Saturday, September 9, 2023

Chronology of the Turin Shroud: Twenty-first century (2)

Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 to the present
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (2)
© Stephen E. Jones
[1]

This is the fourteenth installment of part #32, "Twenty-first century" (2) of my "Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 - present" series. For more information about this series see the Index #1. This page was initially based on Ian Wilson's 1996, "Highlights of the Undisputed History: 2000's." Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.

[Index #1] [Previous: 21st century (1) #31] [Next: 21st century (3) #33]


21st century (2) (2011-20).

2011 November. ENEA, Italy's National Agency for New Technologies,

[Right: ENEA's Hercules- L XeCl excimer (ultraviolet) laser[HEL]. See 22Dec11.]

Energy and Sustainable Development, publishes a report[MD12] on five years (2005-10) of experiments conducted in the ENEA center of Frascati on the “shroud-like coloring of linen fabrics by far ultraviolet radiation"[TM11]. "The scientists ... concluded that the exact shade, texture and depth of the imprints on the cloth could only be produced with the aid of ultraviolet lasers ..."!:

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 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 scientists used extremely brief pulses of ultraviolet light to replicate the kind of marks found on the burial cloth.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).' 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'[SN11].
"However ... 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"!:
"One of the assumptions related to the formation of the image was that regarding some form of electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short wavelength), which could fit the requirements for reproducing the main features of the Shroud image, such as superficiality of color, color gradient, the image also in areas of the body not in contact with the cloth and the absence of pigment on the sheet ... the results of ENEA `show that a short and intense burst of VUV [vacuum ultraviolet] directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence'. `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)"[TM11]!
This is further evidence that the man on the Shroud is Jesus! And that Jesus' image on the Shroud is, as prefigured by his Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-13; Mk 9:2-13; Lk 9:28-36), where His "face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light" (Mt 17:2); "his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them" (Mk 9:3); "the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white" (Lk 9:29). (See 23Jun15, 05Sep16, 05Feb17, 07Mar19 & 08Dec22). The Transfiguration was "a preview of the glorified body of Christ following his Resurrection"[TJW]! That is, of Jesus "departure [exodos], which he was soon to accomplish at Jerusalem"[Lk 9:31].

And that radiant energy of "34 thousand billion watts" came from the change of state of Jesus' "lowly," "flesh and blood" body into his "glorious" resurrection body (see 10Oct08, 06Oct13, 05Feb17, 13Jul22 & 08Dec22):

"... the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." (Php 3:20-21).

"...`How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?' ... ... The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory." (1Cor 15:35,41-42).

"... flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ... the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1Cor 15:50-52).

Just a fraction of the "7.8 septillion Joules of energy" in Jesus' human body:
"As per e=mc^2 average human body has 7.8 septillion Joules of energy..."[QR23]
2012a 26 March 2012. Publication of "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin

[Left: "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection – 26 March 2012"[SS12]. See my 28Mar12 & 29Mar12.]

and the Secret of the Resurrection" by agnostic art historian Thomas de Wesselow. This is an important book becauase de Wesselow is an agnostic art historian who believes: 1) the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet; but 2) the image on the Shroud was Jesus' resurrection! Here is de Wesselow's description of his conversion to a Shroudie:
"One hot, bright morning in the early summer of 2004 I ambled out into the orchard beside my house in Cambridge, lay down on the grass and immersed myself in The Turin Shroud [1978] by Ian Wilson ... I had spent the previous few days reading up on the Shroud, my interest having been kindled by a TV documentary screened that Easter, which cast serious doubt on the reliability of the carbon-dating test. I was now thoroughly hooked on the subject. Since no one else seemed able to unravel the history and significance of the relic, I was determined to think it through for myself ... I hoped Wilson's book ... might act as a catalyst. It did. Leafing through its arguments and illustrations, I became caught up in the Shroud's mystery as never before ... Though sceptical of the relic's authenticity ... I was nevertheless fascinated by some of the historical evidence Wilson presented. Various texts he cited - such as Robert de Clari's account of the Byzantine cloth on which 'the figure of Our Lord could be plainly seen' [see 11Nov17] did seem to point to a Shroud-like relic existing long before the fifteenth century, the date indicated by the problematic carbon-14 test. Moreover, I was aware by then of the major clue first recognized by Andre Dubarle: the distinctive pattern of the 'poker-holes' found on the representation of Christ's burial cloth in the Pray Codex [see 21Aug18]. Unable to dismiss this as a coincidence, I found myself forced to reckon with the heretical idea that the Shroud was already known in the twelfth century. I also had to admit that Wilson's identification of the Shroud with the Mandylion [see 15Sep12] was plausible and accounted for a good deal of evidence that, as far as I could see, orthodox opinion either ignored or dismissed without proper justification ... If Wilson's theory was correct, the Shroud's provenance could be traced back to the sixth century. And if it was that old, the chances of its being a fake were drastically reduced. As an agnostic, used to thinking about Jesus in conventional Christian terms, I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea that the Shroud might be an authentic marvel; and, as an art historian familiar with the merry-go-round of medieval relics, I was extremely sceptical that this one - the most astonishing of all - might be genuine. Nevertheless, having considered every alternative explanation and found it wanting, I felt pinned down and forced to think the unthinkable. The execution and burial of Jesus, I told myself, is the only recorded event that could have resulted in a length of linen becoming stained by the body of a man flogged, crucified, crowned with thorns and speared in the side, and it is an event that is unlikely ever to have been exactly repeated. I couldn't avoid the conclusion: from a purely historical point of view, the death and burial of Jesus seemed to be the best explanation for the Shroud"[DT12, 190-191]
But then, refusing to surrender his "secular worldview" and accept that Jesus was resurrected, and the image on the Shroud is a "snapshot" of His 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 ... image ... of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection"[WI79, 251].
de Wesselow deludes himself that the Shroud image was Jesus' resurrection:
"For a sceptical agnostic, this was a suffocating thought. The idea that the Shroud might be authentic hinted at something uncanny happening to Jesus' body in the tomb. Preconditioned as I was, my thoughts inevitably turned to the supposed miracle that lies at the heart of Christianity, the Resurrection, an idea that challenged some of my deepest convictions ... It was then that I glimpsed, for the first time, the potential significance of the relic. Grappling with the idea that it might have been found in the tomb of Jesus, I asked myself a question that has baffled generations of Shroud-enthusiasts: if the relic is authentic, why do none of the Gospels mention its discovery in the empty tomb? [see 06Nov14] And then it struck me: maybe they do. Maybe the Gospels contain descriptions of the Shroud that no one has recognized as such since the days of the apostles, because it appears in their legendary narratives not as an image but as a supernatural person"[DT12, 192-193].
But fatal problems with de Wesselow's theory that Jesus' image on the Shroud (de Wesselow admits that it is Jesus') was His resurrection, include:
• It requires a wholesale rejection of what the Gospels actually say, and replacing it with what the agnostic de Wesselow, wants them to say. • Peter and John didn't see in the empty tomb, either the Shroud (sindon) or Jesus (Jn 20:3-10; Lk 24:12 NIV). Shroudies do not require the Shroud to have been in the empty tomb when Peter and John were the first to enter it[Jn 20:1-8 NIV] (see my "Servant of the priest" series). But de Wesselow's `the Shroud was the resurrection' theory does require it[see above and DT12, 244ff]. • Jesus not only appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, he talked to them: Mary Magdalene (Jn 20:14-18); the other women disciples returning from the empty tomb (Mt 28:1, 8-10:28); Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus (Mk 16:12; Lk 24:13-33); the eleven apostles in a locked room in Jerusalem (Mk 16:14; Lk 24:33-49; Jn 20:19-29); the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (Jn 21:1-23); the eleven apostles on a mountain in Galilee (Mt 28:16-20; Acts 1:1-8). The Apostle Paul (then Saul of Tarsus) on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-6; 22:6-10; 26:12-18). The Shroud doesn't talk. • Jesus' resurrected body had "flesh and bones" (Lk 24:36-40). The Shroud doesn't have flesh and bones. • The resurrected Jesus ate food (Lk 24:41-42; Jn 21:9-15). The Shroud doesn't eat. • Jesus ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9-11). The Shroud remained here on Earth. • The image is on the inside of the Shroud, nearest Jesus' body, not the le outside of it, so the disciples would not know that the image was there. The women who went to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 23:55-24:1; Jn 20:1) would have pulled back the Shroud from Jesus' dead body, but they didn't because Jesus body wasn't there, having been resurrected (Mt 28:1-6; Mk 16:1, 5-6; Lk 24:1-6; Jn 20:1-2). • Finally, there wouldn't be an image on the Shroud if Jesus hadn't been resurrected (see the ENEA laser experiment above). See further my "Combined Review of: `The Sign' by Thomas de Wesselow and `Resurrected or Revived?' by Helmut Felzmann."

