The Shroud of Turin: An Enigmatic Anomaly

[zomgwtf]

Since you think I should comment on the evidence you pointed out I will.

The differences in weave patters too me, is not a scientific argument.

Sure but I never presented it as such, it was just a point to think about.

The point about AB blood not even existing until the 7th or 8th century. The face cover is about that age, so that fit's with my opinion.

Ok so you think that both are forgeries you only debate the date of the shroud? I guess that makes all the difference now.

I am not familiar with the thing about algae? Is blood that old always turned black by algae, or does it depend on how it was stored, or wether it was kept dry?

Well there are circumstances which this doesn't happen I guess, but the blood would still turn a dark brown. The blood on the shroud and turin if you zoom in is still pretty red. I'm not entirely sure if any further testing has been done on the blood but the last literature I've read stated that they concluded using various tests that the substance was probably some sort of vermillion pigment that was commonly used in medieval times.

Two cloths, I believe was normal, I think. One is small, and just covers the face, the other the whole body. This doesn't seam strange to me, and it doesn't seam at all like a scientific argument.

Both of different weave patterns? One of which wasn't even used during the times of Jesus? As well these weave patterns were pretty much limited to really wealthy Jews. From reading the bible it didn't strike me that Jesus was a wealthy Jew, it might have been 'given' by a wealthy Jew after he died, but again there are no other weaving patterns from the time period that are similar.

They are both forgeries. I do not think they came from the same time period but even if they had they are still both forgeries.

PF Should publish an article on this and close the case once and for all.

 

[zomgwtf]

@Evo, thanks for posting those images. I was going to make a comparisson side by side in photoshop but I haven't gotten on my desktop today . I don't think they are very similar, aside from the fact that they are both being used, as fakes, to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

 

[CEL]

Both of different weave patterns? One of which wasn't even used during the times of Jesus? As well these weave patterns were pretty much limited to really wealthy Jews. From reading the bible it didn't strike me that Jesus was a wealthy Jew, it might have been 'given' by a wealthy Jew after he died, but again there are no other weaving patterns from the time period that are similar.

.

I am not saying that the Shroud is authentic, but according to the Gospels, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy Jew, donated his tomb for the burial of Jesus. If this is true, he should have donated the shroud too.

 

[baywax]

I am not saying that the Shroud is authentic, but according to the Gospels, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy Jew, donated his tomb for the burial of Jesus. If this is true, he should have donated the shroud too.

Not when it radiocarbon dates to the 13th century. There are many stories, "fabricated" or not, that mention a cloth with the likeness of J.C. on it. I have a couple of posts in this thread that go into the details surrounding these accounts. Whomever compiled the "shroud" (and my guess is it was da Vinci and his use of the Camera Obscura + plus silver sulphide + egg albumen + cadavers from the morgue in Turin) obviously played on the myths, fables and hearsay of this "relic".

 

[CEL]

Not when it radiocarbon dates to the 13th century. There are many stories, "fabricated" or not, that mention a cloth with the likeness of J.C. on it. I have a couple of posts in this thread that go into the details surrounding these accounts. Whomever compiled the "shroud" (and my guess is it was da Vinci and his use of the Camera Obscura + plus silver sulphide + egg albumen + cadavers from the morgue in Turin) obviously played on the myths, fables and hearsay of this "relic".

Again! I am not saying the Shroud was used to bury Jesus. The tests indicate it is a fake.
I am contesting the affirmation of zomgwtf that the wave, if genuine, was a privilege of very wealthy Jews. Joseph of Arimathea, assuming he existed, was such a person.

 

[baywax]

Again! I am not saying the Shroud was used to bury Jesus. The tests indicate it is a fake.
I am contesting the affirmation of zomgwtf that the wave, if genuine, was a privilege of very wealthy Jews. Joseph of Arimathea, assuming he existed, was such a person.

Sorry if I missed any earlier posts of yours CEL... its a funny thing that the "wealthy" Joseph of Arimathea has taken the place of the wealthy "the son of David" who was "Jesus's" father. Any son of David would be wealthy beyond the means of the rest of the townships in those days and there are reportedly records of JC's dad owning scads of land and a large "garden". In the book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (3 investigative journalists from Europe) the Joseph in their records is his father and it was arranged that Judas point out a "secret disciple named "Simon" who looked like Jesus and that this decoy be crucified on Joseph, son of David's land and then be brought to lay somewhere on the same land.

These sorts of undertakings were the strategy of generals in a force fighting to rid their Hebrew lands of the Romans. Today we can see similarities in how Saddam of Iraq had reportedly 12 look a likes to protect his well being... people who would even hang or be crucified for him. There are similar stories as well about Bin Laden.

