-84), who wished to venerate it, but more probably as part of a political move on the part of its owner, Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy (1528-80), who was planning to transfer his capital from Chambéry to Turin. Since 1694 it has been preserved in a chapel specially built for it between the apse of the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista and the Royal Palace, known as both the Cappella Reale and the Cappella della Santa Sindone. This shrine is the work of the Theatine architect, Guarino Guarini of Modena (1624-83), and was commissioned by Duke Vittorio Amedeo II (1666-1732), the first King of Sardinia. The bold dome of this impressive black marble rotonda is 195 feet high, and soars beyond the top of most internal photographs. The Shroud - when not exposed - is kept rolled up round a pole inside a silvered wooden reliquary behind a grille above the altar. Although jealously guarded and protected by asbestos, it has been the target of pyromania even in this decade: on 1, October 1972 some acrobatic Herostratus climbed over the palace roof, broke into Guarini's chapel through the dome and tried to set fire to Christendom's most precious relic, repeating his gesture twenty days later." (McNair, P., "The Shroud and History: fantasy, fake or fact?," in Jennings, P., ed., 1978, "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, pp.23-24).

"WHAT IS THE HOLY SHROUD? The Holy Shroud of Turin is a piece of cloth measuring 14'3" by 3'7" which bears an image of a man laid out in death. The Shroud is kept today in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John in Turin, Italy. It is regarded by many millions of people as the genuine burial shroud of Jesus Christ. Its documented existence takes us back over 600 years and there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence to indicate its continuous existence back to the time of Christ 2,000 years ago in Palestine. Since the end of the nineteenth century an enormous amount of scientific investigation has been carried out on the Shroud and on photographs of it whose enigmatic properties have baffled highly acclaimed scientists in many parts of the world." (Morgan, R., 1983, "Shroud Guide," Runciman Press: Manly NSW, Australia, p.7. Emphasis original).

"What is the Shroud of Turin? ... The Shroud, often called the `Holy Shroud,' is most commonly referred to as the Shroud of Turin because it has been physically located in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy for over 400 years. This precious cloth is considered by millions of Christians throughout the world to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ - a direct witness to His passion, death and resurrection 2,000 years ago. The Shroud is the holiest relic in Christianity. Physically, the Shroud is a remarkably well-preserved oblong piece of linen cloth 14'3" long (4.36 meters) and 3'7" wide (1.1 meters), weighing approximately 5 1/2 lbs. (2.45 kgs.). The linen fibers are woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill with a Z-twist and consist of a fairly heavy yarn (34/100 of a millimeter thick) of Near Eastern or Mediterranean basin flax. Down the left side of the Shroud is a border approximately 3 1/2 inches wide (8 centimeters from the edge) running the full length of the linen cloth. Once thought to be a side-strip sewn onto the main cloth, it has now been determined to be a selvedge, that is, a piece of cloth woven into the main cloth so that it will not unravel. It is done in such a manner as to require no hem. The reason for adding the selvedge is not known for certain. However, historian and renowned English sindonologist Ian Wilson speculates that the selvedge may have been added at a later date perhaps to center the image on the cloth for viewing. He considers this the most logical explanation and points out that the selvedge was added at the same time as the fringe and gold covering, the overall purpose being to transform the cloth from a shroud to what seems to have been some sort of `portrait.'" (Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY, pp.1-2. Emphasis original).

"The burial cloth known today as the Shroud of Turin has been kept in the city of Turin (Torino), Italy, since 1578. In 1694, the Shroud was placed in a special chapel within the Italian cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Except for a brief period during World War II when the cloth was moved elsewhere for safety, the Shroud remained in this cathedral until the night of April 11, 1997, when a raging fire necessitated its removal. The Shroud was not damaged, and was kept elsewhere in the city until again placed in the cathedral for public display from April 18 through June 14, 1998 (Van Biema, 1998)." (Danin, A., Whanger, A.D., Baruch, U. & Whanger, M., "Flora of the Shroud of Turin," Missouri Botanical Garden Press: St. Louis MO, 1999, p.3).

"Emmanuel Philibert, the Duke of Savoy, brought the Shroud to Turin, Italy on September 14, 1578. One of the principal reasons for doing so was so that St. Charles Borromeo might venerate it. The saint had been the first resident archbishop of Milan in more than eighty years. ... The Shroud was never returned to Chambery and was exposed for veneration each year on the 4th of May in front of the Palazzo Madama. ... On June 1, 1694, the Shroud was placed in a chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist designed by the abbot, Guarino Guarini. Except for a brief period during World War II, it has been kept there ever since. In 1939, Cardinal Maurilio Fossati, Archbishop of Turin, secretly moved the Shroud for safekeeping to the Benedictine Abbey of Montevergine located at Avellino, about 140 miles south of Rome. There it remained until it was returned to Turin in 1946. That year the last Duke of Savoy, King Umberto II, was deposed. He died in Geneva on March 18, 1983. In his will he bequeathed the Shroud to the Holy See, but the Pope left the relic in the custodial care of the Archbishop of Turin." (Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, pp.18-20).

"In 1453 Marguerite de Charny, the last descendant of the family, gave custody of the Shroud to Anna di Lusignano, the wife of Duke Lodovico of Savoy, who transferred it to Chambery, then Capital of Savoy. Here, in the `Sainte Chapelle' during the night of 4 December 1532, the Shroud suffered very severe damage as a result of a fierce fire; the damage caused, even though lovingly repaired by the Poor Clares, is still evident. In 1578, in order to ease the exhausting pilgrimage for St Charles Borromeo, who was travelling on foot and fasting to Chambery, Duke Emanuel Philibert moved the Shroud to Turin, his new capital. Since 1694, the Shroud has been preserved in the Chapel of the same name built between the Cathedral and the Royal Palace, to a design by the Theatine father and architect, Guarino Guarini. Venerated beneath the famous dome, it is contained in an ornate urn, the three keys to which are separately in the possession of the Custodian, the Archbishop, and the Proprietor. The latter, by virtue of the will of Umberto (Humbert) of Savoy, the last king of Italy, is now, since 1983, the Holy Father himself. The Shroud, stretched and stitched on to a backing of Holland canvas, has been preserved rolled up for its entire length around a wooden cylinder.Only on occasions associated with the Church or the history of the House of Savoy was the Shroud exposed for the viewing of the faithful. The relic has thus never left Turin, a city with which it has such deep associations, except that in 1706, during the siege by the French, it was taken for safe-keeping to Genoa, while in the terrible years of the Second World War, after a stay in the Quirinale, it was hidden in the Benedictine Monastery of Montevergine (Avellino)." (Cassanelli, A. , 2002, "The Holy Shroud," Williams, B., transl., Gracewing: Leominster UK, p.14).

"The Fire of 1997 Before midnight on 11 April, in the Guarini Royal Chapel of the Holy Shroud adjoining the Turin Cathedral, a fire broke out, the flames quickly engulfing the Chapel. The seventeenth-century altar was set ablaze, with debris raining down upon it from the high dome above. Because of restoration work that had been going on in the Chapel, including rewiring, the fire alarms had been switched off and there was no night watchman on duty. Fortunately, the Shroud, in its silver casket, had been removed earlier from its place above the elaborate Bertola altar and placed in a temporary display case in the Cathedral, behind the main altar. When the fire brigade arrived at the scene and burst into the Cathedral, the nave was filled with smoke billowing in from the Chapel entrance. As almost 200 firemen set about quenching the blaze, one of them rushed to the Shroud's display case and flailed a sledgehammer at its 4 centimetre-thick toughened glass panel. At great personal risk, fireman Mario Tematore smashed a hole in the glass - even though it was reputedly unbreakable. He withdrew the Shroud's 1.4 metre-long silver casket and rushed it to safety. .... The Guarini Chapel, totally guttered by fire, was left a smoldering, blackened ruin, and its entry wall adjoining the rear of the Cathedral was extensively damaged. ... Some days later, with the Shroud casket safely in the Cardinal's residence, it was opened and the cloth was removed and rolled onto a long table for examination. To the relief of all persons present, it had survived unharmed. In the aftermath of the fire ... the Shroud ... was transferred into a new, high-tech, bullet-proof glass conservation case, weighing 3 tons .... In an air-conditioned atmosphere of nitrogen and the inert argon gas, specially created for the cloth's protection, the Shroud was stretched out full length. The case was placed behind the cathedral's high altar and was surrounded by black curtaining." (Whiting, B., 2006, "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, pp.175-177, 179. Emphasis original).

The next post in this series is part #8 "Bears the faint image, front and back, head to head, of a naked man."

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign Jesus is Jehovah!

Earlier issues of the BSTS Newsletter now online

2011-11-02T17:02:00.016+08:00

I have been scanning old issues of the British Society for the Turin Shroud (BSTS) Newsletter (from issues #54, then #42 backwards) which Ian Wilson loaned me for that purpose.

[Right (click to enlarge): My scan of the front cover of the BSTS Newsletter, issue 42, January 1996.]

And then, with Wilson supplying photos and art-work from his original copy masters, sending them to Barrie Schwortz for his final editing, conversion to PDF, and adding them to his The Shroud of Turin website.

In his latest Shroud.com update, Schwortz writes:

"Earlier Issues of the BSTS Newsletter Now Online
As most of you know, we have been reprinting the British Society for the Turin Shroud (BSTS) Newsletter on this website since we first went online in 1996. Of course, we only reprinted each current issue once it was published, so the 42 earlier issues of the newsletter previous to 1996 were not available online. However, that is all changing thanks to Stephen E. Jones, BSTS member living in Australia. Stephen has begun the major task of scanning and using optical character recognition to archive the earlier issues and is working backwards from Issues #42 through #1. By using optical character recognition after scanning, the resulting pdf files that we publish are completely searchable by the individual reader as well as by major search engines. In today's update, we are including Issue #54, which was previously not on the site, along with Issues #42, 41 and 40. My thanks not only to Stephen, but also to Ian Wilson, former BSTS Newsletter editor, who has helped in reviewing the earlier issues and making high quality cover art available to us.

In the next website update we will include at least five more back issues (#35-39) and will continue to do so until the entire archive is completed and online (or Stephen throws in the towel). You will also notice some other changes to the BSTS page, including the addition of a Pick an Issue navigator bar, which allows you to quickly pick the specific issue you wish to view by issue number. My sincerest thanks to Stephen and Ian for their willingness to take up this time consuming but important work, from which we will all benefit. Of course, we will continue to publish the latest issues as we always have, so watch for Issue #74 in our January 21, 2012 update."

I emailed Barrie Schwortz (cc. Ian Wilson) yesterday:

"It's great to see the `missing' BSTS Newsletters finally being webbed! Thanks for doing it.

I have been reading Ian's old Newsletters from #1 forward and am up to #24 of January 1990. I have `lived through' the BSTS' dark days following the 1988-89 carbon-dating of the Shroud as `medieval'. It is fascinating reading and I am looking forward to the day when those immediately pre- and post-carbon dating issues are webbed."

Having read those old post-carbon dating BSTS Newsletters, I feel I must pay tribute to Ian Wilson, who like a good Captain, remained at the helm of the apparently sinking (or even sunk) ship Shroud, first leading the damage control, and then spearheaded the counter-attack, so that today, all but the `true believers' in the Shroud's inauthenticity and the blissfully ignorant, at least doubt, if not reject, the 1989 claim in Nature that:

"Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. As Controls, three samples whose ages had been determined independently were also dated. The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval." (Damon, P.E., et al., "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, No. 6208, 16th February, 1989, pp.611-615. My emphasis).

Here is a quote from a 1988 BSTS Newsletter, in response to pervasive leaks that the Shroud had been carbon-dated to the 14th century, where Wilson coined the brilliant metaphor of "the captain of an Atlantic-crossing jumbo Jet" who does not, having "spotting that his fuel gauges suddenly read empty, immediately ... ditch his aircraft in the sea without a few further checks":

"But if there was one feature of the British Museum press conference that particularly astonished, and frankly annoyed me, it was Professor Hall's flat assertion, on the basis merely of the averaged `1260-1390 AD' dates quoted (scientific publication of details will follow in another few months), that the carbon dates have overwhelmingly proved the Shroud's fraudulence. Effectively we are supposed to believe that on the basis of one single branch of science, nuclear physics (and all involved with the carbon dating, including Gonella and Tite, were physicists), every other scientific and historical contribution to the subject must now be tossed aside as totally worthless. As Hall admitted, it did not matter to him that there remained no clear explanation for how some hypothetical forger created the Shroud's image. The laboratories' instruments had spoken, and that was it. Now although a mere arts graduate, I have always understood that to be truly scientific, any hypothesis needs to be checked from at least two different directions. For instance we do not expect the captain of an Atlantic-crossing jumbo Jet, spotting that his fuel gauges suddenly read empty, immediately to ditch his aircraft in the sea without a few further checks. In the case of the Shroud it may be argued that just such further checks were provided by the `blind' control samples supplied by the British Museum. The fact that the laboratories agreed on the datings of these latter as well as on the Shroud samples has seemed to the media effectively the final proof positive that the Shroud really does date from the fourteenth century. To plead anything else is, as BBC Science Correspondent James Wilkinson put it to me, `clutching at straws'." (Ian Wilson, "The Carbon Dating Results: Is this the End?", BSTS Newsletter 20, October 1988, pp.2-10, p.4).

There are rich veins of gold in those old BSTS Newsletters, which are well worth reading. I feel incredibly privileged to be able to serve in this way the One whose image He graciously had imprinted on His burial shroud, and then preserved it for us these past ~2,000 years.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #6 An old, yellowed, rectangular, linen sheet about 4.4 x 1.1 metres

2011-11-01T19:57:00.005+08:00

This is part #6 "An old, yellowed, rectangular, linen sheet about 4.4 x 1.1 metres," which is part of my PowerPoint presentation-based series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!" The previous post in this series was part #5 "What is the Shroud of Turin?" See parts "#1 Title Page" and "#2 Contents" for more details.

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

Attached are quotes that expand on this topic in date order (oldest first):

"Before them was a long, narrow piece of cloth that had once been white, but now had the tone of old ivory. It was about fourteen feet in length and less than four feet wide. From one end to the other it presented a bewilderingly mottled appearance: a series of large and small patches, darkened areas, discolorations and brownish stains. The gaze of the onlookers immediately went to the stains: though vague and diffused, they gave an irresistible impression of a human body. On one half the length of the sheet could be dimly seen the front of the body, with head, arms, chest and legs discernible. On the other half, the back of the head and the broad expanse of shoulders tapering down to hips and legs were visible. The figures had no sharp outlines. Yet, somehow, the stains, fading here and darkening there, managed to convey the image of a man. Smears and trickles of a darker hue, like blood, marred the figure in places. The face was a grotesque thing, mask-like and expressionless. Owlish white spots indicated the position of the eyes. The nose was a dark line running down the middle of the face from arched brows, the mouth a small, dark blob beneath which stains seemed to form a beard. Separately, another stain straggled up from the level of the beard, over the head and down the other side of the face. Long hair." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.7-8).

"... the Turin Shroud ... This length of ivory-coloured cloth measures 14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches, or 4.36 metres by 1.10 metre. Its exact age has not yet been determined, but it is at least six hundred years old, and there is nothing in its fabric or weave to invalidate the claim that its manufacture is of the first century AD. From the purely textile angle it can be described as a three-to-one herring-bone twill, the material being linen with a small admixture of cotton (as the Belgian Professor Gilbert Raes reported in 1976 after his microscopic examination of carefully selected and extracted threads of it in his textile laboratory at Ghent University). The presence of cotton fibres in the weave is considered by experts to be conclusive in ruling out a European provenance for the fabric of the Shroud, since cotton was not grown or used in Europe in any possible epoch of the manufacture of this cloth. But it is entirely consonant with a Palestinian provenance, as the fibres are of the Gossypium Herbaceum variety which is cultivated in the Middle East. The total absence of wool in the Shroud's composition is instructive to anyone versed in the Mosaic Law with its prohibition of textile mixture, for Leviticus 19:19 commands: `Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.' The presence of even one wool fibre would have excluded this cloth from ever having been a Jewish burial shroud." (McNair, P., "The Shroud and History: fantasy, fake or fact?," in Jennings, P., ed., 1978, "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, pp.21-22).

"What is it pilgrims see when, during the seldom recurring expositions of the famous Relic, they flock by the thousand to the Cathedral of Turin? A long strip of yellowish cloth (14 feet 3 inches long and 3 feet 7 inches wide) variedly marked with stains, burns and patches, forms the great centre of attraction for those eager and reverent eyes. .... The spectators perceive two rather vague imprints of a human body in natural size, placed head to head, outlined in the centre of the linen. ... The two dark streaks that run parallel to the sides of the Cloth are the traces left by a fire which nearly destroyed the Relic at Chambéry [France] in 1532. At that time, the Shroud, folded eight times lengthwise and four times crosswise, was kept in a silver chest. When the chest was rescued from the flames, one side had already been partly melted. A corner of the folded Shroud was charred where a piece of the red-hot metal had fallen, and the scorching reproduced itself symmetrically through all the several layers of the Cloth. Other stains were made by water poured on to quench the fire. The mended portions are the work of the Chambéry nuns who used altar linen in repairing the precious Cloth. The burns, patches and water stains, and even the many creases on the Cloth, tend to divert the eye from what should be its great point of attraction: the two shadow-like images in the centre of the Shroud. On the fourteen-foot length of cloth it is not easy for the viewer to grasp and interpret their significance. Photography has made it possible for us to view the Shroud as a whole, at one glance and yet correctly, reducing that long expanse of cloth into small compass. Yet even when seen on photograph these images appear somewhat blurred and formless: they are the imprints of the Body of our Saviour. ... The reader ... I do not expect him to be impressed to any degree from his study of this picture. Perhaps he may even be disappointed. He may have already thought that those shadow-like imprints constitute no portrait of Jesus at all; that it takes no small effort of the imagination to see in those stains the traits of the Crucified One. This is all very true. The images of the Shroud are both meaningless and disappointing. The detail of the face as seen on the Shroud ... is even more disconcerting; it looks unnatural, expressionless, more like a mask than a face. It is certainly not a portrait. ... And rightly so, for on the Shroud the images are shown reversed in light and shade and position from what they are in reality. They are a perfect negative, and they look as meaningless and grotesque as would the picture of any one of us on a negative film. We know this because photography gave us the positive version of the Shroud's mysterious imprints, thus revealing to us the true nature and significance of those stains that make the Turin Shroud the most precious cloth in the world." (Rinaldi, P.M., 1978, "The Man in the Shroud," [1972], Futura: London, Revised, pp.25-27).

