Contradictions involving the Shroud of Turin?

[irenaeuslyons]

Actually, experiments on thymol treated specimens have not shown that it affects the radiocarbon date at all. Besides which, there is a mass of material recovered from the Shroud during the 2002 restoration which has not been treated at all. There are no scientific reasons why the radiocarbon test cannot be repeated.

What experiments are you referring to, and who performed them? And were they specifically testing for the impact of the chemical used in the reliquary on C14 outcomes?

Yes, there is some material that has been separated from the shroud that could be a candidate for testing. I feel like testing long separated pieces will just conjure up more doubt on both sides of the question depending on where the dates fell. I would rather any testing focus on the cloth itself. And in a non destructive way if possible.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

He was indeed, and respected as such by his peers. It is curious, then, that he conducted no published research on the Shroud for twenty-five years after the STuRP examination, his only contribution being co-authorship of a summary paper. In the 21st century his ‘Maillard reaction’ hypothesis contradicted many of the findings of the STuRP team, including some of his own paper.

There is nothing curious about it. It sounds like you are attacking his scholarship/motives in a less direct way than undead_rat attacks yours. He published over 40 peer reviewed papers on chemistry. He worked at Los Alamos for well over 30 years and won the Distinguished Service Medal. I think his credentials/motives are beyond reproach. So lets not go there.

In this he was very much out on his own, and could not, in this research, be said to be acting as a ‘lead scientist’ of a team.

As can be plainly read from my post. I said he was one of the “lead scientists” on the STURP team. He was Director of Chemical Research for the STURP team.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

I’m sorry I gave the wrong impression. I am well aware of Ray Rogers’s status as an important scientist, and as the founder, as it happens, of Thermochimica Acta, and have the utmost respect for his research. I agree whole-heartedly that his credentials, and his motives are beyond reproach. In fact, it is precisely because of my respect for him that I find it curious that he did not, in fact, publish work on the Shroud at all during the heyday of STuRP’s investigation, although he is mentioned with gratitude by several of his colleagues, and had, of course, both provided the sample-taker and taken the samples in Turin.

By the year 2000, STuRP had very much disbanded as an organised body and cannot be said to have had ‘lead scientists’. His work on Maillard reactions as possible solutions to the image problem was, as I have said, in contradiction to some of John Heller and Alan Adler’s earlier findings, and still has not found general acceptance.

On thymol and radiocarbon, see Piotr Kolaczek et al., ‘The Late Glacial and Holocene development of vegetation in the area of a fossil lake in the Skaliska Basin (north-eastern Poland) inferred from pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating’, Acta Palaeobotanica 53(1): 23–52, 2013.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

On thymol and radiocarbon, see Piotr Kolaczek et al., ‘The Late Glacial and Holocene development of vegetation in the area of a fossil lake in the Skaliska Basin (north-eastern Poland) inferred from pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating’, Acta Palaeobotanica 53(1): 23–52, 2013.

So they did obtain results which were not reliable which had thymol contamination. In most cases, they determined that it was reliable, based on their results as compared to palynological analysis. But even they don’t recommend it without more testing. So maybe there is good news down the road, but it was also admitted they could not explain the radiocarbon date inconsistencies you can see in most of the profiles.

 

[undead_rat]

The attitude of the anti-Pope Clement VII was a ambiguous as it was obviously political.
The hypercritical historian Ulysses Chevalier seems to attach a special importance to his vacillating opinion, . . .but he might have balanced this with the constant veneration shown by later legitimate Popes.
Paul II attached a collegiate establishment, with 12 canons, to the Chambery Church where the Shroud had been installed by Duke Amedeus IX.
Sixtus IV, in 1480, bestowed on it the name of the Sainte Chapelle.
Julius II, in 1506, granted the Shroud a Mass and an Office of its own, for its feast-day was fixed for May 4th.
Leo X extended this feast to the whole of Savoy, and Gregory XIII to Piedmont as well, with the further grant of plenary indulgences to pilgrims.

And they all, in their solemn pronouncements, declare that this shroud is indeed the one in which Jesus was placed in the tomb. . . .And this is all the more important, because many decisions taken by the anti-Popes of Avignon were, once the schism was ended, approved by their legitimate Roman successors.

