The Shroud of Turin: An Enigmatic Anomaly

[baywax]

As I remember it this piece of cloth, which now sits in a church in Turin Italy, was carbon dated to around a date between 1200 and 1400 AD. It was also inspected for pollen and other microscopic evidence to determine an origin of the cloth. The official results were that the pollen was from the middle east. There have been several explanations about the shroud that range from religious accounts of a figure radiating their image into the cloth to scandalous accounts of 13th century methods of photography being used to fool the clerics of the time.

shroud of Turin

"All empirical evidence and logical reasoning concerning the Shroud of Turin will lead any objective, rational person to the firm conclusion that the Shroud is an artifact created by an artist in the fourteenth-century." --Steven D. Schafersman

The shroud of Turin is a woven cloth about 14 feet long and 3.5 feet wide with an image of a man on it. Actually, it has two images, one frontal and one rear, with the heads meeting in the middle. It has been noted that if the shroud were really wrapped over a body there should be a space where the two heads meet. And the head is 5% too large for its body, the nose is disproportionate, and the arms are too long. Nevertheless, the image is believed by many to be a negative image of the crucified Christ and the shroud is believed to be his burial shroud. Most skeptics think the image is a painting and a pious hoax. The shroud is kept in the cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.

Apparently, the first historical mention of the shroud as the "shroud of Turin" is in the late 16th century when the shroud was brought to the cathedral in that city, though it allegedly was discovered in Turkey during one of the so-called "Holy" Crusades in the so-called "Middle" Ages. In 1988, the Vatican allowed the shroud to be dated by three independent sources--Oxford University, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology--and each of them dated the cloth as originating in medieval times, around 1350. The shroud allegedly was in a fire during the early part of the 16th century and, according to believers in the shroud's authenticity, that is what accounts for the carbon dating of the shroud as being no more than 650 years old. To non-believers, this sounds like an ad hoc hypothesis.

According to microchemist Dr. Walter McCrone,

The suggestion that the 1532 Chambery fire changed the date of the cloth is ludicrous. Samples for C-dating are routinely and completely burned to CO2 as part of a well-tested purification procedure. The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous. A weight of 20th century carbon equaling nearly two times the weight of the Shroud carbon itself would be required to change a 1st century date to the 14th century (see Carbon 14 graph). Besides this, the linen cloth samples were very carefully cleaned before analysis at each of the C-dating laboratories.*

http://skepdic.com/shroud.html

What, if anything, have you found out about this anomaly?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A previous discussion
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=57058

 

[baywax]

A previous discussion
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=57058

I'm sorry I should have guessed this topic would have been covered. What I find interesting is the fact that the cloth is dated to originate from the same period as when Da Vinci was an active inventor. In fact he was in Turin painting the Mona Lisa around the same period the cloth dates from. Da Vinci is noted for inventing the Camera Obscura (no one is perfectly sure, many attribute the invention of the camera obscura to Aristotle) which has been shown to be a possible mechanism in creating a crude photographic negative. And the images on the shroud are negatives. In fact the image of the back of the man on the shroud and of the front of the man are two different people altogether. The man's back is about 4 inches shorter than the man's front image. So, however the images were transfered, they come from two different specimens.

The Camera Obscure became a widely used instrument for artists. Vermeer was constantly sticking his head in one to capture images of his Dutch townships, tracing the inverted images that poured through the pin-hole in the camera.

Here's how it may have played out:

During the mid-1990s a South African scientist, Professor Nicholas P Allen, conducted experiments to show that, if the image on the Shroud is of medieval origin, it could have been produced in a camera obscura.

He built a room-sized camera obscura containing a lens in one wall. On the opposite wall he suspended a cloth which had been pre-soaked in a solution of a (light-sensitive) silver salt. Outside the camera he suspended a manikin which had been coated in whitewash to reflect the rays of the sun to the maximum extent. After three days he had produced an image on the cloth which he was able to 'fix' by soaking the cloth in urine - a dilute solution of ammonia. The image possessed many of the three-dimensional features of the image on the Shroud of Turin.

All the necessary chemicals would have been available in medieval times.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2875430

You can imagine Da Vinci using the Turin morgue's cadavers here. Leonardo had no fear or qualms about handling the dead in order to get a better understanding of the human physiology. Or, to stick it to the church for which he had a fair amount of distain.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Twenty years after radiocarbon dating supposedly proved once and for all that the Shroud of Turin was a medieval hoax, scientists are revisiting their research to see if the tests were erroneous and the shroud really dates back to the time of Christ.

“The result of the first test done in 1988 was almost an embarrassment at some point,” Barrie Schwortz, the photographer who documented the original Shroud of Turin Project, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in a Good Friday interview in New York. “Now that we’re 20 years later, the technology certainly has improved.” [continued]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742885/

There is a special about this running on PBS, on the series called "The Secrets of the Dead".
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_shroudchrist/about.html

I think the most striking claim of recent years is that the original carbon dating test was done on a corner of the cloth that had been repaired in the middle-ages - a new section of cloth was sewn in where the original was damaged and missing. This was apparently first noticed by a textile expert who was asked to repair another section of the cloth.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Don't you mean the shroud of Turino?

 

[mgb_phys]

Don't you mean the shroud of Turino?

No in engish it would be Shroud of Turin, in Italian it would be Torino

 

[baywax]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742885/

There is a special about this running on PBS, on the series called "The Secrets of the Dead".
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_shroudchrist/about.html

I think the most striking claim of recent years is that the original carbon dating test was done on a corner of the cloth that had been repaired in the middle-ages - a new section of cloth was sewn in where the original was damaged and missing. This was apparently first noticed by a textile expert who was asked to repair another section of the cloth.

Its a marvel how Da Vinci was able to buy 1450 year old cloth to carry out his hoax on the church.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I actually wonder if any so called relics are real, given the huge numbers of fakes from the middle ages. I mean let's face it there are probably about 100 nails from the true cross out there. I wonder if anyone of them has passed a scientific dating test?

 

[CEL]

I actually wonder if any so called relics are real, given the huge numbers of fakes from the middle ages. I mean let's face it there are probably about 100 nails from the true cross out there. I wonder if anyone of them has passed a scientific dating test?