2012b 28-30 April. 1st International Congress on the Holy Shroud in Spain is held in Valencia, Spain. The event is sponsored by the Centro Español de Sindonologia (CES). Online papers include: "Could A Burst of Radiation Create a Shroud-Like Coloration? A Summary of 5 years of Experiments at ENEA Frascati... by Paolo di Lazzaro ..."; "Analysis of micro-particles vacuumed from the Turin Shroud ... by G. Fanti ...". See my 18Oct15 that this vacuumed dust in between the underside of the Shroud and its Holland Cloth backing had been sealed from 1534 to 1978 = 444 years. So it is significant that in the dust a pollen grain was identified which was from a Mediterranean plant species, Phillyrea Angustifolia, that had been identified on the Shroud by Max Frei (1913-83):

"During the analysis, some particles were associated, by size, to pollen grain, which, however, were not simple to identify due to surface alterations. In the Stub HH it has been observed a grain identified as pollen grain of Phillyrea Angustifolia ... where M. Frei's reported some micrographs made at SEM of 48 varieties of pollen. Among those SEM photos there is one of the same Phillyrea Angustifolia ..." (footnotes ommitted)[FG12, 5].
Fanti, et al., answered the criticism by Shroud sceptic Steven Schafersman that Frei must have faked his pollen samples because his SEM (scanning electron microscope) photos were too perfect:
"I first suspected that Max Frei's data were faked when I saw the movie `Witness of the Shroud' [sic `Silent Witness'] on television. One segment showed Frei addressing the assembled shroud devotees with huge projections of SEM photomicrographs of his pollen. In the dozens of illustrations, each species was represented by four or five perfectly preserved specimens; the pollen looked fresh-as-new. In the four published SEM photomicrographs, each illustration shows four or five pollen grains piled up, with perhaps more underneath. What a treasure trove! Frei had been lucky enough to discover hundreds of perfectly-preserved pollen grains on the Shroud, a number of each species ... I must say that in my opinion, the excellent and abundant pollen in Frei's SEM photomicrographs look like pollen removed from living plants ... At this point, let me again state my argument. Although I can't prove that Max Frei falsified his data by spiking his own samples, I have presented evidence to show that this is the most reasonable explanation for the reported results"[SS99, 306-307].
But Frei died unexpectedly in 1983 and could not answer his critics. However, Fanti, et al., pointed out that it was the norm in Frei's day to show perfect SEM photos of pollen grains, therefore other scientists at that time were not mislead by Frei's pollen photos:
"M. Frei was accused of fraud because he reported the SEM photos of pollen grains similar to those detected in his glasses and not just the pollen grains coming from the TS. This accusation can be right for scientists of our days, but other scientists in the 1970-1990 used to publish photoscorresponding but not equal to the pollen grain under examination"[FG12, 6].
2013a 23 March. Publication of Prof. Giulio Fanti (1956-) and journalist Saverio Gaeta (1958-) book, "Il Mistero della Sindone" ("The Mystery of the Shroud"). It is in Italian and there does not appear to have been an English translation of it. But in 2020 Fanti published another book, "The Shroud of Turin: First Century after Christ!" (see future "2020") which covers these same three tests. And there there have been English articles about this 2013 Fanti book:
"New scientific experiments carried out at the University of Padua have apparently confirmed that the Shroud Turin can be dated back to the 1st century AD. This makes its compatible with the tradition which claims that the cloth with the image of the crucified man imprinted on it is the very one Jesus' body was wrapped in when he was taken off the cross. The news will be published in a book by Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua's Engineering Faculty, and journalist Saverio Gaeta, out tomorrow. "Il Mistero della Sindone" (The Mystery of the Shroud) is edited by Rizzoli (240 pp, 18 Euro). What's new about this book are Fanti's recent findings, which are also about to be published in a specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee. The research includes three new tests, two chemical ones and one mechanical one. The first two were carried out with an FT-IR system, so using infra-red light, and the other using Raman spectroscopy. The third was a multi-parametric mechanical test based on five different mechanical parameters linked to the voltage of the wire. The machine used to examine the Shroud's fibres and test traction, allowed researchers to examine tiny fibres alongside about twenty samples of cloth dated between 3000 BC and 2000 AD. The new tests carried out in the University of Padua labs were carried out by a number of university professors from various Italian universities and agree that the Shroud dates back to the period when Jesus Christ was crucified in Jerusalem. Final results show that the Shroud fibres examined produced the following dates, all of which are 95% certain and centuries away from the medieval dating obtained with Carbon-14 testing in 1988: the dates given to the Shroud after FT-IR testing, is 300 BC ±400, 200 BC ±500 after Raman testing and 400 AD ±400 after multi-parametric mechanical testing. The average of all three dates is 33 BC ±250 years. The book's authors observed that the uncertainty of this date is less than the single uncertainties and the date is compatible with the historic date of Jesus' death on the cross, which historians claim occurred in 30 AD. The tests were carried out using tiny fibres of material extracted from the Shroud by micro-analyst Giovanni Riggi di Numana [1935-2008] who passed away in 2008 but had participated in the 1988 research project and gave the material to Fanti through the cultural institute Fondazione 3M.)"[TA13].
This is summarised in the following table:

TestMax/MinRange
FT-IR300 BC ±400700 BC-AD 100
Raman200 BC ± 500700 BC-AD 300
Mechanical400 AD ± 400AD 0 - AD 800

So all three tests yield a date range in which Jesus' death in AD 30[DK15]. falls! See my posts of 27Mar13, 02Apr13 & 21Apr13. I will comment on this further when I post on Fanti's 2000 book (see future "2000"). Moreover, this complements the finding of STURP chemist Ray Rogers (1927–2005) that the vanillin content of the Shroud was consistent with it being "between 1300 and 3000 years old," i.e. 150 BC ± 850 (see "2005a"). And they were in turn complemented by a 2022 (see future "2022") publication by De Caro, et al, that Wide Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) of a Shroud sample had returned a date similar to a first century linen sample from Masada, the Jewish fortress overrun by the Romans in 74 (see 04Apr22). These five different dating methods of the Shroud are compatible with the AD 30 date of Jesus' death, enshroudment and burial, but are totally incompatible with the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud!

2013b 30 March. Pope Benedict XVI (r. 2005-13), in one of his last acts as Pontiff, authorizes a television only exhibition of the Shroud of Turin directly from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin. This is the first such exhibition in 40 years, since the first ever TV exposition of the Shroud on November 23rd, 1973. Newly elected Pope Francis (r. 2013-) makes the first comments of his papacy on the Turin Shroud just hours before it airs on television.

2014a 4-5 September. An international Shroud conference titled, “Workshop on Advances in the Turin Shroud Investigation," is sponsored by the Technical University of Bari, Italy and the University of Bari "Aldo Moro," Italy with the technical co-sponsorship of the CIS (International Center for Turin Shroud Studies), Turin. The event was organized by the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering of the Technical University of Bari, Italy.

2014b 9-12 October : An international Shroud conference titled, "Shroud of Turin: The Controversial Intersection of Faith and Science," is organized by Joe Marino in St. Louis, Missouri and co-sponsored by the Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation and the Salt River Production Group. More than 160 people attend the four day event.

2015 19 April - 24 June. The Shroud goes on public display for the first time since 2010.

2017 19-22 July. An International Conference on the Shroud of Turin is held in Pasco, Washington, U.S.A. The event is titled, "Seeking Solutions to the Mysteries of the Shroud," sponsored by Mark Antonacci and his "Test the Shroud Foundation" and organized and managed by Robert Rucker (and family).

To be continued in the fourteenth installment of this post.

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Bibliography
DK15. Doig, K.F., 2015, "New Testament Chronology: Part IV, The Crucifixion of Jesus" & "The 30 CE Crucifixion," 22 April.
DT12. de Wesselow, T., "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London, 2012..
FG12. Fanti, G., et al., "Analysis of micro-particles vacuumed from the Turin Shroud," 1st International Congress on the Holy Shroud in Spain - Valencia," Centro Español de Sindonologia (CES), April 28-30, 2012, Valencia, Spain.
HEL. ENEA's Hercules-L XeCl excimer laser: ENEA FIS-ACC Excimer Laboratory Annual Report 2000-2001 (no longer online).
MD12. Murra, D., et al., 2012, "Shroud-like coloration of linen by nanosecond laser pulses in the vacuum ultraviolet," Research Gate, September 2012.
QR23. "As per e=mc^2 average human body has 7.8 septillion Joules of energy, is there a way to use this energy?," Quora, Accessed 16 September 2023.
SN11. Squires, N., 2011, "Italian study claims Turin Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe," The Telegraph, 19 December.
SS12. "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection Hardcover – 26 March 2012 by Thomas de Wesselow (Author)," Amazon.com.
TJW. "Transfiguration of Jesus: Transfiguration and Resurrection," Wikipedia, 28 July 2023.
TA13. Tornielli, A., 2013, "New experiments on Shroud show it's not medieval," Vatican Insider, 26 March.
TM11. Tosatti, M., 2011, "The Shroud is not a fake," The Vatican Insider, La Stampa, 12 December.
WI79. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition.

Posted 9 September 2023. Updated 2 October 2023.

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

The Shroudman and Jesus were buried in a rock tomb #42: The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet!

THE SHROUDMAN AND JESUS WERE BURIED IN A ROCK TOMB #42
Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

This is part #42, "The Shroudman and Jesus were buried in a rock tomb," of my series, "The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet!." For more information about this series, see the "Main index #1" and "Other marks and images #26." Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.

[Main index #1] [Previous: The Shroudman and Jesus were wrapped in a linen shroud #41] [Next: The Shroudman and Jesus were resurrected! #43]


  1. The Bible and the Shroud #33
    1. The Shroudman and Jesus were buried in a rock tomb #42
The Shroudman was buried in a rock tomb As per my post of 22Mar13:

Dirt on foot In 1978 STURP members, husband and wife, Roger (1933-2021) and Marion (Marty) Gilbert (1933-2023), while carrying out reflectance spectroscopy on the Shroud, discovered an unusual spectral signal from the heel of the right foot on the dorsal side and

[Above (enlarge): bloodstains and image of the right foot, on the dorsal side of the Shroud[LM10]. The heel is lower left.]

nowhere else on the Shroud[WS00, 93]. As we saw in "2.5. The bloodstains" there is a clear imprint of the right foot only and that only on the dorsal side of the Shroud[WI79, 42]. When the area was examined under a microscope, dirt particles could be seen deep between the threads[HJ83, 112-113]. It is logical to find dirt on the foot of a man who wore sandals, as Jesus did (Mt 3:11; Mk 1:7; Jn 1:27), and who would have been barefoot before he was crucified (Mt 27:35; Mk 15:24; Lk 23:34; Jn 19:23)[HJ83, 113]. That the dirt is not a later contamination is shown by it being under the bloodstains on the foot[WI10, 67]. But the dirt is not easily seen with the naked eye[WI10, 66], so no forger would have put it there[HJ83, 113].