It would almost be necessary to mention all of the Popes from the 14th century onward, in order to tell of the many marks of veneration which they lavished, and of the indulgences which they granted and confirmed on its behalf. Pius VII solemnly prostrated himself before the Shroud in 1814, and Leo XIII showed joy and emotion when he saw the Shroud’s photograph negative in 1898.

 

[undead_rat]

Those who came into close contact with His Holiness Pius XI know how rigorous and exacting was the scientific precision which guided his lucid mind; he would be content with nothing less than good reasoning based on solid facts. Mgr. Ratti (later Pius XI) had seen the Shroud’s exposition in 1898, and he remembered the supple quality of the material, the fineness of the linen, the absence of all colouring material, and the perfection of the anatomy of the body.
But he had worked for many years at the Ambrosian Library, where the spirit of the Bollandists held sway, who are adepts at showing up false relics or fabricated legends; he had been well broken in by this sometimes very severe discipline.
Now, from 1931 onwards he had the new photographs of the Shroud in his possession and he made a careful study of them. He read everything that appeared in print on the Shroud and met with Pierre Barbet, M.D. author of FIVE WOUNDS. He went over the issue of authenticity from every point of view and did not ignore any of the historical difficulties; this was his specialty, and he had at his disposal the Vatican archives, in which he was the supreme expert.

Father Armailhac wrote: “Divine Providence ruled that it should be the best qualified of the Popes, the one least to be suspected of naive piety, the one most expert in documents, who was to pronounce the verdict.” This verdict was neither dogmatic nor infallible, but it derives all its value from the eminent character of the man, combined with his pontifical dignity.

After five years of work and reflection, Pope Pius XI formed his opinion, and he took the first opportunity of declaring it publicly: On Sept 5th, 1936, he received a pilgrimage of young men returning from the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii. As souvenirs he gave them pictures of the Holy Shroud, and he said to them: “These are pictures of her Divine Son, and one may say the most thought-provoking, the most beautiful, the most precious that one can imagine. The come precisely from that object which still remains mysterious, but which has certainly not been made by human hands, that is the Holy Shroud of Turin.”

Pope Pius XI preserved his conviction about the Shroud till his death. A short time before his death, on Feb 23rd, 1939, in a solemn audience, he once again distributed pictures of the Holy Face on the Shroud.

 

[undead_rat]

From my secular point of view, it looks like some don’t want a definitive answer to the dating.

A better way of putting it might be that some insist on ignoring the definitive answer to the dating which was provided by Fanti and Malfi in their 2105 work:
THE SHROUD OF TURIN, FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST !

Using a robust statistical analysis, they find that the Shroud’s C-14 evidence does not pass the required mathematical parameters necessary for using that evidence to establish a date of origin. They conclude that, if one insisted on assigning a date to this data, it would be 1325 C.E. but the error factor would have to be at least 2000 or more years (plus or minus.) They also note what is called a “systemic bias” in the C-14 evidence which means that the C-14 content of the Shroud’s linen increases as the part tested becomes closer to the Shroud’s image. This evidence is consistent with the theory that when Jesus’ corpse vanished into another dimension, it left a residual neutron radiation that converted some the nitrogen in the Shroud’s linen fibers into carbon fourteen.

https://www.amazon.com/Shroud-Turin-First-Century-Christ-ebook/dp/B010ACWUJG

https://catholicherald.co.uk/issues...-latest-evidence-will-challenge-the-sceptics/

 

[Hugh_Farey]

By and large I agree with you there. There are a few more papers involving radiocarbon dating and thymol, such as Roderick Morin et al., ‘Bomb Radiocarbon Validates Age and Long-Term Growth Declines in American Plaice in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence’, in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, Volume 142, 2013; Craig Kastelle et al., ‘Age validation of Dover sole (Microstomus pacificus) by means of bomb radiocarbon’, in Fishery Bulletin, 106(4), pp. 375-385, and Campana S.E., ‘Suitability of glycerin-preserved otoliths for age validation using bomb radiocarbon’, in the Journal of Fish Biology (2003) 63, 848–854, all of which consider that thymol has minimal effect on radiocarbon dating, but on the whole I take your point.