"The linen, although ivory-colored with age, was still surprisingly clean looking, even to the extent of a damasklike surface sheen. It was possible to study closely the herringbone weave of the linen. In the areas untouched by the ravages of history it was in remarkably good condition. Even when examined under a magnifying glass, the fiber showed no signs of disintegration. The texture was also surprising. Some writers have described it as 'coarse.' This is quite definitely not so. Although any handling was officially disapproved, the temptation was too great not to touch the linen gently when at close range. It was light and almost silky to the touch. The dimensions of the cloth are impressive: 14 feet 3 inches long by 3 feet 7 inches wide. It was created in a single piece, apart from a strip approximately 3½ inches wide running the length of the left-hand side and joined by a single seam. It is the imprint of the all-important `double image' that principally draws the eye. There, like a shadow cast on the cloth, is the faint imprint of the back and front of a powerfully built man with beard and long hair, laid out in the attitude of death. To anyone who has not seen a photograph of the Shroud before, the two figures could only appear most curious, until one understands the manner in which the image seems to have been formed-that the body was first laid on one end of the cloth, with the remaining half of the cloth then drawn over the head and down to the feet. The sixteenth-century Italian artist Clovio illustrated this beautifully in an aquatint of the Shroud in which, below the angel-borne cloth, he painted Joseph and Nicodemus wrapping Jesus in just such a manner after the descent from the cross. The astonishing aspect of seeing the Shroud itself rather than a photograph is discovering how pale and subtle the image appears. The color of the imprint can best be described as a pure sepia monochrome, and the closer one tries to examine it, the more it melts away like mist." (Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.21).

"Along these same lines has been a study of the shroud's dimensions as recently made by an expert in early Syriac, Ian Dickinson, from Canterbury, England. [Dickinson, I., "Preliminary Details of New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud: Measurement by the Cubit," Shroud News, April 1990, pp. 4-8] Curious at the shroud's, by British units of measurement, anomalous 14 foot 3 inch by 3 foot 7 inch overall size, Dickinson wondered if these dimensions might make more sense if converted to the cubit measure as prevailing in Jesus's time. Establishing that the first-century Jewish cubit was most likely to the Assyrian standard, reliably calculated at between 21.4 and 21.6 inches, Dickinson found that if he chose the lower of these measures there was an astonishing correlation, accurate to the nearest half-inch:

Length of Turin shroud 14 feet 3 inches
8 cubits at 21.4 inches 14 feet 3 inches
Width of Turin shroud 3 feet 7 inches
2 cubits at 21.4 inches 3 feet 7 inches

Such conformity to an exact 8 by 2 Jewish cubits is yet another piece of knowledge difficult to imagine of any medieval forger. It also correlates perfectly with the `doubled in four' arrangement by which we hypothesized the shroud to have been once folded and mounted as the `holy face' of Edessa, for the exposed facial area of this latter would have been an exact 1 by 2 Jewish cubits." (Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, p.181).

" The Turin Shroud is, in fact, a rectangular sheet, strong and solid, made of pure flax of a yellowish colour .... The Shroud is 4.36 metres long and 1.10 metres wide. Originally it was probably longer by about 30 centimetres; there are various reports of small fragments having been cut from the relic and then distributed to churches and monasteries. One of these relics is to be found in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. Perhaps concessions of pieces from the Shroud continued for years and it proves that the Shroud was an object of veneration even in much older times. The thickness of the cloth, about one third of a millimetre, is greater than that of cloth usually used to make covers for mattresses; this does not prevent the linen from being soft and easy to fold. The Shroud was woven in one whole piece in a diagonal weave shape of `three to one': the transversal thread of weft passes alternatively over three and under one of the longitudinal threads of the warp. This type of weave helps to guarantee its strength. The twill that runs along its length varies its inclination at every centimetre, giving the cloth its characteristic `herring-bone' aspect. A nearly 8 centimetre wide strip, incomplete at its extremities, forms part of the sheet on the topmost side. The missing pieces were 14 and 36 centimetres long. This side strip is made from the same twilled cloth of the Shroud, of which it originally formed part; in fact, the irregularities of the weave, clearly visible in the principal section, extend exactly to the side strip, as can be seen from the radiographies carried out in 1978 ..." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, pp.161-162).

"The `Holy Shroud' is a large, oblong linen cloth, of great but contested age, which is normally housed in a chapel built especially for it in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in the city of Turin, in northern Italy. It is displayed only on rare occasions, contained in a frame that shows the length of the cloth parallel to the ground. The cloth, marked by various blemishes and stains, measures fourteen feet three inches long and three feet seven inches wide - or, according to the measurement in use in the Middle East in the first century, eight cubits by two. [Wilson, I., "Holy Faces, Secret Places," Doubleday: London, 1991, p.181] Experts in the field of textiles have determined that the threads were hand-spun and the fabric hand-woven in what is known as a `three-to-one herringbone twill.' This was a type of weaving practiced in the Middle East at least as far back as two thousand years ago." (Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, p.11).

"The occasion of the Shroud being housed in this new case, immediately prior to the expositions of 1998, also saw the removal ... of a blue satin frame-type surround that had been sewn onto the Shroud in the nineteenth century, and its replacement by a new white cloth. This removal enabled the original cloth's dimensions to be measured rather more precisely than had been possible before, at 437 cm long by 111 cm wide. In describing its most salient features, we shall use terms such as `left', `right', `top' and `bottom' to refer to the mode in which it was displayed in 1998, that is landscape-wise, with the imprint of the front half of the `Christ' body ranged to the left, and the back half imprint ranged to the right ... This has the virtue that it is also the mode in which it has most commonly been displayed since as early as the 1350s ... When the Shroud is viewed in this `landscape' way the two `Christ body' imprints appear somewhat incongruously head to head. Yet, as was deduced by artist-copyists nearly four centuries ago, this is actually very readily explained. Whether the Shroud is authentic or a forgery, the theory behind the imprints' origination is that the `Christ' body was laid on the half of the cloth that now bears the `back' imprint, the other half of the cloth then being brought over the head and down to the feet, thereby creating the `front' imprint. Inevitably the more impressive of these two imprints is the left, or 'front-of-the-body' half, on which can be discerned a ghost-like front-facing face, complete with hair, nose, beard, moustache and eyebrows. The coloration of this and all related so-called `body' imprinting is so subtle and evanescent that it is extremely difficult to describe. `Sepia' was the term that I adopted following my 1973 viewing, but `straw-yellow' was preferred by the STURP scientists of 1978 ... But in any event the body image's prime characteristics are its lack of apparent substance (as from any pigment), also its failure to exhibit optically meaningful contours, and its imperceptible fading into the background colour of the natural cloth itself, without any defined edges.." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, pp.18-19).

"THE Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth of ivory color measuring fourteen feet three inches long by three feet seven inches wide or eight cubits long by two cubits wide, according to first-century Jewish measurements. (A cubit is equivalent to 21.7 inches.) The cloth is made of a three-to-one herringbone weave with a `Z' twist. Parallel to one side of the cloth is sewn a six-inch-wide strip of the same weave pattern. It is generally believed that this piece was added to the Shroud in order to insert a rod to facilitate its exposition. The Shroud bears the frontal and dorsal image of a naked, crucified, bearded man, approximately five feet eleven inches tall, between the ages of 30-35, weighing about 175 pounds. Many people believe that this Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ." (Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.1. Emphasis original).

"Ian Dickinson, a researcher from Canterbury, England, was struck by the fact that the measurements of the Shroud-14'3" by 3'7"-seemed odd. Research indicated that the international standard unit of measurement at the time of Jesus was the Assyrian cubit (21.4 inches). When measured in Assyrian cubits, the Shroud is 8 cubits by 2 cubits, a strong indication that this standard unit was used to measure the linen cloth. [Dickinson, I., "Preliminary Details of New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud: Measurement by the Cubit," Shroud News, 58, April 1990, pp.4-7]" (Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, p.115).

"The Shroud of Turin has been described as the single most studied artifact in history. Whether this is true or not it is certainly one of the most controversial subjects of all time. To the true believer it is the burial shroud of the crucified Christ, left in his tomb at the time of the Resurrection. ... The Shroud has given rise to its own branch of science, known as sindonology. To the sceptical it is a piece of mediaeval trickery which has been fooling the gullible for the last six hundred years or more. The Shroud itself is an ivory-coloured cloth with a herringbone weave. It measures 14 feet 3 inches long by 3 feet 7 inches wide. These measurements may seem a little odd. They make far more sense when converted into first-century Jewish cubits. Using a measure of 21.4 inches to the cubit, based on the Assyrian standard, the measurement of the Shroud converts to exactly 8 cubits in length by 2 cubits in width. It was made in a single piece, apart from a strip approximately three and a half inches wide running the entire length of the left-hand side of the Shroud. This strip is attached to the Shroud by a single seam. ." (Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK, pp.3-4).

The next post in this series is part #7 "Kept in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy, since 1578."

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #5 What is the Shroud of Turin?

2011-10-28T19:55:00.008+08:00

This is part #5, "What is the Shroud of Turin?!" and is the beginning of Section 2 of my series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!." The series is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I am preparing to give to church and any other interested groups. For more information about this series, see parts "#1 Title Page" and "#2 Contents" .

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

Here are quotes on, "What is the Shroud of Turin?" (in date order-oldest first):

"We next ask, what is the Holy Shroud of Turin? It is a piece of very fine, oriental material, fourteen feet in length and about three and a half in width, on which can be traced the figure of a man, very tall and dignified in appearance, with a face of surpassing majesty ... It reveals a double figure, that is, the front and back of the same person. The back shows that he is completely naked, and the back shows also, from head to feet, the traces of a terrible scourging. It is claimed that that Shroud is the Sindon of Our Lord, in which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped His body, and that the figure we see on it is that of Our Lord Himself. Assuming for the present that this is true, I will answer the question which will naturally be asked, how came the double figure on the sheet? Our Lord's body was laid on one end of the sheet, and this portion of the sheet took the impression of His back. The sheet, let us remember, is very long, but not wide. Accordingly, it could not be folded across the body width-wise, but instead it was drawn over His head and stretched as far as His feet ...This part of the sheet took the impression of His face and the front of His body. Accordingly, when the sheet is extended to its full length, it shows two figures, front and back, head to head, of the same person ..." (Beecher, P.A., 1928, "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin, pp.17-18).

"Turin, Shroud of. A linen cloth, which measures 14"3' by 3"7', housed at Turin, Italy. On the material is a double, head-to-head image of a man, revealing the obverse and reverse of the body. Known to exist since at least 1354, there are indications that the shroud is much older. Pollen studies point to its presence in Palestine at a much earlier date, while the weave and type of linen is compatible with first century cloth. It is also quite possible that a coin over the right eye is a lepton of Pontius Pilate, minted ca AD. 29-32. While some have raised biblical questions concerning various aspects of the shroud, such a burial is well supported. Evidence reveals that the head napkin was rolled up and wrapped around the head as indicated in the Gospel of John (11:44; 20:5-7), the Mishnah (Shabbath 23:5), and the Code of Jewish Law, `Laws of Mourning' (chs. 351-52). The lengthwise wrapping and positioning of the body is supported by Qumran burial procedures and the `Laws of Mourning' (ch. 364). The lack of bodily washing is explained by the `Laws of Mourning' in that those who are executed by the government or who die violent deaths are not to be washed. The use of several strips of linen described in John is also confirmed by the shroud, where pieces were also used. Additionally, the hasty burial recorded in the Gospels (Mark 15:42; 16:1-3; Luke 23:54-56; 24:14) explains a number of these issues. In October, 1978, the Shroud of Turin was the subject of an intense scientific investigation revolving around such questions as the nature of the bloodstains and the composition and cause of the image. It was found that the shroud is very probably not a fake of any kind. There is no sign of paint, dye, powder, or any other foreign substance on the cloth that can account for the image. Additionally, the image was found to be three-dimensional, superficial, and nondirectional, each quite an enigma to the explanation of the image. The man buried in the shroud apparently died from crucifixion, and his body is in a state of rigor mortis. The Gospels, which have been shown to be trustworthy on historical grounds, present reliable accounts of Jesus' crucifixion. A comparison of the man of the shroud with Jesus reveals that they suffered the same wounds, even in several points that were not normal crucifixion procedure. Both men received a series of punctures throughout the scalp from a series of sharp objects, a badly bruised face, a severe whipping (over 120 wounds are visible on the shroud), shoulder abrasions from a heavy object, and knee contusions. There are punctures in both wrists and both feet, the absence of broken ankles, and a postmortem chest wound with a clear flow of blood and watery fluid. Both were buried hastily individually, and in fine linens. There certainly are strong indications that the two men might be one and the same since they agree in such features and disagree in none. Most significantly, there is no decomposition on the cloth, meaning that the body exited comparatively quickly. Many of the bloodstains are intact, including the blood clots, meaning that the body probably was not unwrapped, since this would have disturbed the stains. Additionally, it is very possible that a light or heat scorch caused the image. The convergence of the data certainly indicates that the dead body appears to have left the cloth in some mysterious manner. It is still possible that the shroud is a fake, or that it is a genuine ancient shroud but simply not the burial garment of Jesus. Yet, the evidence thus far indicates the probable conclusions that the shroud is ancient (perhaps from the first century), that it does not contradict the NT accounts, and that the image is not a fake. It may well be the actual burial garment of Jesus, as indicated especially by the similarities in areas of abnormal crucifixion practice. Lastly, the image on the shroud may have resulted from Jesus' resurrection, which is complemented by the demonstrable historical evidence and reliable Gospel testimony for this event, as well. However, no absolute conclusions are possible at present concerning the shroud with regard to some of these matters. " (Habermas, G.R., "Turin, Shroud of," in Elwell, W.A., ed., 1984, "Evangelical Dictionary of Theology," Baker Book House: Grand Rapids MI, Seventh Printing, 1990, pp.1115-1116. Emphasis original).

"The `Holy Shroud' is a large, oblong linen cloth, of great but contested age, which is normally housed in a chapel built especially for it in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in the city of Turin, in northern Italy. It is displayed only on rare occasions, contained in a frame that shows the length of the cloth parallel to the ground. The cloth, marked by various blemishes and stains, measures fourteen feet three inches long and three feet seven inches wide - or, according to the measurement in use in the Middle East in the first century, eight cubits by two. Experts in the field of textiles have determined that the threads were hand-spun and the fabric hand-woven in what is known as a `three-to-one herringbone twill.' This was a type of weaving practiced in the Middle East at least as far back as two thousand years ago. The linen has a number of scratches and burn holes, as well as water stains. The features most visible to the naked eye are two dark blemishes, one on each side of the fainter body image, running parallel to the sides of the cloth. Along these streaks, on both front and back images, on either side of the shoulders and on either side of the knee, are diamond-shaped patches. These are the result of a fire that broke out in December 1532, in the chapel in France where it was housed. The patches cover holes that were burned through the folded cloth by hot metal. There some other burn marks on the fabric which are much less obvious. There is a row of three small holes with burnt edges on either side of the crossed hands on the frontal view, and similar configurations on each side of the posterior portions of the figure on the back image. No one knows the cause of this damage, which seems to have been the result of a hot poker being thrust three times through the center of the cloth. Because these holes are evident in a copy of the Shroud which dates to 1516, it is clear that they predated the damage from the fire. ... Less evident on the Shroud than the sixteenth-century fire damage are the two faint head-to-head straw-colored images of an undressed man that appear in the center of the cloth, one of the front of the body, the other of the back, with the feet of both images facing the outer margins of the fabric. There are only a few inches between the front and back images of the head. It seems as though a body had been laid on its back at one end of the cloth, which was then drawn over the front of the man, and that somehow an image was made of him. If the viewer approaches too close, he (or she) is unable to see anything except stains. Standing three to six feet away from the cloth, he will be able to discern some detail. From the frontal image the observer will be able to make out the shape of a man with long hair and a beard, with his hands folded over his pelvic area and his knees slightly drawn up. Around the head, wrists, and feet are what appear to be bloodstains, especially on the back image. Viewing the cloth with the naked eye, it is hard to make out anything else - much less determine whether the image is a painting. With its ghostly face and great owl-like eyes, it certainly does not look much like a real image of a real person." (Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, pp.12-13).

"What is the Shroud? The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth stored in a cathedral in Turin, the major city in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. It is in the shape of a large table cloth, approximately 14 ft long and 3.5 ft wide, and down the middle of the cloth, there is a faint, straw-coloured image of the front and the back of a naked man. Since this cloth exists today, it can be, and has been, subjected to numerous scientific investigations. But after decades of study, science has yet to determine how this image got on the cloth. Tradition states that the faint image represents Christ as his lifeless body laid in the tomb following his crucifixion, but alas, there is also no scientific means to test if the image is Christ. On the other hand, science has been able to determine firstly that this image is not the product of an artist, and secondly, that this image is, so far as modern science can tell, a flawless representation of a man who was crucified and buried as Christ was. Historical documents on the Shroud start in 1357 AD, and because this places the Shroud in the Middle Ages during the golden age of religious relics, many skeptics believe that the image on the Shroud was painted in order to be used as a relic to obtain funds for a struggling church. Other experts believe the Shroud to be authentic, and Wilson has provided a reasonable scenario which places the Shroud first into the hands of Jesus' disciples, then found in Turkey where it was used to impart healing, and eventually ending up with the Crusaders prior to the collapse of Constantinople at the hands of the Turks. According to Wilson, the Shroud was cared for by the Knights Templars for several centuries. The Knights Templars was a secret sect composed of knights who were crusaders or the descendants of these crusaders. The appearance of the cloth in Medieval Europe corresponds roughly to the time the Templars were undergoing severe persecution for political reasons, possibly explaining why it appeared at this point in history. ... After being moved around to a number of cities because of various wars, the Shroud came to Turin. ... For any Christian who believes the Gospels are historically accurate, it would be safe to conclude that not only did a burial cloth exist, it must have had some importance; each of the gospels describes the body of Jesus being wrapped in this linen. It is the assumption of many today that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth or linen that wrapped the body of Christ." (Chiang, R.G., 2004, "Science meets Religion: Shroud of Turin," in "Overcoming Prejudice in the Evolution Creation Debate: Developing an integrative approach to Science and Christianity," Doorway Publications: Hamilton ON, Canada. Emphasis original).

"WHAT IS THE SHROUD OF TURIN? A large piece of ancient linen, it apparently bears images of a bearded, naked, crucified man. ... It is a piece of ancient linen cloth, presumably a burial shroud, fourteen feet three inches long by three feet seven inches wide. .... It was hand woven in a three-to-one herringbone twill from fairly heavy yarn made of Near East or Mediterranean-Basin flax, and the cloth is in an excellent state of preservation. On the Shroud are indistinct images of the front and back views of a man. The two views are nearly joined at the head, as if the man's body had been wrapped in the cloth lengthwise, foot to head to foot. ... Apart from being indistinct, the body images are ... of a faint sepia color (light tan) on the off-white, yellowing old cloth. Superimposed on these body images are darker markings resembling bloodstains, that are brownish red in color. These `bloodstains' are significantly seen at the wrists and feet, which exactly correspond to the blood stigmata of a classical Roman crucifixion. There also appear to be wounds covering the top of the head, the face, and one side of the body as well as several dozen smaller wounds on the back, all of which dramatically conform to the biblical description of Jesus' wounds. On the back, or dorsal, view, a narrow configuration extends for some eight or ten inches from the long hair of the head to a point midway between the shoulder blades. Some experts feel this may be a pigtail or ponytail hairstyle, as if the hair was caught and tied at the base of the skull-a common hairstyle among Jewish males in Palestine during Jesus' time. The Man's beard seems to show the twin points of the Nazarene style of that day." (Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, pp.1,3-5. Emphasis original).

