Objections answered (2) #33
This is the tenth installment of "Objections answered (2)," part #33 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 & 20Jun24. It follows my "Objections answered (1) #25" of 07Jul23.
I am basing this "Objections answered (2)" on an online article, "The
[Right (enlarge): Spencer McDaniel - Bad Ancient]
Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax," by a Spencer McDaniel." She (a transgender person) is described as:
"Spencer McDaniel is an aspiring scholar of ancient Greek cultural and social history. She graduated with high distinction from Indiana University Bloomington in May 2022 with a BA in history and classical studies (Ancient Greek and Latin languages), with departmental honors in history. She is currently a student in the MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis University. Some of her main historical interests include ancient religion, mythology, and folklore; gender and sexuality; ethnicity; and interactions between Greeks and "foreign" cultures. She is the author of the blog Tales of Times Forgotten, where she writes regular, in-depth posts about ancient history and related topics."
[Index #1] [Previous: Image of Edessa #32] [Next: To be advised #34]
As with the format of "Objections answered (1)," I will present McDaniel's objections to the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet under headings using her 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.
• `The Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style'
"Unfortunately, we can be virtually certain that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France in around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style as part of a faith-healing scam"[MS20].McDaniel is a scholar but her article is not scholarly. She cites no references for her assertions and neither does it have a bibliography of what Shroud literature she has read (if any).
Who was this "artist"? And who was the artist who "trained" him "in the Gothic figurative style"? McDaniels is postulating not one, but two unknown artists! Where are her supporting references from Gothic art experts that the Shroud is a work of mid-14th century Gothic art? And since the Shroud image is not painted (from my book in progress):
Not painted It has been known since at least the 1930s that the Shroudman's image is not painted. By examining the Shroud with a magnifying glass during the 1931 exposition, English Roman Catholic prelate Arthur Barnes (1861-1936), could see individual threads in the image area with no colouring matter covering them[BA34, 10-11, 14. See below]. Sceptics now admit that the man's image is not painted. Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001), then Director of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, when in 1988 collecting his laboratory's Shroud sample, examined the Shroud with a magnifying glass and satisfied himself that the image was not painted[WI98, 198]. Sceptic Joe Nickell (1944-) has admitted that, "...convincing evidence for any painting medium (that is, oil, egg tempera, etc.) on shroud image fibers is lacking"[NJ87, 99]. Former Nature editor Philip Ball (1962-), likewise conceded, "the shroud ... does not seem to have been painted ..."[BP05]. The Shroud of Turin Project (STURP) confirmed in 1981 that no paint, pigment, or dye constitutes the man's image[SS81].(and it is not a statue), the Shroud cannot be a work of Gothic art!
[Left (enlarge[11Jul16]): Photomicrograph taken by optical engineer Kevin Moran (1934-2019) of 15 microns (15 thousandths of a millimetre) diameter Shroud fibres attached to one of Max Frei (1913–83)'s Shroud sticky tapes. Each image (yellow) fibre can be clearly seen, with no colouring matter (paint, pigment or dye) covering it. The yellow colour of the image fibres is due to a physical change in the flax: dehydrative oxidation and conjugation of cellulose[27Jul24]. The boundaries between the image (yellow) and non-image parts of each fibre are only about 1 micron (1 thousandth of a millimetre) wide. No human artist/forger can paint, etc., with such precision. These fibres are too thin (about half the thickness of an average human hair, and there must be many millions of them), to be individually painted or dyed, etc, by a medieval forger!]
• `The Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD as part of a faith-healing scam'
The words "faith-healing scam" are Joe Nickell's, which McDaniel plagiarises by not putting them within quotation marks and not including a reference attributing them to Nickell[PGW]:
"In 1389 a bishop reported to Pope Clement VII that it had been used in a faith-healing scam in which persons were hired to feign illness, then, when the cloth was revealed to them, to pretend to have been healed, `so that money might cunningly be wrung' from unsuspecting pilgrims. `Eventually,' he said, after `diligent inquiry and examination,' the `fraud' was uncovered. The cloth had been `cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it' (D'Arcis 1389)"[NJ15]And it is Nickell who is running a `sceptics scam' in making a living off unsuspecting sceptics by continuing to repeat Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95)' false, "The cloth had been `cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it'" claim, when (as we saw above) Nickell admitted in 1987 (~37 years ago) that the Shroudman's image is not painted!
