© Stephen E. Jones[1]
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I have decided to re-start (again!) my Shroud of Turin News. The last issue was in October 2013. What prompted me was that I have started scanning the 118 issues of fellow Australian Rex Morgan's Shroud News, with his permission, for a new archive of that name on Barrie Schwortz' Shroud.com. According to Schwortz the Shroud News archive should commence "this [northern] summer," and will be announced in his imminent late April/early May, update. Also, I had recently read Mark Guscin's 
"Interview With Rex Morgan" in the BSTS Newsletter No. 63 of June 2006, in which Morgan [right] said:
"There have been many letters asking me to resurrect Shroud News and I would much like to. The mountain of material I have assembled since the last one would enable me to produce issues for many more years."While I do not claim that this is the successor to Morgan's Shroud News (which is one reason I have called it "Shroud of Turin News"), I do hope that this new (or re-started) series will help in some small way to fill the void left by Morgan's decision to not continue with his original Shroud News after December 2001. As before, I will add my comments to Shroud-related news and other articles in reverse chronological order (latest uppermost). My comments are in bold to distinguish them from the articles.
"Turin Shroud Displayed Despite Inauthenticity," The Huffington Post UK, Paul Vale, 21/04/2015 ... A piece of cloth scientifically proven to have no connection to Biblical times has gone on display in Italy, with millions expected to make the pilgrimage to see the medieval forgery.
[Above: "Shroud of Turin Goes on Display in Italy"]
The infamous Shroud of Turin -- a 14 foot piece of linen once believed to be Christ’s burial cloth -- went on public display on Sunday after a 5-year hiatus, with Pope Francis reportedly planning to see the "sacred" garb in June. The linen boasts a faded image of a bearded man, which for centuries was said to be an imprint of the face of Christ. However, in 1988 researchers dated the shroud with Carbon 14 testing, the results placing the garment's creation within the period 1260-1390. ... Recent Popes have been careful to avoid pronouncing on the issue, unwilling to reject the shroud while opting to highlight its more symbolic resonance. Yet despite its inauthenticity, the relic remains a big draw for tourists -- believers and non-believers. ... On the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud to "within the period 1260-1390," see below on "My theory that the radiocarbon dating laboratories were duped by a computer hacker." This anti- authenticist journalist's "Recent Popes have been careful to avoid pronouncing on the issue..." confirms my previous point that anti-authenticists cite the Vatican's refusal to affirm that the Shroud is authentic, as evidence that it is not. Jesus, who imprinted His image on the Shroud and has preserved it down through the millennia against all the odds, cannot be happy with the Vatican's persistent refusal to tell the truth in this matter.
More than a million already booked to see Turin Shroud," The Australian/AFP, April 20, 2015 ... The Turin Shroud will go on display
[Above: "Holy Shroud of Turin at Cathedral of Turin, Italy (APP)"]
for the first time in five years, with more than a million people already booked in to view one of Christianity's most celebrated relics. Devotees believe the shroud, which is imprinted with the image of a man who appears to have been crucified, to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. ... researchers have not been able to explain how the remarkable image was created, leaving space for theories of some sort of miraculous process to flourish. The church does not officially maintain that Christ's body was wrapped in the shroud ... But it does accord the cloth a special status which has helped to sustain its popularity as an object of veneration. "What counts the most is that this shroud, as you have seen, reflects in a clear and precise manner how the gospels describe the passion and death of Jesus," said Cesare Nosiglia, the Archbishop of Turin. ... As I have stated before, it is duplicitous (i.e. two-faced), of the Vatican to refuse to confirm or deny that the Shroud is authentic. By its actions of spending the equivalent of tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars preserving the Shroud and exhibiting it to millions of people as though it is authentic, the Vatican clearly does believe that the Shroud is authentic, so it should say so. Shroud anti-authenticists cite the Vatican's refusal to state that the Shroud is authentic as evidence that it is not. I am not being anti-Catholic in this, I am being pro-truth!
"Shroud of Turin goes back on display in Italian city's Cathedral, but does it show the face of Jesus Christ, or is it a medieval hoax?," The Independent, Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, 19 April 2015. The Shroud of Turin, a 4.4 metre-long piece of cloth that many Christians believe was used to shroud Jesus's face and body, will go back on display on 
[Above (enlarge): A negative (left) of a photograph (right) of the Shroud face, meaning that the Shroud image is a photographic negative. Since even the concept of photographic negativity was unknown until the 19th century, this alone proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Shroud is NOT "a medieval hoax" but does indeed "show the face of Jesus Christ"!]