"The Shroud of Turin has been described as the single most studied artifact in history. Whether this is true or not it is certainly one of the most controversial subjects of all time. To the true believer it is the burial shroud of the crucified Christ, left in his tomb at the time of the Resurrection. ... The Shroud has given rise to its own branch of science, known as sindonology. To the sceptical it is a piece of mediaeval trickery which has been fooling the gullible for the last six hundred years or more. The Shroud itself is an ivory-coloured cloth with a herringbone weave. It measures 14 feet 3 inches long by 3 feet 7 inches wide. These measurements may seem a little odd. They make far more sense when converted into first-century Jewish cubits. Using a measure of 21.4 inches to the cubit, based on the Assyrian standard, the measurement of the Shroud converts to exactly 8 cubits in length by 2 cubits in width. It was made in a single piece, apart from a strip approximately three and a half inches wide running the entire length of the left-hand side of the Shroud. This strip is attached to the Shroud by a single seam. On the cloth itself is a faint image, almost shadow-like. This shows the back and front of a well-built man, nearly six foot tall, with a beard and long hair, laid out with his hands crossed in front of him. He appears to be dead, and somehow there is a peacefulness and serenity about his features.... There is no visible outline of the image; it melts away into the fabric. It can only be seen clearly from a distance; when viewed from close up it almost seems to disappear. Also apparent on the Shroud are what seem to be bloodstains. There are flows from several points on the upper forehead as well as from the back of the head; flows from the wrists and the feet; and a copious flow from an elliptical-shaped wound on the left side of the body. The Shroud material is disfigured by stains and by fire damage. One night in December 1532 a fire broke out in the Sainte Chapelle, Chambery, in south-eastern France, where the Shroud was then being kept. ... a drop of molten silver fell on to the linen inside the casket, resulting in scorching of all forty-eight folds of the Shroud. This was then doused with water, which resulted in further stains. Almost as if by a miracle the image itself was scarcely touched." (Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK, pp.3-4).

I don't necessarily agree with every part of the above quotes. But read together they help provide a comprehensive answer to the question, "what is the Shroud of Turin?" As explained previously, these quotes both help to illustrate my points in this post, and will be a resource base for helping me answer questions at the Q&A session at the end of each of my presentations.

The previous post in this series was part #4 "The Shroud's image is a photographic negative!"and the next is part #6 "An old, yellowed, rectangular, linen sheet about 4.4 x 1.1 metres."

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!: #4 The Shroud's image is a photographic negative!

2011-10-18T17:36:00.007+08:00

Here, following part #3 , "1.1 About me," of my series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!" is this part #4, "1.2 The Shroud's image is a photographic negative!"

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

As explained previously, this series is based on a PowerPoint presentation that I am preparing to show to church and other groups (see part #1, "Title page" and part #2 Contents for more details).

Logically this topic, that the Shroud's image is a photographic negative, should be later in the series when I get to 4. History of the Shroud, where the lawyer and amateur photographer Secondo Pia in 1898 discovered that the Shroud's image on his negative photographic plate was positive!:

"The Image as Photographic Negative Those who have seen the Shroud in the original report that the image, which is a sepia tone with a slightly darker color forming the `blood' spots, is extremely subtle-almost indistinguishable to the unaided eye. British Shroud historian and journalist Ian Wilson writes, `... the closer one tries to examine it, the more it melts away like mist.' But in photographic negative, the image is unmistakable; subtlety sharpens into clarity and the face of the Man of the Shroud is revealed, his features strikingly like those that artists since at least the 6th century have given Christ. The first photographs of the Shroud were taken in 1898 by a man named Secondo Pia. What astonished Pia, and continues to astonish Shroud scholars, is that the image that appeared on his photographic plate was not a characteristic negative in which light areas are dark, dark light, and left and right reversed. Instead, Pia's negative showed all the qualities of a positive print. The image of the Man of the Shroud showed gradations of tone that gave the body depth and contour. The face had the qualities of a photographic likeness, not the flatness of a negative. Thus, it seems that the Shroud itself must be, or possess some of the properties of, a photographic negative. It is as if the cloth were a piece of film." (Culliton, B.J., 1978, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin Challenges 20th-Century Science," Science, Vol. 201, 21 July, pp.235-239, p.236. Emphasis original).

And I will cover that in more detail then. But since this is based on a PowerPoint presentation to groups of people who may know little about the Shroud, I thought I should start with something that would stimulate their interest.

The above quote is remarkable in that it is from an article in Science one of the world's leading scientific journal.

Here are more quotes about the image on the Shroud being a photographic negative, centuries before photography was invented, "in the first decades of the 19th century":

"Invented in the first decades of the 19th century, photography (by way of the camera) seemed able to capture more detail and information than traditional mediums, such as painting and sculpting. Photography as a usable process goes back to the 1820s with the development of chemical photography. The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed by a later attempt to duplicate it. Niépce was successful again in 1825. He made the first permanent photograph from nature with a camera obscura in 1826. However, because his photographs took so long to expose (8 hours), he sought to find a new process. Working in conjunction with Louis Daguerre, they experimented with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1816 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light. Niépce died in 1833, but Daguerre continued the work, eventually culminating with the development of the daguerreotype in 1837. Daguerre took the first ever photo of a person in 1838 when, while taking a daguerreotype of a Paris street, a pedestrian stopped for a shoe shine, long enough to be captured by the long exposure (several minutes). Eventually, France agreed to pay Daguerre a pension for his formula, in exchange for his promise to announce his discovery to the world as the gift of France, which he did in 1839." ("Photography: History," Wikipedia, 15 October 2011. Footnotes omitted).

"No human being could have painted this negative that lies hidden in the stains. ... If it was not painted, not made by human hands, then ... Pia felt a numbing certitude that he was looking on the face of Jesus":

"A small, red light shone feebly in [Secondo] Pia's darkroom as he gingerly placed the large glass plates in a solution of oxalate of iron. When the first vague outlines began to appear under the shimmering liquid, the anxiety left Pia's eyes and the frustrations of the past few days began to lift. ... In the dim, red glare, he held the dripping plate up before his eyes. Clearly visible was the upper part of the altar with the huge frame above it containing the relic. But the brown stain-image seemed somehow different from the way it looked on the cloth itself. It had taken on a molding ... a depth ... a definition. Turning the plate on its side, he gazed at the face. What he saw made his hands tremble and the wet plate slipped, almost dropping to the floor. The face, with eyes closed, had become startlingly real. `Shut up in my darkroom,' Pia wrote later, `all intent on my work, I experienced a very strong emotion when, during the development, I saw for the first time the Holy Face appear on the plate, with such clarity that I was dumbfounded by it.' All his life Pia was to remember that moment, speaking of it as a great glory. ... His first reaction to the unexpected sight in the negative, however, had been mixed with uncertainty. What he saw violated all the laws of photography and he knew it. The stain-image, diffuse and flat on the relic, now stood out like a picture of an actual body, the contours indicated by minute gradations of shading. The face, so bizarre when viewed on the cloth, had become a harmonious, recognizable portrait of a bearded man with long hair. Emotions frozen in death emanated from the features; a vast patience, a noble resignation spoke out of the countenance. Even with the eyes shut, the face was suffused by an expression of majesty, impossible to analyze. All this on his negative plate! Pia knew that in any negative there should be only a rearrangement of lights and shadows and a reversal of position. Light areas should become dark and dark areas light. Left should be right and right, left. The result should have been the usual grotesque caricature of the original that would make good sense only when printed in positive. Instead, here in his negative was a positive portrait as real as any Pia had ever seen. As he carefully lowered the plate into a fixative bath of hyposulphate of soda, he turned over in his mind the possible answers to the phenomenon. Had there been some kind of rare photographic accident, something never before encountered? Perhaps some strange property of lighting or camera could account for it. But Pia was an expert with a confidence born of a quarter-century of experience; he had a sure grasp of photographic principle. He soon rejected any explanation but the obvious one: what showed on the negative was exactly what his camera had seen on the cloth. ... Later that morning, with a positive print made from the negative, he compared the two. There was no longer any doubt. This incredible portrait existed in the stain-image. Although to the naked eye the brownish stains on the relic presented only haphazard outlines, they must, in reality, form a negative, or at least they must possess, in some mysterious way, the qualities of a negative. Thus, when a picture is taken of the cloth, and the negative plate developed, the stain-image is reversed in light values and relative position and shows positive characteristics. Exactly the same process would occur if a picture were taken of a real photographic negative. As dawn crept through the streets of Turin, Pia sat before the negative and its print, occupied with a sudden, stunning thought. No human being could have painted this negative that lies hidden in the stains. ... If it was not painted, not made by human hands, then ... gazing fixedly, Pia felt a numbing certitude that he was looking on the face of Jesus." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.24-27. Emphasis original).

"On the glass negative there slowly appeared before him, not a ghost of the shadowy figure visible on the cloth, as he had expected, but instead an unmistakable photographic likeness. ... Pia ... had discovered a real photograph, hitherto hidden in the cloth, until it could be revealed by the camera":

"According to his [Secondo Pia's] own account, his first thoughts were of relief when he saw the negative image begin to appear under the developer. Seconds later, they were to turn to astonishment, then to a chilling awe. On the glass negative there slowly appeared before him, not a ghost of the shadowy figure visible on the cloth, as he had expected, but instead an unmistakable photographic likeness. The double figures of the Shroud had undergone a dramatic change. Now there was natural light and dark shading, giving relief and depth. Bloodstains, showing white, could realistically be seen to flow from the hands and feet, from the right side, and from all around the crown of the head. Instead of having a masklike, almost grotesque appearance, the man of the Shroud could be seen to be well-proportioned and of impressive build. Most striking of all was the face, incredibly lifelike against the black background. Pia found himself thinking that he was the first man for nearly 1,900 years to gaze on the actual appearance of the body of Christ as he had been laid in the tomb. He had discovered a real photograph, hitherto hidden in the cloth, until it could be revealed by the camera. Throughout history, saints and holy men have claimed to see visions of Jesus. None has ever been able to provide material evidence. In archaeology, ancient tombs have been opened up to reveal, for a fleeting moment, the perfectly preserved remains of someone from the distant past-only for these immediately to crumble to dust. Yet, here, an ordinary man had an amazing `vision' on a photographic plate, a vision capable of endless reproduction. And, above all, a vision seemingly of none other than Jesus Christ." (Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, pp.27-28).

"... no one could have faked that image. No one could do it today with all the technology we have. It's a perfect negative. It has a photographic quality that is extremely precise":

"If I had known Stewart would need a profile of the man in the shroud, I would have brought along the photographs made by Leo Vala, a photographer of British royalty and a pioneer in the development of the 3D visual process and cinemascope movie screens. By manipulating light through photo transparencies, he produced an image on a normal screen that enabled sculptors to make a three-dimensional model which could then be photographed in profile or indeed from any other angle. In perfecting the process Vala had selected the shroud face as a subject `because it's such a beautiful image.' After publishing the results of his experimentation in the March 8, 1967 issue of Amateur Photographer, he became an outspoken critic of anyone who thought the image could have been produced by human hands either through artistry or technology. `I've been involved in the invention of many complicated visual processes, and I can tell you that no one could have faked that image. No one could do it today with all the technology we have. It's a perfect negative. It has a photographic quality that is extremely precise.'" (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, pp.130-131).

"It was only in the nineteenth century that the very idea of a `negative' came into existence. ... A 14th century painter could not possibly have had the faintest idea of a negative":

"But it was Pia's negative of the face which excited world-wide interest. Until then no one had-or could have had-the slightest suspicion that the real features of the Man in the Shroud were hidden in the apparently ugly face depicted and could be extracted therefrom were there available a physical process for reversing light and shade. We are nowadays so accustomed to photography that we may fail to grasp the extraordinary nature of this discovery. It was only in the nineteenth century that the very idea of a `negative' came into existence. The physical method of obtaining a negative, and then a positive therefrom, is of quite recent origin. The blackening effect of light on silver salts was known to the alchemists and further studied in the 18th century by Schulze and Scheele. By contact with paintings on glass, Wedgwood (1805) made shadow-negatives on paper or leather impregnated with a silver salt. Herschel (1871), inventor of the word `photograph,' discovered the fixing properties of sodium thiosulphate, commonly but incorrectly called hyposulphite; this was in 1819 but he did not utilise the result until twenty years later. If permanency is taken as the criterion, the first photographs were produced in 1827 by Niepce (1833); they depended on the action of light in reducing the oil solubility of a preparation of asphalt and lavender oil spread upon a plate of silver or glass. ... Not until this inversion was effected (first in 1898) was it possible to interpret the markings properly, or indeed to locate the mouth or the eyebrows correctly. ... From a comparison between the negatives and the originals we can deduce that no artist would dream of making an unnatural negative for the purpose of subsequently having even a monochrome positive. Before photography was invented, the very idea could not occur to him. And even to-day it is almost impossible to copy any graded negative without spoiling the resultant positive. ... A 14th century painter could not possibly have had the faintest idea of a negative. Even if he had, he lacked the technical means of verifying it. Now why should a forger go to the trouble of concocting impressions which were not discernible for five centuries? Even forgery, being a business, must supply in accordance with demand, it must give customers what they want-not a negative whose existence could not even be suspected for centuries. Meanwhile their devotion had to be content with what was really a caricature." (O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., 1985 "The Crucified," [1959], Kingdom Books: Dublin, pp.46-48,52. Emphasis original).

"Why would a fourteenth-century forger have painted a negative image? Not until the nineteenth century did anyone understand the concept of [photographic] negativity":

"When the exposition drew to a close in May, 1898, a local lawyer named Secondo Pia was allowed to take the first photographs of the Shroud. His equipment failed on the first attempt, but Pia made good exposures on May 28. That night, in Pia's darkroom, one of the abiding secrets of the Shroud was first revealed. Pia removed his glass negative from the developing solution and discovered that the negative which he held in his hands was actually a `positive'--a `print' which was far more lifelike than the image viewed with the naked eye. This meant that the image on the Shroud was a negative. When printed, the dark areas of the image appeared light and the light areas appeared dark, and there was a left-right reversal of details. ... The most important scientific implication of Pia's discovery was that the Shroud was not an obvious forgery. Why would a fourteenth-century forger have painted a negative image? Not until the nineteenth century did anyone understand the concept of negativity: an image resembling the original would be created if light was projected onto a light-sensitive paper through a film in which the light-dark values were reversed. It seemed improbable that anyone would have known this in the fourteenth century. It was almost ludicrous to suggest that a painter, depicting Jesus' body as it might have appeared on his burial garment, would have chosen to do so with an artistry and detail that would have not been discovered for more than 500 years, until the invention of a photographic process which his age knew nothing about." (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, pp.56-57. Emphasis original).

"A negative image? Hundreds of years before the invention of photography? ... how could a medieval artist have produced a negative image, and why would he choose to do so?":

"It would not be the shroud's first brush with science. That happened eighty years before, in 1898, with the first photographs of the relic. Those pictures uncovered the most surprising of the shroud's many mysteries. When the photographer, Secondo Pia, examined his first glass-plate negative as it emerged from the developing bath, he almost dropped it in shocked excitement. He was looking not at the usually unrealistic, confusing photographic negative, but at a clear positive image. Highlights and shadows were reversed from those on the cloth and were far more lifelike and realistic. Moreover, they showed details never before seen in the shroud, which was now revealed as a negative image. A negative image? Hundreds of years before the invention of photography? The idea that the shroud was a hoax suddenly seemed less plausible, for how could a medieval artist have produced a negative image, and why would he choose to do so?" (Weaver, K.F., 1980, "Science Seeks to Solve...The Mystery of the Shroud," National Geographic, Vol. 157, June, pp.730-753, 743. Italics original).

"What artist, centuries before, would have fabricated details that could only be discerned with the help of a nineteenth-century invention?":

"The modern history of the Shroud might be said to have begun on May 8, 1898, when Secondo Pia was permitted to photograph the Shroud for the first time while it was being exhibited at the Cathedral in Turin. Pia was flabbergasted to find that his glass-plate photographic negative was turning out in the developing bath to show, in fact, a photographic positive image. The Shroud itself had somehow been stained in such a way that the body imprint on the cloth was a negative. This feature alone would seem to rule out the claim that the Shroud is an ancient or medieval forgery. What artist, centuries before, would have fabricated details that could only be discerned with the help of a nineteenth-century invention? And the photographic process, subsequently confirmed by the photographs taken by G. Enrie in 1931, brought out a wealth of hitherto concealed details." (Sullivan, B.M., 2005, "Reading the Shroud of Turin: How in fact was Jesus Christ laid in his tomb?," National Review, July 20, 1973, Reprinted March 24, 2005).

"The question that obviously arises is whether any forger, centuries before the age of photography, could really have managed to create such an extraordinary image, working in negative, yet without any means of checking his work":

"Of extraordinary interest, therefore, is what happens to the Shroud's image when it is reversed by black-and-white photography into a photographic negative.... The now famous discovery associated with this took place in the year 1898, at the time of one of the rare expositions, when a prominent Turin councillor, Secondo Pia, was asked to make the first-ever official photograph of the Shroud. Photography was still a relatively new science at this time, and for Pia the assignment presented some special difficulties. ... After an abortive attempt on May 25, the night of May 28, Pia successfully took two exposures on large glass negative plates customary for the photography of the time, then hurried back to his darkroom to develop them. Because of the already shadowy and ghostlike nature of the Shroud image, Pia expected that anything he had managed to capture on the photographic negative plate, itself invariably a ghost of the original, would be even more difficult to distinguish. Nothing, therefore, prepared him for the shock that awaited him that night. As under the developer recognizable features of the Shroud began to appear, the cloth now black, the dark scorch marks from the 1532 fire showing up white, he observed an extraordinary change in the Shroud's double-figure image. For the first time visible in natural relief, with lifelike highlights and shadows as on a real photograph, the body could be seen to be well-proportioned and of an impressive build. The apparent bloodstains, showing up white, similarly took on a striking realism as injuries to the hands, feet, chest, and crown of the head. Instead of the owlish, mask-like face, the photographic negative revealed a hauntingly majestic countenance, with eves closed in death ... . As Pia came to believe that moment and for the rest of his life, the image on the negative must be the actual appearance of the body of Christ when laid in the tomb. Somehow the Shroud itself was a kind of photographic negative, which became positive when reversed by the camera. ... The question that obviously arises is whether any forger, centuries before the age of photography, could really have managed to create such an extraordinary image, working in negative, yet without any means of checking his work." (Wilson, I., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, pp.4,10-11. Emphasis original).