I don't think that iron could be dated. But there are enough pieces of the 'true cross' to build a small house if glued together. And wood can be carbon dated with precision enough to say if those pieces are from the first century CE.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I don't think that iron could be dated. But there are enough pieces of the 'true cross' to build a small house if glued together. And wood can be carbon dated with precision enough to say if those pieces are from the first century CE.

Iron can be dated, the spear that stabbed Christ was proved as a fake by looking at the techniques used to make it, the type of iron and its composition. A nail from the cross would most likely be iron from a local area, with a specific amount of impurities too. We also know the specification of a nail used in the crucifixion of prisoners.

I have the forefinger of Christ himself on ebay.

If you want to get in on the deal for 50% off the ebay price I'll sell you one for $1000 or $8000 for a dozen? PM me if you're interested.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Something that I never realized is that the Catholic Church has never claimed that the shroud is authentic.

 

[Moridin]

Something that I never realized is that the Catholic Church has never claimed that the shroud is authentic.

Then why did they make a medal of it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Face_Medal

 

[Moonbear]

Something that I never realized is that the Catholic Church has never claimed that the shroud is authentic.

I never had the impression they rush to hasty judgement on these sorts of "artifacts." It really makes no difference to them or their believers if there is an actual artifact in someone's possession, or if it is considered lost for all time...and more harmful if they claim something is authentic that can be proven a hoax. Textiles are so difficult to preserve, while some do survive, such as in Egyptian tombs, it's rare and they need to be in just the right conditions that it's really hard to believe that even if such a thing as the Shroud of Turin existed that it would have survived to modern times to be found.

Similarly, would one really expect a nail from the first century AD to survive until today? And, even if one were found, how would one go about proving it was used for Jesus' crucifixion, and not one of the many other crucifixions of criminals held at that time?

The entire reason ancient artifacts are such a big deal to wind up displayed in museums and to be viewed with awe is that they are RARE.

 

[baywax]

Something that I never realized is that the Catholic Church has never claimed that the shroud is authentic.

I think the main thing is that the church and its officials recognize that there is a holiness endowed and embodied in a relic even if it is a fake. The fact that 600,000 or millions of people believe something to be a relic of a saint or famous religious figure makes it special and its ok to worship it. Any press is good press said the bishop.

I mean, these are practices that take one book that's been re-written over 300 times to be the truth and nothing but the truth.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think the main thing is that the church and its officials recognize that there is a holiness endowed and embodied in a relic even if it is a fake. The fact that 600,000 or millions of people believe something to be a relic of a saint or famous religious figure makes it special and its ok to worship it. Any press is good press said the bishop.

I mean, these are practices that take one book that's been re-written over 300 times to be the truth and nothing but the truth.

...Despite the legends and written reports of the existence of the shroud, the documented provenance of the relic begins in 1357 in Lirey, France, when it was presented to a church by the widow of Geoffroi de Charny, a French knight. It was pronounced a fraud in 1389 by Bishop Pierre D’Arcis, who claimed to have talked to the man who painted it. The Catholic Church continues to hold that the shroud is not authentic, but the faithful are allowed to venerate it as a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection...

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742885/

 

[seycyrus]

I mean, these are practices that take one book that's been re-written over 300 times to be the truth and nothing but the truth.

You can bash on religion without having to resort to such fallacies. That's like saying the dictionary has been rewritten thousands of times.

 

[baywax]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742885/

Yes... I remember seeing a documentary that followed the shroud back through history to Constantinople where it was said to have been presented to Constantine by a man or woman who got it from the Hebrews (and there was a long history to that tale as well).

So, the story of the shroud really extends back to perhaps 2 or 3 hundred years after the Judaea/Roman resistance which is what all the Christian stories seem to document.

It is thought that there were a few of these shrouds up until the time of da Vinci who took this legend as an opportunity to fool the church. And he quite probably used photography to do so... along with a bit of paint, blood etc...

edit: (And let's not forget Victor Mature in "The Robe"... which seems to echo the tale of the Shroud.)

 

[baywax]

You can bash on religion without having to resort to such fallacies. That's like saying the dictionary has been rewritten thousands of times.

Right, the dictionary has "Red Sea" as a body of water parted by a man with a beard.
How often do people "swear" on a dictionary in court?
Is there a dictionary waiting for you in the drawer beside the bed at the Super 8?

I think you're drawing an unfair comparison. Think more along the lines of a fairy tale and how it has changed over the centuries etc... Some of these tales started as true, legends. Then became what we know today... as fairytales or stories with some social importance. The bible certainly has these qualities... and many good ethical practices have come out of the bible. But, using the bible as proof of what has happened in the past or proof of how the order of the universe is laid out... is like believing everything the Coca Cola tells you about its product.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yes... I remember seeing a documentary that followed the shroud back through history to Constantinople where it was said to have been presented to Constantine by a man or woman who got it from the Hebrews (and there was a long history to that tale as well).

So, the story of the shroud really extends back to perhaps 2 or 3 hundred years after the Judaea/Roman resistance which is what all the Christian stories seem to document.

It is thought that there were a few of these shrouds up until the time of da Vinci who took this legend as an opportunity to fool the church. And he quite probably used photography to do so... along with a bit of paint, blood etc...

edit: (And let's not forget Victor Mature in "The Robe"... which seems to echo the tale of the Shroud.)

You need to provide sources to support your assertions.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Yes... I remember seeing a documentary that followed the shroud back through history to Constantinople where it was said to have been presented to Constantine by a man or woman who got it from the Hebrews (and there was a long history to that tale as well).

So, the story of the shroud really extends back to perhaps 2 or 3 hundred years after the Judaea/Roman resistance which is what all the Christian stories seem to document.

It is thought that there were a few of these shrouds up until the time of da Vinci who took this legend as an opportunity to fool the church. And he quite probably used photography to do so... along with a bit of paint, blood etc...

edit: (And let's not forget Victor Mature in "The Robe"... which seems to echo the tale of the Shroud.)