Sunday in the Italian city's cathedral. The cloth, which appears to show the imprint of a man's face and the body markings that would match those of a person who was crucified, will be on display for the first time in five years from 19 April to 24 June. ... The story of cloth itself has been shrouded in mystery for centuries, with some Christians believing the marks of dried blood match where Jesus's hands and feet would have bled from his crucifixion wounds. It has also been said the dried blood around the head area of the cloth, where the markings of a man's face appear to be shown, are from Jesus's crown of thorns. Scientists in Italy a year ago claimed that a powerful magnitude 8.2 earthquake that took place in Jerusalem in 33 AD – the year Jesus is claimed to have been crucified - could have been strong enough to release neutron particles from crushed rock and caused the X-ray like image of the bearer's face to be imprinted on the cloth, leaving it with the appearance seen today. The scientists have said this radiation would have interfered with the carbon-dating process carried out in 1988, which claimed the shroud had been created in the 1300s and was the result of an elaborate medieval forgery – the theory that most sceptics stand by. ... The earthquake theory is UNBIBLICAL for starters (see "Could Ancient Earthquake Explain Face of Jesus?)." A better explanation why: 1) the overwhelming evidence is that the Shroud of Turin is authentic; 2) but the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud found "that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390," yet 3) the probability that the Shroud being 1st century, has a radiocarbon-date of 13th-14th century, is "about one in a thousand trillion," is provided by "My theory that the radiocarbon dating laboratories were duped by a computer hacker."
"Pope makes a date to see Turin shroud as it goes back on public display," The Guardian, 19 April 2015, The Turin shroud is going back on display to the public for the first time in five years, and the Pope has
[Above: "Archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, in front of the Turin Shroud during a preview ... Photograph: Elena Aquila ..."]
already made a date to see the burial cloth, which some believe covered Jesus ... The 4.3m (14ft) cloth goes on view from Sunday to 24 June, displayed in a climate-controlled case in Turin cathedral. Pope Francis will view it on 21 June ... Public viewings of the cloth were last held in 2010. "Many pilgrims who had already seen the shroud in past showings come back, even though some saw it just five years ago," the archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia, said on Saturday. "That's not a long time. And yet many of the bookings we have are people who have already seen the shroud. That means there is a fundamental need in people's hearts to renew this incredible experience that they had the first time they saw it," the prelate told reporters. Reservations to see the shroud are mandatory but free of charge. Turin's mayor said recently that more than one million people had made reservations. In 2010, some 2.5 million people came, according to organisers of the display. The Pope's predecessor, Benedict XVI, ... said there was "full correspondence with what the gospels tell us of Jesus". ... Sceptics say the linen bearing the figure of a crucified man is a medieval forgery. Nosiglia said people of all faiths will come to see the shroud, not just Christians. "Even non-believers will come. ... It is significant that the Shroud continues to have such an attraction for modern people, including even non-Christians. No other Roman Catholic relic has that, which itself is evidence of the Shroud's authenticity. To the sceptics who claim that the Shroud "is a medieval forgery," where is your comprehensive forgery theory that: 1. Positively explains WHO was the forger? HOW was the Shroud forged? WHEN was the Shroud forged? WHY was the Shroud forged? and REPLICATES the Shroud exactly in ALL its major features, using only medieval knowledge and technology? And 2. negatively explains away ALL the evidence for the Shroud having existed since the 1st century?
