Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Shroud of Turin: 1.2 The Shroud and me

I will here in this part 4 of my new series, "The Shroud of Turin" briefly disclose who I am and what is my position on the Shroud of Turin. The previous post in this series was part 3, "1.1 Overview of the Shroud of Turin." For more details about this series, see part 1, the "Contents" page.


THE SHROUD OF TURIN
1. INTRODUCTION
1.2 THE SHROUD AND ME
© Stephen E. Jones

Some readers, to help them evaluate what I write in this series, might want to know who I am and what is my position on the Shroud of Turin.

As I stated in my first post to this blog, I am an Australian protestant evangelical Christian, in my 60s. I have a Bachelor of Science (Biology) degree and am a casual relief teacher in Western Australian high schools.

For nearly 40 years, to the extent I thought about it at all, I dismissed the Shroud of Turin as just another fake Roman Catholic relic.

[Right: Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981).]

But as I posted in January 2005 to my now closed-down (by me) Yahoo CreationEvolutionDesign discussion group:

"I am a Protestant and my attitude to the Shroud of Turin was until recently that it was probably a fake. But I saw [and bought] a secondhand book coauthored by Protestant Christian philosopher Gary Habermas ... called "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1981). I have only dipped into it, but I was astonished for the evidence that points to it being the burial shroud that covered the crucified Jesus and through which he was resurrected ... If the new radiocarbon date `is up to 3000 years old' then, based on the evidence that Stevenson & Habermas present, I provionally accept that the Turin shroud is the actual burial shroud of Jesus and the unique nature of the image, is indeed additional `Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ'!"

By the time I started this blog in June 2007, after much further reading of the evidence for and against the Shroud being authentic, I stated in its masthead what still is my current position on the Shroud:

"I am persuaded by the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus Christ and bears His crucified and resurrected image."
Or as I put it in comment under one of my posts:
"Previously I believed Jesus rose from the dead but now I know that He has, in the same way that the Apostle John "saw the linen cloths lying there ... and believed":
Jn 20:3-8. 3So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;

However, having said that, as I also commented under another post:

"I myself have stated many times that I was a Christian for nearly 40 years before I accepted that the Shroud was authentic. So if the Shroud was shown to be a fake, then I would still be the same Christian that I have now been for over 40 years."

Finally, I have not yet seen the Shroud in Turin Cathedral, but I hope to do so one day.


Continued in part 5, "1.3 The central dilemma of the Shroud."

Last updated: 15 July, 2013.

4 comments:

bippy123 said...

Stephen, I also hope to see the shroud one day. I originally was a skeptic of the shroud and I happened to come across it by accident on a forum where a group of atheists were ranting and raving about how a scientist had replicated the shroud of turin (this was back in 2009).

Of course that replication was shown later to be a cheap carbon copy of the original with none of the unique characteristics of the true shroud.
I am now also convinced not only of the shrouds authenticity but that the best explanation for its formation was the resurrection of Christ.

As far as seeing the shroud again, unfortunately the shroud wont be shown again to the public until 2025.

I really believe that the holographic research that Doctor Petrus Soons and the holland lab is conducting on the shroud will be ground shaking when its fully done.

There is all ready some holographic information found on the shroud, and when all of the holographic information is fully decoded we will probably start to see more evidence then we ever thought possible.

The shroud image wont be with us forever as they say that the image will probably fade in the future, but the best part of the holographic research is that once it is all fully decoded that u will be able to make a full image of the shroud with the tiniest piece of any area of the shroud image, and this will be an image with more information then we can currently see today.

I have been trying to find any new information about the holographic research but its been scarce lately.

I have a feeling this will one day be global news.

God bless

Stephen E. Jones said...

bippy123

Thanks for posting the first comment on my new series.

>Stephen, I also hope to see the shroud one day. I originally was a skeptic of the shroud and I happened to come across it by accident on a forum where a group of atheists were ranting and raving about how a scientist had replicated the shroud of turin (this was back in 2009).