As well as helping to illustrate my points in this series of posts here on this blog, quotes like this will be part of my resource base when I give my presentations, especially for helping me answer questions at its end

See also: "Shroud of Turin Negative Images," Shroud of Turin Facts Check, Daniel R. Porter, 2004.

The previous post in this series was part #3 "1.1 About me" and the next is part #5 "2. What is the Shroud of Turin?"

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus! #3 About me

2011-10-10T18:25:00.010+08:00

Continuing from part #2, "Contents", here is part #3 "1.1 About me," which is part of the Introduction section of my new series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!" See parts #1 and #2 for more information about this series.

As previously explained, this PowerPoint slide is to introduce myself to my future audiences who mostly wouldn't know me.

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

As I mentioned in my first post to this blog, Introduction to my The Shroud of Turin (TSoT) blog!:

My interest in the Shroud of Turin began in January 2005 when, as I posted to my then Yahoo group, after reading Stevenson & Habermas' "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981), I accepted (then provisionally but now fully) that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial sheet of Jesus Christ and therefore extrabiblical evidence of His death and resurrection. Before then I knew very little about the Shroud and, to the extent that I thought about it at all, I assumed it was just another medieval fake relic.

The previous post in this series was part #2 "Contents" and the next is part #4 "1.2 The Shroud's image is a photographic negative!"

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Re: `your own reasons for believing why the Shroud is important to Christians'

2011-10-07T23:03:00.008+08:00

Thanks for your message. As explained to you in my brief interim response, my long-standing policy is to respond to private messages I receive on a topic that is covered by one of my blogs,

[Right: John Iannone's "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence" (1998), which I recommend as a first book to read on the Shroud.]

via that blog, in this case my The Shroud of Turin blog, minus the sender's personal identifying information. Your words are >bold to distinguish them from mine.

>Dear Rev. Jones,

Thanks, but it's just plain "Mr. Jones."

>I was reared Catholic, later became Mormon, later still Lutheran and finally got it right with fundamental, born-again, evangelical Pentecostal. How's that for labels!

I am glad you eventually became a born-again Christian, although the "born-again" is redundant because there is no other sort of Christian:

Jn 3:3,7. 3Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." ... 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'

>I, too, am in my sixties. I know myself to be a baby Christian but I strive to grow.

I have been a Christian for 44 years and, by the grace of God, I am still growing. I am 65 next month, but I want to hit the tape of the race of the Christian life (Heb 12:1; 2Tim 4:7) still running!

>As a historian and archaeologist (BA, History ... University ....; MA, Historic Archaeology .... I have always been keenly interested in research and artifacts that verify the past. I became Pentecostal because I search for the earliest Christian knowledge, believing this to be the most accurate. Christians of numerous denominations have had 2,000 years to screw things up. For me, it is, "Back to the Basics," and "Back to the Start," as accurately as we can to the time of Christ and his immediate followers for what they held to be The Truth.

As a member of the Church of Christ denomination, whose origin was part of the "The Restoration Movement [which] originated with the convergence of several independent efforts to go back to apostolic Christianity" ("Churches of Christ: Early Restoration Movement history," Wikipedia, 6 October 2011), I agree with trying to go "`Back to the Start,' as accurately as we can to the time of Christ and his immediate followers." But the fact that "Christians of numerous denominations have" been going "2,000 years" shows they (or rather the Spirit of Christ in them) has been doing something right!

>I have a compelling interest in the Turin Shroud and have studied it extensively. To me, it is just a small leap of faith to conclude, after all the scientific evidence, that the Shroud is the actual burial shroud of Christ.

For me, knowing what I now know of the Turin Shroud, it would require a very great "leap of faith" not "to conclude, after all the scientific evidence, that the Shroud is the actual burial shroud of Christ"!

>The questions that seems inescapable to me is, "why has Christ left this garment for us? Why has it survived 2,000 years to be examined in the modern age of science?" Why, indeed.

By "us" I assume you mean innumerable Christians down through these past "2000 years"? Remember that for 1500 of those 2000 years (i.e. 3/4ths or 75%) of that time, there was no printing press and the depictions of Jesus based on the Shroud must have had an immeasurable influence on the growth of Christianity.

Although I do think that the Shroud is an important part of the Risen Jesus' "for God so loved the world" (Jn 3:16) witness to modern man in this Age of Science.

>This keenest interest in the Shroud troubles my faith-based Pentecostal friends.

Most Christians in my experience do not need much evidence to believe that Christianity is true. Others (like me) are "doubting Thomases" (Jn 20:24-28) who need more evidence than most. But I had already satisfied myself that Christianity was objectively true (i.e. true whether it is believed or not) about a quarter of a century before 2005 when I first discovered the evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud, by reading Stevenson & Habermas' "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981).

So for me the Shroud is `the cream on the cake.' It is an example of the verse I had inscribed on the inside of the ring that I gave to my wife of 39 years on our wedding day: "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think ..." (Eph 3:20 KJV).

>My wife is very troubled by this interest, claiming I spend more time researching the Shroud than reading the actual Word.

First, it is important that we do continue with regular "reading the actual Word," e.g. in a daily `quiet time'.

But then, we all (including no doubt your wife) spend more time doing other things "than reading the actual Word," e.g. sleeping, working, etc. And how many Christians have hobbies and interests that have little or nothing to do with Christianity and no one criticises them?

>For my wife and friends, faith is enough and scientific evidence matters not.

See above on most Christians don't seem to need a lot of evidence that Christianity is true. My wife and most of my Christian friends are like that. Most of them do not care about the Shroud, one way or the other. My wife believes the Shroud is the burial sheet of Jesus, but she cannot see what she should do about it. Personally I don't try to change them. Belief in the Shroud's authenticity is not an article of the Christian faith.

But on the other hand, that does not mean that Christians should criticise or even oppose those of us who are convinced, on the basis of the evidence, of the Shroud's authenticity. Since the evidence is overwhelming that Shroud is the burial sheet of Jesus (see for example my "Bogus: Shroud of Turin?" series), then Jesus must have left it for His original disciples and then has preserved it for us down through the ages. So while a Christian is apparently free to ignore the Shroud, if they actually oppose the Shroud, then they may be unwittingly "fight[ing] against God" (Acts 5:39).

>To them the Shroud is just another dubious relic now held by the suspect Catholic Church.

I myself was like that. As mentioned in my introductory post to this my The Shroud of Turin blog, if it wasn't for the fact that the book, "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981) was co-written by leading Protestant philosopher Gary Habermas' that I even considered the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus. Before that, I assumed that the Shroud of Turin was just another fake Roman Catholic relic.

Also, the Shroud has only since 1983 been the property of the Roman Catholic church when it was bequeathed by the ex-king of Italy Umberto II of Savoy to the Pope. Before 1983 it had been privately owned by the House of Savoy, who in turn received from the previous private owner, Margaret de Charny in 1453, and it had never been previously owned by the Roman Catholic church. Besides, as Jewish Barrie Schwortz pointed out in a radio interview, there was no Protestant church back in the 1350s when the Shroud first appeared in Lirey, France owned by the de Charny family.

>They cannot tolerate my fascination with the Shroud. My pastor even refused me permission to show one or ore of the better Shroud videos at church classes.

To be fair to your Pastor it could be divisive if a Shroud video was shown at Protestant evangelical church. I have never been asked by my Pastor to give a talk on the Shroud, even though he knows I write a blog on it, and I have not yet asked him if I could do so.

But I am now preparing a PowerPoint presentation "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!" to be shown at church or any other groups. When I have finished preparing that presentation I will formally ask permission of my Pastor to show it first at my church. But if he refuses I will write to other churches, including Roman Catholic, offering to show my presentation there.

>I cannot believe the Shroud matters not. But I cannot formulate myself concise arguments to present to my brothers and sisters why, as conservative, fundamentalist believers, we should be comforted by the knowledge that the Shroud is the actual burial cloth.

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to convince your fellow "conservative, fundamentalist believers." Since they already are Christians, "the knowledge that the Shroud is the actual burial cloth" of Jesus adds little to them. Just as the average Christian does not bother reading Christian theology, or Church history, or Bible and Science, etc. But whether their attitude is right or not I leave it between Jesus and them.

>They don't understand and thus far I cannot explain why the Shroud is important even if faith is paramount in our beliefs. One reason I cannot explain probably is my own faith and knowledge are still in the "baby" phase.

Remember that you have degrees in History and Archaeology, so you are not the average Christian. You like me, are "hit" by evidence, that most people (including most Christians) are not. I cannot explain why that is so, but it is something that I have learned to live with my 40+ years a Christian.

>I would be most grateful if you could help focus me on your own reasons for believing why the Shroud is important to Christians and point me to resources that would help me develop my arguments.

First, I don't think it is up to me (or anyone) to state what is "important to Christians" over and above what the Bible says. But having said that, next to the Bible, I believe the Shroud (or rather the image of Jesus' on it) is the most important thing in the world, since it is tangible proof that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son," to die a horrible death on a cross so "that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16). After all, Jesus did not have to leave His shroud behind, nor did he have to preserve it these ~2,000 years. I can only assume that He did it, because He loves us and is "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2Pet 3:9).

As for Shroud resources, in my brief reply to you, I pointed out that, there is plenty of information on the Shroud on this my blog The Shroud of Turin and on other Shroud sites that are on my blog's blogroll on its right hand side. And also that I have just commenced a series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!" which will cover in outline most of what I know about the Shroud.

Beyond that, if you are serious about learning more about the Shroud, you should read books on it. If you haven't already done so, my suggestion is you first read John Iannone's "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence" (1998). Then I suggest you read, Ian Wilson's, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved" (2010).

Also, one major advantage you have over me is that you live in America, not in isolated Western Australia as I do. There are probably Shroud groups you could join and Shroud conventions and exhibitions you can attend far more easily than I can.

>I know you must be busy, but any guidance will be deeply appreciated.

I hope this has helped. My guidance is that you study the Shroud for yourself, i.e. to bring you closer to knowing Jesus ("that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" - Php 3:10), while not neglecting your other Christian duties, like daily Bible reading and prayer, and not try to force the Shroud on to your fellow-Christians, but rather ask the Lord to lead you to the field of ministry (if any) He has for you with the Shroud.

>Thank you.
>
>AN

Thanks again for your message. I hope this has helped answer it.

PS: As an afterthought, here is why I think the Shroud is important,not just for Christians, but for everyone, because it bears the image of the Face of the One who is going to judge us all, on the Last Day (Jn 5:26-27; Act 10:41-42; 17:31; Rom 2:16; 2Cor 5:10; 2Tim 4:1):

"In this context, although there are many individuals who are quite happy to accept that the shroud was faked in the fourteenth century, and regard it as of supreme unimportance in their everyday lives, there are others, including myself, for whom the question `Was this what you really looked like?' simply refuses to go away. Not only is the shroud as difficult to attribute to a fourteenth-century artist as the Sistine Chapel ceiling is attributable to Van Gogh, there is not even any comfort in not being able to dismiss it in such a way. For if that face, however subjectively, seems as though it has transcended two thousand years, it is as if neither time, nor the grave, have any meaning. It bespeaks the very same questions as those that wracked the pilgrims to the Veronica: `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?'" (Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, p.189).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus! #2 Contents

2011-10-04T21:58:00.017+08:00

Here, following part #1, "Title page", is this part #2 "Contents," of my new series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus!"

Each page of this series will be a copy-and-paste of a PowerPoint slide, which in turn is part of a presentation on the Shroud that I am preparing for church and other groups.

The PowerPoint text below is actually a JPG image, so it can be clicked on to enlarge it.

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

A disadvantage of the above JPG image of my PowerPoint Contents page is that it cannot be hyperlinked to the relevant posts. Therefore, I have added the following HTML copy of the above Contents page and will add links to new major heading pages when they have been posted:

CONTENTS

Introduction
What is the Shroud of Turin?
The Bible and the Shroud
History and the Shroud
Art and the Shroud
Science and the Shroud
The Sudarium of Oviedo
Major Features of the Shroud's Image
How was the Image Formed?
Conclusion
Questions?

Some of the posts linked to the above will not have the same headings (e.g. "Introduction" is actually "About me") because I have not posted every subsidiary contents page.

The previous post in this series was part "#1 Title page" and the next part is #3 "About me" (to introduce myself on a PowerPoint slide to my future audiences who mostly wouldn't know me).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus! #1 Title page

2011-10-04T15:31:00.027+08:00

I had been struggling with `writer's block' trying to find a way to post here a series on the Shroud, which covers briefly the main points for and against. I had already started a PowerPoint presentation on the Shroud back in 2009, which I intended to eventually use in presentations to interested church and any other groups. An attractive feature of PowerPoint for me is that it forces one to be brief! So if I could restart my PowerPoint presentation and then post it here to my TSoT blog, then I would `kill two birds with one stone.'

But there does not seem any way that one can directly post a PowerPoint to Blogger. Googling "PowerPoint Blogger" came up with a number of sites offering ways of posting a PowerPoint to Blogger but these all seemed to be through a third party. I eventually found by trial and error that I could copy-and-paste from PowerPoint via Microsoft Paint to Outlook Express (which is the way I prefer to post to Blogger). So here goes ...!

[Click on the above image to enlarge it.]

How's that for a brief post? A record for me! The next post in this series is be part #2 "Contents".

Stephen E. Jones, BSc., Grad. Dip. Ed.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign& Jesus is Jehovah!

Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud debunked in an Australian high school textbook!

2011-08-25T21:54:00.014+08:00

I am a relief (aka substitute, supply) high school teacher and today I had several Society and Environment (i.e. Social Studies) classes.

One of the lessons in one of those S&E classes that I taught today was about how archaeologists date the past.

[Left (click to enlarge): Easton, M., et al., "SOSE Alive 1: Studies of Society and Environment," John Wiley and Sons: Milton QLD, Australia, 2003, p.15]

There was nothing surprising about that. But it was surprising that the example of radiocarbon dating cited was that of the Shroud of Turin. And what was astonishing (to me at least) was that the textbook actually debunked the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, by pointing out that after that radiocarbon dating which "indicated the cloth was only around 700 years old," "further tests were done" and "These proved that only the bacteria and mould on the cloth were around 700 years old," and so "The mystery continues":

"One famous object that has been radiocarbon dated is the Shroud of Turin - said by some to be the cloth in which Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion. These tests, carried out in the late 1980s, indicated the cloth was only around 700 years old. Then further tests were done. These proved that only the bacteria and mould on the cloth were around 700 years old. The mystery continues. Written records confirm the cloth did exist in 1357." (Easton, M., et al., "SOSE Alive 1: Studies of Society and Environment," John Wiley and Sons: Milton QLD, 2003, p.15).

Unfortunately there was no time to discuss the dating of the Shroud in class, but many of the students in that class (and innumerable students across Australia since the book was first published in 2002) would have read that paragraph and would have absorbed its take-home message that the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin as being only 700 years old, was flawed.

Now I don't totally agree that the reason the Shroud was carbon-dated to around 1325 AD was because the bacteria and mould on the cloth was 700 years old. But I do agree that the bacteria and mould on the Shroud, being more recent carbon, would have markedly skewed the radiocarbon age of the Shroud to make it appear to be younger than its actual chronological age.

And what's more, the late Prof. Harry Gove, co-founder of the AMS radiocarbon method used to date the Shroud also agreed, that the "bioplastic coating of the linen fibrils could not have been removed even by the most stringent pretreatment cleaning process and would, definitely, skew the real age of the linen":

"The C-14) test performed at the Arizona AMS clearly showed a wide discrepancy, on the average of 550) years between the linen and the bird's body. Microscope examination showed the presence of a bioplastic coating not only on the bird's and mummy's wrappings, but also on the Shroud, a sample of which Dr. Garza-Valdes studied in Turin. In his own words, `As soon as I looked at a segment in the microscope, I knew it was heavily contaminated. I knew that what had been radiocarbon dated was a mixture of linen and bacteria and bioplastic coating that had grown or. the fibers for centuries.' [Barrett, J., "Science & the shroud," The Mission, Magazine of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Spring 1996]. Naturally, Dr. Garza-Valdes' discovery, was received with skepticism by some scientists ... However, on December 22, 1998, in a TV interview aired by the learning channel on cable TV, Professor Harry Gove, the co-inventor of the AMS procedure stated unequivocally that, `... bioplastic coating of the linen fibrils could not have been removed even by the most stringent pretreatment cleaning process and would, definitely, skew the real age of the linen.'[TLC-TV: In Pursuit of the Shroud, Dec. 22, 1998.]" (Konikiewicz, L.W., "Turin Shroud and the Science: Digital Enhancement Provides New Evidence," Panorama Publishing:, Chicago IL, 1999, pp.44-45).

What is really important about this paragraph in a high school textbook is that it is evidence that it is becoming increasingly widely accepted in the broader scientific and academic world generally that the 1988 radiocarbon-dating of the Shroud as "medieval" was wrong!

And to paraphrase Harvard geneticist, Prof. Richard Lewontin:

"... to put a correct view ... into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out."

Stephen E. Jones, BSc.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Prof. Joel Bernstein's lecture, "The Shroud of Turin: What science can tell us" #1

2011-08-07T14:04:00.007+08:00

As I briefly reported on Dan Porter's Shroud of Turin blog, I attended this lecture by Chemistry Professor Joel Bernstein

[Right (click image to enlarge): Part of the flyer advertising Prof. Joel Bernstein's lecture on the Shroud.]

on 28 July 2011 at Scitech, Perth, Western Australia.

I wrote copious notes in almost total darkness and discovered that I had written it all in green ink using my 4-color ballpoint pen! But I was relieved to find later that it was almost all legible.

It would make this post far too long to report everything Prof. Bernstein said, and then add my critique, so I will only highlight and then comment on what seemed to me to be the most important points. Even then, this post would be too long, so I have split it into two parts: part #1 being a general introduction to Prof. Bernstein's lecture, and part #2, examining Prof. Bernstein's claims about the Shroud based on the anti-authenticity research of former Cornell University chemical microscopist, the late Dr. Walter McCrone (1916-2002).

It was explained by the speaker introducing Prof. Bernstein that 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry which involved promoting understanding of chemistry and the scientific method. Prof. Bernstein (hereafter just Bernstein for brevity) then began his lecture by contrasting "good science" with "pathological science," with the Shroud of Turin pro-authenticity research being his chosen example of the latter. Indeed, it was not even science at all, but just faith as his overheads began and concluded with the "Science vs Faith" false dichotomy.