 

[zomgwtf]

Again! I am not saying the Shroud was used to bury Jesus. The tests indicate it is a fake.
I am contesting the affirmation of zomgwtf that the wave, if genuine, was a privilege of very wealthy Jews. Joseph of Arimathea, assuming he existed, was such a person.

No it wouldn't belong to Joseph of Arimathea, because I specifically stated that it would belong to a wealthy Jew WELL after Jesus was dead. We're talking hundreds of years here.

 

[CEL]

Sorry if I missed any earlier posts of yours CEL... its a funny thing that the "wealthy" Joseph of Arimathea has taken the place of the wealthy "the son of David" who was "Jesus's" father. Any son of David would be wealthy beyond the means of the rest of the townships in those days and there are reportedly records of JC's dad owning scads of land and a large "garden". In the book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (3 investigative journalists from Europe) the Joseph in their records is his father and it was arranged that Judas point out a "secret disciple named "Simon" who looked like Jesus and that this decoy be crucified on Joseph, son of David's land and then be brought to lay somewhere on the same land.

These sorts of undertakings were the strategy of generals in a force fighting to rid their Hebrew lands of the Romans. Today we can see similarities in how Saddam of Iraq had reportedly 12 look a likes to protect his well being... people who would even hang or be crucified for him. There are similar stories as well about Bin Laden.

Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln are nuts. Their work is an exercise of imagination and served as inspiration to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The villain Leigh Teabing is named after two of them (Teabing is an anagram of Baigent). If you think those are historical works, there is nothing more to discuss.
The only known historical mentions to Jesus are the Gospels, written by his followers, so they must be taken with suspicion.
According to the Gospels, Joseph brought two doves to be sacrificed, when he presented his son to the Temple. A wealthy Jew would bring a lamb.

 

[CEL]

No it wouldn't belong to Joseph of Arimathea, because I specifically stated that it would belong to a wealthy Jew WELL after Jesus was dead. We're talking hundreds of years here.

You are using two different arguments here:
1. The Shroud belonged to a wealthy Jew.
2. The Shroud is from medieval times.
I contested the first argument. If you are using the second argument, there is no need to use the first. If the weave is a medieval work, it could belong to a Jew or to an Italian.

 

[zomgwtf]

You are using two different arguments here:
1. The Shroud belonged to a wealthy Jew.
2. The Shroud is from medieval times.
I contested the first argument. If you are using the second argument, there is no need to use the first. If the weave is a medieval work, it could belong to a Jew or to an Italian.

Yeah but they go together. The weave patter suggests both things. So you contested the first point with some story from the Bible. I countered it with the evidence brought up by rigorous scientific study.

If you can't handle compound statements then sorry. Go ahead and attack them one by one if it makes you happy.

EDIT: The statement 'it could have belonged to a Jew or a Italian' doesn't make any sense. That isnt' dependent on when the weave came from at all, if it came from 2000 years ago or 100 years ago it is still MOST likely to have come from a wealthy Jew. How can people say this? Because most weave patterns like this come from wealthy Jews. It's actually pretty complex.

 

[CEL]

Yeah but they go together. The weave patter suggests both things. So you contested the first point with some story from the Bible. I countered it with the evidence brought up by rigorous scientific study.

If you can't handle compound statements then sorry. Go ahead and attack them one by one if it makes you happy.

EDIT: The statement 'it could have belonged to a Jew or a Italian' doesn't make any sense. That isnt' dependent on when the weave came from at all, if it came from 2000 years ago or 100 years ago it is still MOST likely to have come from a wealthy Jew. How can people say this? Because most weave patterns like this come from wealthy Jews. It's actually pretty complex.

Do you have any evidence that those weaves were used by wealthy Jews? When were they used? In the first, seventh or thirteenth century? In Palestine or in Europe?
If the Shroud is a medieval forgery, it was probably made in Italy, where those things were made and it was weaved purposely to be the canvas for the forgery. So, it was never used by wealthy or poor Jew.
And the type of weave is dependent from when it was made. If, as seems the case, such weave was not made 2000 years ago, it is almost certainly fake and no carbon dating is needed. If the wave was common in the first century, than the dating becomes important.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Off-topic posts, religion bashing, crackpot theories, and flakey links deleted.

This is about origins of the shroud and not a place to put religion on trial.

 

[nismaratwork]

How about "lost in the mists of time", and "who cares"? People can't agree whether or not Elvis is alive, or how JFK died, with pictures and modern media. Does anyone really think that such a valuable article of faith for some is going to be easier to trace?