"Shroud of Turin Inspires Conversion and Deepens Faith," National Catholic Register, Joseph Pronechen, 8 April, 2015. TURIN, Italy - When the Shroud of Turin goes on display in Turin Cathedral beginning April 19, Pope Francis will be among the millions of visitors expected to see and venerate what is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ ... Mark Antonacci ... is a leading authority on the shroud 
and a major speaker at conferences - quite a change from his starting
[Left: "Mark Antonacci: Founder and President, Test The Shroud Foundation."]
point: He was baptized a Catholic ... He went to church every Sunday, but once in college, he became agnostic. "Thirty-three years ago, I was a young agnostic lawyer in my early 30s and came across a summary of … the findings of the Shroud of Turin Research Project, deducted from their examination of the shroud in 1978 ... It really bothered me ... Finally ... It hit me: What's the problem here? It's a win-win-win situation every way you look at it ... The evidence is just remarkable, like nothing ever seen. It could not be forged. The attorney in me took over. The evidence from the shroud made me realize there is an objective and independent evidence to confirm that every element of the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection occurred in precisely the ways described in the Gospels." ... Antonacci is an example (another is Ian Wilson) of an agnostic who was prepared to have an open mind on the authenticity of the Shroud and then on the basis of the evidence, came to accept that the Shroud is authentic, and then became a Christian. His 2001 book, "Resurrection of the Shroud" is a veritable library of information on the Shroud. Read the rest of the article for other examples.
"What Does the Shroud of Turin Prove about Easter?," Myra Adams, National Review Online, April 4, 2015 ... The basis for the world's largest religion is the belief that, in Jerusalem around A.D. 33, an itinerant Jewish rabbi died as a result of crucifixion and after three days rose from the dead, fulfilling his own and numerous other ancient Messianic prophecies found in the ... Old Testament ... this ... is easily dismissed by non-believers. However, millions of Christians firmly believe that material scientific proof of the Christ's resurrection actually exists today, and that evidence is called the Shroud of Turin.
[Above: "Shroud of Turin, front. Negative image, with burn marks from a fire, in 1532. Credit: Barrie Schwortz"]
The Shroud, alleged to be the burial cloth of Jesus, is the most studied, tested, and analyzed religious relic the world has ever known. It is preserved ... in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. Beginning April 19, the Shroud will be on a rare public display, through June 24. ... The Shroud's public exposition, highlighted by the Pope's visit, naturally will also generate a debate about the Shroud's authenticity. ... The key mystery of the Shroud centers on how and why there is a detailed negative photographic image of a beaten, crucified man, anatomically correct, front and back, head to toe, on a piece of fine linen cloth measuring 14.5 feet by 3.5 feet. ... pollen and dust found on the Shroud are native to where, according to the Bible, Jesus lived and walked. ... As one would expect, blood of that crucified male penetrates the linen cloth. But here is where science enhances the Shroud's mystery: Blood on the cloth preceded the image of the crucified man ... Here is a startling fact that makes the Shroud nearly impossible to be considered a forgery and enhances the mystery. Unlike his blood, the man's crucified image does not penetrate the cloth but rests on top. His image could be scraped away with a razor blade. Since any earthly substance used to create the man's image would seep into and adhere to the cloth, this lack of penetration continues to baffle modern science. Moreover, tests on the mysterious substance constituting the image have concluded that it was applied with 100 percent consistency, as it rests on the cloth's top two microfibers. Such consistency is a feat impossible to achieve with human hands ... Read the rest of this great article for more facts about the Shroud of Turin which prove beyond any reasonable doubt, that it is the very burial sheet of Jesus Christ, bearing the front and back, head to head image of His beaten, flogged, crowned with thorns, naked, crucified, dead, speared in the side, buried and resurrected body!
"The Shroud: Not a Painting, Not a Scorch, Not a Photograph," Catholic World Report, March, 27, 2015, Jim Graves. This June, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Turin, Italy, home of the famous Shroud of Turin, which many believe is the 2,000-year-old burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The Pope's June 21-22 visit will include time venerating the Shroud at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist ... The Shroud, 
which is a 14.5' by 3.5' linen cloth bearing the image of the front and back of a man who has been scourged and crucified, has been kept in Turin since 1578. Barrie Schwortz is one
[Right: "Barrie Schwortz (CNS photo/Paul Haring)"]
of the world's leading experts on the Shroud. In 1978, Schwortz, a technical photographer, was invited to participate in the first ever in-depth scientific examination of the cloth, known as the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). A non-practicing Jew at the time, he reluctantly agreed to be part of STURP, fully expecting the team to prove that the Shroud was a painted image from the Middle Ages. But after many years of study and reflection he came to believe in its authenticity. ... The interview is well worth reading. That Barrie Schwortz, a Jew who distinguishes himself from Christians, is "one of the world's leading experts on the Shroud," and the owner of the world's biggest Shroud website, Shroud.com, believes on the basis of the evidence, that the Shroud is authentic (as does agnostic art historian Thomas de Wesselow), defeats the argument of Shroud anti-authenticists that only Christians believe the Shroud is authentic and that only for religious reasons.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. Permission is granted to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date, and a hyperlink back to this post. [return]
Posted: 17 April 2015. Updated 13 May 2024.