The problem with this account is that it does not fit in with the scientific data available, from analysing both thread sources (plant matter) And pollen samples in the thread it is clear that the shroud is dated to the middle ages +/- a certain number of years. So I think this might be wishful thinking more than a valid and scientific study. I've seen documentaries that have clearly debunked it as a clever fake. The Catholic church was not bothered by it being revealed as a fake, because it still draws the faithful to this day. So it's symbolic relic status is still as powerful as it always was, before the exposure of its lack of authenticity. Whether the Church was complicit in the deception or not, which seems unlikely even at the time of its recovery, they did not affirm without doubt it was genuine.

These documentaries claim that the forensic evidence is compelling:



This BBC report claims that it is the subject of much controversy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3624753.stm

However what isn't compelling or controversial I think is the carbon dating, which is the key evidence. If it is two thousand years old, it's cloth should be dated to 2000 years old, it's hard to overcome that. Is the shroud a shroud from a body made to simulate Jesus death or is it a shroud from Jesus himself?

The BBC's QED program did a series of documentaries on it but unfortunately they don't appear easy to track down.

 

[CEL]

I saw a documentary where a guy smeared a statue with oil, put stains of minion in some places and enveloped it in a white cloth. The oil and minion were transferred to the cloth providing an image very similar to that on the shroud.
The technology and the material were available in the middle ages.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I saw a documentary where a guy smeared a statue with oil, put stains of minion in some places and enveloped it in a white cloth. The oil and minion were transferred to the cloth providing an image very similar to that on the shroud.
The technology and the material were available in the middle ages.

Sounds a lot like the QED documentaries, they showed how it could have been made using medieval techniques, how the proportions of the images body were all wrong which would fit in with the idea of an image, amongst much other compelling evidence. However there is a second image underneath but I don't think this really reveals much, all it suggests is they used a body as a template for the final image, not that it is genuine.

 

[baywax]

You need to provide sources to support your assertions.

Sir. Yes sir!

Here's a history of the shroud from 544 AD and up.

In 544 AD, in the city of Edessa, a folded burial cloth bearing an image, believed to be of Jesus, was found above a gate in the city's walls. We know from various sources that the cloth was a burial shroud with a faint full-body image of Jesus and bloodstains positioned on the image. The image was variously described as a reflection, produced by sweat and divinely wrought. There is even some indication that the image was thought to be negative.

http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/history.htmHere's an account of the shroud from 1349 and up.

http://www.shroud.com/history.htm

However, all of these accounts are as circumstantial as the shroud that can be found in Turino itself.

(Please let me clarify my opinion which is that there have been stories about the shroud around for centuries and these stories provided an opportunity for someone (whom I believe to be da Vinci) to capitalize on the belief to the extent of creating a masterpiece of medieval photography.

 

[baywax]

Sounds a lot like the QED documentaries, they showed how it could have been made using medieval techniques, how the proportions of the images body were all wrong which would fit in with the idea of an image, amongst much other compelling evidence. However there is a second image underneath but I don't think this really reveals much, all it suggests is they used a body as a template for the final image, not that it is genuine.

I will note here that the use of the Camera Obscura was in full bloom during the "middle ages" and so it counts as a medieval technique. Da Vinci is often credited with its invention.

(edit) mistakenly I directed us to a blog by an evangelistic minister of some sort...

here's another look at the idea of photography in the middle ages..

There continues to be controversy over whether the image on the Shroud of Turin is the genuine image of Christ, produced by some supernatural process at the instant of his death, or whether it is a medieval forgery.

Radiocarbon tests completed in 1988 appeared to show that the cloth was medieval, dating from between 1260 and 1390. During the mid-1990s a South African scientist, Professor Nicholas P Allen , conducted experiments to show that, if the image on the Shroud is of medieval origin, it could have been produced in a camera obscura.

He built a room-sized camera obscura containing a lens in one wall. On the opposite wall he suspended a cloth which had been pre-soaked in a solution of a (light-sensitive) silver salt. Outside the camera he suspended a manikin which had been coated in whitewash to reflect the rays of the sun to the maximum extent. After three days he had produced an image on the cloth which he was able to 'fix' by soaking the cloth in urine - a dilute solution of ammonia. The image possessed many of the three-dimensional features of the image on the Shroud of Turin. The necessary chemicals would have been available in medieval times.

Glass lenses for the medieval camera obscura would have just about been available. Until recently they were believed to have been produced in Europe from the end of the 13th Century. However, in 1998 archaeologists discovered some clear quartz disks at a Viking settlement in Sweden . These dated from 700-1000 AD. Although originally thought to be jewellery, it has since been found that they were sophisticated lenses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/pda/A2875430?s_id=12&s_split=2

Here I'd like to point out that Da Vinci used "Silver Point" to draw sketches. This was a pencil like rod of silver that left trace amounts of silver in its path... to make a sketch.

Da Vinci also used Tempura, or egg albumen as a medium for painting. It is entirely plausible that the silver from his silver point and the albumen were mixed at some point and perhaps produced a light sensitive solution... which he observed and made note of.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Sir. Yes sir!

That is Master. Yes master!

A bit of recall with qualifiers is fine but generally we need a source.

 

[baywax]

That is Master. Yes master!

A bit of recall with qualifiers is fine but generally we need a source.

OK... I'm searching.

The first known record of its possible existence was in the fourth century.

from: Jack Markwardt, The Fire and the Portrait, www.shroud.com/markwar2.htm

There is a fourth-century Syrian story from Edessa about a religious object known as the “Mandylion cloth” which reappears at various times. 11 King Abgar, a ruler of Edessa from 177 to 212, was reputed have become a Christian. He made a request to the Pope to send religious emissaries to Edessa, which was recorded in the Liber Pontificalis, the records of papal actions. There is a later iconic picture of King Abgar holding the Shroud with the face of Christ displayed.

Remember the old story about the clothe someone allegedly wiped Jesus' face with and it came back with a perfect picture of his features on it. The shroud may be inspired by this story. (My comment).