 

[baywax]

Here's what may be a useful link in obtaining a better informed opinion about the Shroud of Turin

http://www.ohioshroudconference.com/papers/p08.pdf

 

[PaulS1950]

The dating samples were taken from a location that contained two different threads. One was the original thread that the cloth was made from and the other was cotton that was rewoven into the shroud to repair damage and colored to match.
This was discovered only after the dating had been completed and released. One of the original scientists confirmed that this was the case by testing a remnant with UV light. the cotton threadsglowed and the original threads did not. This tainted the results of carbon dating by averaging the two threads into one date.
PBS has shown this in a show about the shroud several times.
so far the church has not allowed a retest of the shroud to place a proper date on its origin and the manner in which it is being stored will soon render further dating impossible due to the gas being used to keep it from deteriorating.
Looks like it will have to be one of those mysteries / myths or a matter of faith for a long time to come.

 

[zomgwtf]

Yeah, I've heard of that story paul. Where did he get the sample from I thought it was all destroyed for the testing?

It's not a very promising argument to use in my opinion. 'Oh that was a redone part you guys sampled' so it's younger than the rest, however you can't test the real fabric.

 

[baywax]

The dating samples were taken from a location that contained two different threads. One was the original thread that the cloth was made from and the other was cotton that was rewoven into the shroud to repair damage and colored to match.
This was discovered only after the dating had been completed and released. One of the original scientists confirmed that this was the case by testing a remnant with UV light. the cotton threadsglowed and the original threads did not. This tainted the results of carbon dating by averaging the two threads into one date.
PBS has shown this in a show about the shroud several times.
so far the church has not allowed a retest of the shroud to place a proper date on its origin and the manner in which it is being stored will soon render further dating impossible due to the gas being used to keep it from deteriorating.
Looks like it will have to be one of those mysteries / myths or a matter of faith for a long time to come.

This seems like an odd story since you need much more than a thread to do a proper carbon dating.

For instance, to radiocarbon date (C14) a piece of cloth you need 25 grams for a reliable result..

http://www.ausetute.com.au/carbon14.html

Please check your sources or post them for further scrutiny.

 

[dlgoff]

... to radiocarbon date (C14) a piece of cloth you need 25 grams for a reliable result..

http://www.ausetute.com.au/carbon14.html.

Just for information:

Radiocarbon dating using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) differs from the decay counting methods in that the amount of 14C in the sample is measured directly, rather than by waiting for the individual radioactive decay events to occur. This makes the technique 1,000 to 10,000 times more sensitive than decay counting.

http://www.physics.arizona.edu/ams/education/ams_principle.htm"

 

[baywax]

Just for information:

http://www.physics.arizona.edu/ams/education/ams_principle.htm"

Looks like the technique used to date the Shroud was "ams".

Very small samples from the Shroud of Turin have been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry in laboratories at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich. As Controls, three samples whose ages had been determined independently were also dated. The results provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval.

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

Here's the exact amount and procedure that was involved in extracting and testing the samples...

The shroud was separated from the backing cloth along its bottom left-hand edge and a strip (~10 mm x 70 mm) was cut from just above the place where a sample was previously removed in 1973 for examination. The strip came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas. Three samples, each ~50 mg in weight, were prepared from this strip. The samples were then taken to the adjacent Sala Capitolare where they were wrapped in aluminium foil and subsequently sealed inside numbered stainless-steel containers by the Archbishop of Turin and Dr Tite. Samples weighing 50 mg from two of the three controls were similarly packaged. The three containers containing the shroud (to be referred to as sample 1) and two control samples (samples 2 and 3) were then handed to representatives of each of the three laboratories together with a sample of the third control (sample 4), which was in the form of threads. All these operations, except for the wrapping of the samples in foil and their placing in containers, were fully documented by video film and photography.

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

No mention of "threads" here.

 

[dlgoff]

I would think 50mg is about the mass of a single thread.

 

[baywax]

I would think 50mg is about the mass of a single thread.

a strip (~10 mm x 70 mm) was cut from just above the place where a sample was previously removed in 1973 for examination. The strip came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas.

10 mm width is a fair bit wider than a piece of thread.

 

[dlgoff]

10 mm width is a fair bit wider than a piece of thread.

At work today, I cut a 3 inch (76 mm) thread out of a piece of string and weighed it on a analytical balance. It weighed 10.9 mg.

I'm not sure what their threads weighed but if they were like this, then it would take about three of them to make the test. One wouldn't want to use the whole piece of fabric to do just one test. So if the shrouds fabric used heavier thread, I think it may be possible to get a date from just one thread out of the sample.

 

[nismaratwork]

Is modern thread in any way similar to course linen used in the time the shroud has been dated to? I have no idea, but it strikes me as being an issue.

 

[baywax]

The dating samples were taken from a location that contained two different threads. One was the original thread that the cloth was made from and the other was cotton that was rewoven into the shroud to repair damage and colored to match.
This was discovered only after the dating had been completed and released. One of the original scientists confirmed that this was the case by testing a remnant with UV light. the cotton threadsglowed and the original threads did not. This tainted the results of carbon dating by averaging the two threads into one date.
PBS has shown this in a show about the shroud several times.