It's good to hear that you started off as a skeptic of the Shroud and then had the integrity and the courage to change your mind, based on the evidence for the Shroud's authenticity.

>Of course that replication was shown later to be a cheap carbon copy of the original with none of the unique characteristics of the true shroud.

Presumably that was Luigi Garlaschelli's claimed reproduction of the Shroud of Turin? If so, see my post, "Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin" for my critique of Garlaschelli's `reproduction'.

>I am now also convinced not only of the shrouds authenticity but that the best explanation for its formation was the resurrection of Christ.

Great!

>As far as seeing the shroud again, unfortunately the shroud wont be shown again to the public until 2025.

OK. I'll be 79 then so hopefully I will be able to do it!

>I really believe that the holographic research that Doctor Petrus Soons and the holland lab is conducting on the shroud will be ground shaking when its fully done.

I also posted in 2008 on Dr Petrus Soons' holographic research on the Shroud: "Are the three Hebrew letters on the Shroud tsade-'aleph-waw: `you will come out'?" and "Shroud of Turin News - September 2008" agreeing with Soons that there were Hebrew letters on the Shroud but disagreeing with him what they mean.

>There is all ready some holographic information found on the shroud, and when all of the holographic information is fully decoded we will probably start to see more evidence then we ever thought possible.

I am a bit wary of Soons' claims. I caught him out claiming that three letters on the Shroud meant "lamb" in Aramaic when they don't, according to leading Hebrew-Aramaic-English lexicons I checked.

[continued]

Stephen E. Jones said...

[continued]

>The shroud image wont be with us forever as they say that the image will probably fade in the future, but the best part of the holographic research is that once it is all fully decoded that u will be able to make a full image of the shroud with the tiniest piece of any area of the shroud image, and this will be an image with more information then we can currently see today.

The Shroud has already been digitally photographed in 2008 to create "a 12.8 billion-pixel image" which is "like looking at the Shroud through a microscope":

"Shroud of Turin Gets High-Def Scrutiny," Discovery News, Rossella Lorenzi, Feb. 28, 2008 -- The Turin shroud, the 14- by 4-foot linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus' body after the crucifixion, has entered the digital age. A huge 12.8 billion-pixel image was made of the linen, on which the smudged outline of the body of a man is indelibly impressed. The image was made following a Vatican request to obtain the most detailed reproduction of the yellowing ancient cloth. The technology allows a level of scrutiny of the linen as never achieved before. "The Shroud has been photographed in high definition for the first time. We have stitched together 1,600 shots, each the size of a credit card, to create a huge photo which is almost 1,300 times stronger than a picture taken with a 10 million pixel digital camera," Mauro Gavinelli, technical supervisor at HAL9000, a company specializing in art photography, told Discovery News. According to Gavinelli, who also created the world's highest-resolution photo when he digitalized Da Vinci's "Last Supper," the technology allows researchers to analyze the shroud in unprecedented detail. "It is like looking at the Shroud through a microscope. You can see the threads, the fibers that make these threads, the damage that the shroud has suffered over the years," Gavinelli said. As hundreds of shots were taken using sophisticated equipment, the process, itself, was recorded by the British Broadcasting Company, which will be airing a program about the project on the Saturday before Easter. "It was fascinating. Seeing the shroud within a few inches is a unique experience. The image is very visible, it isn't true at all that it is fading," said David Rolfe, director of the BBC documentary."

Note also that, according to David Rolfe, "it isn't true at all that it [the image] is fading,"

>I have been trying to find any new information about the holographic research but its been scarce lately.

I can't recall hearing anything about it lately.

>I have a feeling this will one day be global news.

I hope so.

>God bless

Thanks, and the same to you.

Stephen E. Jones
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Comments are moderated. Those I consider off-topic, offensive or sub-standard will not appear. I reserve the right to respond to any comment as a separate blog post.

bippy123 said...

Wow Stephen, Thanks for your comments. I did not know that the shroud has been digitally photographed.

Checking out thelinks to your articles.

Thanks a bunch my friend :)
bippy123