Posts
9 comments:
Hello again Stephen, this was pmed to me from a fellow poster on the God and science forum named essential sacrifice . Seems pretty fascinating . It's from a catholic seer that had visions that seem to correspond to the more recent scientific findings on the shroud even though she wrote all this many years before the scientific findings . It's in 2 parts be uses its a bit too long for one post .
The Poem of the Man-God is written by a Catholic seer named Maria Valtorta. Her writings are based on the dictations of God, all three Persons (mostly Jesus) and the Virgin Mary. The verification of these writings is ridiculously intense, but for now, just let me say it has the imprimatur of a dozen Catholic Bishops... Pope Pius XII said in 1948 to publish the books as they are, let nothing be removed. I tell you this because although controversies over public admissions of private revelations can and are very often complicated, these books are incredibly well established over more than a half century of publication.
Ok, so, I was reading again over this Easter and found works on the Shroud and other collected material of Jesus' death and burial. I simply wanted to pass the information on to the two I confirm are as excited about the possibilities of the true nature of the Shroud, and although non scientific, more verification of the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus. Here are some excerpts that will, I hope, thrill you as they did me. Because of your scrutiny of the Shroud to date, you will absolutely see similarities in the year 2015 info and that is written in 1948 of confirmation of the visions of and dictations from 33 b.c.
The Poem of the Man-God, Vol.#5 Chapter; The Two Shrouds of the Lord, pages 637 - 903
Page 687, The cleansing and actual burial wrapping of Jesus: Maria "sees"...
First they lift it up, cleaning also the stone slab, on which they laid the Shroud, more than half of which hangs from the head of the "bed".
Then they turn Him round, delicately, watching that none of the pomade of spices is not removed, and they spread also the front, first the trunk, then the limbs. First the feet then the hands, which they join to the lower belly. ( as is found, hand placement, on the Shroud of Turin) The head is last. Joseph (of Arimithea) ensures that everything is in order and on the face he lays another linen sudarium that passes from left to right, making the shroud adhere to the body. They then lift the hanging side of the Shroud and fold it on Jesus. He disappears under the thick cloth of the Shroud. It is nothing but a form covered under the cloth.( just like it is found on the Shroud of Turin, body length, in one fold.) It is not the typical dressing as seen in mummies and also in Lazarus' resurrection.
It is a rudimentary dressing. It looks like a long heap of clothes, narrower at one end and wide at the center.
Bippy123
>Hello again Stephen, this was pmed to me from a fellow poster on the God and science forum ...It's from a catholic seer that had visions that seem to correspond to the more recent scientific findings on the shroud even though she wrote all this many years before the scientific findings . It's in 2 parts be uses its a bit too long for one post .
I am only allowing this one part, for reasons that will be evident.
>The Poem of the Man-God is written by a Catholic seer named Maria Valtorta.
Ian Wilson, a Roman Catholic, wrote the following about Valtorta:
"Author/self-publisher Brendan Whiting claims of his book, that it presents `all the facts impartially', as `a much-needed update of the whole Shroud story, its history and all the latest scientific discoveries.' ... Let one authoritative-sounding sentence, from p.194, set Whiting's general tone: `On the night of 30 July [AD 30], Joseph, Nicodemus and Lazarus visited the mother Mary for a very particular purpose – to present her with the Holy Shroud.' So has Whiting come across some riveting new historical information on the Shroud's whereabouts shortly after being left behind in the empty tomb? Could he be onto some unknown gospel fragment discovery? No. His authority here, as in many similar passages throughout the book, is what he calls `the inspired writings of Maria Valtorta'.