Limestone In October 1978 STURP, as part of its five day intensive scientific investigation of the Shroud, took thirty-two samples[WI98, 4] of surface material on the Shroud by pressing a specially formulated sticky-tape onto body image, bloodstain, waterstain and non-image areas of the cloth[WM86, 59]. Los Alamos chemist Ray Rogers (1927–2005), was responsible for this task and so he took the sticky tape samples back with him to the USA[WM86, 59-61]. In 1982 Rogers gave some of the sticky-tape samples to optical crystallographer Joseph Kohlbeck (1927-2022), for him to make photomicrographs of them[WM86, 104]. Kohlbeck became interested in some crystals of calcium carbonate (limestone) he found on some of the tapes[WM86, 104]. Under his microscope he found from their crystalline structure that they were of the comparatively rare travertine (deposited from springs) aragonite variety of calcium carbonate rather than the more common calcite[WI98, 105]. Kohlbeck knew that travertine aragonite limestone was typically found in limestone caves in Palestine[RC99, 103]. The question then occurred to him whether their chemical signature might match the limestone of the tomb in which Jesus was laid in Jerusalem[WI98, 104]. Kohlbeck realised that it might be difficult obtaining samples from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem but he reasoned that limestone from other tombs around Jerusalem should have the same characteristics[WI98, 104-105].

An archaeologist, Eugenia Nitowski (1949-2007), who had made a study of ancient Jewish tombs in Israel, was able to obtain for Kohlbeck limestone samples from a number of tombs in and around Jerusalem[WI98, 105]. Kohlbeck found that that the calcium carbonate in the Jerusalem samples was indeed of the same rare travertine aragonite variety as the samples taken from the Shroud[WI98, 105]!

To confirm whether or not the Jerusalem tombs limestone did have the same chemical signature as the Shroud samples, Kohlbeck asked Prof. Ricardo Levi-Setti (1927–2018) at the University of Chicago to compare them using the University's high-resolution scanning ion


[Above: Prof. Ricardo Levi-Setti's scanning ion microprobe comparisons of Jerusalem limestone and limestone on Shroud[KN86, 23-24].]

microprobe[WI98, 105]. The Shroud sample tested was from the same foot area of the Shroud where Roger and Marty Gilbert had found the abovementioned dirt because it had a larger concentration of calcium carbonate than other areas[WI98, 105]. From their spectral patterns it was clear that the Shroud and Jerusalem tomb limestone samples a were very close match[WI98, 106]. Both the Shroud and the Jerusalem samples contained small amounts of iron and strontium, but no lead[WI98, 105]. They would have been an even closer match but for a slight organic variation due to particles of flax which could not be separated from the Shroud's calcium[WI98, 106].

This is further evidence (if not proof beyond reasonable doubt) that the aragonite limestone dust on the foot of the Shroud man came from a Jerusalem limestone tomb[WI98, 105]. The onus is on the Shroud sceptics to explain how limestone which specifically (if not uniquely) matches that found in and around Jerusalem came to be on the Shroud[DT12, 115]. It is a major problem for the forgery theory to explain how the barely visible dirt on the heel of the Shroud man, `just happens' to contain the same rare travertine aragonite limestone found in and around Jerusalem. A medieval would not know that Jerusalem limestone was travertine aragonite and he would not have included such details as they could barely be seen by him or his contemporaries[GM98, 79].

Jesus was buried in a rock tomb
Jesus was laid in a new tomb that had been cut out of the rock The body of Jesus had been taken down from the cross by his disciples Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (Jn 19:39) and laid in a new tomb that had been cut out of the rock (Mt 27:59-60; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:52-53). It was nearby (Jn 19:42) to Golgotha the place of Jesus' crucifixion (Mt 27:33-35; Mk 15:22-24; Jn 19:17-18)[RJ77, 24; WI10, 5].

Jesus' tomb still exists today! As per my post of 08May18, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over the site of Jesus' Tomb (and also over the site of His crucifixion-see below). The Gospels state

[Above (enlarge)[CS17]: Cross-section showing that the Church of The Holy Sepulchre was built over both the Tomb of Jesus and the site of His crucifixion (L. Calvary, Gk. Golgotha - Mt 27:33; Mk 15:22; Jn 19:17): "Today's Church of the Holy Sepulcher sets over two sites: Calvary and the tomb of Jesus. Both these sites were in the same garden outside the walls of Jerusalem in 30 AD, and now they are under one roof. John wrote that they were close to each other: `At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.' - John 19:41-42 [NIV]"[CJ14].]

that both Christians (Mt 27:60-61; 28:1-8; Mk 15:46-16:8; Lk 23:50-24:12; Jn 19:38-20:18) and Jews (Mt 27:62-66; 28:11-15) in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' death and resurrection knew where His tomb was. The early church historian Eusebius (c.260-340) recorded that there were Christians living in Jerusalem up to immediately before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70, when the Christians, warned in prophecy, left Jerusalem to live in Pella across the Jordan River:

"The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella"[EEH, 86].
That Christians had returned to live in and/or around Jerusalem soon after AD 70 is evident from there having been 14 Jewish Christian Bishops of Jerusalem from 107 up to the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136[JBW]. Then from 135 to 325 there were 24 Gentile Christian Bishops of Jerusalem[GBW]. So from 30-325 there never was a time when Jerusalem Christians could have forgotten where Jesus' tomb had been!

About ten years after Jesus' death, King Herod Agrippa I (r. 41-44), the "Herod the King" of Acts 12:1-23, began the construction of Jerusalem's Third Wall[WJW], which enclosed within the city the Tomb and Golgotha, which at the time of Jesus' death were outside Jerusalem's then wall (Heb 13:12; Mk 15:20; Jn 19:17)[BM99, 1]. In 130 the Roman Emperor Hadrian (r. 117–138) visited the ruins of Jerusalem and decided to rebuild it as a city dedicated to the god Jupiter and renamed Aelia Capitolina[TJW]. Then in 136, following the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136, Hadrian formally reestablished Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and forbade the presence of both Jews and Christian in the new Roman city[TJW]. From 136–140 Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount and also a temple to Venus on the site of Golgotha/Calvary[TJW]. The Tomb was buried under the rubble of the ruins of Jerusalem used to level the site, but the location of nearby Golgotha was marked by the temple to Venus[BM99, 1]! After Hadrian's death in 138 his successor, Emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161), relaxed the restrictions on Christians' presence in the city[TJW].

In 325 Macarius, the Bishop of Jerusalem (r. 312-335), at the Council of Nicaea, petitioned Emperor Constantine I (r. 306-337) to demolish Hadrian's temple to Venus and uncover the tomb of Christ[CJ14]. So Macarius knew, presumably from accurate but now-lost traditional sources, where the Tomb was underneath the rubble[PP85, 925-926]. Constantine granted Macarius' petition and in 326 Constantine's mother, Empress Helena (c. 246-c. 330), travelled to Jerusalem and having been told by Macarius the exact location of Golgotha/Calvary and Christ's tomb[CJ14], ordered the demolition of Hadrian's Venus temple and their excavation[HEW]. That by 326 these sites were inside Jerusalem's wall but Scripture states that Jesus was crucified and buried outside the city's walls [see above] adds credibility to Macarius' correct identification of these sites[CJ14]. Then in 326 Constantine ordered the construction of two churches, connected by a great basilica (the Martyrium) an enclosed colonnaded atrium (the Triportico) with the site of Golgotha in one corner, and a rotunda which contained the Aedicula (Edicule), which in turn enclosed the rock-cut Tomb that Helena and Macarius had identified as the burial site of Jesus (see above)[HCW]. Construction of the Church of Holy Sepulchre was completed in 335[CCW].

In 614 the Church was damaged by fire when the Persian king Khosrow II (r. 590-628) invaded Jerusalem [see "614"][CDW]. In 630, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641) restored Jerusalem and rebuilt the Church[CDW]. But then in 1009 the Muslim caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (996–1021) ordered the complete destruction of the Church[CDW]:

"... the 'basilica of the Lord's Sepulchre [was] destroyed down to the ground'. ... everything was razed 'except those parts which were impossible to destroy or would have been too difficult to carry away' ... The Church's foundations were hacked down to bedrock. The Edicule and the east and west walls and the roof of the cut-rock tomb it encased were destroyed or damaged ... the north and south walls were likely protected by rubble from further damage. The `mighty pillars resisted destruction up to the height of the gallery pavement, and are now effectively the only remnant of the fourth-century buildings'"[CDW].
In 1048 partial reconstruction of the ruined Church by order of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042-1055) was completed[CRW]. But despite spending vast sums on the project, construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings, leaving the great basilica in ruins[CRW]. The rebuilt Church consisted of a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it[CRW]. In 1099 Jerusalem was recaptured by soldiers of the First Crusade [see "1095"][CPW]. The crusaders unified the chapels on the site by placing them all under one roof, completing their reconstruction

[Above (enlarge): The Church of the Holy Sepulchre today. The large dome on the left is over the Tomb, the smaller middle dome is over the church itself (the Katholikon) and the small dome below and to the right of the latter (not the one in the courtyard) is over the site of Golgotha/Calvary[BM99, 3], i.e. the Rock of Calvary-see "8" on this plan.]

during the reign of crusader Queen of Jerusalem, Melisende (r. 1131–1153) in 1149[BM99, 3] [see "c.1149"].

In 1555 Franciscan friars rebuilt the Edicule and extended it to create the ante-chamber[CLW]. A protective marble sheath was also then installed over the Tomb[CLW]. A fire in 1808 caused the dome of the rotunda to collapse and smash the Edicule's exterior, but these were rebuilt in 1809–1810 by a Greek architect Nikolaos Komnenos[CLW].

[Above (enlarge): The rotunda (which contains the Edicule, which in turn contains the Tomb of Jesus-see future below) and its ante-chamber extension, from the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre[RK17].]

The current dome of the rotunda dates from 1870 and was restored during 1994–1997, as part of extensive modern renovations to the Church[CLW]. During the 1970–1978 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was mined[CLW].

In 2016, restoration works were performed in the Edicule, including temporarily removing the 1555 marble cladding (see above) which

[Above (enlarge): A restorer removes debris beneath a broken marble slab to expose the original limestone rock surface of the burial bed of Jesus[RK17]! The Shroud has limestone dust adhering to it, particularly its underside, which matches the limestone of Jerusalem cave tombs [see 22Mar13]!]

protected the burial bed of Jesus[RK17]. The original limestone burial bed of Jesus was revealed intact, meaning that the Tomb location had not changed and confirming the existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Edicule[RK17]! The Tomb was then resealed shortly after[RK17].