As for Nickell's `faith healing scam' claim, he bases this on d'Arcis claim in his 1389 memorandum that:
"This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, through out the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. And further to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked, certain men being hired to represent themselves as healed at the moment of the exhibition of the shroud, which all believed to be the shroud of our Lord"[WI79, 267] "There are multiple problems with d'Arcis' statement above: • d'Arcis' claim above is at best hearsay[SD89, 15; AM00, 152-153], or at worst he just made it up[AM00, 153]. d'Arcis provided no documentary evidence to support his claims[SD89, 15; AM00, 153]. And as we have seen (there was no "artist who painted" the Shroud because it is not "painted"!), and will see, key claims in d'Arcis' memorandum are false! • The evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud is "the shroud of our Lord." • So it is possible that there were real miracles of healing associated with that first undisputed exposition of the Shroud. • Neither Geoffroy I's widow, Jeanne de Vergy (c.1332–1428), nor the Lirey church, were wealthy after the c. 1355 exposition. Following her husband's 1356 death, Jeanne had to appeal to the young future king Charles V (r. 1364-80) for her infant son Geoffroy II (1352-98) to be granted the two houses in Paris that Charles'captured father, King John II (r. 1350-64) had promised Geoffroy I (c. 1306-56). And the small wooden Lirey church fell into disrepair[WI79, 213; SH81, 29; WI91, 25; TF06, 47] until it was replaced in stone over 170 years later in 1526[WI98, 287]. Yet according to d'Arcis and Nickell, Jeanne de Vergy, and/or the Lirey church, would have been fabulously wealthy from all that "money" they allegedly had "cunningly ... wrung from" the "multitude"! This is further evidence that d'Arcis was not simply mistaken, but was actually lying in his memorandum! Significantly, d'Arcis in his memorandum had to defend himself from the allegation that he was "acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself":
"The scandal is upheld and defended and its supporters cause it to be spread abroad among the people that I am acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself"[WI79, 269]McDaniel continues:
"We know this primarily because there is no definitive record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century and the earliest definitive record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed, but also because of a wide array of other factors. For instance, the shroud doesn't match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD or the specific description of Jesus's funerary wrappings given in the Gospel of John. The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages"[MS20].• `There is no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century' I have left out "definitive" here and next because the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: "firm, final, and complete; not to be questioned or changed," and so McDaniel is trying to win her argument by a definition!
This is both fallacious and false. It is fallacious that if there was "no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century," it would not automatically prove that the Shroud was "a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD by an artist." Shroud sceptics would need to prove that. But, as the Irish theologian Patrick Beecher (1870-1940) pointed out in 1928, even if there was no "documentary evidence" for the origin of the Shroud, it "carrie[s] in itself its own proof of its genuineness":"
"Some eighteen months ago the London Times had a photograph of a bronze statue that was found at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Experts examined it and pronounced it a genuine Greek statue. It was accepted as such; no one doubted the opinion that was expressed; and it will be labelled for all future time as a Greek statue. Suppose some one had objected and said: `No, I refuse to believe that it is a Greek statue unless I get documentary evidence as to when and where it was made, and how it came to be at the bottom of the sea.' Would that attitude be regarded as reasonable? ... NO, rather he would be looked upon as eccentric in not being able to see that the statue carried in itself its own proof of its genuineness. Very well, but we have vastly stronger intrinsic proof for the genuineness of the Shroud." (emphasis original)[BP28, 136-137].And it is false that there is no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century. For starters see in my "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell":
After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft.1216), the Keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection, recalled that in 1201[11Nov17] the collection included "the sindon [which had] wrapped the un-outlined (Gk. aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"[11Jun16]. "sindon," "un-outlined," "naked." This can only have been the Shroud, 59 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 154 years before the Shroud first appeared in c. 1355, in undisputed history, at Lirey, France[27Jul24]!• `The earliest record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed' This is false! Because the Shroud is not painted (see above), there was no "forger who made it" and therefore no confession. d'Arcis provided no checkable details about the forger because there wasn't one: d'Arcis made him up! That is, in this d'Arcis was lying, just as he was lying about the "money" that Jeanne de Vergy and/or the Lirey church had "cunningly ... wrung from" the "multitude" (see above). d'Arcis really was "acting through jealousy and cupidity ... to obtain possession of the cloth for [him]self" (see above)! And as for "The earliest record of the shroud" being in Bishop d'Arcis' 1389 memorandum, see again, for starters Nicholas Mesarites' statement that in 1201, Constantinople's relic collection included "the sindon [which had] wrapped the un-outlined (aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"!