Bernstein put on the screen the covers of seven books on the Shroud that he got off the Web. He admitted that he had not read any of them except the late McCrone's Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin which he quoted from extensively. Prof. Bernstein admitted that McCrone was "one of his heroes" having been a revered figure in Chemistry at Cornell University where Bernstein gained his Ph.D: "When I was at Cornell it was, `McCrone, McCrone, McCrone.'" Significantly Bernstein cited McCrone's establishment of his reputation by his debunking of the Vinland Map, without disclosing to the audience that McCrone was later found to be wrong!

It was clear that Bernstein uncritically (and therefore unscientifically) accepted everything his "hero" McCrone wrote on the Shroud as Gospel Truth and he even during the Q&A at the end of the lecture ignorantly claimed of McCrone's analysis of STURP's 32 sticky tapes pressed onto the Shroud that "no one had ever written a book saying `this guy [McCrone] got it wrong.'" I responded by inviting Bernstein to read John Heller's book, Report on the Shroud of Turin and/or Ian Wilson's, The Blood and the Shroud, where McCrone's claims that the Shroud was a painting and that the blood on it was just iron oxide and vermilion, were comprehensively refuted. But he seemed uninterested.

It is ironic that Bernstein used pro-authenticity Shroud research as a prime example of "pathological science" and McCrone's anti-authenticity research as "good science," when the boot is well and truly on the other foot! And Bernstein himself is hardly engaging in "good science" when he lectures on a subject without bothering to read extensively the other side. But then from my analogous experience in the Creation/Intelligent Design vs Evolution debate, that is the whole point of demonising Shroud pro-authenticity research as "bad science" and even "pathological science" or just "faith." Then, like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, one doesn't even have to consider the non-naturalistic other side!

Towards the end of his lecture, Bernstein put up a quote excerpted from Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World (1996, pp.197-198):

Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the `facts'.
Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
Spin more than one hypothesis. If there's something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained.
Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
Quantify. If whatever it is you're explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you'll be much letter able to discriminate among competing hypotheses.
If there's a chain of argument, every link; in the chain must work (including the premise) - not just most of them.
Occam's Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle. falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much.

Ironically, by these criteria, McCrone's Shroud anti-authenticity research fails! In my next post, part #2, I will examine Bernstein's statements about McCrone and comment on them.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Re: Shroud blood ... types as AB ... aged blood always types as AB, so the significance of this ... is unclear

2011-03-18T09:12:00.007+08:00

Thanks for your message. As is my usual policy when I receive a private message on a topic that is covered by one of my blogs,

[Above: "Blood type (or blood group) is determined, in part, by the ABO blood group antigens present on red blood cells": "Blood type," Wikipedia, 11 March 2011. Note that type AB has no antibodies present.]

in this case my The Shroud of Turin blog, I respond via that blog, minus the sender's personal identifying information. Your words are >bold to distinguish them from mine.

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 9:07 PM
Subject: Shroud of Turin AB Blood Q

>Dear Mr. Jones,
>
>In surfing the web for information about the Shroud, I ran across your blog, one dated Thurs, June 28, 2007.

That would be my post on my CED blog: "Bogus: Shroud of Turin? #9: Bloodstains on the Shroud are type AB, contain DNA and are anatomically perfect," where I used to post on the Shroud of Turin, before I started my The Shroud of Turin blog.

>I have followed the science of the Shroud with interest for a number of years.
>
>In listening to several podcasts & interviews of Shroud conferences when discussing the Shroud blood, which types as AB, a clarification is often added that aged blood always types as AB, so the significance of this (the AB phenotype) is unclear.

Blood from the bloodstained areas of the Shroud of Turin has been independently tested at the State University of New York (SUNY) and it was again confirmed that it was real blood, of blood type AB:

"Several claims have been made that the blood has been found to be type AB, and claims have been made about DNA testing. We sent blood flecks to the laboratory devoted to the study of ancient blood at the State University of New York. None of these claims could be confirmed. The blood appears to be so old that the DNA is badly fragmented." (Daniel R. Porter, "How do you know that there is real blood on the Shroud?," 6 November 2005)

But if blood of any type tends to lose its antibodies over time (which seems reasonable, although I don't know of any definitive scientific statement to that effect or how long it takes), then it would eventually come to appear to be type AB blood, since as the Wikipedia diagram above indicates, type AB blood has no antibodies.

Therefore, while that the blood from bloodstained areas of the Shroud of Turin (and the Sudarium of Oviedo) are both blood type AB does not prove that the blood on them is from a Jewish person, it is still significant in that:

1) It further confirms that the blood on the Shroud (and the Sudarium) is real blood. This is a huge (if not fatal) problem for all forgery theories, because (as would be the case if the Shroud was Jesus' or at least a real crucifixion victim), there is no image under the bloodstains, i.e. the blood was on the cloth before the image was formed. But no forger would, or even could, apply blood first on linen and then paint, scorch, photograph or otherwise, the image around the bloodstains:

"Interestingly, there is no image under the blood meaning that the order of events is blood first followed by image. This is the correct sequence if authentic but nearly impossible for an artist. As such, according to the article, they added blood after the image was already created." (Russ Breault, "Is the Shroud of Turin a Fake?," EzineArticles.com, 11 October 2009).

"The image does not exist below blood stains. An artist would have needed to apply real blood first anticipating the exact placement of the image or to have created the image with reserved areas for the blood stains. The very idea of an artist doing so is preposterous." (Daniel R. Porter, "The Shroud image is not manmade," Shroud of Turin Story, 26 July 2004).

And if the Shroud is not a forgery, then even arch-sceptics like Steven Schafersman admit that it must be authentic, i.e. it is Jesus' Shroud:

"Oddly enough, the Shroud opponents have actually helped to make our case. Certainly the need to resort to a denigration of the scientists on the basis of their religious preferences shows a decided bias on their part. In addition, if critics feel the need to declare Jesus a myth, are they not actually suggesting that the Shroud evidence indeed matches the Gospel narratives of Christ's passion and death? At least a few of them are willing to admit this in print. For example, Schafersman states, `Stevenson and Habermas even calculate the odds as 1 in 83 million that the man of the shroud is not Jesus Christ ... a very conservative estimate [Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, p.128]. I agree with them on all of this. If the shroud is authentic, the image is that of Jesus. Otherwise, it's an artist's representation... ." [Schafersman, S., "Science, the Public, and the Shroud," Skeptical Inquirer, B, 1982:41, italics added]" (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1990, "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, pp.196-197. Emphasis original).

2) It is not inconsistent with the Man on the Shroud being Jewish. If the blood on the Shroud had been of a predominantly European blood type like O, then that would be evidence for the Shroud originating in medieval Europe.

3) It is consistent with the Shroud being old. If the blood from the Shroud had been of a blood type other than AB, or a mix of AB and another type in varying stages of denaturing, then that would be evidence that the Shroud was medieval, or at least not from the time of Jesus.

4) It is consistent with the Shroud of Turin and Sudarium of Oviedo having both covered the same body of Jesus, whereas it would be evidence against the authenticity of one or the other, or both, if they had different blood types:

"The most striking thing about all the stains is that they coincide exactly with the face of the image on the Turin Shroud. The first fact that confirms the relationship between the two cloths is that the blood on each belongs to the same group, AB. If the blood or each cloth belonged to a different group, there would be no sense in pursuing the comparative investigation, and little meaning in any further points of coincidence. This test is the starting point for all the others, and the results are positive. Blood of the group AB is also very common in the Middle East and rare in Europe." (Guscin, M., 1998, "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, pp.27-28).

>I noticed a reference on your blog page for this, Wilson & Schwartz, 2000, p.77,

Here again is the quote from Wilson & Schwortz, 2007, p.77:

"In fact, quite independently of Drs Heller and Adler, other findings have served to confirm that what appears to be blood genuinely is blood. For instance the Italian pathologist Dr Pier Luigi Baima-Bollone, who has carried out thousands of autopsies, and who has had more Shroud `blood' sample than was accorded to Dr Adler, has not only confirmed it to be blood, but confidently identified it as of the AB group. [Baima-Bollone, P., Jorio, M. & Massaro, A.L., "Identification of the Group of the Traces of Human Blood on the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International, Issue 6, March 1983, pp.3-6] Although this group is comparatively rare among Europeans and is found in only 3.2 per cent of the world's population as a whole, its incidence is 18 per cent among Jewish populations of the present-day Near East. [Garza-Valdès, L., "The DNA of God?," Doubleday: New York , 1999, p.39] Caution is needed, however, since some researchers have noted a tendency among blood samples more than several centuries old always to test AB." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, p.77).

And here are some further quotes on the topic of the Shroud blood being type AB:

"Which blood-group? The last step has been identifying the blood-group made feasible by the fact that the persistence of the relevant properties in very ancient materials can be taken for granted. Laboratory findings are that the stains on the Shroud behave like those of people with blood-group AB, while the `white' fibres give no response. Many factors can lead to error in determining the blood-group of ancient stains. A whole series of antigens of animals, worms and bacteria are know to produce falsely positive responses. In the Shroud's case, contamination by matter accidentally preserved in the cloth is ruled out because the stained fibres yielding a positive response and the `white' fibres yielding none were offered up on the same slides and thus examined under the same conditions. Furthermore, a falsely positive result is mainly found with B antigens. In our case, microscopic control has shown no differences in the intensity of agglutinisation A and aglutinisation B. What is more, the earlier haematological investigations showed that the blood on the Shroud is perfectly preserved, with no trace of contamination, due perhaps to the inhibiting presence of the aloes and myrrh. Nor, lastly, can it be objected that B properties did not exist in antiquity, since all investigations undertaken prove the contrary." (Baima-Bollone, P. & Zaca, S., 1998, "The Shroud Under the Microscope: Forensic Examination," Neame, A., transl., St Pauls: London, pp.22-23. Emphasis original).

"Blood of the AB group Following the generic identification of the blood, Baima Bollone, in 1981 succeeded in showing that it was human blood. The year after he communicated yet another step forward in his discovery: its type according to the ABO grouping system. It turned out that the blood on the Shroud was of the group AB. [Sindon, n. 31, December 1982, pp. 5-9]." (Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, p.210. Emphasis original).

"In Italy, Dr Baima Bollone, who had taken samples from the `blood' areas with sticky tape, reported that yes, there was blood, and it was of the AB group ... The immunohistochemical tests we conducted showed that the blood on the Shroud was of the AB group, which was and still is the most common blood group among Jews. In western Europeans and in Americans, it is less common. (We did not have enough blood sample to test for the rhesus factor.) It was interesting that our findings supported the claims of Baima Bollone back in Italy." (Garza-Valdes, L.A., 1998, "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London, pp.38-39. Emphasis original).

"On the afternoon of 21 April 1988, just a few hours after having cut off the snippets of the Shroud used for radiocarbon dating, the Italian microscopist Dr Giovanni Riggi took a 1.5 mm `blood' sample from the back-of-the-head region. In June 1993 he provided some of this sample to a visiting American microbiology professor, Dr Leoncio Garza-Valdès, who took it back for analysis at the University of Texas' Center for Advanced DNA Technologies at San Antonio, Texas. There the laboratory director, Dr Victor Tryon, and his technician wife, Nancy Mitchell Tryon, quickly established that the sample was human blood of the AB group, just as Baima-Bollone had before them" (Wilson & Schwortz, 2000, pp.77-78).

Note that Dr Victor Tryon, of the University of Texas, also "established that the sample was human blood of the AB group."

>Do you know of any further references (especially scientific articles) related to this? I don't have this book, when I look on Amazon & click on it, it says unavailable.

I don't know of any independent scientific statement that all blood types tend to denature or degrade over time to type AB. But again the chart at "Blood type," Wikipedia, 11 March 2011, above indicates that blood type AB has no antibodies present, which would seem to indicate that if any blood type, over time, lost its antibodies, it would eventually resemble type AB.

There are secondhand copies of Wilson & Schwortz' book available at Amazon.com as well as at ABE.com

>Any further info you might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated.

The above quote appears to be the best I have. Surprisingly there does not seem to be much in the Shroud literature on the topic of blood losing its distinctive antibodies over time and coming to resemble type AB blood.

Also, there may not be much (if anything) in the scientific literature about all blood types losing their distinctive antibodies over time and becoming the same as type AB (no antibodies), because it may not be of much use either to archaeology or forensic science, the former probably not being interested in blood types and the latter being only interested in comparatively recent blood.

However, if you or anyone find any information about this in the non-Shroud scientific literature, feel free to post it as a comment under this post.

>Best Regards,
>
>AN

Thanks again for your question. I hope this has helped answer it.

Stephen E. Jones.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Re: Why couldn't Joseph of Arimathea have taken the Shroud?

2011-01-30T20:22:00.007+08:00

M.R. Minkler

Thanks for your comment under my post "Turin Shroud goes on display for first time in 10 years, etc."

[Above: Icon of St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, with the Holy Grail and the staff that flowered, by the hand of a Monk of the Brotherhood of St. Seraphim of Sarov. See below that the story that Joseph of Arimathea visited Britain is a confusion by the Venerable Bede (c.672-735) with the Shroud as the then tetradiplon (doubled in four) Edessa Cloth being at "Britio Edessenorum" in Edessa (now Sanliurfa,Turkey).]

As I commented in reply, I have decided to responds to your comment in a separate post. Your words are >bold to distinguish them from mine.

----- Original Message -----
From: M.R. Minkler
To: Stephen E. Jones.
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 7:32 AM
Subject: [The Shroud of Turin] New comment on Turin Shroud goes on display for first time in 10 ....

>Why couldn't Joseph of Arimathea have taken it? He owned the tomb

First, for the authenticity of the Shroud it doesn't matter WHO recovered Jesus' burial clothes, including the Shroud and the Sudarium. What matters is that they WERE recovered.

Having said that, prime candidates to have taken Jesus' burial clothes, including the Shroud and Sudarium were (not in any order):

1. Joseph of Arimathea. He both owned the tomb (Mt 27:59-60; Mk 15:44-46) and had bought the burial clothes (Mk 15:46). But while Joseph's allowing Jesus' body to be buried in his tomb would not be a relinquishing of ownership of the tomb (since typically many bodies were buried in Jewish family tombs, including non-family members), Joseph's covering Jesus with the linen burial clothes he bought would be a gift of them to Jesus and so a relinquishing of Joseph's ownership of them.

2. Mary the mother of Jesus. Mary as Jesus' mother and therefore His next of kin, would presumably inherit His earthly goods, including His burial clothes. Mary was at the Cross (Jn 19:25) and later on the Day of Pentecost "Mary the mother of Jesus, and ... his brothers" (Acts 1:14) were still in Jerusalem praying with the other disciples.

3. John. The Apostle John's mother Salome was actually Mary's sister (Mt 27:55-56; Mk 15:40; Jn 19:25), making him Jesus' cousin (Mt 27:55-56; Mk 15:40). This explains why Jesus on the Cross told John that Mary was now his mother, and why John took Mary to live in his home from that time on (Jn 19:25-27). So if John recovered Jesus' graveclothes he could have given them to Mary (and vice-versa).

4. Peter. Peter with John first discovered Jesus' discarded burial clothes in the empty tomb (Jn 20:3-8). So either or both could have collected those clothes. And they probably would have since it is highly unlikely they would just have left them there for grave-robbers to loot out of the now open tomb, along with the large quantity of valuable spices (Jn 19:39-40).

Of the above, I favour John because of his connection with Mary, i.e. John (with Peter) collected Jesus' burial cloths and gave them to Mary, Jesus' next of kin.

>and according to Scavone may have taken the shroud to Britain as it was mistakenly referred to as the Holy GRAIL(a misinterpretation according to Scavone).

No. Historian Daniel Scavone does not say that the Shroud was taken to Britain. He has showed how by a verbal confusion of Edessa's "Britio Edessenorum" with "Britain", the Holy Grail never existed but was actually the Shroud which was then in Edessa (now Sanliurfa, Turkey) and never was in Britain:

"My paper now adduces further documentation as evidence that Joseph was never in the West, but rather that the earliest reference placing him in Britain was in reality a reference to Edessa, whose royal palace complex was called Britio Edessenorum. The confusion arose from the similarity of the names. Also, a 5th c. Georgian (Russia) MS relates that Joseph captured Jesus's blood as it dripped from his crucified body not in a cup-Grail--but in the burial shroud itself. Grail and shroud are here identified!" (Scavone, D.C. "Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and the Turin Shroud," 1996).

Watch also Scavone's "Origins of the Holy Grail--Lecture Given at Ohio State--May 24, 2006" and/or "Shroud Report Interview with Dr. Daniel Scavone."

>This would explain why the disciples didn't talk about it as Joseph had it and they were busy dealing with after resurrection appearances of Jesus to them! Then they had to go out and disciple the nations, leaving them little time for shroud keeping.

Joseph of Arimathea was one of the disciples:

Mt 27:57. As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.

Jn 19:38. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders.

And as I explained in my "Re: John Calvin on the Shroud #1" and #2, there is a much better reason why the disciples did not publicly mention they had the Shroud:

"... the tiny, persecuted minority that the early Church was, would have very good reasons to keep secret from its then far more numerous and powerful enemies, the Romans and the Jews, that it had Jesus' bloodstained Shroud on which, `the likeness of Christ's body is impressed on the linen.' The Jews and/or Romans would have demanded they hand it over, or suffer torture and death until they did. Especially when it would support the chief priests' official explanation, that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body ..."

>It would make practical sense to me that Joseph simply picked it up when he went back to the tomb after the resurrection. Surely he went straight to the tomb when he heard of it and would have easy access since he owned the tomb. After all, in his mind he probably felt he had a right to take the shroud since he bought it!

It's possible (see above) but it is more likely that John and Peter took it the first time they found it (Jn 19:25-27). They would not know that if they left it for Joseph of Arimathea or any other disciple to take, that the guards or grave-robbers would not come to the open tomb before them.

>Joseph would understand the true value of the shroud and have the means to keep it safe. He would know how to care for fine linen, to protect it.

So would John and Mary.

>The fishermen probably would not have.

John was not the average fisherman. He writings reveal a high intelligence (at least the equal of St Paul in my opinion) and he was "known to the high priest" (Jn 18:16). There is a tradition that John was a priest, i.e. while his mother Salome as a sister of Mary (see above) was of the tribe of Judah, his father Zebedee was a Levite. Ordinary Jewish priests in the first century were part-time and had secular occupations.

>It just makes sense to me but of course I have no evidence.

As I said above, for the Shroud to be authentic, the very burial sheet of Jesus, it does not matter WHO recovered it, only that it WAS recovered.

But having once favoured that it was Joseph of Arimathea who took Jesus' burial clothes, including the Shroud and Sudarium, I now lean towards that it was probably the Apostle John (for the above reasons) and him giving them to their rightful owner Mary, who lived with him.

Again thanks for your comment.