In conclusion I want to reflect on what an amazing `coincidence' it was

[Above (enlarge)[Video "Church of Holy Sepulchre Explained" in CJ14]: Sketch of the excavated site of the Tomb and Golgotha in 325, showing that the distance between the site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial was very close (43 metres or 141 feet[WG23]).

that Joseph of Arimathea `just happened' to have a new, unused tomb that was "nearby" to Golgotha, the site of Jesus crucifixion. Because: 1) The sabbath was about to begin[Lk 23:54], 2) If there had been no ready-to-use grave which `just happened[' to be "nearby" to the site of Jesus' crucifixion[Jn 19:41-42], Jesus could not have been buried on that first Easter Friday, which would have meant that He could not have been resurrected on that first Easter Sunday! Yet 3) Joseph did not plan for his tomb to be used to bury Jesus. Rather he bought the site for his own burial and had it cut out of the rock[Mt 27:60; Mk 15:46], which had to have been well before Jesus' burial. So it was no coincidence. God had worked through Joseph's choosing and acquiring that site for his tomb[Heb 9:26]!

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Bibliography
BM99. Biddle, M., 1999, "The Tomb of Christ," Sutton Publishing: Stroud UK.
CCW. "Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Construction (4th century)," Wikipedia, 25 August 2023.
CPW. "Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Crusader period (1099–1244)," Wikipedia, 25 August 2023.
CDW. "Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Damage and destruction (614–1009)," Wikipedia, 25 August 2023.
CJ14. "The Church of the Holy Sepulcher," Jerusalem 101, 2 December 2014.
CLW. "History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Later periods," Wikipedia, 25 August 2023; "Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Ottoman and later periods," Wikipedia, 25 August 2023.
CS17. "Church of the Holy Sepulchre - Jerusalem, Israel," Steemit, 2017.
DT12. de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London.
EEH. Eusebius, "Ecclesiastical History," Book III:V, Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 1966.
GBW. "Early bishops of Jerusalem: Gentile Bishops of Jerusalem," Wikipedia, 27 June 2023.
GM98. Guscin, M., 1998, "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK.
HCW. "History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Construction," Wikipedia, 25 August 2023
HEW. "Helena (empress): The `True Cross' and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," Wikipedia, 22 August 2023
HJ83. Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA.
JBW. "Early bishops of Jerusalem: Jewish Bishops of Jerusalem," Wikipedia, 27 June 2023.
KN86. Kohlbeck, J. & Nitowski, E., 1986, "New evidence may explain image on Shroud of Turin," Biblical Archeological Review (BAR), Vol 12, No. 4.
LM10. Extract from Latendresse, M., 2010, "Shroud Scope: Durante 2002 Vertical," Sindonology.org.
PP85. Perkins, P., "Sepulchre, Church of the Holy," in Achtemeier, P.J., et al., eds, 1985, "Harper's Bible Dictionary," Harper & Row: San Francisco CA.
RC99. 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.
RJ77. Robinson, J.A.T., 1977, " The Shroud of Turin and the Grave-Clothes of the Gospels," 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, 23-30.
RK17. Romey, K., 2017, "Exclusive: Age of Jesus Christ's Purported Tomb Revealed," National Geographic, November 28.
TJW. "Timeline of Jerusalem: Late Roman period (Aelia Capitolina)," Wikipedia, 8 July 2023.
WG23. Galyn Wiemers, Email 5 September 2023 to S.E. Jones, "One more ... Re: What is the distance between Golgotha and the Tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?"
WI10. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London.
WI79. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.
WJW. "Walls of Jerusalem: Jewish postexilic city," Wikipedia, 14 August 2023.
WM86. Wilson, I. & Miller, V., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London.
WS00. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London.

Posted 23 August 2023. Updated 13 September 2023.

Friday, July 7, 2023

Objections answered (1), Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Turin Shroud Encyclopedia
Copyright © Stephen E. Jones
[1]

Objections answered (1) #25

This is "Objections answered (1)," part #25 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia, which will help me write Chapter "21. Objections answered" of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22 & 8 Nov 22.

I am basing this "Objections answered (1)" on an online article by leading Shroud sceptic Joe Nickell (1944-): "PBS 'Secrets of the Dead' Buries the Truth about Turin Shroud." I had intended to also base it on Nickell's "Fake Turin Shroud Deceives National Geographic Author." but this post grew too long, so that will have to be in "Objections answered (2)."

[Index #1] [Previous: John Calvin #24] [Next: To be advised #26]


I will present Nickell's objections to the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet under headings using his words as far as possible. They will be in bullet points, enclosed in single quotation marks as from an imaginary objector, which will be closer to what will appear in my book.

• `Science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval fake'

"Although science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval fake, die-hard shroud enthusiasts continue to claim otherwise. Just in time for Easter 2004 viewing, a PBS television documentary that aired Wednesday, April 7, gave them a forum to state their conviction that the image on the cloth is a first-century picture--miraculous or otherwise--of Jesus' crucified body"[NJ04].
Nickell, whose PhD is in English is a master of rhetoric and

[Right (original): Shroud sceptic Joe Nickell, whose "Ph.D. is in English for graduate work focusing on literary investigation and folklore"[JNW] posing as a white-coated scientist[PSS]!]

propaganda! Those (like me) who are persuaded by the evidence that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet are, according to Nickell, all "die-hard shroud enthusiasts"! And as for "science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud ... is a medieval fake," of those who have studied the Shroud, there are far more "scientists and scholars" on the pro-Shroud side, than there are on the sceptics' side. And in 2022 British pro-Shroud film-maker David Rolfe offered one million US dollars to the British Museum (which was involved in the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud to 1260-1390) to, "If the Turin Shroud is a forgery, show how it was done"[MJ22]. And, as far as I am aware, there have been no takers!

• `Contrary evidence includes the gospel accounts, the forger's confession, the blood and body images are painted and the radiocarbon results'

"Omitted were mention of the contrary gospel evidence, the reported forger's confession, and the microanalytical analyses that showed the `blood' and `body' images were rendered in tempera paint. Unsubstantiated claims were presented as fact, and the radiocarbon results--which dated the cloth to the time of the forger's confession--were treated in straw-man fashion: presented as virtually the sole impediment to authenticity"[NJ04].
Nickell is wrong about the first three. There is no "contrary gospel evidence" to the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheeet. See my "The Bible and the Shroud #33." And there was no "forger's confession." See my "1389d" where I wrote (footnotes omitted):
"D'Arcis appealed to Pope Clement VII to stop the exposition, claiming that one of his predecessors, Bishop Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354–70) had discovered that the Shroud was `cunningly painted':
`... Henry of Poitiers ... then Bishop of Troyes ... after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed'.
But d'Arcis provided no evidence in his memorandum to substantiate his claims, which he would have if there had been any. D'Arcis did not provide the name of the artist, nor a record of his confession, nor the source of his allegations. There is also no record of Henri de Poitiers conducting any inquiry into the origin of Shroud and d'Arcis did not even know its date! But there is a record of a letter of 28 May 1356, from Bishop Henri de Poitiers, praising Geoffroy I, ratifying the Lirey church and approving its `divine cult', which presumably refers to the Shroud! It is also highly unlikely that Geoffrey I de Charny, the owner of the Shroud in the 1350s, one of France's most ethical knights, and a devout author of religious poetry, was complicit in forging Jesus' burial shroud. The final refutation of the d'Arcis memorandum is that the image of the man on the Shroud is not painted!"
As for "the `blood' and `body' images were rendered in tempera paint," Nickell wrote this article in 2004, but in his 1987 book (~17 years earlier), hidden in its middle with no index entry (so his Shroud sceptic readers would be unlikely to find it), Nickell (to his credit) effectively admitted that the Shroud image was not painted, including with "egg tempera":
"While we should never underestimate what an unknown, skillful artist might be capable of - and so cannot conclusively rule out freehand painting - we must add that convincing evidence for any painting medium (that is, oil, egg tempera, etc.) on shroud image fibers is lacking ... Even at 40X magnification there are no obvious encrustations and no apparent cementing between threads nor any consistent and confirmed coating of fibers to indicate the presence of a painting medium ... The superficiality of the stain - extending `only 2 or 3 fibers deep into the thread structure' - is another strong argument against painting. A fluid medium (for example, paint, dye, ink) would be expected, by capillary action, to penetrate much farther - to the depth of a full thread, or even to the reverse of the cloth. Finally, tests at several laboratories failed to detect the presence of any foreign organic substance in `body' image areas"(my emphasis)[NJ87, 99-100].
Nickell is right about his fourth item of contrary evidence that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet, "the radiocarbon results ... dated the cloth to the time of the forger's confession" i.e. 1260-1390 or 1325 ± 65 years[WI98, 7]. But there was no "forger's confession" that he painted the Shroud image (see above), and Nickell himself effectively admitted the Shroud image is not painted (see above). So there is no valid independent corroboration of the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date! And if the radiocarbon dating itself was a fraud (which it was), then "1325 ± 65 years" is the date that the fraudster would make the Shroud appear to be[DT12, 170]. So as to agree with Bishop's d'Arcis false claim that one of his Bishop of Troyes' predecessors, Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354-70), had obtained the confession of the forger who had "cunningly painted" the Shroud"[WI79, 267]. The Pray Codex alone (and it is not alone), "a

[Left (enlarge): "The Entombment of Christ (above) and Three Marys [sic] at the tomb (below). The images are claimed as one of the evidences against the radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin"[PCW]. There are "eight telling correspondences between the Shroud and the drawings on a [this] single page of the Pray Codex"[DT12, 180]!]

collection of medieval manuscripts, dated to the late 12th to early 13th centuries"[PCW]. But "1260-1390" is late 13th to late 14th centuries - they don't overlap! The latest date of the Pray Codex is 1195[PCW], but that is 65 years before the earliest 1260 date of the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud!