The period from 544 to 944—Shroud is in Edessa.In 544 a religious object known as the “Mandylion cloth” was presented to the ruler of Edessa and kept in the city for four hundred years. It was said to be a “holy palladium” with protective properties and it supposedly protected the city of Edessa from attack by the Persians. (13) According to some stories, the Shroud was hidden inside one of the city walls of Edessa, perhaps for most of the time of its existence there, and possibly forgotten.

There are several references to the Shroud during this period; in 730, St. John Damascene, in his anti-iconoclastic thesis, On Holy Images, describes the cloth as a himation, which is translated as an oblong cloth or grave cloth. (14) Pope Stephen II (752—757) described the Shroud as follows: “Christ spread out his entire body on a linen cloth that was white as snow. On this cloth, marvelous as it is to see… the glorious image of the Lord's face, and the length of his entire and most noble body, has been divinely transferred.

Mozarabic Rite, a Clue to the Shroud of Turin?, www.shroudstory.com/faq-mozarabic.htm[/URL]

Mozarabic Rite, a Clue to the Shroud of Turin?, [PLAIN]www.shroudstory.com/faq-mozarabic.htm[/URL].

[quote]The period from 944 to 1204—Shroud is in Constantinople.The Shroud was thought to have been kept in Edessa until 944 when Byzantine troops besieged the city. The general of the Byzantine forcesoffered the city's Moslem Emir a huge sum of money, the freeing of 200 Moslem captives, and the promise of perpetual immunity, all for just one thing—the “Mandylion cloth.” 16 It was then brought to Constantinople on 15 August 944 for the purpose of “obtaining a new and powerful force of divine protection.” 17 The Shroud’s arrival was celebrated with processions and it was placed in the Pharos Chapel, the imperial treasury for relics located in the palace of the emperor. There are several surviving eyewitness accounts of that day—the Narratio de Imagine Edessena, the Teaching of Addai, and the Acts of Thaddeus, which—among other subjects—retold the story of King Abgar and related that the facial image on the Shroud was extremely faint, like a “moist secretion without pigments or the painter’s art.” 18 Gregory Referendarius, archdeacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, was apparently a member of the clerical committee that arranged for the reception of the Shroud.

In a sermon dated 16 August 944, he mentioned that it was a full-length image of Christ and carried his bloodstains. (19) Nicholas Mesarites, the overseer of the imperial relic treasury in Constantinople, described the Shroud in 1201, indicating that “in this place the naked Lord rises again, and the burial sindons can prove it.” Mesarites’ description is particularly vivid and true-to-life because of his indication of the nudity of the Shroud figure, which was never done in artistic renderings of Christ. Thereafter the Shroud was regularly shown in Constantinople, although it was typically folded and kept in a reliquary so that only the face was visible. In 1147, Louis VII, King of France, visited the city and venerated the Shroud, and it first appears in the lists of relics held at Constantinople in 1093 as “the linens found in the tomb after the resurrection.” The Shroud was also seen and reported on by various crusaders when they visited during the crusader period of 1098 to 1204[/quote]

These sources are concentrated on one page (a dubious practice) at

[URL]http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:UBAzmAEi2VkJ:www.shroud.com/pdfs/sorensen2.pdf+source+of+544+date+of+shroud&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=ca[/URL]

Hopefully this has somewhat helped to trace the origins; if not of the shroud... then of the idea of a shroud with an image and blood stains on it.

 

[baywax]

I'm not sure if you want a source on the silver point Da Vinci used to draw.

Silverpoint (or metalpoint) is a method of drawing using a piece of sterling or pure silver wire held in a lead holder or handmade holder. It pre-dates the use of graphite as a drawing medium and was used by old masters such as Jan Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer and Raphael. The technique is commonly associated with the Renaissance but enjoyed a revival in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Renaissance artists used silver and occasionally leadpoint for underdrawings of their paintings and for separate studies on paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverpoint

How does one go about making silver salt and is it possible to occur by accident... say by the mixture of silver and sweat... or silver and egg or...??

 

[baywax]

Here's an excellent look at the source(s) surrounding the appearance of the "Mandylion Cloth". There is some confusion between the cloth with just a face on it and the "burial cloth" with a full body of a naked and crucified guy on it.

Acheiropoietos Jesus Images in Constantinople: the Documentary Evidence

by Daniel C. Scavone, University of Southern Indiana

http://www.shroudstory.com/scavone/scavone1.htm

Numerous documents describe in important detail the presence in Constantinople of an icon of Jesus’s face on a cloth which in the year 944 had come from the city of Edessa, modern Urfa in southern Turkey. This icon, known also as the Mandylion,1 was said to be miraculously imprinted, a likeness not made by human hands, or acheiropoietos. In this chapter I have selected sixteen of these documents for close scrutiny. The documents span the period 944 to 1247. Four of the earliest documents, datable from 944 to 960, refer to the Mandylion alone. Six others, those dating from 1150, 1200, 1201, 1203, 1207, and 1247 also assert the presence in Constantinople of Christ’s burial wrapping, or portions thereof, along with the Mandylion. Six different documents from 958, c. 1095, 1157, 1171, 1205, and 1207, attest the burial wrappings but not the face cloth (Mandylion).

The emphasis upon a singular imaged cloth icon considered to be the actual burial wrapping in this study of acheiropoietos Jesus images is appropriate chiefly because one most important document of 1203, the memoire of Robert of Clari, a knight of Picardy, reported seeing “the burial cloth (sydoines) with the figure of the Lord on it. This text is considered below in chronological order. In addition, numerous other documents beginning from the period of the Fourth Crusade, 1204, record the transfer of fragments of Christ’s reputed burial linens to various cathedrals in western Europe.2 These include the above-mentioned 1247 document, which is also the only record of the departure of the Edessa icon from Constantinople.3

One difficulty which presents itself to the historian is the great variety of terms used by these medieval sources to designate these two objects, the imaged face cloth and the linen(s) of burial. For the first we get sancta toella, imago Christi Edessena, ektypoma, linteum faciem Christi repraesentans, mantile, soudarion, mandylion, manutergium, sudarium super caput, ekmageion, prosopon, opsis, acheiropoietos, morphe, cheiromaktron tetradiplon, himation, and peplos. Of these, the last three suggest a cloth larger than a mere face-towel-sized icon. For the latter we have sindon, sudarium, linteamina, fasciae, panni, spargana, othonai kai ta soudaria, entaphioi sindones, and Clari’s Sydoines (sing.).4 Most of these latter are plurals, evidencing the likelihood that besides a large shroud icon other auxiliary linens associated with the burial of Jesus were claimed to be present.