• `The shroud doesn't match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD' This also is false. McDaniel's claims about the Shroud are largely arguments from ignorance because evidently she knows little of pro-Shroud literature. Today (21 December 2024) I briefly looked at the comments under her post, and in one of her replies she admitted, "I had not heard of Thomas de Wesselow ..."! Contrary to McDaniel's unsubstantiated assertion that, "The shroud doesn't match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD," Jewish scholar Victor Tunkel (1933-2019) confirmed that "the Shroud [is] perfectly compatible with what he would expect of a Jew crucified in first century AD. Palestine"!:
"As a subject the Shroud traverses many religious divisions, and on 12 May it was a particular privilege to hear the views of a Jewish scholar, Victor Tunkel of the University of London. Victor Tunkel began his talk with a gentle reproof to many Shroud writers for relying too heavily on Christian sources rather than consulting the acknowledged complex world of Jewish Law and practice. He pointed out the lack of need for many of the theological arguments concerning whether the body of Jesus would or would not have been washed before burial. It was quite unnecessary to postulate the man of the Shroud having gone unwashed due to haste. Jewish Law is quite explicit that anyone who died a bloody death, as from crucifixion, would have gone unwashed, because it was important in Pharisaic belief for all elements of the body, including the life-blood, to be kept together. This was so that the body would be kept complete for a physical resurrection at the end of time. The same need for lack of disturbance of bloodstains meant that while one who died an unbloody death would have been buried in relatively normal clothes - shirt, breeches, etc - Jesus would have been wrapped in a single sheet called in Hebrew a sovev (the word means `to surround' or `go around') readily corresponding to what we know of the Turin Shroud. Victor Tunkel accordingly found the Shroud perfectly compatible with what he would expect of a Jew crucified in first century AD. Palestine." (my emphasis)[WI83, 9].• `The shroud doesn't match the description of Jesus's funerary wrappings in the Gospel of John.' McDaniel asserts with no references:
"In Judaea during the first century AD, people did not normally wrap whole bodies in a single rectangular piece of linen; instead, people wrapped the body in strips of linen and wrapped the head separately from the body using its own piece of linen. The Gospel of John 20:6–7 actually explicitly describes Jesus’s head and body having been wrapped separately in precisely this manner."Because McDaniel is ignorant of pro-Shroud literature (see above), she fails to distinguish between the burial of Jews who died a normal, unbloody death, like Lazarus (Jn 11:1-44), and Jews who died a bloody death, like Jesus, as explained above:
"The same need for lack of disturbance of bloodstains meant that while one who died an unbloody death would have been buried in relatively normal clothes - shirt, breeches, etc - Jesus would have been wrapped in a single sheet called in Hebrew a sovev ... readily corresponding to what we know of the Turin Shroud."And the Gospel of John does not purport to provide a "description of Jesus's funerary wrappings" at the time of Jesus' burial. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke do that:
Mt 27:59-60 "And Joseph [of Arimathea] took the body [of Jesus] and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud [sindon] and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock."
Mk 15:46: "And Joseph [of Arimathea] bought a linen shroud[sindon], and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock."