Stephen E. Jones.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Re: John Calvin on the Shroud #2

2011-01-11T00:04:00.011+08:00

Continued from part #1, with this final part #2 of working through the arguments of the Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509-15) in his "A Treatise on Relics" (1543) and also his "The Gospel according to St. John" (1553), against the Shroud of Turin.

[Above: "The Holy Shroud," by Giovanni Battista della Rovere (c. 1575-c. 1640): Wikipedia. It accurately depicts from the information on the Shroud of Turin, how Jesus' body was laid on the bottom half of Shroud and then the top half was taken over His head and overlapped His feet. Note that "the napkin from about his head" (the Sudarium of Oviedo), had been first taken off before Jesus' head and body were covered by the Shroud.]

Although it was not then called the "Shroud of Turin" in Calvin's day because it would not be in Turin until 1578.

>Another point to be observed is, that the evangelists do not mention that either of the disciples or the faithful women who came to the sepulchre had removed the clothes in question, but, on the contrary, their account seems to imply that they were left there.

Again, as in part #1, Calvin commits the Argument from Silence fallacy. The fact is that the gospels do not say what the disciples did with Jesus' burial clothes, whether they recovered them from the tomb or left them there. The only two accounts which mentions Jesus' burial clothes found in the tomb:

Luke 24:12: "Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened."

and

John 20:3-10. So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

do not say how long Peter and John were at the tomb, nor what they did while they were there.

But it far more likely than not that Peter and John, or other disciples, took Jesus' burial clothes away, as a tangible reminder of His earthly life among them, as well as evidence to the other disciples that Jesus' had been resurrected, rather than just leave them there in the now opened tomb.

Also, they would not just leave the valuable spices (Jn 19:38-40) for grave-robbers to plunder, yet nothing is mentioned about the disciples taking those.

So although there is no mention of any other disciples coming back to the tomb, it beggars belief that they would not have. And if Peter or John had not taken Jesus' graveclothes, any of those other disciples, including the "women" mentioned in conjunction with the tomb (Mt 27:61; Mk 15:47; Lk 23:55-56 & Mt 28:1-9; Mk 16:1-8; Lk 24:1-8,22-23; Jn 20:1-2) could have.

And there is positive evidence in second century Christian writings "that Jesus' shroud was removed from the tomb and saved," e.g. "After the Lord gave his shroud to ... Peter," etc, and although they "disagree about who saved it from the tomb, but they agree that it had been saved" and they also "show us that second century writers knew about the Shroud in their day":

"Even though the Bible is silent about what happened to the Shroud after Easter, there are other documents of an unofficial nature which do point to the Shroud's survival after Easter Sunday. In the second century (about 100-200 A.D.), several accounts were written about the life of Christ. These biographies are similar to the Gospel accounts in the Bible. For various reasons the early Church Fathers did not include them among the `official' texts of the Bible. Some of these writings contain incorrect religious teachings; some are just copies of the Gospels with a few additions. Hence we have called them `unofficial.' The usual word for these books is `apocryphal' or `hidden' books. But because they were excluded from the Bible does not mean that they are utterly false. They agree with the Gospels on many points. As books actually written in the second century, they are valuable source materials for that time. Most importantly, these texts say that Jesus' shroud was removed from the tomb and saved. Writers of the second century, therefore, knew of the existence of this sheet in their own day. The first of these apocryphal books is called the Gospel of the Hebrews. The author is anonymous (unknown) as is the case with all these apocryphal books. We have only fragments from it, for most of it has been lost over the centuries. One key surviving passage says, `After the Lord gave his shroud to the servant of the priest [or of Peter; the actual word is not clear], he appeared to James:' The Acts of Pilate is another apocryphal book of the second century. It states that Pilate and his wife preserved the shroud of Jesus. It suggests that they were sorry for their part in his death and were now Christians. These two books, along with the Gospel of Peter, The Acts of Nicodemus, and The Gospel of Gamaliel, show us that second century writers knew about the Shroud in their day. They disagree about who saved it from the tomb, but they agree that it had been saved. The silence of the `official' Biblical stories about the preservation of the shroud is countered by these books." (Scavone, D.C., "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, 1989, pp.73-74).

>Now, the sepulchre was guarded by soldiers, and consequently the clothes were in their power.

Calvin is simply wrong. The guards had been rendered unconscious (i.e. "became like dead men"):

Mt 28:2-4,11. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. ... While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.

and then after that, before the first of the disciples had arrived at the tomb, the guards had evidently fled, because "some of them went into the city and reported to the chief priests " (see above). Also, there is no mention of any members of the guard being still at the tomb by the time the disciples arrived, and why would they still be there if the body of Jesus had vanished?

>Is it possible that they would have permitted the disciples to take them away as relics, since these very men had been bribed by the Pharisees to perjure themselves by saying that the disciples had stolen the body of our Lord?

This is an thoughtless, argument by Calvin. If the tomb was still being guarded by some of the soldiers, then the disciples would not have been able to enter it in the first place.

Clearly there were was no guard by the time the first of the disciples arrived and therefore either Peter and John (since nothing is said about how long they were at the tomb, or what else they did), would have been able to take Jesus' discarded burial clothes out of the tomb. Or the women later (e.g. Jesus' mother Mary who, being Jesus' next of kin, would presumably have been the rightful owner of Jesus' clothes), could have taken them.

>I shall conclude with a convincing proof of the audacity of the Papists.

Calvin is too prejudiced against "the Papists" to think clearly. His prejudice may be understandable, given the effective state of war that the Reformers and the Papacy were then in. But whatever the faults of the then 16th century Papacy, that has nothing to do with the authenticity of the Shroud. The fact is that Shroud did not belong to the Papacy in Calvin's day, but to the House of Savoy:

"The history from the 15th century to the present is well understood. In 1453 Margaret de Charny deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy. In 1578 the shroud was transferred in Turin." ("Shroud of Turin: History," Wikipedia, 4 January 2011)

and it was only in 1983, following the death of ex-King Umberto II of Savoy, that the Shroud became the property of the Papacy:

"In 1983 the Shroud was given to the Holy See by the House of Savoy. However, as with all relics of this kind, the Roman Catholic Church made no pronouncements claiming whether it is Jesus' burial shroud, or if it is a forgery.".("Shroud of Turin: Vatican position," Wikipedia, 4 January 2011)

>Wherever the holy sudary is exhibited, they show a large sheet with the full-length likeness of a human body on it.

This "full-length likeness" Calvin is referring to sounds like the single-sided "frontal image of a crucified man, but no image of his back" copy of the Shroud which was "destroyed by the French revolutionaries in 1794" and was then held in the cathedral at Besançon - about 70 miles or 114 kilometres from Geneva:

"There was, in fact, a Shroud of Besançon. It was destroyed by the French revolutionaries in 1794, but paintings of this fabric survive. It was apparently very different from the Shroud of Turin. It evidently displayed a frontal image of a crucified man, but no image of his back. The nail wounds were in the center of the hands. There were no marks of scourging, and, according to one scholar, the body of Christ looked like a stick, straight up and down, with the neck, pelvic area, and knees all of one width. [Vignon, P., "The Shroud of Christ," University Books: New Hyde Park NY, 1970, pp.67-68]" (Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, p.62).

The Shroud of Turin, bearing two images, front and back, is double full-length. As pointed out in part #1, the Shroud was at this time when Calvin was writing his Treatise on Relics which was published in 1543, located at Nice between 1537-1540 on the French Mediterranean, a long way from Calvin's Geneva. So Calvin probably had never seen the original Shroud, but only inferior copies of it (if that).

>Now, St John's Gospel, chapter nineteenth, says that Christ was buried according to the manner of the Jews; and what was their custom? This may be known by their present custom on such occasions, as well as from their books, which describe the ancient ceremony of interment, which was to wrap the body in a sheet, to the shoulders, and to cover the head with a separate cloth.

Again Calvin is wrong about the Jewish "ceremony of interment," in that he fails to distinguish between ordinary burials and burials of bodies that had been bleeding. According to Jewish law, if a body had "the blood of the soul ... absorbed in his clothes [in Jesus' case he had no clothes so the Shroud would have been placed over His naked, bloody body] he should not be cleansed." but "those preparing the dead person for burial had to wrap a `sheet which is called a sovev' straight over any clothes ... an all-enveloping cloth ... a `single sheet ... to go right round' the entire body" and "Such a sovev readily corresponds to the `over the head' characteristics of Turin's Shroud":

"Lazarus died a natural death. In accordance with normal Jewish practice he would have been washed, interred fully dressed in his Sabbath best, tied up with a few binding strips to keep his jaw and limbs suitably together, and provided with some kind of face cloth for screening purposes. Jesus, in contrast, died a very bloody death, and stark naked, his clothes having been removed from him at the time of his crucifixion. [Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, John 19:23] In his case Jewish law prescribed something very different. As has been carefully explained by Jewish-born Victor Tunkel [Tunkel, V., "A Jewish View of the Shroud," Lecture to the British Society for the Turin Shroud, London, 12 May 1983] of the Faculty of Laws, Queen Mary College, University of London, the belief among the Pharisees of Jesus's time, shared by Jesus's own followers, was that everyone's body would be physically resurrected at the end of time. This meant that as far as humanly possible everything that formed part of that body, including particularly the life-blood, should be buried with it. As expressed in the Jewish Code of Laws, `One who fell [e.g. in battle] and died instantly, if ... blood flowed from the wound, and there is apprehension that the blood of the soul was absorbed in his clothes, he should not be cleansed.' [Gansfried, 1927, Vol. IV, ch. CXCVII, Laws Relating to Purification (Tahara nos 9 and 10), pp.99-100] In these circumstances, therefore, those preparing the dead person for burial had to wrap a `sheet which is called a sovev' straight over any clothes, however bloodstained. This sovev had to be an all-enveloping cloth, that is a `single sheet ... used to go right round' the entire body. Such a sovev readily corresponds to the `over the head' characteristics of Turin's Shroud." (Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, p.52).

>This is precisely how the evangelist described it, saying, that St Peter saw on one side the clothes with which the body had been wrapped, and on the other the napkin from about his head.

The "napkin" was the sudarium or facecloth (i.e. the "Sudarium of Oviedo") a smaller cloth placed over a Jewish corpses' face and around its head (as we do in our Western culture). As in the Rovere painting above, in the tomb the facecloth was removed, Jesus' body was laid on the lower half of the Shroud, and then the top half of the Shroud was taken over His head and overlapped at His feet. See the video "Shroud Report Interview with Mark Guscin on the Sudarium of Oviedo."

> In short, either St John is a liar, or all those who boast of possessing the holy sudary are convicted of falsehood and deceit.

This is yet another fallacious argument by Calvin, this time the Fallacy of False Dilemma, claiming there are only two possible alternatives: Either 1) "St. John is a liar"; or 2) "All those" claiming to possess the Shroud are guilty of "falsehood and deceit."

But there is a third alternative, that Calvin is wrong (see above and previously) and one of the shrouds, the one that he listed at "Nice" in his Treatise on Relics, is the genuine original and all the others are inferior copies.

That ends our examination of Calvin's arguments against the Shroud in his Treatise on Relics. Now we will look at his (as far as I am aware) only other attack on the Shroud, in his, Commentary on John (1553):

"[John 20:5]. And seeth the linen cloths lying. The linen cloths were, so to say, the slough, which should produce faith in Christ's resurrection. For it was improbable that His body would be stripped to be taken elsewhere. This would have been done neither by a friend nor by a foe. That His head was wrapped in a napkin refutes the falsehood of the Papists, who pretend that the whole body was sewn up in one linen cloth, which they show to the unhappy masses to adore. I overlook their ignorance of Latin, which led them to make the word `napkin' (which was used to wipe sweat off the face) into a covering for the whole body. I overlook also their impudence in boasting-in five or six different localities-that they have this same napkin. But this gross falsehood is intolerable, for it openly contradicts the Gospel history. To this is added the fabulous miracle which they have invented, that the likeness of Christ's body is impressed on the linen. I ask you, if such a miracle had been performed, would the Evangelist have suppressed it, when he is so careful to relate less important things? Let us be content with this simplicity, that by laying aside the tokens of death, Christ meant to testify that He had put on a blessed and immortal life." (Calvin, J., 1553, "The Gospel According to St. John, Part Two 11-21," Parker, T.H.L., transl., Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1959, Reprinted, 1979, pp.193-194. Emphasis original).

I will now comment on those of Calvin's words above (in bold) which are relevant to the Shroud.

>That His head was wrapped in a napkin refutes the falsehood of the Papists,

Again, Calvin's prejudice against "the Papists" is evident, which blinds him to the truth about the Shroud. Calvin on this is in `good' company with anti-Christians like you Ed, who uncritically enlist his false arguments against the Shroud in your "The Shroud of Turin: John Calvin versus the Catholic Church" as part of your attack on Christianity!

Calvin doesn't seem to understand that the "napkin" or headcloth (the Sudarium of Oviedo) was first taken off Jesus' head and then the Shroud was drawn over His body, "The sudarium ... was used during the descent from the cross and during the transport of the body to the tomb ... It was then removed and placed separately in the tomb":

"Garcia's studies show that the Sudarium of Oviedo had to have been used before wrapping the body in any other linen, particularly in the Shroud of Turin. The image of the face on the Shroud of Turin, as well as that of the lateral surface of the head, negates the possibility that this person had another linen placed around his head. The stains of blood on the Sudarium of Oviedo also point in the same direction. The sudarium therefore, was not part of the shrouding process. It was used during the descent from the cross and during the transport of the body to the tomb, in order to cover the disfigured face of Jesus, according to the orders of the Sanhedrin, and to prevent loss of blood. It was then removed and placed separately in the tomb. John 20:7 also indicates that Jesus, had the Sudarium placed on his head before the burial, but not after. It would have been necessary to remove the cloth in order to anoint the facial wounds, and would not have been used to cover the face once again due to the large amount of blood it contained. It was sufficient to wrap the body in a clean white linen shroud, and is unthinkable that a dirty, bloodstained linen would have left in place on the head of Jesus. While Jewish burial customs would have exempted Jesus from the washing ritual, a clean shroud was required by law." (Bennett, J., 2001, "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, p.151).

>who pretend that the whole body was sewn up in one linen cloth,

Not "sewn up" but enfolded "in one linen cloth.":

"Since the Jewish burial custom allowed the use of cloths to bind the hands and feet as well as the jaw, the total picture matches Jewish burial customs exactly and explains clearly why the synoptics only mention a sindon and John mentions othonia. Second, John's use of othonia has led to a widely held belief that Jesus was wrapped like an Egyptian mummy. But such a procedure doesn't conform to what is known of first-century normal Jewish burial ritual. Nor does it match what was previously mentioned in the Word, to wit, that Joseph of Arimathea had purchased a winding sheet and wrapped Jesus in it (Mark 15:46). Even John used the word edesan, which is translated wound in the KJV but literally means `enfolded.' Enfolded would also match the burial custom. Being wrapped with strips of cloth would not. In other words, othonia in John should be understood to mean that Jesus' dead body was enveloped from head to feet in one burial cloth, not wrapped like a mummy with numerous strips of cloth." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1990, "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, p.150).

>which they show to the unhappy masses to adore.

Calvin here comes across as an arrogant intellectual, looking down on the mostly illiterate "unhappy masses." But what is wrong with the "masses" adoring Jesus' image on the Shroud? Or even on a copy of the Shroud? It is still the image of Jesus they are adoring! "Authentic or not, the message is the same":

"Oddly enough, the controversy around the Shroud keeps many Christians from looking at it for what it is-a visual representation of Jesus Christ. .... Why is this so? Blame it on the Reformation ... and I'm a Protestant. In ... 1517 ... the Catholic preoccupation with relics was in high swing. .... items ascribed to the saints were being sold in the marketplace to the gullible and the desperate. It's no wonder that the reformers reacted to such abuse. And since few if any of the true relics could be distinguished from the bogus, there was a wholesale rejection of all of them. ... But the Protestants, led by John Calvin, may have gone too far in their bias against images. ... There is an irrational fear that images of any kind will end up being worshipped ... Part of the Protestant fear of images stems from an incorrect interpretation of the Second Commandment to make no graven or carved images ... But all that changed with the coming of Jesus a thousand years after this commandment was given. Jesus was `the image of the invisible God' [Col 1:15]. Suddenly God himself became an image; the image was that of a man. ... The Reformer's over-reaction to the abuse of relics and icons has left us aesthetically impoverished and unnecessarily fearful of images. Now we come to the Shroud of Turin, that 14-foot long linen cloth bearing the front and back images of a bearded, crucified man, including blood from the wounds. ... Many experts believe that the preponderance of evidence supports authenticity. ... that the Shroud of Turin is in fact the Shroud that wrapped Jesus in the tomb. .... But what if it isn't? The irony is that the message is the same. ... if it is the work of an unknown medieval genius who figured out how to create this 3-D, negative image without artistic substances but used real blood to represent the wounds, then it was done to visually represent biblical truths. In other words, It either is the actual shroud of Christ or it represents His shroud. It either is an image resulting from the resurrection or it represents His resurrection. It either is the blood of Christ on the cloth or it represents His blood. Authentic or not, the message is the same: It is a visual representation of Jesus. IT'S THE MESSAGE THAT MATTERS. ... the good news that God loves us enough to redeem us with His own life and blood. That very blood, the heavenly currency that purchased the souls of men, might have stained a 14-foot linen cloth now kept in Turin, Italy. And the image that barely penetrates the surface of the cloth could have captured His victory over death through a glorious resurrection." (Breault, R.A., 1999, "It's the Message that Matters," Shroud of Turin Education Project. Emphasis original).

> I overlook their ignorance of Latin, which led them to make the word `napkin' (which was used to wipe sweat off the face) into a covering for the whole body.

Calvin is right at least on this. The "napkin" (Gk. soudarion) is a small piece of cloth, not "a covering for the whole body." It occurs in the Parable of Pounds (or Talents) being a piece of cloth that money was wrapped in:

Lk 19:20 KJV. "And another came, saying, `Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin [soudario]'."

and is translated "handerkerchiefs" for cloths placed against the Apostle Paul's body, which then were used to heal the sick:

Acts 19:12 KJV. So that from his [Paul's] body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs [soudaria] or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

The same word soudarion, translated "napkin" (KJV) is used for the cloth placed over the dead Lazarus' face:

Jn 11:44 KJV. And he [Lazarus] that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin [soudario]. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

Which in turn is the same word used of "the napkin, that was about his [Jesus'] head":

Jn 20:7 KJV. And the napkin [soudarion], that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

The "napkin" or soudarion corresponds with the Sudarium of Oviedo, which "measures two feet nine inches by one foot nine inches [~ 84 x 53 cm]" and was "the face cloth or napkin that covered the face of Christ when He was taken down from the Cross" because "According to Jewish burial traditions, it was considered impertinent to show the disfigured face of a dead man":

"ONE cloth which can contribute a great deal to the study of the Shroud of Turin and its authenticity is the Sudarium of Oviedo. This cloth has been kept in Spain since the seventh century and housed in the cathedral of Oviedo, a town in the north of Spain, since the eleventh century. The sudarium is a piece of bloodstained cloth woven with the same type of thread as the Shroud. The cloth bears no image and measures two feet nine inches by one foot nine inches [~ 84 x 53 cm]. It is believed by many to be the face cloth or napkin that covered the face of Christ when He was taken down from the Cross. The sudarium is mentioned in the Gospel of St. John: `Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself' (John 20:6-7). According to Jewish burial traditions, it was considered impertinent to show the disfigured face of a dead man. Therefore, a sweat cloth or a napkin was placed over the face and was then discarded at the tomb." (Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.41. Emphasis original).