• `The Shroud contradicts the Gospels which describe multiple cloths including a separate cloth over Jesus' face'

"The shroud contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes multiple cloths (including a separate "napkin" over the face) ..."
I answer this objection in my book (in progress): "This is fallacious. That there are multiple gravecloths of Jesus in the Gospels, doesn't mean that one of them can't be the Shroud. No Shroudie, as far as I am aware, claims that there was only one cloth, the Shroud, in Jesus' tomb. The Gospels reveal that there were three different types of gravecloths in Jesus' tomb: the sindon "shroud"[Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53]; the soudarion "face cloth" [Jn 20:7]; and the othonia "strips of linen"[Lk 24:12; Jn 20:5,6]. And many, if not most, Shroudies, including me, accept that the Sudarium of Oviedo is "the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head"[Jn 20:7].

• `John 19:39-40 says that Jesus’ body was wrapped with a mixture of myrrh and aloes of about seventy-five pounds weight but not a trace of those spices appears on the cloth.'

"... the Gospel of John ... describes ... `an hundred pound weight' of burial spices--not a trace of which appears on the cloth."[NJ04].
The key Greek word in Jn 19:39-40 is meta[BW57, 94], "with"[RA32, 307], not epi "on." That is, the "hundred pound weight' of burial spices" were with, not on Jesus' body:
"What of the spices? St. John tells us that Nicodemus, assisting Joseph of Arimathea, brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about a hundred pounds. He also tells us that these were wrapped with the body in the burial linen (Jn. 19:39, 40). Had such spices been used for anointing, it would have been requisite in Jewish ritual and indeed in that of any other culture to wash the body first. As it is quite evident from the Shroud that the body was not washed, and as the weight of spices described would be vastly excessive even for the most lavish anointing, the most likely explanation would seem to be that they were dry blocks of aromatics packed around the body as antiputrefacients"[WI79, 56].
So, since the spices were alongside Jesus' body, not over it, it would not be surprising if there were no traces of myrrh and aloes on the Shroud. Especially after almost 2000 years. But Nickell is wrong again. There are traces of myrrh and aloes on the Shroud:
"During the tests of 1978, one of the scientists was permitted to remove fragments of threads from the Holy Shroud ... Recent research with immunofluorescence methods has also demonstrated the presence of traces of aloes and myrrh. These traces occur both in areas corresponding to bloodstains and in other areas as well." (my emphasis)
• `No examples of the Shroud's complex herringbone twill weave in linen date from the first century.'
"No examples of the shroud linen's complex herringbone twill weave date from the first century, when burial cloths tended to be of plain weave in any case"[NJ04].
This is misleading. Nickell's "... first century ... burial cloths tended to be of plain weave" implies that there are many existing first century burial cloths. But, as Nickell would surely have known, there is only one burial shroud, other than the Shroud, which has survived from first

[Right (enlarge): Fragment of the only first century shroud, a simple two-way weave in wool[MM09].]

century Jerusalem, out of what must have been tens of thousands, and it was a simple weave in wool. Besides, it is not a Shroudie claim that the Shroud was an average first century cloth. Indeed, the very opposite! That Jesus' shroud would have been expensive, is consistent with it having been bought by Jesus' "rich man" (Mt 27:57-59) disciple, Joseph of Arimathea (Mk 15:46):

"The normal weave in Palestinian, Roman and Egyptian loom-technology was a one-over-one. The three-to-one herringbone twill was a more refined weave. It would have been an expensive piece of cloth for the first century. However, we know from the Gospels that Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man and it was he who provided the Shroud used to bury Jesus (Mt 27:57-61)[IJ98, 13].
In this article Nickell railed against "The intellectual incompetence or outright dishonesty of the show's producers ..."[NJ04]. but he needs to look in a mirror! Because he must know that there are herringbone twill woven cloths far older than the Shroud, in linen as well as other fabrics:
"Several authors have questioned whether the complex weaves found on the shroud were capable of being produced in the first century A.D. However, cloths with Z twist and twill weaves have been dated to times well before the time of Christ, as evidenced by a late - Bronze Age cloak found at Gerumsberg, Germany. In the burial wrappings of the mummy of King Thutmes II (c. 1450 B.C.), fabrics with a 4:1 twill were found. A scarf from the burial garments of King Seti I (1300 B.C.) contained a border with a 1:3 weave. The disposition of threads in the frame and the operation of the loom are identical with 1:3 and 3:1 twills. A piece of fabric from the tomb of Queen Makeri (1100 B.C.) had a 1:3 twill bordered with a 1:10 twill. Similarly, mummy cloth of the high priest Nessita-neb-Ashir from the same period contained weaves with 1:2 twill, 1:3 twill, and 1:6 twill. One particularly striking example of fabric weaving is a linen girdle of Ramses III (1200 B.C) This specimen, which is seventeen feet long, is woven with threads of five colors in a design composed of a 3:1 twill alternating with a 4:1 and 5:1 pattern. William Geilmann, who was a textile expert from the University of Mainz, studied pieces of linen from Palmyra, dating between the first and third centuries A.D., and one of them had the same 3:1 pattern as the Shroud. Herringbone twill examples in silk, thought to be of Syrian manufacture and dating from A.D. 250 and A.D. 276, have been found in Syria and England" (footnotes omitted)[AM00, 98-99].
• `The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century'
"The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century, when it turned up in the possession of a man who never explained how he had obtained the most holy relic in Christendom"[NJ04].
It is false that "The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century." The Pray Codex (see above ) is proof that the Shroud had a history prior to the late 12th century, let alone "the mid-fourteenth century". See my "Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 to the present," from "1201" back to "544."

• `In the mid-fourteenth century the Shroud turned up in the possession of a French knight, Geoffroy I de Charny (c. 1306-56), who never explained how he had obtained it.'

"The shroud ... [in] the mid-fourteenth century ... turned up in the possession of a man who never explained how he had obtained the most holy relic in Christendom"[NJ04].
Nickell is again misleading his readers. He would surely be aware that there is a plausible explanation why Geoffroy I de Charny "turned up" owning the Shroud in "the mid-fourteenth century." And that is, his wife Jeanne de Vergy (c.1332–1428) (note their ~26 year age difference, proving that this was no ordinary marriage), was a direct descendent of Fourth Crusader Othon de la Roche (c.1170-1234), who looted the Shroud in the 1204 Sack of Constantinople, and passed it down through his descendants, one of whom was Jeanne de Vergy. See my:
"1389f Pope Clement VII allowed expositions of the Shroud to continue as a `figure' and `representation' of Jesus' burial shroud and commanded Bishop d'Arcis to `perpetual silence' on this matter. This unexpected siding of the Pope with the de Charnys against a senior bishop is explained by Clement, as Robert of Geneva, being not only a nephew of Jeanne de Vergy[Geoffroy I's wife]'s second husband Aymon of Geneva, but also having been their neighbour. So Clement presumably had a private viewing of the Shroud and was told by Jeanne that her ancestor, Othon de la Roche (c.1170-1234) had looted the Shroud in the 1204 sack of Constantinople. The problem for the Pope was that the Byzantine Empire (c.330–1453) still existed and its Emperor John V Palaiologos (1332–1391) lived in Chambéry, France! So if the de Charny's continued to claim that the Shroud was Jesus' burial Shroud, John V would have known it was the one looted from Constantinople and demanded it be returned to him, creating a diplomatic crisis for the Pope! It may be no coincidence that the year the Byzantine Empire ended, 1453, was the same year that Geoffroy II's daughter, Marguerite de Charny, transferred the Shroud to Duke Louis I of Savoy (1440-1465)" (references omitted).
• `The earliest written record of the Shroud is a 1389 memorandum of a Bishop of Troyes, Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95) to Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-34), which alleged, "to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked"[WI79, 267]'
"The earliest written record of the shroud is a bishop's report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing scheme, with `pretended miracles' being staged to defraud credulous pilgrims"[NJ04].
But d'Arcis (a former lawyer) did not provide any evidence for his allegations, and it is contrary to the evidence that we do have. So d'Arcis was fraudulently making it up! See my:
"1389d. In October Bishop d'Arcis appealed to Pope Clement VII about the current exhibition of the Shroud at Lirey, describing it as bearing the double imprint of a crucified man and that it was being claimed to be the true Shroud in which Jesus's body was wrapped, and was attracting crowds of pilgrims. But according to d'Arcis' information it had been discovered to be the work of an artist ... But d'Arcis provided no evidence in his memorandum to substantiate his claims, which he would have if there had been any. D'Arcis did not provide the name of the artist, nor a record of his confession, nor the source of his allegations. There is also no record of Henri de Poitiers conducting any inquiry into the origin of Shroud and d'Arcis did not even know its date! But there is a record of a letter of 28 May 1356, from Bishop Henri de Poitiers, praising Geoffroy I, ratifying the Lirey church and approving its `divine cult', which presumably refers to the Shroud! It is also highly unlikely that Geoffrey I de Charny, the owner of the Shroud in the 1350s, one of France's most ethical knights, and a devout author of religious poetry, was complicit in forging Jesus' burial shroud. The final refutation of the d'Arcis memorandum is that the image of the man on the Shroud is not painted!" (references omitted)
Moreover, the de Charnys never were wealthy, as they would have been if d'Arcis' allegations were true. In 1356 the newly widowed Jeanne de Vergy had to petition the future king Charles V (r. 1364-80), whose father King John II (r. 1350-64) was a prisoner in France, for the two houses in Paris that King John had promised Geoffroy I, to be granted to their son Geoffroy II de Charny (1352-98)[WI98, 279]. And the small wooden Lirey church, far from being very wealthy, as it would have been if d'Arcis' allegations were true, became dilapidated and was not rebuilt in stone until 1526, 171 years after 1355:
"1508 ... Under the direction of John Huart, dean of Lirey, work begins in this year on the rebuilding in stone of Geoffrey de Charny's wooden church at Lirey, now fallen into disrepair. This will take another eighteen years[WI98, 287].
• `Bishop d'Arcis in his memorandum claimed that, "Henry of Poitiers ... then Bishop of Troyes ... after diligent inquiry and examination ... discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed'[WI79, 267].
"The bishop's report also stated that a predecessor had `discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it'"[NJ04].
This shows the duplicity of Joe Nickell! As we saw above, Nickell had admitted ~17 years before, that the Shroud image was not painted! So at best d'Arcis was mistaken that one of his predecessors Henri de Poitiers, had discovered the artist who had painted the Shroud and obtained his confession that he did it, or more likely, d'Arcis was lying about it! Either way, Nickell is again misleading his readers by claiming the Shroud was "cunningly painted" when he knows it was not painted!

