Counter these Christ-bashing proofs?

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It is a little hard to discern exactly what the point of the article is. But if I understand it correctly, it is saying that in terms of historical evidence for the existence of Christ, the witness of the gospels is more compelling than the presence of objects reported to be 1st Century artifacts (associated with Christ). I don’t really find fault with such a line of reasoning, although I would take it a step further and point to the entire living witness of the Church (which includes the Bible) rather than singling out the Bible alone. In light of all this, I think the article is more about “relic bashing” than “Christ bashing”.

In terms of “relic bashing”, I would point out that I don’t think many people believe in the existence of Jesus because of the objects discussed in the article (so the premise of the article seems off-base). These tend to be items used for devotional purposes for those who already believe. The exception is probably the Shroud of Turin, which some people have stated was instrumental in their conversion. I don’t think the article treats the Shroud of Turin fairly because there is a lot of valid debate over the accuracy of the radiocarbon dating process that was cited (none of which was acknowledged by the author).
 
TheSeraphim said:
Read this

lifeslittlemysteries.com/2319-jesus-christ-man-physical-evidence-hold.html

Is this true? I know we’re suppose to be careful what we read online.
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Don’t be bothered by this. This work is simply attacking a strawman. Our faith is defined by the eyewitness of the apostles not by the existence of any relics. In fact, no Catholic is compelled to believe in the authenticity of any relic. Let’s go through the list…
  1. Holy hardware: No Catholic is compelled by the Church to believe that any of these artifacts are truly from the crucifixion. The Faith is not based on artifacts, but on the witness of the Apostles.
  2. The Shroud of Turin. The Catholic Church has never taken a position on its authenticity. However, the evidence cited against its authenticity has been refuted. particularly, the Carbon dating to the 1300s has been questioned because of the evidence thatthe strands used in this study could have been from medieval efforts to fix the shroud. The idea that the image has been painted on has been thoroughly refuted. There is no evidence of paint pigment on the shroud…
  3. Sudarium of Oviedo,. I’ve never even heard of this before but I did a little research. Again, the Catholic Church has never taken a position on its authenticity. There is debate about the quality of the carbon dating and there are some consistency with the shroud of Turin in terms of physical data (same blood type, same length of nose, etc)
  4. lead codices. These were only found last year and were shown to be fakes. The Catholic Church never claimed anything about these being evidence of Christ
  5. Dead Sea Scrolls. These are not used to support Christianity, other than to show that they do support the CAtholic view of the old testament canon.
  6. Christ’s Crown of Thorns: Again, the Church has never taken a position on the authenticity of these relics
  7. The Bible: These include eyewitness accounts and the Church defends their authenticity. But keep in mind, that it was the eyewitness of the apostles, passed down through the generations through the bishops that defines the faith. This was true before any of the New Testament was written and certainly long before it was compiled into the bible we know today,
 
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