Maria Valtorta, who died in 1961, was a sickly Italian woman who in 1943 began to receive `dictations' of episodes in the lives of Jesus and his mother Mary. From her dictations a Frenchman, Jean Aulagnier, put together a detailed `Diary of Jesus' which Whiting solemnly cites on several pages as if it carries virtual canonical authority. Whiting and his fellow Valtorta devotees quote Pope Pius XII as having said of Valtorta's writings: `Publish this work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion on its origin … whoever reads it will understand.' ... they omit to point out that in 1959 Pope John XXIII ordered Valtorta's book to be listed on the Vatican's then Index of Forbidden Books. Simultaneously an article in Osservatore Romano condemned it as `A Badly Fictionalized Life of Jesus.' The present Pope, Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, went on record supporting this `bad novel' condemnation in his capacity as head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." ("Brendan Whiting `The Shroud Story' ... Review by Ian Wilson).
>Her writings are based on the dictations of God, all three Persons (mostly Jesus) and the Virgin Mary.
That makes them false right there. There is no Biblical reason (indeed it is blasphemous) to claim that Mary is on a par with the Three Persons of the Trinity, dictating messages. And we know nothing about Mary except from the New Testament.
In the New Testament, Mary was an otherwise ordinary Jewish maiden who was chosen by God to bear Jesus, the God-man, and afterwards she had more children, Jesus' younger siblings, by Joseph.
After the mentions of Mary in the Gospels at John the Baptist's and Jesus' birth, brief incidents in Jesus' life, and at Jesus' crucifixion, the last mention of Mary in the New Testament is Acts 1:14, where she and her other children (Jesus' siblings) are ordinary members of the early Christian community:
"All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers."
Significantly there is no mention of Mary in the Book of Revelation, which depicts what happens in Heaven throughout the entire Church Age, from Jesus' Ascension and Exaltation until His Second Coming.
[continued]
[continued]
>... it has the imprimatur of a dozen Catholic Bishops... Pope Pius XII said in 1948 to publish the books as they are, let nothing be removed.
See above for what other Popes thought of Valtorta's writings.
>...these books are incredibly well established over more than a half century of publication.
See above on Pope John XXIII ordering Valtorta's book to be listed on the Vatican's Index of Forbidden Books and Pope, Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, stating it was a "bad novel".
The quote above from Valtorta's writings that "Joseph, Nicodemus and Lazarus visited the mother Mary ... to present her with the Holy Shroud" is sufficient to regard Valtorta as deluded.
>... I simply wanted to pass the information on to the two I confirm are as excited about the possibilities of the true nature of the Shroud, and although non scientific, more verification of the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus.
Valtorta was born in 1897, so she grew up in the aftermath of the Shroud exhibition of 1898, when Secondo Pia's photographs showed the Shroud was a photographic negative, which was world headline news.
And she would have been ~34 when the Shroud was exhibited in 1931. Valtorta started writing her visions in 1943 (Wikipedia), when she was ~46, so she could have obtained her material from ordinary sources, and embellished them, even if unconsciously.
>Here are some excerpts that will, I hope, thrill you as they did me. Because of your scrutiny of the Shroud to date, you will absolutely see similarities in the year 2015 info and that is written in 1948 of confirmation of the visions of and dictations from 33 b.c.
I don't need Valtorta's delusions to be thrilled by the Shroud. The facts from ordinary Biblical, historical, artistic and scientific sources are thrilling enough for me.
>The Poem of the Man-God, Vol.#5 Chapter; The Two Shrouds of the Lord, pages 637 - 903
>
>Page 687, The cleansing and actual burial wrapping of Jesus: Maria "sees"...
[...]
>It is nothing but a form covered under the cloth.( just like it is found on the Shroud of Turin,
Which shows that Valtorta knew about the Shroud from ordinary sources.
>It is not the typical dressing as seen in mummies and also in Lazarus' resurrection.
Valtorta is wrong again. Lazarus was not bound like an Egyptian mummy, since the Jews did not remove the internal organs of their dead and then bind them from head to foot in bandages as the Egyptians did. The Jews, after binding the hands and feet of their dead, to keep them from moving, covered the whole body with a linen shroud.
John 11:44 makes it clear that it was only Lazarus' "hands and feet" that were "bound with linen strips" not his whole body:
"The man [Lazarus] who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, `Unbind him, and let him go."
[...]
You mean well, but by giving credence to Valtorta's delusions in support of the Shroud, you are unwittingly playing into the anti-authenticists' hands.
I deleted your further two parts as "substandard" (see my policies below). Comments below my posts are primarily for commenting on those posts. They are not for posting large, multi-part, chunks of other writings.