>I overlook also their impudence in boasting-in five or six different localities-that they have this same napkin.

By "napkin" I assume Calvin is using "the Papists" term for the Shroud, i.e. "a large sheet with the full-length likeness of a human body on it," "one linen cloth" in which "the whole body was."

Again (see part #1), Calvin uses the same fallacy that atheists use to dismiss Christianity: "all religions contradict each other, therefore they are all false." But one religion could be true (as Christianity claims - (Jn 3:16-18; 14:6; Acts 4:10-12; 10:38-43), and all other religions be false.

Similarly, one Shroud (Gk. sindon - a large linen sheet), the Shroud of Turin, and one "napkin" (Gk. soudarion - a smaller cloth), the Sudarium of Oviedo, could be true, and all other shrouds and cloths could be false.

>But this gross falsehood is intolerable, for it openly contradicts the Gospel history.

Calvin is here just blustering. He has not explained why the disciples' keeping Jesus' burial Shroud and its subsequent survival down to his day was a "gross falsehood," and how "it openly contradicts the Gospel history." Only if the Gospels stated that Jesus' burial garments were not recovered from Jesus' tomb but were later destroyed would the Shroud's claimed continued existence in Calvin's day "contradict... the Gospel history." But all Calvin has is an Argument from Silence.

As we saw in from part #1, Jesus linen burial garments (including the Shroud and Sudarium) are mentioned in all four gospels (Mt 27:57-60; Mk 15:42-46; Lk 23:50-54; Jn 19:38-42) before Jesus' resurrection, and in two gospels (Lk 24:12; Jn 20:5-7) after it. Nothing is said, one way or the other, what happened to them. But having mentioned them, one would expect that at least one gospel would have mentioned they were left in the tomb and later lost or destroyed. That there is no such explanation, more plausibly argues for the most distinctive among those garments, the sindon (Shroud) and the soudarion (face-cloth), being kept by the disciples and never destroyed in New Testament times or subsequent Church history.

>To this is added the fabulous miracle which they have invented, that the likeness of Christ's body is impressed on the linen.

The "Papists" didn't "invent" the "fabulous miracle" that "the likeness of Christ's body is impressed on the linen." Calvin would be unaware that the history of the Shroud and its image goes back well before the Papacy via the Image of Edessa to the first century.

In fact the Papacy itself had very little to do with the Shroud until 1940 and to this day the Vatican's position is to make "no pronouncements claiming whether it is Jesus' burial shroud, or if it is a forgery":

"The first official association between the image on the Shroud and the Catholic Church was made in 1940 based on the formal request by Sister Maria Pierina De Micheli to the curia in Milan to obtain authorization to produce a medal with the image. The authorization was granted ... In 1983 the Shroud was given to the Holy See by the House of Savoy. However, as with all relics of this kind, the Roman Catholic Church made no pronouncements claiming whether it is Jesus' burial shroud, or if it is a forgery." ("Shroud of Turin: Vatican position," Wikipedia, 4 January 2011).

>I ask you, if such a miracle had been performed, would the Evangelist have suppressed it, when he is so careful to relate less important things?

Again Calvin uses the same Argument from Silence fallacy (see part #1). Indeed, as we saw in part #1, Calvin himself, in this very commentary admitted that "John ... has only written some things out of many; not that the others were not worth recording:"

[Jn 20:30] Many other signs therefore. If this anticipation had not been added, readers might have thought that John had not left out any of the miracles that Christ performed and had given a full and complete history. John therefore declares that he has only written some things out of many; not that the others were not worth recording, but because these were sufficient to build up faith. And yet it does not follow that they were performed in vain, for they profited that age. Secondly, although today their kinds are unknown to us, we must not deduce that it is of little importance for us to know that the Gospel was sealed by a great wealth of miracles." (Calvin, 1553, p.213).

And as mentioned in part #1, the tiny, persecuted minority that the early Church was, would have very good reasons to keep secret from its then far more numerous and powerful enemies, the Romans and the Jews, that it had Jesus' bloodstained Shroud on which, "the likeness of Christ's body is impressed on the linen." The Jews and/or Romans would have demanded they hand it over, or suffer torture and death until they did. Especially when it would support the chief priests' official explanation, that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body:

Mt 28:12-15. "When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, `You are to say, "His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep." If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.' So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day."

In fact the early Church (perhaps unknown to Calvin) had a doctrine called "the Discipline of the Secret," by which "knowledge of the more intimate mysteries of the Christian religion was carefully kept from non-Christians and even from those who were undergoing instruction in the faith":

"Disciplina Arcani or Discipline of the Secret or Discipline of the Arcane, is a theological term used to describe the custom which prevailed in Early Christianity, whereby knowledge of the more intimate mysteries of the Christian religion was carefully kept from non-Christians and even from those who were undergoing instruction in the faith." ("Disciplina arcani," Wikipedia, 22 December 2010).

"Discipline of the Secret ... A theological term used to express the custom which prevailed in the earliest ages of the Church, by which the knowledge of the more intimate mysteries of the Christian religion was carefully kept from the heathen and even from those who were undergoing instruction in the Faith. The custom itself is beyond dispute, but the name for it is comparatively modern, and does not appear to have been used before the controversies of the seventeenth century, when special dissertations bearing the title `De disciplina arcani' were published both on the Protestant and the Catholic side. The origin of the custom must be looked for in the recorded words of Christ: `Give not that which holy to dogs; neither cast your pearls before swine; lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turning upon you, they tear you' (Matthew 7:6), while the practice in Apostolic times is sufficiently vouched for by St. Paul's assurance that he fed the Corinthians `as . . . little ones in Christ', giving them `milk to drink, not meat', because they were not yet able to bear it (1 Corinthians 3:1-2).' ("Discipline of the Secret," Catholic Encyclopedia Online, 10 January 2011).

There is not space in this already too long post to go into it, but historian Jack Markwardt in his 2008 paper, "Ancient Edessa and the Shroud: History Concealed by the Discipline of the Secret [PDF ~2Mb]"

":In the course of an intense theological debate which followed on the heels of the Protestant Reformation, an ancient Church custom was identified and labeled the `Discipline of the Secret'. Pursuant to this practice., the clergy was required, when speaking of Christian tenets, doctrines, mysteries, and rites, to employ coded language, symbolic representations, metaphorical expressions, and allegorical narratives in a manner conducive to making the message understandable only to advanced believers. Initially, the practice was designed to prevent catechumens from acquiring detailed knowledge of the faith, somewhat in accordance with Paul's counsel that the uninitiated and dull of hearing' be fed with milk, and not with meat'; [1Cor 3:1-2; Heb 5:12-14] however, after Roman persecutions had intensified and expanded, the Discipline was employed to conceal all critical faith-related information, in strict obedience to Christ's commandment to `give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you'. [Mt 7:6] When employing the custom, the technique was to speak of the realities and the rituals of the Christian life in an allusive manner, by hinting rather than by stating explicitly. `It is natural and necessary that a Christian inscription (of) about A.D. 200, which was intended to be public, should be so expressed as not to offend the sense of the pagans; i.e. it must be capable of being read by the ordinary observer without its Christian origin being obvious .... it was the recognized duty of a Christian to use carefully veiled language.' [Ramsay, W.M., `The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia,' Clarendon Press: Oxford 1897, p.789.]" (Markwardt, J., 2008, "Ancient Edessa and the Shroud: History Concealed by the Discipline of the Secret," in Fanti, G., ed., "The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma," Proceedings of the 2008 Columbus Ohio International Conference, August 14-17, 2008, Progetto Libreria: Padua, Italy, 2009, pp.382 407, p.386).

shows that the Shroud did exist in at least the second century AD:

"By applying the precepts of the Discipline of the Secret to the Inscription of Abercius [c. AD 216]... the historical circumstances which underlie the evangelization of Edessa, including the Shroud's role in that historic event, are revealed. ...

By applying the precepts of the Discipline of the Secret to the ancient Abgar Legend, the historical circumstances which underlie the evangelization of Edessa, including the Shroud?s role in that historic event, are further revealed. The ancient legend consists of the Syriac tale, known as the Doctrine of Addai, and the Greek tale which was presented by Eusebius. Like the Inscription of Abercius, the Doctrine of Addai, which was composed originally in the late third century and acknowledges Edessa?s archives as the source of its narrative, specifically declares that it contains a concealed message understandable only by Christians and, thereby, proclaims itself to be a product of the Discipline. ...

By applying the precepts of the Discipline of the Secret to the Syriac poem known as the Hymn of the Pearl, the Shroud?s presence in Edessa during the late second century is revealed. Unlike the Inscription of Abercius and the Doctrine of Addai, the Hymn of the Pearl does not specifically declare itself to contain a concealed message understandable only by Christians and, thereby, proclaim itself to be a product of the Discipline; however, and as will be demonstrated, its anonymous author?s utilization of an allegorical narrative to conceal a Christian message, superbly crafted in accordance with the precepts of the Discipline, is patent. The Hymn is datable to the early part of the third century and was written no later than the year 224. ..." (Markwardt, 2008, p.387-391).

>Let us be content with this simplicity, that by laying aside the tokens of death, Christ meant to testify that He had put on a blessed and immortal life."

And in the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo, Christ testified just that!

No doubt Calvin meant well, but it is not for him to set limits on what God in Christ should do. If Jesus in His love and mercy (especially to the many millions of illiterate Christians who lived before the advent of printing and universal education) wanted to preserve His Shroud and Sudarium as additional evidence of His suffering, death, burial and resurrection, then who is Calvin, or anyone, to object (Job 9:12; 11:10; Rom 9:19; 11:33)?

Since we now know that the evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud of Turin and Sudarium of Oviedo are Jesus very burial sheet and headcloth, in his fallacious and ignorant attack on the Shroud's authenticity, Calvin was sincerely but unwittingly "fighting against God" (Acts 5:34-39)!

However, since Calvin lived in the 16th century, well before the scientific, historical and artistic evidence that has overwhelming confirmed the Shroud of Turin's authenticity, he at least has the excuse, "I acted in ignorance and unbelief" (1Tim 1:13). But NO such excuse is available to those like you Ed, who in this 21st century are aware (or should be) of that evidence, but refuse to accept it!

In conclusion, I am astonished how weak Calvin's arguments against the Shroud were. As we have seen, they were mostly based on the Argument from Silence fallacy. Indeed, the Gospel writers' silence on what happened to Jesus' burial garments, having been unnecessarily mentioned as "linen" in all four Gospels (Mt 27:57-60; Mk 15:42-46; Lk 23:50-54; Jn 19:38-42) at Jesus' burial, but then being obscurely mentioned in only two Gospels (Lk 24:12; Jn 20:5-7), points to their deliberate silence. That is, a silence that would: 1) explain to Christians where the Shroud and Sudarium came from; but 2) conceal from non-Christians that the disciples had recovered them!

Stephen E. Jones.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Re: John Calvin on the Shroud #1

2011-01-05T22:39:00.020+08:00

Thanks for your comment under my post "Re: Shroud: I had a quick question regarding blood evidence." As I briefly responded

[Above: Painting titled Portrait of Young John Calvin from the collection of the Library of Geneva: "John Calvin (1509-1564)" Wikipedia]

to your comment:

"... many of the arguments Calvin raised against the Shroud are fallacious and plain wrong, but they are still used (or thought) by many (if not most) of my fellow Protestant Christians and by atheist/agnostics like you, to dismiss the Shroud out of hand, regardless of the evidence for its authenticity."

----- Original Message -----
From: Edward T. Babinski
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 9:46 AM
Subject: [The Shroud of Turin] New comment on Re: Shroud: I had a quick question regarding blood....

>Hi Steve, I didn't know you were not only a fan of "creationism" but also "sindology though maybe I forgot, and maybe we did discuss that topic briefly ages ago on the web.

It's sindonology, "the scientific study of the Shroud of Turin." And I did argue for the authenticity of the Shroud on my now defunct CreationEvolutionDesign Yahoo group when you may have been then a member.

>Anyway, I put together a post recently on my blog regarding the shroud. Since I was doing some online research, I also ran across this blog of yours, and thought I'd share the link with you: The Shroud of Turin: John Calvin versus the Catholic Church

Thanks for the link. Although I am a life-long Calvinist, owning Calvin's two-volume "Institutes of the Christian Religion" and a 12-volume set of his New Testament Commentaries, as well as his commentaries on Genesis and Daniel, I regret to say that while Calvin was right about a lot of things, he was wrong about the Shroud.

Here are Calvin's arguments against the Shroud in his "A Treatise on Relics" (1543):

"It is now time to treat of the `sudary,' about which relic they have displayed their folly even more than in the affair of the holy coat; for besides the sudary of Veronica, which is shown in the Church of St Peter at Rome, it is the boast of several towns that they each possess one, as for instance Carcassone, Nice, Aix-la-Chapelle, Tréves, Besançon, without reckoning the fragments to be seen in various places. Now, I ask whether those persons were not bereft of their senses who could take long pilgrimages, at much expense and fatigue, in order to see sheets, of the reality of which there were no reasons to believe, but many to doubt; for whoever admitted the reality of one of these sudaries shown in so many places, must have considered the rest as wicked impostures set up to deceive the public by the pretence that they were each the real sheet in which Christ's body had been wrapped. But it is not only that the exhibitors of this one and the same relic give each other mutually the lie, they are (what is far more important) positively contradicted by the Gospel. The evangelists who speak of all the women who followed our Lord to the place of crucifixion, make not the least mention of that Veronica who wiped his face with a kerchief. It was in truth a most marvellous and remarkable event, worthy of being recorded, that the face of Jesus Christ was then miraculously imprinted upon the cloth, a much more important thing to mention than the mere circumstance that certain women had followed Jesus Christ to the place of crucifixion without meeting with any miracle; and, indeed, had such a miracle taken place, we might consider the evangelists wanting in judgment in not relating the most important facts." (Calvin, J., 1543, "A Treatise on Relics," Krasinski, V., transl., Johnstone, Hunter & Co: Edinburgh, Second Edition, 1870, pp.175-176. Emphasis original).

Of the above, the "sudary" at Nice on the French Mediterranean coast (about 182 miles, or 293 kilometres from Geneva where Calvin lived) was evidently the Shroud of Turin (although it was not called that then as it did not arrive in Turin until 1578), because the Shroud was in Nice between 1537-1540 when Calvin may have been writing his Treatise:

"The Holy Shroud. Calvin (1543, 237) mentions several alleged shrouds of Jesus. He does not refer to a Shroud of Turin, since the most famous of the reputed shrouds of Jesus-of which there were once some forty-three in Europe alone (Humber 1978, 78)-did not arrive at Turin until 1578, long after Calvin's death. However, Calvin does mention a shroud at Nice, and the cloth now known as the Shroud of Turin was kept in Nice at the time Calvin was writing his treatise (Nickell 1998, 26). Therefore he is surely referring to that famous cloth (and copies of it, like the one at Besançon [Wilson 1979, 300]) when he remarks how unlikely it would be that Jesus' shroud had borne `the full-length likeness of a human body on it' without the apostles or evangelists having mentioned the fact (Calvin 1543, 239). Except for copies or fakes inspired by it, the Turin cloth is unique in bearing the image of an apparently crucified man. (It is also crucial to observe that no burial cloth in the history of the world ever bore such images.)." (Nickell, J., 2008, "Treatise on Relics: John Calvin," Prometheus Books: Amherst NY, pp.40,43. Emphasis original).

The other important "sudary" in the list above is the copy of the Shroud which was at Besançon (destroyed in 1794), which was only about 71 miles or 114 kilometres from Geneva because (as we shall see in part #2) it may be the only `Shroud' that Calvin had personally seen (if even that).

Calvin continued in his Treatise:

"The same observations are applicable to the tale of the sheet in which the body of our Lord was wrapped. How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ's death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet? This fact undoubtedly deserved to be recorded. St John, in his Gospel, relates even how St Peter, having entered the sepulchre, saw the linen clothes lying on one side, and the napkin that was about his head on the other; but he does not say that there was a miraculous impression of our Lord's figure upon these clothes, and it is not to be imagined that he would have omitted to mention such a work of God if there had been any thing of this kind. Another point to be observed is, that the evangelists do not mention that either of the disciples or the faithful women who came to the sepulchre had removed the clothes in question, but, on the contrary, their account seems to imply that they were left there. Now, the sepulchre was guarded by soldiers, and consequently the clothes were in their power. Is it possible that they would have permitted the disciples to take them away as relics, since these very men had been bribed by the Pharisees to perjure themselves by saying that the disciples had stolen the body of our Lord? I shall conclude with a convincing proof of the audacity of the Papists. Wherever the holy sudary is exhibited, they show a large sheet with the full-length likeness of a human body on it. Now, St John's Gospel, chapter nineteenth, says that Christ was buried according to the manner of the Jews; and what was their custom? This may be known by their present custom on such occasions, as well as from their books, which describe the ancient ceremony of interment, which was to wrap the body in a sheet, to the shoulders, and to cover the head with a separate cloth. This is precisely how the evangelist described it, saying, that St Peter saw on one side the clothes with which the body had been wrapped, and on the other the napkin from about his head. In short, either St John is a liar, or all those who boast of possessing the holy sudary are convicted of falsehood and deceit." (Calvin, 1543, pp.176-178).

Calvin also wrote about the Shroud (probably the inferior copy of the Shroud at Besançon) in his Commentary on the Gospel of John), as we shall see in part #2.

I will now work through Calvin's criticisms of the Shroud (his words bold to distinguish them from mine), first in his Treatise on Relics and then in his Commentary on John, in this two-part series of posts.

>The same observations are applicable to the tale of the sheet in which the body of our Lord was wrapped.

Calvin had previously in his Treatise been debunking various medieval Roman Catholic relics. But most (if not all) advocates of the Shroud's authenticity would agree with him that (with the exception of the Sudarium of Oviedo, which Calvin did not mention) they are frauds.