Lk 23:53: "Then he took it [the body of Jesus] down and wrapped it in a linen shroud [sindon] and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid."The Gospel of John's account is a "description of Jesus's funerary wrappings" after Jesus had been resurrected:
Jn 20:3-8 "3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths [othonia "strips of linen" NIV] lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth [soudarion], which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;"
So at the time of Jesus' burial, his wrists, ankles and chin would have been bound with strips of linen[othonia] to keep them together; a facecloth [soudarion] moved to the top of Jesus' supine head; within an all-enveloping shroud (sindon = Heb. sovev). After Jesus' resurrection, the strips of linen (othonia) and the facecloth (soudarion) were in the empty tomb, but the Shroud (sindon) was no longer there-Jesus had taken it with him out of the tomb! See my "Servant of the priest" mini-series.
• `The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages.' The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct! Not only are there historical refererences to what can only be the Shroud, long before 1260, for example Nicholas Mesarites' above recollection that in 1201, Constantinople's relic collection included "the sindon [which had] wrapped the un-outlined (aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]," which can only be the Shroud. There also are artistic references to what can only be the Shroud long before 1260. For example, the 1192-95 Pray Codex
[Right (enlarge): The Entombment of Christ (upper) and Three Marys [sic Mk 16:1-6] at the tomb (lower). The images are claimed as one of the evidences against the radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin (Wikipedia's words. My emphasis)[PCW]!
which contains four pen and ink drawings that are at least 100 years earlier (i.e. 1095)[MP98, 33]. Two of those four drawings contain at least fourteen unique correspondences with the Shroud (see 04Oct18), far too many to be the result of chance!
• `The proportions of the figure on the shroud are anatomically incorrect.' Another unsubstantiated assertion from McDaniel! One of the earliest supporters of the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet was the agnostic, Professor of Anatomy at the Sorbonne, Yves Delage (1854–1920):
"Yves Delage (13 May 1854 – 7 October 1920) was a French zoologist known for his work into invertebrate physiology and anatomy. He also discovered the function of the semicircular canals in the inner ear. He is also famous for noting and preparing a speech on the Turin Shroud, arguing in favour of its authenticity. Delage estimated the probability that the image on the shroud was not caused by the body of Jesus Christ as 1 in 10 billion"(Wikipedia's words. My emphasis)[DYW]And he did this because of the anatomical realism of the Shroud!:
"Yves Delage, who at the turn of the century was the Sorbonne's distinguished professor of comparative anatomy. It is ironic that Delage, who was a religious agnostic (and continued to be an agnostic during and after his study of the Shroud) was thus cast as the champion of the Shroud's authenticity ... Delage insisted that the anatomical detail revealed by Pia's photographs was too correct to have been produced by an artist"[DR84, 4]Due to their ignorance of pro-Shroud literature, sceptics assume that the Shroudman is lying flat and therefore his body looks anatomicaly distorted. But in fact, he was in his hanging-on-a-cross position, fixed by rigor mortis, which could only be broken at the shoulders, not at the larger abdominal and leg muscles:
"In early 1900, after hearing of the mysterious photographs taken of the Shroud by Secondo Pia in 1898, he [Vignon] met with Pia and was convinced that the image on the Shroud could not have been painted. Vignon worked closely with Yves Delage, a professor of anatomy at the Sorbonne. Their association was unique in that Vignon was a devout Catholic while Delage was an agnostic. Delage concurred that the photographs of the Shroud were anatomically correct and could not have been produced by an artist"[GV01, 51]
"It was only in 1898, when the first photograph of the Shroud was taken by Secondo Pia, that the full detail of the man on the Shroud was seen in the negative produced by Pia ... The first medical study of Pia's photographs was carried out by a team at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1900, led by a biologist, Paul Vignon. Their findings were presented by one of the team members, Prof Yves Delage, in a lecture to the Paris Academy of Sciences. He explained that, from a medical point of view, the wounds and other markings on the Shroud were so anatomically flawless that they could not have been the work of an artist. It was his conclusion that the Shroud bore the image of Christ, created by some unknown process as he lay in the tomb."[OM10, 170