A second problem addressed in this paper concerns the time of the arrival in the capital of the reputed burial shroud icon of Christ. Whereas the Mandylion was received in Constantinople with a great celebration (Documents I and III), not a single source records the arrival there of any larger Jesus-icon. It is, however, included in a number of documents, as already noted, and at least once explicitly with a Christ-image on it.

 

[mhill]

The question is is by far more than a simple coincidence ? , i mean if it was falsified the author should have known several elementary photography , he/seh should have taken flowers that existed in Palestine or in Middle East in the first century and thencarry them and spread through the Shroud , the similar for the 2 coins from Tiberius Roman Empire Epoch that appeared in the shroud and so on.

By the way they told that Turin Shroud had AB blood type, could they testify analyzing the blood if the man in the Shroud was a Jew ? , or another question have they used spectometer to measure if there is some electromagnetic or similar energy ?

 

[seycyrus]

Right, the dictionary has "Red Sea" as a body of water parted by a man with a beard.

There you go. There's a good example to prove both my points. Go ahead and use that act itself (parting of the red sea) and ridicule it.

But tell me exactly how the story has "changed" in the last 4000 years (or so). Was it originally two guys and a bathtub? An elephant and a trough?

How has deuteronomy changed? How about leviticus?

How often do people "swear" on a dictionary in court?
Is there a dictionary waiting for you in the drawer beside the bed at the Super 8?

It's used in court because it is meant to be an indication of your promise to tell the truth. I believe you can substitute something else.

I don't know why there are bibles in hotels. There are also ads for pizza places.

It seems you are dealing with some religous oppresion issues.

I think you're drawing an unfair comparison. Think more along the lines of a fairy tale and how it has changed over the centuries etc... Some of these tales started as true, legends. Then became what we know today... as fairytales or stories with some social importance. The bible certainly has these qualities... and many good ethical practices have come out of the bible. But, using the bible as proof of what has happened in the past or proof of how the order of the universe is laid out... is like believing everything the Coca Cola tells you about its product.

I am (in this thread right now) not making the argument to use the bible as prrof of anything. I am simply objecting to the fallacy that the biblical stories have changed (in substance) over time.

Is the story of david and goliath different now then 2000 years ago?

Like I origiginally said, you've got lots of ammunition against religion in general, and judeo-christian belief specifically, without having to promote the notion that the stories in the books (not the order of, or what was included or excluded) themselves has been altered.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Actually the parting of the Red Sea comes form a mistranslation of the Hebrew, which actually says Moses parted the reed sea. The area that lies exactly on Moses route out of Egypt - rather than the couple of hundred mile detour to the Red Sea - takes him through a swampland that is choked with papyrus reeds etc, it's also considerably shallower than the Red Sea. Not a lot of people know that.

 

[baywax]

Like I origiginally said, you've got lots of ammunition against religion in general, and judeo-christian belief specifically, without having to promote the notion that the stories in the books (not the order of, or what was included or excluded) themselves has been altered.

My apologies if my "ammunition" has caused "collateral damage" to your feelings. This is an unintended result.

My goal was to show the fragile nature of the written word... and how it has been manipulated to suit political, military or religious ends throughout history and today.

The bible and any book is more than susceptible to this kind of manipulation. To think that the bible has somehow escaped editing and rewrites is, in my opinion, "redonkulous". I don't share your opinion on this matter.

If you care to you can do a search of your own and find all the different, historical versions of the bible that you can and compare the contents to see if they are consistent with one another. That concept might make a good thread. In fact the concept could go further and explain why, specifically, the bible is the "word of god". Where's the proof? Who declared this book to be the universal authority that, in the end, would be the inspiration for endless murders, wars, incarcerations and sexual abuse?

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

With that in mind you might want to take a look at this.

Who Wrote The Bible?



I found it a fascinating insight into religion from a professional theologian. It's a long old documentary but it certainly is interesting, being he is a theist and a historian.

 

[seycyrus]

My apologies if my "ammunition" has caused "collateral damage" to your feelings. This is an unintended result.

Waitasec, I told you that I don't care if make fun of my fictitious god, but you think my feelings are hurt?

My goal was to show the fragile nature of the written word... and how it has been manipulated to suit political, military or religious ends throughout history and today. The bible and any book is more than susceptible to this kind of manipulation. To think that the bible has somehow escaped editing and rewrites is, in my opinion, "redonkulous". I don't share your opinion on this matter.

The Jews are good keepers of the written word.

If you care to you can do a search of your own and find all the different, historical versions of the bible that you can and compare the contents to see if they are consistent with one another.

And I am saying that the individual books are not as substantially different as is flippantly quoted.

book to be the universal authority that, in the end, would be the inspiration for endless murders, wars, incarcerations and sexual abuse?

Inspiration?

Again, I hear the sounds of religous oppression of a personal nature. It is not fair for you do use such a broad brush in painting your landscape. Why not paint broader and blame all those terrible things on the development of language, or the evolution of the human race?

 

[baywax]

Inspiration?

Again, I hear the sounds of religous oppression of a personal nature. It is not fair for you do use such a broad brush in painting your landscape. Why not paint broader and blame all those terrible things on the development of language, or the evolution of the human race?

I'm not making any oppressive sounds other than the clack of typing.

And now, back to the shroud.

 

[seycyrus]

I'm not making any oppressive sounds other than the clack of typing.
And now, back to the shroud.

You laid the foundation of all human suffering at the feat of religion, Specifically Christianity.

BTW my online search shows that the epistles of Mark and Matthew are substantitively unchanged. I know the Old Testament hasn't changed. Which books of the bible were you referring to?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This thread is about the shroud or Turin; not religion and not the bible.

 

[baywax]

This thread is about the shroud or Turin; not religion and not the bible.