• `As St. Augustine wrote in the early fifth century, the portraits in his time were "innumerable in concept and design," and for one very good reason: "We do not know of his external appearance, nor that of his mother"'[ADT].

"Although, as St.Augustine lamented in the fourth century, Jesus' appearance was completely unknown, the shroud image follows the conventional artistic likeness"[NJ04].
First, Augustine was not lamenting - this is an example of Nickell's constant anti-Christian spin. In his De Trinitate ("On the Trinity") Augustine (354-430) was arguing for "the impossibility for the finite human mind to know deeply the faith mystery of the Most Holy Trinity"[NTW]. So Augustine would have been happy to claim that (if he actually did-see next). Second, it was the fifth century (Augustine began De Trinitate in 400[NTW] - the last year of the fourth century). Third, Augustine did not actually write the words attributed to Augustine by Wilson, quoted above by Nickell, and repeated in several of Wilson's books[WI79, 101, WI86, 110, WI10, 126 & WS00 109]. What Augustine actually wrote in his De Trinitate was:
"For even the countenance of our Lord Himself in the flesh is variously fancied by the diversity of countless imaginations, which yet was one, whatever it was ... And whether that was the countenance of Mary which occurred to the mind in speaking of those things or recollecting them, we neither know at all, nor believe"[HA87]
So Augustine did not write in his De Trinitate that "Jesus' appearance was completely unknown" but rather there were a diversity of depictions of Jesus then current but there was only one actual face of Jesus. Augustine may have been aware of Shroud-like depictions of Jesus like this c. 400 Pantocrator ("Ruler of All") in the Catacomb of

[Left (enlarge)[MPW]: Extract of the c.400 Pantocrator in the Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter (not the Apostle), Rome. Although Jesus' Shroud-like face does not have the Vignon markings of later Byzantine icons, it is such a radical departure from the "beardless Apollo" depictions of Jesus then current, the simplest explanation is that the artist had seen the Shroud in the 4th century!]

Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Rome. But living in Alexandria, Augustine may not have known the history of the Image of Edessa/Shroud for him to realise that such images are indeed Shroud-like!

• `The man's physique is unnaturally elongated'"

"The physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in Gothic art) ..."[NJ04].
[Right (enlarge)[LM10a]: The full-length Shroud. As can be seen, the man's image is not "unnaturally elongated." It does however reflect the Shroudman's forward-leaning final crucifixion position, fixed by rigor mortis (see 05Jun22).]

• `There is a lack of wrap-around distortions that would be expected if the cloth had enclosed a three-dimensional human body'

"... there is a lack of wrap-around distortions that would be expected if the cloth had enclosed an actual three-dimensional object like a human body"[NJ04].
This is explained by STURP founder Prof. John Jackson's Cloth Collapse Theory (see my 18Jan12), where the Shroud fell through the man's "mechanically transparent" body, flattening out by air resistance as it fell:
"Jackson's [cloth collapse] theory predicts that the Shroud's images would be encoded if the body became insubstantial and emitted ultraviolet light. As the cloth fell through the body region, each point on the cloth would receive a radiation dose in proportion to the time it was within the region. The parts of the cloth that were over the highest points of the supine body (for example, the tip of the nose) would receive the longest dose of radiation, while the parts of the cloth over the lowest points of the body would receive the least. Thus, the intensity of all points on the resultant body image on the two-dimensional cloth would be directly correlated to the distance that they originally were from the surface of the three-dimensional body. Furthermore, since the draped cloth fell by gravity, all points of the resultant body image would have aligned vertically with the corresponding body point below it"[AM00, 220]
• `The man's hair hangs as though he is standing, rather than reclining'
"The hair hangs as for a standing, rather than reclining figure ..."[NJ04].
There are three plausible explanations why the Shroudman's hair is parallel to his face, as though he is standing, not lying on his back.

[Right (enlarge)[LM10c]: Positive of the Shroud-man's face, showing his hair parallel to his face.]

First, if the man in the Shroud was laid in a trough grave, his hair would be held by the sides of the trough, parallel to his upturned face:

"According to the researches of G. Dalman [1855– 1941], the celebrated authority on Palestine, the actual burial chamber was a small cubicle roughly three and one quarter feet wide, six and a half feet long, and six and a half feet high (1 m. by 2 m. by 2 m.). It was entered by a small opening, a little more than three feet (1 m.) high at most. To the right was the grave, cut from the living rock and set about two feet (60 cm.) above the floor of the chamber. Its dimensions were roughly six and a half feet long by three feet wide (2 m. by 90 cm.). Above it, there probably was a vaulted roof hewn from the rock. The grave proper was either a so-called `bench grave' upon which the dead was laid, or more likely, a `trough grave,' hollowed out of the rock in the shape of a coffin, into which the corpse was placed. A number of such graves have been preserved to us (the most ancient go back to the first century) so that we know approximately the proportions of the tomb under discussion" (my emphasis)[BW57, 96-97]
Second, the man's hair may have been pressed parallel to his face by the spices packed around his head and body (see above ). Third, a corona discharge may have caused the man's hair to `stand on end' and

[Left (enlarge): "The classic is holding your hands on the [Van de Graaff Generator's] metal sphere as it charges, the results really can be hair-raising!"[EVD].

make it appear to be lighter (see 17Dec19).

• `The imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs'

"... the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs"[NJ04].
This is simply false and Nickell (who is not stupid and has read pro-

[Right (enlarge)[LM10b]: Shroud feet and legs, dorsal. As can be seen, the imprints of both bloody feet are compatible with the outstretched legs to which they belongs!]

Shroud literature) must know it is false! The frontal image of the legs and feet looks like what Nickell described, because the man was lying on his back and from his thighs down the front of the Shroud only touched his knees and toes. But the back, or dorsal image shows that both feet were connected normally to their respective legs. The left foot, because its leg was bent at the knee, placed over the right foot, and a single nail driven through both feet into the cross under them, remained bent by rigor mortis and didn't fully touch the Shroud under it[AM00, 22].

• `The bloodstains are unnaturally picture-like'

"The alleged blood stains are unnaturally picture-like"[NJ04].
Nickell knows the answer to this objection but he keeps it from his readers: "what is seen on the Shroud is not so much whole blood as an exudate from clotted wounds":
"Again, from our experience with cut fingers we know that blood upon clotting quickly becomes crusty and flakes off, both from the skin and from any covering bandage, regardless of what injury it may have derived from. Yet one of the extraordinary features of the Shroud's bloodflows is that they appear suspiciously complete - effectively, whole images of stains, without any indications of anything having flaked away. So how is any of this possible, without the Shroud being an obvious forgery? ... [Dr.] Gilbert Lavoie threw some significant light on this question by dripping fresh blood onto various surfaces, then applying a linen cloth at various intervals during the clotting process, finding that the impression had to be transferred onto the cloth within two hours in order to produce imprints like those on the Shroud[LG83] From such experiments both he and others have formed the opinion that what is seen on the Shroud is not so much whole blood as an exudate from clotted wounds. This contains very few actual cells of blood and would give us more in the way of images of blood rather than whole bloodstains ..."[WI98, 85-86, 88].
The transfer from the blood clots to the Shroud was due to "fibrinolysis, which causes blood clots to dissolve again":
"From his study of the Shroud, Gilbert Lavoie has deduced that, until a few moments before death, blood was flowing from the wounds and that the body was wrapped in a winding sheet not more than two-and-a-half hours after his death ... The experimental studies of [Dr] Sebastiano Rodante [1924-2016] have shown that to effect a transfer of the blood onto the cloth as that which took place on the Shroud, the body has to remain in contact with the sheet for about 36 hours. During this period of time, an important part was carried out by fibrinolysis, which causes blood clots to dissolve again." Carlo Brillante [1931-2006], a professor in chemistry and clinical microscopy at the University of Bologna, has developed the study of fibrinolysis in connection with the Shroud: `The coagulating and fibrinolytic systems are in a dynamic equilibrium between them. The first one forms the fibrin, the second one removes it. The phenomenon of the lysis must have happened in a relatively short time, in any case not more than 36 hours. The fibrinolytic phenomenon follows precise laws according to the period of contact; if this does not exceed a certain amount of hours, the transfer does not take place or takes place in a rudimentary manner, while, if it exceeds that number of hours, the blood will smear the fabric (and therefore it will not form a transfer) because of the increased friability of the blood clots. This is one of the fundamental observations that confirms the undeniable relationships between fibrinolysis and the haematic stains on the Shroud. The Shroud shows that fibrinolysis had started and ceased at an unknown time `X' (probably not more than 36-40 hours) since the haematic imprints are perfectly transferred and delineated'" [PM96, 211-212].
• `Instead of matting the hair, the bloodstains run in rivulets on the outside of the locks'
"Instead of matting the hair, for instance, they [the bloodstains] run in rivulets on the outside of the locks"[NJ04].
Again, Nickell must know that "the bloodstains [which] run in rivulets on the outside of the locks" are not in his hair but on his face! From my post of 03Jun17 (references omitted): "In 1986 Dr Gilbert Lavoie was looking at a life-size positive photograph of the Shroud face (Fig. 1),

[Above (enlarge): Fig. 1, Shroud face, positive image (left), and Fig. 3, cutouts of the blood marks on the face and hair of the Shroud (right).