I don't know how the 10 mm x 70 mm patch of 400 year old fabric (thus, very fragile... and light) was divided up. But I'm pretty sure it would be divided equally amongst the institutions testing it. This could have been done by cutting the swatch vertically or horizontally. This would give each team a 3.3 mm x 70 mm strip or a 33 mm x 10 mm patch to analyze. There is no mention of "threads" in the nature article

Here's the proof from the article we need to settle this tributary of discussion.

The laboratories were not told which container held the shroud sample. Because the distinctive three-to-one herringbone twill weave of the shroud could not be matched in the controls, however, it was possible for a laboratory to identify the shroud sample. If the samples had been unravelled or shredded rather than being given to the laboratories as whole pieces of cloth, then it would have been much more difficult, but not impossible, to distinguish the shroud sample from the controls.

So what they are saying is that they might have had better control if the samples were shredded but they didn't shred the clothe... they just concealed the identity of both the control and target samples.

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

 

[baywax]

Does the shroud represent an example of "proto-photography"?

It plainly shows a negative image imprinted on linen. Are there any papers showing the presence of silver sulphate on the shroud? And does silver sulphate decay or transform into another chemical over time or in the presence of fire? Specifically, would the silver off of a silver pencil mixed with the egg tempura used in fine painting create silver sulphate?

 

[nismaratwork]

If I remember correctly, experiments to re-create the shroud didn't require anything like photographic media or chemicals. I think some acid and heat was all it took, along with a bit of artistic skill. I'll see if I can find that study before I hit the hay. Silver would not need to be present to create a negative image, only a negative on a photographic plate where light is a factor.

 

[dlgoff]

I don't know how the 10 mm x 70 mm patch of 400 year old fabric (thus, very fragile... and light) was divided up. But I'm pretty sure it would be divided equally amongst the institutions testing it. This could have been done by cutting the swatch vertically or horizontally. This would give each team a 3.3 mm x 70 mm strip or a 33 mm x 10 mm patch to analyze. There is no mention of "threads" in the nature article

Here's the proof from the article we need to settle this tributary of discussion.



So what they are saying is that they might have had better control if the samples were shredded but they didn't shred the clothe... they just concealed the identity of both the control and target samples.

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

I'm not arguing how they received the samples, I'm was just showing that you really don't need to use the whole sample supplied to make a test. Just a few threads will do ya.

 

[baywax]

I'm not arguing how they received the samples, I'm was just showing that you really don't need to use the whole sample supplied to make a test. Just a few threads will do ya.

And that's amazing in itself.

 

[baywax]

If I remember correctly, experiments to re-create the shroud didn't require anything like photographic media or chemicals. I think some acid and heat was all it took, along with a bit of artistic skill. I'll see if I can find that study before I hit the hay. Silver would not need to be present to create a negative image, only a negative on a photographic plate where light is a factor.

There have been successful attempts at re-creating the effect seen on the shroud using a camera obscura... but the authors of these studies are neither photographers nor are they historians or scientists... I'll post the links later with some trepidation or at least have the links cleared by the mentor.

For now, here's something I hadn't heard of about the Shroud of Turin... these copies of the shroud were painted to depict the cherished artifact.?

The copy was found Jan. 18, 1999 by theol. scholar Premysl Sochor in the first balcony to the right in the monasterial church of Broumov, Czechia, hidden in a framed wooden box with a glass door, under the floor of the balcony (in a height of appr. 15m). With the linen was the authenticity, i.e., a letter of the archbishop of Turin, Bergiria, giving names, year and date (4 May 1651).

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

Another attempt was made to reproduce the method thought used to produce the shroud... here's a comparison which was made between the shroud on the left and the copy on the right.

A Copy of the Shroud of Turin Has Been Made, Using only Medieval Materials and Techniques by Luigi Garlascheli

http://cyberbrethren.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/shroudcompare.jpg

 

[mnafetsc]

Whenever people try to disprove the shroud they always try to argue with carbon dating, but I think there may be a much easier argument which is:

It seems quite clear that the Jesus in the shroud has long hair, just like we would expect, but many biblical scholars and archeologist believe, from the evidence they have, that the average Jewish male in the first century had short cropped hair, and the long hair and facial features we recognize as Jesus were European artist 'europeanizing' Jesus. So if this the authentic shroud of Jesus he probably should have short hair.

Regardless, the Shroud, depsite some peoples/documentary claims, is not a big deal for the faith of Catholics. As a Catholic, when I read about the latest evidence for a hoax, I merely shrugged my shoulders and went about my day without any spiritual dilemmas.