Using a robust statistical analysis…

We have been here too often for it to be worth re-iterating the objections to the “neutron radiation” hypothesis, so I won’t, restricting myself to saying, for the benefit of those new to the subject, that there are indeed cogent objections to it, such that it is far from generally accepted, even by most convinced authenticists.

 

[Pattylt]

This evidence is consistent with the theory that when Jesus’ corpse vanished into another dimension, it left a residual neutron radiation that converted some the nitrogen in the Shroud’s linen fibers into carbon fourteen.

Is there any evidence that this can actually happen or is this speculation? This “sounds” like someone trying to fit evidence to a predetermined conclusion. No one knows that this is an image of Jesus…this is a presumption. This is why skeptics are turned off from even considering it as authentic!

Proof that a neutron event changes carbon dating is needed…and how neutron events effect the dating…forward or backward? Do you see why your belief is muddying the water? I’m not rejecting the possibility that you are right…I’m just questioning if you may be wrong.

 

[undead_rat]

This is why skeptics are turned off from even considering it as authentic!

Proof that a neutron event changes carbon dating is needed…and how neutron events effect the dating…forward or backward?

Skeptics are “turned off” because the Historically Consistent Hypothesis (which postulates that the Corpse vanished) involves a miracle, and they don’t like that. The leading skeptic here on CAF believes that when Jesus walked on water it was some kind of cheap magician’s trick and that, if Jesus actually was resurrected, He just woke up and walked out of His tomb. In short, the Skeptics don’t believe that miracles can happen, now or ever.

Here’s a paper on neutron radiation on linen cloth:

https://9fc6470e-b7bc-4a94-8610-c525057e322d.filesusr.com/ugd/97f3f2_07c2a2015e8045d980dc49276938cabc.pdf

The Shroud’s C-14 data fits the Hystorically consistent Hypothesis (which involves neutron radiation) very well. As I pointed out, that data does not pass the mathematical tests needed to confirm that the evidence in question actually is indicative of a date.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Proof that a neutron event changes carbon dating is needed.

Carbon 14 is normally generated high in the atmosphere as a loose neutron crashes into an atom of Nitrogen 14, ejecting a proton. The number of atomic particles remains the same (14), but by losing a positively charged proton and replacing it with a neutrally charged neutron, the charge on the nucleus goes down (from 7 to 6), which is why we call the new atom Carbon rather than Nitrogen. After the atomic bomb tests of the 1960s, the amount of Carbon 14 (radiocarbon) in the atmosphere almost doubled, so we know that proton radiation from atomic disintegration certainly can affect the proportion of radiocarbon in a material.

The factors affecting how much material is affected can be modelled very precisely, and Bob Rucker, who has been doing this kind of modelling professionally for many years, such that the safety of nuclear power stations has literally depended on his work, has calculated quite precisely the number of neutrons that would have had to be emitted from a disintegrating body in order to produce the exact gradient that we find in the radiocarbon dating results from 1988. So far, so uncontroversial.

Is there any evidence that this can actually happen?

No. This is where the miracle comes in. Experimentally, a recognised radioactive source is required, which dead bodies are not. The only evidence that such an event could have occurred lies in the chronological gradient of the results of the 1988 dating tests, which must be assumed, for the purposes of this speculation, to be accurate and quite precise.

that data does not pass the mathematical tests needed to confirm that the evidence in question actually is indicative of a date.

I think this needs a bit of unpacking. Noticing that their results were statistically anomalous in terms of an entirely uniform bit of cloth, the authors of the Nature paper assumed that the errors quoted were too small, as I mentioned to Jan10000 above, and proceeded to calculate an overall date of 1260-1390, as is well known. More precisely, the authors took the 12 individual results from the 12 little pieces into which the samples had been subdivided (4 at Tucson, 3 at Oxford and 5 at Zurich), and combined them into 3 means, one for each laboratory, and then combined those to produce the final date.

Disputing this assumption (that the errors were too small), Riani and Atkinson took the 12 individual results as correct and accurate measurements, and deduced the arrangement of the little pieces which best fitted the chronological sequence of the dates.

Rucker and Antonacci have taken the middle path, and used the three laboratory means as indicative of the gradient derived from neutron radiation. The statistics used to achieve these dates have been assumed to be reliable.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

The leading skeptic here on CAF believes that […] if Jesus actually was resurrected, He just woke up and walked out of His tomb.