Stephen E. Jones
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MY POLICIES Comments are moderated. Those I consider off-topic, offensive or sub-standard will not appear. Except that comments under my latest post can be on any Shroud-related topic without being off-topic. I normally allow only one comment per individual under each one of my posts.
You can't be more royalist than the King, especially if you write things like "I am a nobody", and if the Holy See refuses to confirm that the Shroud is authentic, they must surely have an excellent reason to do so.
Anonymous
>You can't be more royalist than the King,
The King is JESUS (Rev 17:14; 19:16). NOT the Vatican.
Even Pope Francis thinks the Vatican has lost its way:
"Pope Francis has sharply criticised the Vatican bureaucracy in a pre-Christmas address to cardinals, complaining of `spiritual Alzheimer's' and `the terrorism of gossip`. He said the Curia - the administrative pinnacle of the Roman Catholic Church - was suffering from 15 `ailments`, which he wanted cured in the New Year. Pope Francis - the first Latin American pontiff - also criticised `those who look obsessively at their own image'." ("Pope Francis sharply criticises Vatican bureaucracy," BBC, 22 December 2014).
"[T]hose who look obsessively at their own image" is one reason why the Vatican refuses to confirm or deny that the Shroud is authentic. The Vatican is more concerned with its image,, in protecting itself from being wrong, than with telling the truth.
>especially if you write things like "I am a nobody",
I wrote that in the context of a commenter's suggestion that I ask the Vatican to perform a new carbon dating of the Shroud:
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>I don't understand why you don't ask the church to let scientists perform a new carbon dating Stephen.
>First, I am a Protestant and a nobody. The Roman Catholic Church would not listen to me, a mere blogger.
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I AM "a nobody" in the eyes of the Vatican. But I am only interested in being a somebody in the eyes of Jesus.
>and if the Holy See refuses to confirm that the Shroud is authentic, they must surely have an excellent reason to do so.
Why "excellent"? When their own Pope accused the Vatican of having "spiritual Alzheimer's"?
And what could be more "excellent" than telling the truth?
The Vatican no doubt has a "reason" to not tell the truth, that it believes the Shroud is authentic. I can think of two:
1. To protect itself from ever being wrong; and
2. It would then have to admit that most of its relics are not authentic.
Stephen E. Jones
Hi, unrelated reader here. Regarding your statements about the Raising of Lazarus in Valtorta's writing, it seems that you have not read the details in the section that discusses that. There is much more detail, and do state that there was a shroud covering Lazarus, as well as bandages, etc. And by the way,Valtorta holds that Lazarus was just half Jewish anyway, and had a Roman father. It is generally impossible to convince people for or against Valtorta unless they read the book in detail, so I will be brief on this. Just thought you may want to know that there is much more detail on that than may seem at first.
Anonymous
>Hi, unrelated reader here. Regarding your statements about the Raising of Lazarus in Valtorta's writing, it seems that you have not read the details in the section that discusses that.
I have not read, nor do I intend to read, any of Valtorta's writings. Since even the Vatican considers her writings to be FICTION and NOT "supernatural in origin":
"Holy See's reaction to publication. On 16 December 1959, the Congregation of the Holy Office ordered the 4-volume work entitled `The Poem of the Man-God' placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Pope John XXIII approved the decree and directed that the condemnation be published. The decree was then promulgated by the Holy Office on January 5, 1960. The decree was published also on L'Osservatore Romano of 6 January 1960, accompanied by a front-page article under the heading "A Badly Fictionalized Life of Jesus". After publication of a second edition by the same publisher, the Vatican newspaper republished the content of the decree on 1 December 1961, together with an explanatory note. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in his letter 144/58 of 31 January 1985, entrusted to Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, the decision whether to inform a priest of his archdiocese that the Valtorta work had indeed been placed on the Index, which keeps its moral force, and that `a decision against distributing and recommending a work, which has not been condemned lightly, may be reversed, but only after profound changes that neutralize the harm which such a publication could bring forth among the ordinary faithful'. Cardinal Siri not only informed the priest, but also published (with the name of the priest removed) the text of Cardinal Ratzinger's letter. Again in 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to Bishop Raymond James Boland of Birmingham, Alabama, in response to a letter a member of Bishop Boland's diocese had sent to him. He recalled the notes that the Congregation had already issued for the guidance of the faithful and that had been published on various numbers of L'Osservatore Romano, and he stated that his Congregation had requested the Italian episcopal conference to ask the publisher to have a disclaimer printed in the volumes that `clearly indicated from the very first page that the "visions" and "dictations" referred to in it are simply the literary forms used by the author to narrate in her own way the life of Jesus. They cannot be considered supernatural in origin.' By then, the Italian Bishops Conference had already carried out the Congregation's request: in letter 324/92 of 6 January 1992, it recalled the notes about the matter that had appeared on L'Osservatore Romano of 6 January 1960 and 15 June 1966 and it requested that `in any future reprint of the volumes, each should, right from its first page, clearly state that the "visions" and "dictations" referred to in it cannot be held to be of supernatural origin but must be considered simply as literary forms used by the author to narrate in her own way the life of Jesus'" ("Maria Valtorta: Holy See's reaction to publication," Wikipedia, 24 August 2015. Footnotes omitted)
that is good enough for me. I don't read fictional works on the Shroud. It takes all the spare time I have to read the FACTUAL literature on the Shroud.