[Below (enlarge): Fig. 4, cutouts of the blood marks above right draped over a man's face (left), and Fig. 5, `blood' marks painted on the man's face through the cutouts.]

when it occurred to him that the blood was a little too far out on either side of the face. To test this he asked his daughters to outline on tracing paper the blood marks on the forehead and hair, trace the position of the eyes and nose, make a cutout of the tracing, remove the paper within the outlined blood marks, and make holes at the eyes large enough to see through. When Lavoie placed the tracing paper with its blood mark cutouts over his face, aligning the eyes and nose with his own, and looked through the eye slits in a mirror, it confirmed that the blood in the hair is actually on the sides of the face! Lavoie then visually reproduced this by painting through the blood mark cutouts onto the face of a bearded man volunteer (see Fig. 1, 3, 4 and 5 above). This means that the blood on the Shroud and the body image were caused by two different processes separated in space and time! The blood marks have been transferred to the cloth by direct contact with clots from wounds, while the body image has been projected onto the cloth by a non-contact type of radiation. This is explained by STURP's John P. Jackson's "cloth collapse theory" where the body became "mechanically transparent," and the cloth fell through the space where the radiating body was, flattening out due to air resistance.

• `Dried blood, as on the arms, has been transferred to the cloth"
"Also, dried `blood' (as on the arms) has been implausibly transferred to the cloth"[NJ04].
First, the blood on the Shroud is not `blood' in quotation marks but real, human blood! See again my post of 03Jun17 which is titled "Real human blood #23." In that post I showed a table of 12 tests for blood used by STURP blood chemist Alan D. Adler (1931-2000), at STURP's final public meeting in October 1981 (references omitted):
"Table 5: Summary of tests by Adler and Heller which confirmed that the blood on the Shroud was real blood. At the public final meeting of STURP in New London, Connecticut in October 1981, after explaining each item in this table, Adler, who had `already published close to a hundred articles on his blood research; forty-odd concerned porphyrins' concluded: `That means that the red stuff on the Shroud is emphatically, and without any reservation, nothing else but B-L-O-O-D!'"
Second, see above that all the blood on the Shroudman at the time of his burial had dried but in the tomb it became briefly liquid again by the process of fibrinolysis (which again Nickell would surely know but keeps that from his `sceptic' readers).

• `The blood is bright red whereas blood blackens with age.'

"The blood remains bright red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with age."[NJ04].
Again Nickell, who is well-read in pro-Shroud literature, knows the answer to this objection but does not tell his so-called `sceptic' readers, that the Shroudman's blood is red, because of its extraordinarily high bilirubin content, found in the blood of victims of severe trauma, as that of a crucifixion victim would be:
"Furthermore, Alan Adler tumbled upon one very important explanation for why, as has been agreed by everyone, the `blood' looks too red. A particular oddity that he discovered of the Shroud `blood's' bile pigments was that these seemed to contain what he called `an extraordinarily high' level of the pigment bilirubin, giving rise to the question why this should be so. As he explained[WI98, 88-89]:
`One possibility is that the person had a severe malaria, but this does not seem very likely. But a torture, scourging and crucifixion leading to shock - that would produce a tremendous hemolysis [break-up of red blood corpuscles-IW]. In less than 30 seconds the haemolyzed haemoglobin will run through the liver, building up a very high bilirubin. If that blood then clots the exudate forms, and all the intact cells with haemoglobin stay behind, only the haemolyzed goes out along with the serum albumin which bind the bilirubin. So what one ends up with on the cloth is an exudate which has an enhanced bilirubin index with respect to the haemolyzed haemoglobin. You now mix bilirubin which is yellow-orange with methaemoglobin in its para-hemic form, which is an orangey-brown, and you get blood which has a red colour"[AA86, 60-61].
• `The 1973 Turin Commission, which included Prof. Giorgio Frache, a forensic serologist from the University of Modena, Italy, was unable to detect blood in bloodstained threads taken from the Shroud.'
"Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the "blood" as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire image had been painted."[NJ04].
It was one forensic serologist, Giorgio Frache, Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Modena, Italy, and his assistants. And I doubt that he was "internationally known" since a Google search reveals very little about him. So Nickell is indulging in his usual rhetoric, boosting those who are favourable to his anti-Shroud position and denigrating those unfavourable to it! And nor were the "reddish granules" they found "suspicious" - Nickell is making that up!

The problem was that, as a truly "internationally known" blood expert, Prof. Alan Adler, "who had `already published close to a hundred articles on his blood research" (see above), pointed out, Frache's team had failed to dissolve the "granules" into a solution to conduct the necessary wet chemical test:

"A more complete examination was made in the autumn of 1973 by a team made up of most of the scientists " who had made the preliminary study. They included Giorgio Frache, forensic serologist from the University of Modena; Guido Filogamo, director of the Institute of Human Anatomy at the University of Turin; Alberto Zina, another professor from the University of Turin; Enzo DeLorenzi, who headed a radiological laboratory in Turin; Gilbert Raes, a professor of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology in Belgium; Silvio Curto, a museum curator; Cesare Codegone, a physicist; and Noemi Gabrielli, former curator of the art galleries in Italy's Piedmont region. This group viewed the Shroud on November 24, 1973, and were allowed to remove seventeen samples, mostly single threads, for study. Three years later [1976], they published their findings in a one hundred twenty page report entitled La Sindone: Richerche e studi della Commissione di Esperti ("The Shroud: Research and Studies of the Commission of Experts"). One of the most significant findings was that the body image did not penetrate the cloth, but was confined to the topmost layers of the fabric ... Frache studied several threads from the areas of the Shroud that appear to be stained with blood. He subjected them to a test with a chemical solution of benzidine, followed by treatment with hydrogen peroxide. If the threads contained blood, this solution should have turned blue when it came in contact with them. It did not, and Frache and his colleagues therefore had no evidence of the presence of blood on the Shroud. Alan Adler, the American chemist who later demonstrated the presence of blood, believed that his Italian colleagues were unsuccessful because they were unable to get the blood into a solution in order to perform the necessary wet chemical test"[RC99, 74-75].
And again, Nickell deceived his `sceptic' readers by not telling them that subsequently blood chemist Alan D. Adler (1931-2000)[HJ83, 216] and Medical Examiner at the University of Turin, Prof. Pierluigi Baima Bollone (1937-)[BZ98, 21], did show that the Shroudman's bloodstains are real, human blood!

• `The leading sceptic Walter McCrone (1916-2002) identified the Shroudman's blood' as red ochre and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire Shroud image had been painted.'

"Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the `blood' as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire image had been painted."[NJ04].
McCrone ignored STURP'S battery of chemical and physical tests which proved that the Shroud image was not painted, and claimed that just by looking through an optical microscope he could determine that the Shroud image was painted[HJ83, 99-100]! But another leading sceptic, Joe Nickell, effectively admitted in his 1987 book, "Inquest of the Shroud of Turin," that the Shroudman's image was not painted (see above):
"... convincing evidence for any painting medium (that is, oil, egg tempera, etc.) on shroud image fibers is lacking ... Even at 40X magnification there are no obvious encrustations and no apparent cementing between threads nor any consistent and confirmed coating of fibers to indicate the presence of a painting medium ... The superficiality of the stain - extending `only 2 or 3 fibers deep into the thread structure'[SR82, 11] - is another strong argument against painting. A fluid medium (for example, paint, dye, ink) would be expected, by capillary action, to penetrate much farther - to the depth of a full thread, or even to the reverse of the cloth. Finally, tests at several laboratories[SR82, 14, 29, 31] failed to detect the presence of any foreign organic substance in `body' image areas"[NJ87, 99-100].
• `In 1988, the Shroud was radiocarbon dated 1260-1390 by three laboratories at Zurich, Oxford and Arizona, each using the identical AMS technique. The midpoint, 1325 ± 65, was about the time of the forger's confession claimed by Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95) in his 1389 memorandum.'
"In 1988, the shroud cloth was radiocarbon dated by three different laboratories (at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of Arizona). The results were in close agreement and yield a date range of A.D.1260-1390, about the time of the reported forger's confession"[NJ04].
First, there was no "forger's confession" (see above), so there is no independent corroboration of the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date (see above). The Pray Codex (1192-95) with its "eight telling correspondences" between the Shroud and one of its the drawings (see above) alone is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct. And the Pray Codex is not alone as visual proof beyond reasonable doubt that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was wrong! One of 574 miniatures in the Madrid Skylitzes, a twelfth century illuminated manuscript, titled "The surrender of the Holy Mandylion, depicts Edessa's Muslim ruler handing the Image of Edessa to Byzantine

[Above (enlarge): "The surrender of the Holy Mandylion" (the Image of Edessa), one of 574 miniatures, which may be copies of earlier Byzantine images, in the 12th Century "Madrid Skylitzes," which was based on the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes (c. 1040s – aft. 1101). The persons on the left are wearing turbans and the buildings on their side have no Christian crosses, hence they are Muslims. The buildings on the right have Christian crosses, which means that the artist depicted both the Image being handed over by muslims in Edessa and its arrival in Christian Constantinople. Note that behind the face-only Image of Edessa is depicted the full-length Shroud! So by at least the 12th century (and the earliest 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud was 13th century) the Image of Edessa/Mandylion was known to be the full-length Shroud! See 31May17 (footnotes omitted).]

general John Kourkouas (bef. 900-aft. 946) in the summer of 944 (see "944a"), who carried it to Constantinople in August 945 (see "944b"). As can be seen, behind the face of the Image of Edessa is a long, folded cloth, which can only be the Shroud! This proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Image of Edessa was the Shroud "four-doubled" tetradiplon! Which was in Edessa in 544 (see "544"), seven centuries before the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date of the Shroud!

• `Defenders of the Shroud's authenticity have answers for each claimed piece of evidence against the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet.'

"Defenders of the shroud's authenticity have rationalizations for each damning piece of evidence."[NJ04].
Nickell is deceiving himself if he really thinks that there is even one "damning piece of evidence" against the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet. He hasn't presented one in this article! Rather, the evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet!

• `Defenders of the Shroud's authenticity assert that microbial contamination of the Shroud shifted its first century date thirteen centuries into the future.'