But Calvin is here using the same logical fallacy that atheists use against Christianity: "1. All religions contradict each other in their core truth claims; 2. Therefore all religions are false." The fallacy is that one of those religions can be true, and all the rest be false, which is Christianity's (and therefore Calvin's) claim (Jn 3:16-18; 14:6; Acts 4:10-12; 10:38-43). So also, the Shroud of Turin can be authentic (i.e. the very burial sheet of Jesus) and all the other relics listed by Calvin can be false.

>How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ's death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet? This fact undoubtedly deserved to be recorded.

This is an example of the Argument from Silence, fallacy, i.e. "the Shroud must be false because the New Testament writers did not mention it." This is the same argument that Christianity's critics use against the Virgin Birth, that it is only mentioned explicitly in two gospels Mt 1:18-24 & Lk 1:26-38, therefore it must be false, because otherwise the other Gospels would have mentioned it. Or the resurrection of Lazarus must be false because only one Gospel mentions it (Jn 11:38-43) and such a stupendous miracle, if it really happened, would have been mentioned in all four gospels.

But the fact is, as Calvin was well aware, the Gospels did not mention everything about Jesus, and in fact Jn 20:30-31; 21:25 explicitly states this:

"Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. ... Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

Calvin himself in his Commentary on John later wrote that "John ... has only written some things out of many; not that the others were not worth recording:"

[Jn 20:30] Many other signs therefore. If this anticipation had not been added, readers might have thought that John had not left out any of the miracles that Christ performed and had given a full and complete history. John therefore declares that he has only written some things out of many; not that the others were not worth recording, but because these were sufficient to build up faith. And yet it does not follow that they were performed in vain, for they profited that age. Secondly, although today their kinds are unknown to us, we must not deduce that it is of little importance for us to know that the Gospel was sealed by a great wealth of miracles." (Calvin, J., 1553, "The Gospel According to St. John, Part Two 11-21," Parker T.H.L., transl., Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1959, Reprinted, 1979, p.213).

So Calvin here contradicts himself. That Jesus' image on the Shroud was "worth recording," does not mean that it had to be recorded, otherwise it didn't exist. Why did no New Testament writer include a physical description of Jesus? Or an account of the first 30 years of His life? And Calvin is not the only Christian theologian (and indeed Shroud theorist as far as I am aware) who ignores the fact that Jesus spent "forty days" with his disciples after His resurrection:

Acts 1:3. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

in which there was ample time for Him to answer their questions whether to keep His burial garments and if so, to publicly mention they had them.

Besides, all four gospel writers did mention the Shroud:

"The Shroud Is Mentioned in the Bible Jesus' burial wrapping is a part of the Easter story of the Bible. All four Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John [Mt 27:57-60; Mk 15:42-46; Lk 23:50-54; Jn 19:38-42]) tell how Joseph of Arimathea, a devoted follower of Jesus, bought a fine new linen burial sheet for Jesus' body after he was taken down from the cross. Is this sheet the Shroud which is today in Turin, Italy? A passage in the Gospel of John is probably the last `official,' that is, Biblical, reference to this cloth. In John 20:19-36 we read that John and Peter ran to the tomb on Easter Sunday morning. Inside John saw the burial sheet, and he saw the sudarium or chin-band (for holding the jaws closed) rolled up in its own place. After this the record is silent." (Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, p.68. Emphasis original).

Why the seemingly unnecessary recording in all four gospels the fact that Jesus' burial garments were "linen":

"Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth" (Mt 27:59)

"Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen"(Mk 15:46)

"Then he took it [Jesus' body] down, wrapped it in linen cloth" (Lk 23:53)

"Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves." (Lk 24:12)

"Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen" (Jn 19:40)

"He [Peter] bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there ... Then Simon Peter ... went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there ... as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen." (Jn 20:5-7).

unless the Shroud (and Sudarium) were kept, and the disciples wanted to let Christians know, but needed to keep it a secret from their much more numerous and powerful enemies, the Jews and the Romans?

>St John, in his Gospel, relates even how St Peter, having entered the sepulchre, saw the linen clothes lying on one side, and the napkin that was about his head on the other; but he does not say that there was a miraculous impression of our Lord's figure upon these clothes,

Calvin shows his ignorance of the Shroud image, which is very faint (and photography enhances the image):

[Above (click to enlarge): "This is how the Holy Shroud looks as we see it with our eyes ... There is only a very faint image of a human being on the shroud. The first photograph taken of the Shroud in 1898 revealed the miraculous nature of this faint imprint." ("Shroud: A Miracle of Christ We See Even to this Day," 8 March 2008).]

so it is unlikely the disciples would see the image in the darkness of the tomb, especially when they would not be expecting it and were overwhelmed by the fact that Jesus' body was not there. Also, it may be that "the image was not yet visible on the cloth" and so "If an image could not yet be seen on Easter morning, then the ... Gospel writers ... could not mention one.":

"What the Gospel narratives do not say is equally important-and has, in fact, set in motion the mystery that has surrounded the Shroud of Jesus ever since: none of the Gospel writers say that the Shroud was saved after the events of Easter Sunday morning. John's last reference leaves it in the sepulcher. Also, the Gospel accounts do not mention an image on Jesus' burial sheet. These omissions are one reason Bishop d'Arcis believed the Lirey Shroud could not possibly be the one referred to in the Bible. Wouldn't the Gospel writers have said something about preserving Jesus' burial linen with his precious blood on it? Wouldn't they have mentioned if it had contained a portrait of Jesus himself? As Bishop d'Arcis argued, this would seem to be proof that the Lirey Shroud with its image was not the same as the shroud of the Gospel accounts. One explanation may be that the image was not yet visible on the cloth. Perhaps it only darkened little by little. (Remember what was said about the slow yellowing of linen.) If an image could not yet be seen on Easter morning, then the Evangelists (Gospel writers) could not mention one." (Scavone, 1989, pp.68,70).

However, as mentioned above, Calvin had probably never seen the true Shroud, only inferior copies (if even that), and if so he would not be aware of the extreme faintness of its image.

And of course, writing in 1543, Calvin would not be aware of the

[Above: "The actual image on the Shroud of Turin": Photo of JESUS]

[Above: "Photo negative of same image": Photo of JESUS. That is, a negative which is photographically positive, developed from the first above image, proving that the actual image on the Shroud is a photographic negative!]

discovery over 350 years later in 1898 that the Shroud was actually a photographic negative (something no one knew existed until the discovery of photography in 1825), and therefore a forger would not (and could not) have produced the Shroud:

"More than one hundred years ago, on 28th May, 1898 an amateur Italian photographer, Mr. Secondo Pia, took the first photograph of the shroud. He was startled by the resulting negative which seemed to give the appearance of a positive image. See below more recent Jesus pictures of the actual image on the Shroud and the photo negative of it. Ever since Mr. Secondo Pia took the first photograph of the shroud in 1898, the Shroud of Turin has been the subject of intense scientific study. A negative image is what appeared on a developed film (negative) back in the days of 35mm photography. No one could understand how a perfect, full length negative image of a human body could be formed on an ancient piece of linen cloth. Scientists found it difficult to accept the fact that it was a Jesus Miracle, but to date no one has been able to find an explanation. When the scientists did investigations with very modern sophisticated instruments, even more surprising facts emerged. They discovered that the image on this ancient cloth is more than just an ordinary photo negative, it also has digital information from which 3D images could be made. Many other surprising findings were also made ... Even though many modern scientists, photographers and painters have tried to make a similar image on cloth, no one has succeeded. If the holy Shroud were a fake, then a forger, sometime before the year 1578 (the year the holy shroud came to be kept with utmost care in Turin), produced a masterpiece that not a single modern man has been able to duplicate. ... Considering all this, it is impossible for a forger, even the most cleverest, to have made such a Shroud. Modern scientists, even the cleverest scientists of today, from the leading research institutions of the world, are unable to understand or explain how the image on the Shroud was formed." ("Photo of JESUS: Taken from a negative on his burial cloth," 5 January 2011).

>and it is not to be imagined that he would have omitted to mention such a work of God if there had been any thing of this kind.

If Calvin, with his brilliant mind, had really thought it through, he could easily have "imagined" why John (or the other three Gospel writers) "does not say that there was a miraculous impression of our Lord's figure upon these clothes."

As pointed out above: 1) The image on the Shroud is very faint and it is most unlikely the disciples would have noticed it in the tomb; 2) The image may not have been visible even in the light of day at that point in time; 3) Jesus in the forty days between His resurrection and ascension, could have (and so almost certainly would have) answered the disciples' questions about what to do with His burial garments that all four gospels mention.

Apart from the above, Calvin should have "imagined" 4) the fact that Christianity was for many centuries after its origin a persecuted minority religion, and therefore if the New Testament writers were to publicly announce that they had Jesus' blood-stained burial shroud, complete with the imprint of His crucified (and resurrected) body, it would lead Christianity's much more powerful enemies, the Romans and the Jews, to demand they hand it over, on pain of torture and death:

"As to whether the disciples of Jesus did remove the burial wrappings from the tomb, the Gospels are indeed silent. There is evidence, described later, that they did take the Shroud. This evidence suggests they took it with them into hiding, for, as we read in the Bible, they feared for their lives. They would have known that if they `advertised' their valuable possession, it might become a target for either Romans or Jewish zealots. Those who were responsible for Jesus' crucifixion seemed determined to stamp out the new Christian-sect. The Easter story shows that they would do anything to erase the memory of Jesus. They would seize and destroy the Shroud if their attention was drawn to its survival. So the Shroud was kept hidden, and the Gospel stories are silent about its removal from the tomb. The Bible is silent on many other things as well. For instance, details about much of the first thirty years of Jesus' life are omitted." (Scavone, 1989, pp.70-71).

"It is absurd to demand a detailed documentation from Jews and Jewish Christians regarding the presence and handing down of the Holy Shroud in the period before Christianity enjoyed full freedom of expression in the Middle East, and particularly in Jerusalem, which was a troubled, much conquered city right from the beginnings of Christianity. The lack of documentation may be due to three main reactions which would have been provoked by the open showing of the shroud of a man who, from the blood marks and entire imprint, clearly died on the cross: a religious reaction concerning legal impurity, a theological reaction concerning the question of real or only apparent humanity, and a juridical reaction concerning violation of the tomb. This would have led to the immediate destruction of the shroud and severe punishment of those having it in their possession." (Ricci, G., 1981, "The Holy Shroud," Center for the Study of the Passion of Christ and the Holy Shroud: Milwaukee WI, p.xxi. Emphasis original).

This should be so obvious to a first-rank scholar as Calvin was, that it can only be his extreme prejudice against anything to do with "the Papists" that prevented him seeing it.

Concluded in part #2.

Stephen E. Jones.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Re: Shroud: I had a quick question regarding blood evidence

2010-11-16T10:20:00.010+08:00

Steve

Thanks for your private message. It is my long-standing policy to answer private questions about a topic of one of my blogs, via that blog,

[Right: Bloodstain on the Shroud of Turin, "The Bloodstain on the Shroud of Turin are from Real Blood," Daniel R. Porter, 2 September 2008]

in this case my The Shroud of Turin blog, after removing the questioner's personal identifying information.

I will here give a quick public answer to you, `off the top of my head' and later add more details to flesh out my answers, including quotes. But this may take weeks rather than days, given other demands on my time. Your words are bold to distinguish them from mine.

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 2:20 AM
Subject: Shroud

>Mr. Jones.
>
>I have read a number of articles online regarding the Shroud and the science behind it. To be quite honest most of it confusing more than enlightening.

There are Internet pages about the blood on the Shroud of Turin, e.g.:

"Real Blood on the Shroud of Turin-DNA-Porphyrins," Daniel R. Porter, 6 November 2005.

"The Blood on the Shroud of Turin is Real: 2005 Facts," Daniel R. Porter, 4 December 2005.

"The Bloodstain on the Shroud of Turin are from Real Blood," Daniel R. Porter, 2 September 2008.

But if you really want to study the Shroud of Turin, you will need to read books on it. I recommend Ian Wilson's latest, "The Shroud : The 2,000 Year Old Mystery Solved" (2010). Or more popularly, John C. Iannone's "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence" (2004). I hope to do a multi-part book review of Wilson's book. I have started a series, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" which will be the equivalent of an online book, but it will take me years to complete.

>I have reason to believe the Shroud is authentic. These reasons are more spiritual in nature than scientific. However I do believe the science for proof is right around the corner. My belief more comes out of the book. I believe we are in a time where God is revealing more and more spiritual truths from the book.

What is already known about the Shroud complements the Gospels' account of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. But I doubt if there will be any more evidence from the Bible that will support the authenticity of the Shroud and vice-versa. What we already have is more than enough.

>I had a quick question regarding blood evidence.

Real human blood was found the bloodstain areas of the Shroud. The blood was type AB, which is consistent with the Man on the Shroud being Jewish ("Blood type: ABO and Rh distribution by country," Wikipedia, 13 November 2010), but it is not conclusive, because all blood tends to denature over time to become type AB.

>I read that DNA specifics were limited and if fact it was doubtful if enough DNA material existed to map.

Human male DNA was also found in the bloodstain areas of the Shroud. But it was fragmentary and degraded and so there is not enough DNA to construct a map of a single gene, let alone of a whole human genome.

>I believe I read there was some but that contamination was highly likely.

The Shroud has been handled by countless thousands of people in its at least 660-year history, any or all of whom could have left part of their DNA on its surface; so it is not possible to completely exclude that the DNA isolated from the bloodstained areas is a later contamination.

But the Shroud DNA isolation and identification was done by experts in that field, so it is more likely than not that that DNA was from the blood of the Man on the Shroud, whom all the other evidence points overwhelmingly to being Jesus.

However, we do not have any other copies of Jesus' DNA, nor of any of His relatives (Mt 13:55; Mark 6:3; Lk 1:34-36; Gal 1:19; Jude 1:1) to compare their DNA with that from the bloodstained areas of the Shroud. So the DNA evidence is necessarily inconclusive, apart from adding to the evidence that the blood on the Shroud is real, human blood.

> I was curious as to whether the samples available or if additional samples could yield enough information to determine a direct descendant of the man's who's image appears on the cloth?

No. Apart from the DNA from the bloodstained areas of the Shroud being fragmentary and degraded, we do not have any other independent sample of Jesus' DNA, DNA mutates over time, and the effects of genetic drift, it would be impossible to determine from DNA the "direct descendant" of anyone who lived ~2,000 years ago, or even ~660 years ago.

Furthermore, every human child receives half its nuclear DNA from each parent, one-quarter from each grandparent, one-eighth from each great-grandparent, and so on. Assuming an average of one generation every 20 years, there would be 100 generations in the last 2,000 years. Therefore, even if Jesus did have descendants (which the Bible - Isa 53:8; Acts 8:33; 1Cor 9:5 - indicates He didn't) his specific DNA configuration would have been so attenuated over ~2,000 years as to be effectively non-existent.

Granted that each child, male and female, receives 100% of its mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from its mother, and she 100% from her mother, and so on, mitochondrial DNA has only 37 genes, so it is too non-specific, and besides it also has mutated over time.

>A burning question I have been led to ask. I appreciate any clarity you may be able to bring on the topic for me.

I hope this has helped, albeit `off the top of my head' without supporting backup quotes, which I plan to add later.

>Gratefully your brother in Christ
>
>Steve

It is good to hear from a fellow Christian who accepts the authenticity of the Shroud. Most Christians in my experience are either indifferent to the Shroud, or even hostile to it (as I was before 1995). But now the Shroud for me is, in addition to my salvation 43 years ago and my dear wife of 38 years, proof that God is both willing and "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Eph 3:20)!

Stephen E. Jones, BSc. (Biology).
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus! #1 Introduction

2010-10-04T15:32:00.006+08:00

This is the first of a series about the Shroud of Turin being the burial sheet of Jesus Christ. In this series

[Above: "The Real Face of Jesus - Shrouded in Mystery," Ben Witherington, Beliefnet.com:

"This of course is the image on the famous Shroud of Turin, perhaps at this juncture the most famous Christian relic of all. But is it Jesus? Medical experts have examined the Shroud in detail and shown how the wounds, the trajectory of blood flow and the like are anatomically correct and reflect a person badly abused and crucified. There are many particulars about this Shroud which make unlikely the claim that it is a mere clever forgery ... What is most interesting about the image of the Shroud is that it is a photographic negative, and in itself appears to be the result of a scorch on the cloth from some high intensity light and heat. That it was a negative was only discovered at the beginning of the age of photography by an Italian camera man allowed to shoot old style pictures the Shroud. Imagine his surprise when he saw the negatives in the dark room, and they were positives. We can say with some confidence now that the image on the Shroud is not painted nor stained on the Shroud (the depth of the image is so shallow that these suggestions do not work). In other words, the suggestion of mere human artifice does not seem to work in this case. The Shroud of Turin is not like so many of these Christian relics which can be shown to be phony with very little scholarly effort at all. But the image on the Shroud is a mystery. How did it get on the cloth, and where did the Shroud originally come from, and for that matter what is its relationship to the bloody facial cloth housed in a church in Spain, that seems to have the very same image on it, when the two images are electronically super-imposed, only the facial cloth has much more blood on it."]

I will systematically cover all the major lines of evidence for and against the Shroud of Turin being the burial sheet of Jesus, bearing the impression of His crucified and resurrected body as depicted in the Gospels. I will provide at the foot of each page a list of online references, making this series also an index to other sites on each topic.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN

[Index: #2 Cloth; #3 Image; #4 Bible; #5 History; #6 Art; #7 Science; #8 Alternatives; #9 Objections; #10 Conclusion]

1. INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE SHROUD OF TURIN?

The Shroud of Turin is a linen sheet, measuring 437 x 111 centimetres (~14.3 x 3.6 feet), which bears the faint, front and back, bloodstained image of a man who has been beaten, flogged, crowned with thorns and crucified, consistent with the Gospels' depiction of the suffering, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For over 400 years the Shroud has been kept in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.

No plausible naturalistic explanation of how the image on the Shroud was formed has yet been provided, despite the Shroud having been subjected to intensive scientific study since the 1970s.

As we shall see, the balance of the evidence, for and against, is overwhelming that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus Christ, bearing the impression of His crucified and resurrected body!

References:
"Shroud of Turin," Wikipedia, 24 September 2010.
"Shroud Of Turin - Authentic?" AllAboutArchaeology.org, 28 September 2010.
"The Shroud of Turin," Shroud.com, 7 September 2010.
"The Turin Shroud - past, present and future," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 50, June 2000.
"What is the Shroud of Turin?" wiseGEEK, 4 August 2010.

To be continued with #2 Cloth.

Stephen E. Jones.
My other blogs: CreationEvolutionDesign & Jesus is Jehovah!

	Length of Turin shroud		14 feet 3 inches
	8 cubits at 21.4 inches		14 feet 3 inches
	Width of Turin shroud		3 feet 7 inches
	2 cubits at 21.4 inches		3 feet 7 inches