[continued]
[continued]
>There is much more detail, and do state that there was a shroud covering Lazarus, as well as bandages, etc.
Valtorta would not need "personal conversations with, and dictations from, Jesus Christ" (Wikipedia) to tell her that. Burial in a shroud was normal for Jews back then. That no shroud is mentioned in the raising of Lazarus in John 11:43-44:
"When he [Jesus] had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, `Lazarus, come out.' The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, `Unbind him, and let him go.'"
does not mean there wasn't one. Otherwise Lazarus would have naked apart from the strips binding his hands and feet and the face cloth, which would have been deeply offensive and shameful to first century Jews. It is just that the Apostle John focused on what Jesus then said, and He had no need to mention Lazarus' burial shroud since that wouldn't have impeded his movement.
>And by the way, Valtorta holds that Lazarus was just half Jewish anyway, and had a Roman father.
More fiction and WRONG at that. If Lazarus had a Roman father he would have had a Roman first name. But "Lazarus" is just a Greek-Latin rendering of the Hebrew name Eliezer (Wikipedia).
>It is generally impossible to convince people for or against Valtorta unless they read the book in detail, so I will be brief on this.
Why would I (or anyone) BOTHER reading Valtorta's book when: 1) the Vatican condemned her writings as "Badly Fictionalized" and "[not] supernatural in origin," 2) she is WRONG in many points of what I have seen quoted from her writings; and 3) as I pointed out above, she lived in Italy all her life (1897–1961), in the immediate aftermath of the 1898 exposition of the Shroud, when the Shroud image was discovered to be a photographic negative. And since Valtorta started writing her `revelations' when she was 46, she would have consciously, or unconsciously, absorbed through normal reading and talking about the Jesus and Shroud, and imaginatively embellished that.
[continued]
[continued]
>Just thought you may want to know that there is much more detail on that than may seem at first.
Yes, "over 15,000 handwritten pages in 122 notebooks":
"On 23 April 1943, Good Friday, Valtorta reported the voice of Jesus suddenly speaking to her and asking her to write. From then until 1951 she produced over 15,000 handwritten pages in 122 notebooks, mostly detailing the life of Jesus as an extension of the gospels. Her handwritten notebooks containing close to 700 reputed episodes in the life of Jesus were typed on separate pages by her priest and reassembled, given that they had no temporal order, and became the basis of her 5,000-page book The Poem of the Man God." (Wikipedia).
If you REALLY think that Jesus would give such a MASSIVE private revelation, at least some of it WRONG, to one bedridden woman who had been "struck ... in the back with an iron bar":
"In 1920, aged 23, while walking on a street with her mother, a delinquent youth struck her in the back with an iron bar for no apparent reason. In 1934 the injury eventually confined her to bed for the remaining 28 years of her life. Her spiritual life was influenced by reading the autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and, in 1925, at the age of 28, before becoming bedridden, she offered herself to God as a victim soul." (Wikipedia).
then we must agree to disagree (to put it mildly)!
To prevent me from wasting my time on this any further, comments about Valtorta's `revelations' are from now on off-topic anywhere on my blog.
Stephen E. Jones
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