Although we can use the bible as a reference to the origin of the idea of a Mandylion Cloth... the [I'm not sure if the story of the Mandylion Cloth appears in the bible but if it does] the story could have been inserted at anytime during the first 500 years after crucifixion-style executions were in fashion. And with that story inserted into the minds of all those who were devoted to this book, of course someone was going to take advantage of this opportunity. Whether they forged a miracle for re-sale or for protection is of no consequence. What remains is the fact that the story of the Mandylion Cloth, and other cloth relics associated with the Jesus figure, carried on through the centuries only to land in the hands of someone who could bring it to life as "the true" shroud of turin".

There are suggestions that point out how the negative of the figure wears a mask that is in the likeness of Leonardo. The edge of the mask is said to be discernible stretching across the chest of the cadaver that posed for the camera obscura. I promise to dig up this reference in a minute.

Other anomalies concerning the shroud of Turin include the measurements of the figure's frontal view and the figure's back view. The figures height in the front is considerably shorter than the figure's back measurements. This suggested that two different cadavers (which da Vinci had unfettered access to while staying in Turin to paint the Mona Lisa) were used in making this masterpiece. Using two cadavers would have lessened the amount of decomposition time to endure.

Now I'll go and try to find some sources to back my statements up there.

First off.. you can measure the image yourself right here:

http://www.bridgewater.edu/%7Erschneid/FocusProjects/Shroud/ShroudMeasure/sindoneImg.html

Its pretty obvious that the back view of "the Jesus figure" is much taller than the frontal view. There is some foreshortening to take into account. But that doesn't account for the difference in height. And, why would there be foreshortening in this image if it was not a photograph?

The man's height: Various experts have estimated the man's image to be 5' 11½" to 6' 2" tall. Jews who lived in the 1st century were much shorter than this. Writer William Harwood comments: "According to a medieval writer, [the Jewish historian] Josephus described Jesus as an old-looking man, balding, stooped, with joined eyebrows and approximately 135 cm (4ft 6 in.) tall." 2 This is based on the standard 46 cm. long regular cubit -- an ancient unit of distance. Using the 53 cm. special cubit, Jesus' height would have been about 156 cm (5ft 1in.). An analysis of skeletons from 1st century CE Palestine has shown that the latter figure is typical. Harwood also makes the point that if Jesus were really 6 feet high, his height would have been so remarkable that he would certainly have been described as a giant in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) The image on the shroud is about a foot too tall for Jesus, using the best data available.

(This site has scads of info on the artifact...)

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_shro2.htm




As for the mask comment:

The search will continue regarding a source for the idea of a mask on the figure's head. Try looking for the arc of it's bottom, from shoulder to shoulder on the figure.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

From what I have read of the latest tests, there is credible controversy as to the year of origin of this cloth. If in fact the carbon dating was done on a section of cloth that had been repaired around the 16th century, then at best we don't have good evidence by which we can determine a date of origin.

The best evidence may be the pollen, which seems to take it back to the first century.

 

[Cyrus]

I saw something on TV a while ago. Some guy figured out exactly how the con-artist made it. You use a piece of glass and an image and let it sit in the sun. It then somehow burns an image that looks ghostly like a face but in reverse. It was a stupidly simply solution he found too, one that was entirely possible for someone to do during their time. Its all a sham.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

From what I have read of the latest tests, there is credible controversy as to the year of origin of this cloth. If in fact the carbon dating was done on a section of cloth that had been repaired around the 16th century, then at best we don't have good evidence by which we can determine a date of origin.

The best evidence may be the pollen, which seems to take it back to the first century.

That's odd because I heard the pollen evidence agreed with the carbon dating, and that the carbon dating was taken from an unremarkable part of the cloth, ie that matched the rest precisely. Mind you unfortunately the only source of this is not available, which is typical.

Even if the pollen evidence is that old. That only suggests the cloth was a composite, not that it is an original, shorud of Christ. Logically it can't be both ~800 years old and ~2000 years old.

Because of controversy the cloth has been tested from different parts of the cloth more than once. I think though their is some spin going on somewhere, not sure what propaganda to believe?

 

[baywax]

That's odd because I heard the pollen evidence agreed with the carbon dating, and that the carbon dating was taken from an unremarkable part of the cloth, ie that matched the rest precisely. Mind you unfortunately the only source of this is not available, which is typical.

Even if the pollen evidence is that old. That only suggests the cloth was a composite, not that it is an original, shorud of Christ. Logically it can't be both ~800 years old and ~2000 years old.

Because of controversy the cloth has been tested from different parts of the cloth more than once. I think though their is some spin going on somewhere, not sure what propaganda to believe?

There is a lot of spin on this artifact. If the pollen is from the first century that doesn't date the cloth as being from that time... pollen can hang around that long and get into clothing with no problemo.

If the cloth dates from year 1 this doesn't mean the image dates from that time. There will have to be a method of dating the image to confirm, in the least, that this is not a forgery of what it is claimed to be.

Some reports say the weave of the cloth is a "herring bone" weave that was not used during the 1 century AD. Other reports say that the clothiers of the 1st century had no problem weaving a herring bone weave.

Round and round we go.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

That leaves us with only one undeniably reliable bit of evidence with which to make a conclusion, no? The carbon dating which places the shroud in the middle ages according to several different samples from the cloth. Essentially the rest is just a matter of interpretation.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That's odd because I heard the pollen evidence agreed with the carbon dating, and that the carbon dating was taken from an unremarkable part of the cloth, ie that matched the rest precisely. Mind you unfortunately the only source of this is not available, which is typical.

There are a number of reasons to suspect that the carbon dating is flawed: Enzymes that were found to be growing on the material; deposition of materials due to its exposure to fire in the middle ages; repairs done later. The only reason that we still have controversy is that the carbon dating is now seriously doubted. In fact I posted one link where the man who invented carbon dating admitted that the results can't be trusted. Since then more has come to light.

And no, only one very small corner of the cloth was tested. This is all discussed in earlier links in this thread.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

There are a number of reasons to suspect that the carbon dating is flawed: Enzymes that were found to be growing on the material; deposition of materials due to its exposure to fire in the middle ages; repairs done later. The only reason that we still have controversy is that the carbon dating is now seriously doubted. In fact I posted one link where the man who invented carbon dating admitted that the results can't be trusted. Since then more has come to light.