The miracle of the Resurrection is that of a dead man coming back to life. It does not require atomic disintegration, explosion, dematerialisation or any other such spectacular manifestation. It is worth recalling that the gospels record three other resurrections from the dead, all of whom “just woke up”. There is no reason to suppose that Jesus’s own resurrection was any different.

 

[undead_rat]

The Forum should not be mislead by the skeptic’s misrepresentations. When Jesus raised Lazarus from death, Lazarus shuffled out of his tomb still wrapped up and tied up in his burial shroud. Jesus had to instruct those present to untie Lazarus.
Nothing of this sort is recorded about Jesus’ own resurrection in any of the four Gospels.
Mathew records that the first to arrive on Sunday morning actually witnessed an Angel who rolled the stone off of the entrance to the sealed tomb and then instructed the witnesses to look inside and see that Jesus’ corpse was not there. Later arrivals found an empty tomb with both the Shroud and the Sudarium folded up inside.

When Jewish corpses are place in a tomb, they are bound up in their burial shrouds, and if that corpse were to just “wake up” as the skeptic suggests, then they would need to be untied, as was the case for Lazarus. The skeptic is completely wrong on this point , and he here reveals his own disbelief in our Holy Gospels.

 

[whatistrue]

So are you saying that the same angel that rolled away the stone couldn’t have also handled the untying? Or perhaps that the notional slipping into another dimension also resulted in a folded Shroud?

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Try to stay focussed. Bob Rucker’s neutron theory absolutely precludes any “wrapping up” of the body of Jesus, so if you think Jesus was “bound up” you cannot support the neutron enrichment hypothesis.

Lazarus seems to have simply “awoken” from the dead and made the best of his situation. Talitha, the little girl, and the son of the widow of Nain simply “awoke” from the dead and got up. Why should we suppose Jesus did anything different? Is it because you think he “had to” dematerialise through a stone doorway? All four gospels are at pains to emphasise that the stone was rolled away. They are not wholly in agreement, but seem to suggest that Jesus rolled the stone away himself, although admittedly, according to Matthew, it seems to have rolled back again.

If you think I have misrepresented anything, please point out where and I will be happy to clarify my meaning.

 

[thistle]

The Forum should not be mislead by the skeptic’s misrepresentations.

This very much sounds like a personal attack on someone in this thread.

 

[undead_rat]

“Seems to have rolled back again?” Sir, everything in your post is a misrepresentation.
BTW, Prof. Rucker’s theory does not “absolutely preclude” the corpse in question being wrapped and tied just as the corpse of Lazarus was. If an unwrapping was necessary for the formation of the Image, then the same Power that accomplished that miracle could have performed any necessary preliminaries.

With all due respect, I think that your cynicism is showing.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Oh dear me. You’re quite right, of course, but it would be better to take a step back and try to clarify what you really believe before snapping back at individual details. A post or so back you claimed that “if that corpse [Jesus] were to just “wake up” as the skeptic suggests, then they would need to be untied, as was the case for Lazarus.” You did not suppose that the untying could be a miracle then, which is why I replied that such a scenario was incompatible with the neutron radiation theory. That same theory is also usually supposed to be part of some kind of dematerialisation, in order to release Jesus from the Shroud and get him through the stone door. Now you think that the Shroud had already loosened itself, and as I have said, the gospels firmly imply that Jesus exited through an open door, so that dematerialisation was completely unnecessary.

I don’t think it’s worth pursuing the minutiae of the miracle of the Resurrection, as the devil truly resides in the details. That it occurred is, to my mind, logically defensible - and I have logically defended it in ‘The Medieval Shroud 3’ at Academia (shameless plug) - but what precisely happened is a discussion doomed to frustration, in my opinion. The more complex the scenario, the more ‘mini-miracles’ have to be tossed into the account to tidy up the details, which to me lack the majestic simplicity which I associate with the event.

 

[tafan2]

JP II never said he entrusted the investigation to the shroud to all scientists.

 

[undead_rat]

The word he used was “science.” But, in making that statement, he did not appear to be signing off on the conclusions of the British Museum. He did not say that the Shroud had been proven medieval. He rather implied that more scientific work needed to be done, and now it has been. The conclusions of the Museum have been debunked and the Shroud has been proven to really be 2000 years old.