"`Defenders of the Shroud's authenticity ... assert that microbial contamination might have altered the radiocarbon date, although for an error of thirteen centuries, there would have to be twice as much contamination by weight as the cloth itself!"[NJ04].

Nickell is setting up a strawman. As far as I am aware, the only defender of the Shroud's authenticity who asserted that microbial contamination altered the radiocarbon date by thirteen centuries was Dr Leoncio Garza-Valdes (1939-2010). And as per my 21Mar23 post (footnotes omitted) ... in 1999 Adler delivered a devastating critique of Garza-Valdes' "bioplastic coating" claim:
"In `The DNA of God?' Garza-Valdez makes a large number of extravagant claims, many of them self-contradictory, at odds with accepted Shroud scientific literature, or at odds with basic accepted biochemical, chemical, or physical knowledge ... His ... contention is that the entire cloth is more or less covered by a bioplastic coating deposited by a novel microbe [sic] that he himself has discovered in the Shroud samples in his possession. He claims this bioplastic has corrupted the radiocarbon date and even suggests that the microbes may be responsible for creating the body image ... Are we to take seriously the notion that such microbial growth could produce the VP-8 characteristic? It should be noted that to corrupt the observed radiodate from a first century date to that reported [1260-1390] requires about a 50% increase in the C14 mole fraction. This is a prodigious amount of bacterial metabolism. Even if we ignore the Second Law of Thermodynamics and only satisfy the First Law, where does all this energy for growth come from? Are the organisms photosynthetic? Where does the mass come from? Does this microorganism fix the nitrogen from air as required for its growth and metabolism? Where does it get its sulfur, phosphorus, and minerals from and to where have they disappeared ... It seems that his evidence for large amounts is based on what he sees in a microscope. Looking at his micrographs, however, gives us pause for new concerns. He shows us a magnified picture of the weave of the whole cloth and says see how shiny it is — bioplastic coated. Unfortunately, he seems to be unaware that all linen looks like this. It is called luster and it is one of the characteristics by which linen is distinguished from other fabrics. For many of the pictures ... a question arises as to whether one is really seeing ... only diffraction artifacts, as the smaller objects in the field show pronounced diffraction rings, indicating that the field is simply out of focus. His work lacks hard convincing quantitative evidence on which one can judge the merit of his claims ..."
• `Defenders of the Shroud's authenticity begin with the assumption that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet, then they work backward to the evidence.'
"Defenders of the shroud's authenticity ... Beginning with the desired answer, they work backward to the evidence, picking and choosing and-all too often-engaging in pseudoscience"[NJ04].
First, Nickell is deluding himself if he thinks that sceptics like him don't have the "desired answer" that the Shroud is not Jesus' burial sheet and they don't "work backward to the evidence, picking and choosing" evidence that confirms their "desired answer"! Second, even if it were true of Shroud defenders, it would be consistent with modern science's hypothetico-deductive method" in which "scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating a hypothesis in a form that can be falsifiable, using a test on observable data where the outcome is not yet known" and "A test outcome that could have, but does not run contrary to the hypothesis corroborates the theory." But it is not true in my case where, as I stated in my first post to this blog, as an evangelical Christian, "to the extent that I thought about it [the Shroud] at all, I assumed it was just another medieval fake relic." But I found Stevenson & Habermas' "Verdict on the Shroud" (1981) for sale in a second-hand bookstore and was willing to consider their evidence for the Shroud's authenticity. To my surprise, the evidence they presented was compelling, so "I accepted ... that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial sheet of Jesus Christ and therefore extrabiblical evidence of His death and resurrection"! But perhaps the best example is the agnostic art historian Thomas de Wesselow. It was definitely not his "desired answer" that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet, but he was forced by the evidence to accept that it is (and moreover de Wesselow remained a non-Christian):
"Though sceptical of the relic's authenticity ... I was nevertheless fascinated by some of the historical evidence Wilson presented. Various texts he cited - such as Robert de Clari's account of the Byzantine cloth on which 'the figure of Our Lord could be plainly seen' [see 11Nov17] did seem to point to a Shroud-like relic existing long before the fourteenth century, the date indicated by the problematic carbon-14 test. Moreover, I was aware by then of the major clue first recognized by Andre Dubarle: the distinctive pattern of the 'poker- holes' found on the representation of Christ's burial cloth in the Pray Codex [see 21Aug18]. Unable to dismiss this as a coincidence, I found myself forced to reckon with the heretical idea that the Shroud was already known in the twelfth century. I also had to admit that Wilson's identification of the Shroud with the Mandylion [see 15Sep12] was plausible and accounted for a good deal of evidence that, as far as I could see, orthodox opinion either ignored or dismissed without proper justification ... If Wilson's theory was correct, the Shroud's provenance could be traced back to the sixth century. And if it was that old, the chances of its being a fake were drastically reduced. As an agnostic ... I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea that the Shroud might be ... authentic ... I was extremely sceptical that this one - the most astonishing of all - might be genuine. Nevertheless, having considered every alternative explanation and found it wanting, I felt pinned down and forced to think the unthinkable. The execution and burial of Jesus, I told myself, is the only recorded event that could have resulted in a length of linen becoming stained by the body of a man flogged, crucified, crowned with thorns and speared in the side, and it is an event that is unlikely ever to have been exactly repeated. I couldn't avoid the conclusion: from a purely historical point of view, the death and burial of Jesus seemed to be the best explanation for the Shroud"[DT12, 191-192].

As for "and-all too often-engaging in pseudoscience" this is Nickell's attempt to "poison the well" against sindonology, "the scientific study of the Shroud of Turin." And it is false! STURP, for example, published all its scientific findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

• `The preponderance of evidence leads to a conclusion: the Shroud is the work of a medieval artisan.'

"In contrast, the scientific approach allows the preponderance of evidence to lead to a conclusion: the shroud is the work of a medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively interlock and corroborate each other"[NJ04].
The exact opposite is true. The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet! See above on the Pray Codex and the Madrid Skylitzes, for example. And as we saw above, in 1987, ~17 years before this 2004 article, Nickell admitted that the Shroudman's image was not painted. That is presumably why Nickell changed "painter" to "artisan" without alerting his `sceptic' readers of the change. But that the Shroud image was not painted is a huge blow to the medieval forgery theory. As the leading proponent of the painting theory, Walter McCrone (1916-2002) pointed out, why would a medieval artist go to all the work of preparing a bas relief, etc., when he could simply paint the Shroud image?
"I realize that there are still, perhaps, a majority of people convinced by the carbon-dating that the `Shroud' is medieval, who are still looking for an answer as to how the `Shroud' was produced. Many mechanisms have already been proposed. Some say it was draped wet over a bas-relief to which it was shaped then dabbed with powder or a paint. Some say a painting was prepared and transferred to a cloth in contact with it by pressure. However, I see no reason to doubt that an artist ... simply took up his brush and a dilute red ochre watercolor paint based on scraps of parchment as the vehicle and proceeded to paint the `Shroud.' Why go to all the work of preparing a statue or bas-relief or making a transfer of the image from a primary artist's rendering? A direct approach to painting a dilute watercolor image on a canvas of the proper size is a common sense assumption; Occam's Razor applies here …"[MW99, 122].
• `The Catholic historian, Ulysse Chevalier (1841-1923) brought to light the documentary evidence of the Shroud's medieval origin.'
"In the words of Catholic historian, Ulysse Chevalier, who brought to light the documentary evidence of the Shroud's medieval origin, `The history of the shroud constitutes a protracted violation so often condemned by our holy books: justice and truth'[NJ04].
See my post of 11Jan23 (footnotes omitted) that in creating the d'Arcis Memorandum on parchment out of two rough paper drafts, and which was never sent to Pope Clement VII (r. 1378-94) because it never existed, Chevalier committed literary fraud:


However, Chevalier's worst act of dishonesty, indeed literary fraud, was in creating the d'Arcis Memorandum out of two rough drafts:

"There are two handwritten copies of the memorandum attributed to d'Arcis, `Folio 137' and `Folio 138' Folio 138 is a first draft with some parts crossed out, underlinings, and some very violent expressions expressions canceled; it is unsigned and undated and the addressee is not even shown. Chevalier made an orderly and careful transcription of this and published it in his very influential book. But Chevalier affixed the heading from Folio 137, `The Truth about the Cloth of Lirey, which was and now is being exhibited and about which I intend to write to our Lord the Pope in the following manner and as briefly as possible,' onto Folio 138. Thus, the document seen in Chevalier's book does not even exist, for it is actually a combination of two documents! Folio 137, the second draft, is neater than the first, and with its proper heading removed and affixed to the earlier messy draft, Chevalier gives the impression that Folio 137 was sent to Clement VII" (my emphasis).
[Left (enlarge): Folio 137, the second of the two drafts, the first being folio 138, of the so-called d'Arcis Memorandum]

At the foot of Folio 137, not part of the Latin document itself, a scribe had written in French "Fin 1389", i.e. "end of 1389". Chevalier forged the "Fin 1389" at the head of the d'Arcis Memorandum in his Appendix, without informing his readers that the date, though probably correct, is not on the document itself.


In my post of 11Jan23 I quoted from the "Chevalier" Wikipedia article, that in this Chevalier "showed ... intellectual dishonesty" but the quote has since been removed (footnotes omitted):

"In 2006 French historian Emmanuel Poulle wrote in a peer-reviewed journal that Ulysse Chevalier showed in this case intellectual dishonesty. According to Poulle, Chevalier deliberately did not correctly mention the Papal bulls of antipope Clement VII issued in 1390. In fact Clement VII never opted for the forgery thesis" (my emphasis).
And Nickell would have us believe that, as regards the Shroud, Chevalier the literary fraudster was concerned for "justice and truth"!

In conclusion, we have seen above that none of Nickell's objections are a problem for the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet. That is not surprising because the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet!

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Bibliography
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ADT. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, VIII, 4, 5 in WI79, 101.
AM00. Antonacci, M., 2000, "The Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY.
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Posted 7 July 2023. Updated 1 September 2023.