And no, only one very small corner of the cloth was tested. This is all discussed in earlier links in this thread.

Not according to QED, because the first sample was questionable The Vatican allowed them, to take several more samples this time from all over the cloth.

If that evidence is doubtful then you have to say there is no evidence that it came from ~33AD any more than there is that it came from 800 AD. So in other words, its probably a fake but no one can prove it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What they say flies in the face of every report that I've read in recent years - including interviews with the scientists who did the testing. I guess I will have to do a little checking. The NBC story makes the point that the Catholic Church wouldn't allow additional samples to be taken after the first test.

Based on what I've seen and read, what I stated is well established as fact. It may be that some of the sources such as QED are unreliable.

Historically, one of the problems has been that the church only allows extremely limited access to the shroud, and especially so if actual samples are desired. They don't want people chopping it up.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Actually I think I can work out why there is a difference. The QED program according to my sources was shown before the second image was found, thus I am working on preceding information. With that in mind I accept that the complications that arise leave us with a mystery.

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=119693

You might want to look through this thread as well it has a lot of extra material you might not of seen. None of it appears completely convincing either way though.

Source:

Walter McCrone's book tells you all you need to know:

“In order to get a supernatural explanation out of the “Shroud�?, one must be Scientist. But if someone gets a supernatural explanation out of the “Shroud�?, then one is not Scientist. But in order to…�? Walter, I’m glad to see that my work was not in vain and that the Pursuit of Truth has finally overtaken perceived truth. The title alone, “Judgment Day For The Shroud Of Turin�?, is worth the price of the book (30 pieces of silver). The fact that Heller’s book, arguing for the authenticity of the Shroud has long since fossilized in the Apologist’s Hall Of Fame and gone out of print while your book remains popular kind of says it all. The beauty of the book is that while McCrone puts the “Shroud�? under the microscope, in a typology which ironically is so crucial to many Church doctrines, McCrone at the same time puts the faith of a Church which believes its leader is infallible but couldn’t even tell you if it was going to rain tomorrow under the microscope as well. So, in addition to presenting overwhelming and then some evidence that the “Shroud�? is really a shroud the book becomes a wonderful illustration of the nature of Apologetics. Ignore/deny superior tests for supporting conclusions and create/cling to inferior tests supporting assumptions thus placing the usual scientific process backwards (isn’t this evidence of Satan?). If McCrone is guilty of anything it was baiting the Church into thinking that he was exactly the type of scientist wanted by the Church, top credentials but sympathetic to the cause of the Church and determined to prove the Shroud authentic. In his initial letters to Father Rinaldi, offering his services to research the Shroud, McCrone titled his letters, “Authentication Of The Turin Shroud�? and wrote, “The provenance for the Shroud is known dependably for more than 600 years with considerable evidence extending this date back to the time of Christ…The protection of this information through proper channels must remain uppermost in our minds…I sincerely hope we may be able to work on this most interesting project and hope that we will be able to obtain data supporting the conclusion that this linen was indeed the one used as Christ’s Shroud after the cruxifixion.�? As a scientist McCrone should have known before he started his testing that the Shroud was 14th century as he was familiar with the extant letters from the Bishops of Lyons (yes, “Lyons�?) to the then Pope stating that the creator of the Shroud had confessed that it was a painting (this fact more than any other illustrates the absurdness of the necessity to even test the Shroud for authenticity as the situation is that we have second and third hand evidence that the “Shroud�? is a fraud while we have no hand or even foot evidence that there even was a burial shroud of Jesus). Even the supporters of the “Shroud�? generally agree that these letters are authentic but they claim that they refer to some other burial Shroud of Jesus near Lyons at the same time (ignore/deny). McCrone had also studied the results of testing by the 1973 Italian Commission, the first group of Scientists, hand picked by the Church, to test the Shroud whose results strongly implied that the Shroud was a 14th century painting. Aside from the conclusive evidence that McCrone found indicating the Shroud was a fraud the Church and Christian scientists involved in the study of the Shroud also came to hate McCrone because they felt that his initial portrayal of being sympathetic to the Church was a false appearance to induce the Church to use him and hid his true belief that the Shroud was a fraud and he wanted to prove that it was to feed his ego and build his reputation as a great scientist. The bulk of the book consists of McCrone explaining the necessity, procedures, analysis and conclusions of scientific testing of the Shroud in terms easily understandable to the non-scientist and this is where McCrone excels as in addition to superior scientific skills he displays supreme communication skills as a teacher as well. McCrone proves through the use of state of the art microscopic technology that the Shroud image consists almost entirely of paint pigments popular in the 14th century. While generally conceding that there is some paint pigment on the Shroud, supporters of the Shroud deny that the image is a painting because there is no evidence of brushstrokes when examined microscopically. To answer this objection McCrone demonstrated that if the paint was sufficiently diluted in a water base there would be no detectable brushstrokes. McCrone recreated shrouds using the same paint materials used on the Shroud and reported that there were no visible brushstrokes on the recreations and that under the microscope the particles were identical between the recreations and the Shroud and challenged any Shroud supporter to try and tell the difference (a challenge which is still untaken). McCrone next demonstrated that there is no actual blood in the “blood�? image areas of the Shroud. Dried blood under the microscope is always black but the blood areas of the Shroud were red. Chemical analysis of the blood image areas also indicated that they lacked major chemical components of blood such as potassium. Shroud supporters, such as Heller, conclude that the blood image areas are blood because they contain some chemical components of blood such as calcium and iron but they ignore that paint pigments also contain calcium and iron. When asked to explain why the usual tests for the presence of blood fail here, such as black color and existence of potassium, they explain that the explanation is some unknown process (ignore/deny). These then were the two significant conclusions of McCrone, the image is a painting and there is no evidence of blood. McCrone wrote up the results of his testing in articles for peer reviewed and accredited scientific journals and his results are largely accepted by the scientific community at large. McCrone also deals with claims of Shroud supporters who are then forced to rely on inferior issues to support their beliefs. Regarding the common supporter claim that the “Shroud�? is a perfect negative image McCrone points out that the hair and blood images of the Shroud are positive, not negative images. The other popular supporter claim is that the Shroud contains a collection of pollens which support a journey from the Middle East, to Turkey and then to Europe. McCrone notes that his examination of the Shroud indicated that the majority of these pollens were concentrated in one extremely limited area of the Shroud and recognizing that he is not a pollen expert provides a special section in his book detailing the report of a pollen expert who has serious doubts as to the credibility of the Scientist (Frei) who reported the pollen findings. McCrone builds such a strong case for the Shroud being a 14th century painting that when McCrone reports towards the end of his book the results of carbon dating showing a 14th century date (surprise) it’s actually anti-climactic. McCrone also describes his impressive credentials, tools and talent for such a project and is quite merciful in describing the lack of corresponding qualifications of his Christian “scientist�? opponents instead limiting himself to objectively describing their limited qualifications and use of inferior equipment. John Jackson for instance, perhaps McCrone’s biggest critic, had the main qualification for studying the Shroud of being a captain in the U.S. Air Force. Generally, the Christian scientists supporting the Shroud have not had peer reviewed articles published in accredited scientific journals. McCrone’s reward for his work was to be ostracized and shunned by the Church and fellow Christian scientists who in addition to obviously not liking his results were incensed that unlike some predecessors who had similar findings McCrone had the courage to make POSITIVE conclusions (“The Shroud is a 14th century painting�?) rather than play the Church’s game and avoid positive conclusions indicating the Shroud was not authentic (“I did not find evidence that the Shroud is from the 1st century�?). In the face of this persecution McCrone displays a timely and welcome sense of humor during his book giving appropriate placed applicable quotes such as Ambrose Bierce’s “Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.�? Walter, Did you ever know you are my hero? You are the cleaning solution beneath my microscope slide. By golly, you and your microscope were right all along. You’ve convinced me and I hope your book will convince others. With best wishes and keep up the good work. Galileo"