"The dorsal view of the legs provides crucial evidence of the state of the body and its position in death. As we have seen, the left foot appears half-hidden, as if it slightly overlapped the right, and this ties in with the fact that the right calf is much more strongly marked than the left, implying that the left leg was raised a little off the cloth. This arrangement, which is not how the lower legs and feet rest naturally, is best understood in terms of rigor mortis. When someone dies, their body initially goes limp, but within three hours (sooner if the body is hot) a complex chemical reaction in the muscles causes them to become rock hard, and the body remains fixed in position. This is the condition known as rigor mortis. The man wrapped in the Shroud would seem to have died with one foot crossed over the other, his left leg fractionally bent, a position maintained after death ... The position of the hands is also revealing. They are crossed over the genitals, which is lower on the body than we might expect. If you lie down on a flat surface and attempt to recreate the pose, you will find that your upper arms naturally rest on the ground and your hands cross nearer your navel, about 6 inches higher up the body than on the Shroud. To imitate the Shroud's image, you have to lift your arms and hold them almost straight - an unnatural resting position. What can account for this posture? The answer, I think, is that the man's arms were fixed in rigor mortis and maintained the stiff position they had on the cross, except that they would originally have been splayed out either side of his head. The rigor in the shoulders must have been broken - an operation requiring quite a bit of force - so that the arms could be contained within the narrow sheet (and help preserve the man's modesty)"[DT12, 144-146]Note that the above explanation is by Thomas de Wesselow, who McDaniel admitted above "I had not heard of..."!
Artist and physicist, Isabel Piczek (1927-2016), after a careful study of
[Above: Artist Isabel Piczek's reconstruction of how if Jesus body was bent forward slightly, as it would have been due to rigor mortis having set in while Jesus' dead body was left hanging on the Cross for several hours, His hands could have easily covered His genitals[PI96].]Shroud photographs, has depicted what the Shroudman would have looked like in profile, lying on the Shroud in death. Note that the above would most unlike any Gothic art depiction!
• `The proportions of the figure on the shroud closely match the proportions of figures in Gothic art of the fourteenth-century.'
• `The bloodstains on the shroud are not consistent with how blood flows naturally, which suggests the stains have been painted on.'
• `The fabric of the shroud was made using a complex weave that was common in the Late Middle Ages but was not used for burial shrouds in the time of Jesus.'
To be continued in the eleventh installent of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
AM00. Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY,.
BA34. Barnes, A.S., 1934, "The Holy Shroud of Turin," Burns Oates & Washbourne: London.
BP05. Ball, P., 2005, "To know a veil," Nature, 28 January.
BP28. Beecher, P.A., 1928, "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin.
DR84. Drews, R., 1984, "In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD.
DT12. de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London.
DYW. "Yves Delage," Wikipedia, 27 October 2024.
GV01. Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL.
MP98. Maloney, P.C., 1998, "Researching the Shroud of Turin: 1898 to the Present: A Brief Survey of Findings and Views," in MM02, 16-47
MM02. Minor, M., Adler, A.D. & Piczek, I., eds., 2002, "The Shroud of Turin: Unraveling the Mystery: Proceedings of the 1998 Dallas Symposium," Alexander Books: Alexander NC.
MS20. McDaniel, S., 2020, "The Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax," Tales of Times Forgotten, 24 February.
NJ87. Nickell, J., 1987, "Inquest on the Shroud of Turin," [1983], Prometheus Books: Buffalo NY, Revised, Reprinted, 2000.
NJ15. Nickell, J., 2015, "Fake Turin Shroud Deceives National Geographic Author," 23 April.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
PCW. "Pray Codex," Wikipedia, 19 December 2023.
PGW. "Plagiarism," Wikipedia, 7 December 2024.
PI96. Piczek, I., 1996, "Alice in Wonderland and the Shroud of Turin," Proceedings of the Esopus Conference, August 23rd-25th, Esopus, New York.
SD89. Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA.
SH81. Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI.
SS81. "A Summary of STURP's Conclusions," October 1981, Shroud.com.
TF06. Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition.
WI79. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition.
WI83. Wilson, I., 1983, "A Jewish View of the Shroud of Turin," BSTS Newsletter, No. 6, September/December, 8-9
WI91. Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London.
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.
Posted 16 December 2024. Updated 25 December 2024.