This bit can be found on page 4.

 

[baywax]

Not according to QED, because the first sample was questionable The Vatican allowed them, to take several more samples this time from all over the cloth.

If that evidence is doubtful then you have to say there is no evidence that it came from ~33AD any more than there is that it came from 800 AD. So in other words, its probably a fake but no one can prove it.

There is some speculation (mostly on my part) that, since the Mona Lisa was painted in Turin and Da Vinci had to be there to paint it... the technique Leonardo used to create the Shroud of Hoax was also, theoretically used to capture the likeness of Mona Lisa... Given such a case, the Mona Lisa herself may have sat for the Camera Obscura and perhaps found this procedure amusing enough to have her quirky smile forever immortalized by Da Vinci.

This idea stems from the photographic-like features of the Mona Lisa portrait where the gradation of light to dark on her face is practically too perfect for just the observations and methodology of Da Vinci to have achieved.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If this is purely a memory issue then I would say that you are in error. The problem has been the limited access.

I would add that it seems ridiculous to me to say that 1500 year old pollen was just floating around and happened to contaminate the cloth. To me that comes under the heading of a crackpot theory. Do we find 1500 year old pollen on samples of today's clothing?

Maybe the pollen expert was in error, but I don't see contamination as likely or even possible.

 

[baywax]

If this is purely a memory issue then I would say that you are in error. The problem has been the limited access.

I would add that it seems ridiculous to me to say that 1500 year old pollen was just floating around and happened to contaminate the cloth. To me that comes under the heading of a crackpot theory. Do we find 1500 year old pollen on samples of today's clothing?

Maybe the pollen expert was in error, but I don't see contamination as likely or even possible.

Here's an account of someone who didn't find any pollen on a sample of the shroud.

I visited Walter McCrone's laboratory in Chicago several times over the years. In 1980 and 1981, I was able to observe several Shroud fiber samples using one of McCrone's polarizing microscopes. While not trained in forensic microscopy, I am an expert sedimentary petrologist and skilled with geological, biological, and micropaleontological microscopy; much of my academic research involved the study of microfossils, I currently consult in the petroleum industry using sedimentary petrology, and I assist my biologist wife with her zoological photomicrography and image analysis; I have six microscopes of various types in my house and access to several others at the local university and geological consulting lab where I work. Using crossed polars and Becke line movement, I quickly and easily identified the thousands of tiny particles I saw as the mineral hematite using its characteristic color and high index of refraction as criteria; this was a mineral I had observed hundreds of times before. Hematite is finely ground to make the pigment red ochre, which has been used throughout human history as the most common red pigment. The particles are definitely not blood shards or alkaline iron precipitates (such as iron sufide, iron carbonate, or iron nitrate); they are unquestionably iron oxide. I also observed some vermilion pigment particles, the mineral cinnabar; McCrone told me this was often used by medieval artists to represent blood. I saw no pollen grains on the slides I examined (I only studied a few), and McCrone told me they were rare. There were other particles in addition to the abundant linen fibers and red ocher particles which I could not identify; McCrone told me these were other pigments, wax, soil, and other particles.

http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic//shroud/articles/rogers-ta-response.htm

and...

I was the one who claimed that Max Frei's pollen findings were a hoax, since his sticky tape samples had abundant pollen and cotton fibers from his gloves, and STURP's samples had neither; the nonsensical response was that Frei took his sticky tape samples with more force than did STURP, thus actually getting the pollen from inside the fibers. However, they've never explained the presence of the cotton fibers, which I believe got mixed in with Frei's secreted pollen grains when he covertly touched his pollen stash and then pressed his tape sample with his fingers before applying it to the Shroud. I pointed out that the pollen was at least half-derived from insect-pollinated plants and could not have been wind-blown onto the exposed Shroud in Palestine; the response was that visitors to Jesus' funeral benevolently placed flowers on his Shroud and the pollen fell out! For every critique, the Shroud believers--endowed with immense emotional involvement in its authenticity--come up with some bizarre response or overreaching justification. This process would be sad if the stakes were high, but since it's just the Shroud of Turin, the process is hilarious.

Same source.