The Shroud of Turin: What's Your Opinion?

[undead_rat]

The theology of Jesus’ holy Image on the Shroud as the Sign of Jonah is a very recent development. Our Church fathers could not make that connection because the Shroud (Image of Edessa) was not publicly recognized as a burial cloth. Therefore it could not be thought of as the Sign of Jonah. As we know, several legends arose to explain His facial Image (not made by hands), and none of them were true.

In 1357 the Shroud was publicly presented as Jesus’ burial cloth. In 1898 Pia’s astounding negative plate proved that this postulation was correct, but did not prove a miraculous origin of Jesus’ Image. The approbation of “Not made by hands,” while suggesting a supernatural source, also allows for a natural event. Indeed, Vignon’s published research of 1902 dismisses a radiological mechanism for the Image formation by saying that no known way for a human corpse to emit the necessary radiation existed. Vignon postulated a “vapor” theory of Image formation, an idea that has now been shown to be false.

Not until the C-14 dating results of 1988 and their correct interpretation by the Antonacci/Rucker team in 2015 have we known for sure that a miracle was the mechanism by which our Lord’s sacred Image was imprinted onto His burial Shroud. And now that we are sure of that miracle we can make the connection to the ancient Sign of Jonah that Jesus predicted.

Luke 11:29-32 adds an additional element to this marvelous sign: the warning to repent or suffer the consequences of divine destruction. In my opinion, the Sign of Jonah is that warning to this present generation to give up its evil ways, and those evil was are nothing else that our development and deployment of massive instruments of destructive retaliation. Jesus warned us against the philosophy of retaliation, preaching the philosophy of returning good for evil. The Vatican has condemned our MAD protocol as a “negative peace.”

The fulfillments of Luke 12:49 and Luke 21:34-35 are just around the corner and will happen in the 21st century.

 

[Sursum-Corda]

Can I put it this way?

Even if the shroud is a medieval forgery and as we now live in an age of the Catholic Church when the principle of non contradiction has been abandoned this all means that the shroud is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus even though it is,nt.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

What surprises me is that there are those who are equally obsessed in the other direction, with wanting to prove the shroud a fake.

That would surprise me too. I don’t know anyone else who even studies the research critically, let alone ‘wants’ to prove it a fake. I think probably Joe Nickell, who did lead a bit of a campaign, did want to demonstrate (scientists don’t do ‘proof’) that the Shroud was a fake, but he hasn’t got involved recently. There are a number of people who think the Shroud is medieval, but that’s not the same as wanting it to be.

 

[ConstantLearner]

Not really. People recover from a remarkable variety of apparently fatal injuries.

Yes, they do, but not often, if ever, in the first century, and why would they be wearing a crown of thorns?

 

[ConstantLearner]

I can understand that there are Catholics who are totally convinced of the authenticity of the Shroud, just like there are Catholics who are believers in a particular private revelation. What surprises me is that there are those who are equally obsessed in the other direction, with wanting to prove the shroud a fake. There are those who believe in the Medugorge apparations. I don’t, but I don’t become obsessed with trying to prove them wrong.

I don’t believe in the Medugorje apparitions, either, and I, too, have no desire to prove them fake. If they are genuine, I will learn the truth some day.

I tend to believe the Shroud is genuine, but I don’t have the scientific training like some of you to really debate the issue. I just do not see how it could be a product of the medieval art world. If it would have been, say, created by a camera obscura, as some contend, then where are all the other camera obscura creations? The Shroud is unique, and that uniqueness, to me, adds to the fact that I tend to believe in its authenticity.

 

[Vanny]

I believe it’s genuine.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

I just do not see how it could be a product of the medieval art world. If it would have been, say, created by a camera obscura, as some contend, then where are all the other camera obscura creations? The Shroud is unique, and that uniqueness, to me, adds to the fact that I tend to believe in its authenticity.

This is a common position, and one I have some sympathy with. I too find the various hypotheses involving photography inherently improbable, as I cannot believe that such an astonishing discovery would not have been used for other things. That is why I have been searching for an artistic context which does not seem unrealistic. It is not, I believe, that the Shroud is unique - after all, almost every artwork is unique - but that it seems to lack anything even remotely parallel. However, I think that that is largely due to looking in the wrong place, and lack of research. For many years, non-authenticists were too engaged in showing how the Shroud could not to be first century, at the expense of showing how it could be medieval. I have been attempting to redress that balance recently.

 

[nooooby]

You have summarised my position perfectly, thank you!

 

[nooooby]

Mr Farey, thank you for the reply. I work away and it is impossible for me to post until I return to home at the weekend, which makes it difficult to engage. I think it is correct to finish this dialogue as I believe it has been an important contribution to this thread, namely your motivation as a leading “sceptic”.

You have kindly answered my question, to be clear, your motivation for seeking to demonstrate that the Shroud is non-authentic is to evangelise for the Catholic faith. I have expressed my view that I find it illogical, it is for the readers to make their own judgement. God will in the end be the final judge!

Perhaps you were attempting to set me up for a fall, or perhaps I am reading too much into this last comment.

You are reading to much, see above.

No. That you can characterise my approach as “demolishing” a “relic” itself suggests an unwillingness to engage

On the point of engagement, this is both illogical and unfair. I have ipso facto been engaging with you by asking about your motivation. It is unfair given my stated inability to reply during the week, although you were not to know this.

Finally, I used the word “demolish” deliberately, the OED defines this as: “Comprehensively refute (an argument or its proponent)” I think this accurately characterises your approach.

Having established your motivation, what this heavily reminds me of is iconoclasm, with yourself as the main iconoclast regarding the Shroud. This is very much in the tradition of Byzantine iconoclasm, the Protestant position over idolatry and sacred images and of course the Islamic prohibition on images of Mohammad etc.

 

[nooooby]

I didn’t say ‘said’ I said ‘seem to be implying’, I was careful to use this sentence. I means what you’re saying appears to have that intention, not that it does. Leaving you room to qualify yourself.

The statement is a straw man, I do not want anybody to be hushed, quite the reverse. I notice you did not withdraw your comment as I asked.

You worry that the questioning is “demolishing” something that in your eyes is “the most important” relic, and to you an important means of evangelisation.

Have I mischaracterised you?

This is a total reversal of my position, so yes you have mischaracterised me. It is Mr Farey who has stated his motivation for his posts is evangelisation, not myself.

The Shroud is part of the rich Catholic tradition of relics, sacred art and objects that together sets the Western Catholic Church apart from the other Christian denominations and would be even if it is a fake. It is certainly not doctrine or dogma. If however, at some future point in time, it becomes accepted (for whatever reason) that it was authentic, it would naturally become the most important relic we have.

 

[leonhardprintz]

nooooby:

The statement is a straw man, I do not want anybody to be hushed,

Good, thank you for the clarification.

nooooby:

I notice you did not withdraw your comment as I asked.

I have made no false claims. I stated your comment appeared to criticise the small minority of people questioning whether the shroud is genuine relic. There is no reason for me retract that, as that’s how I experienced it.

nooooby:

This is a total reversal of my position, so yes you have mischaracterised me.

No, you pretty much stated that you considered the shroud the most important relic in the entire world, so again, I asked for clarification because that appeared to be hyperbole.

Here let me reproduce your post.

nooooby:

So if I read your comments correctly, you believe your main priority in posting so many detailed posts about the Shroud on a Catholic forum is evangelising to gain more Christians/Catholics by demolishing the single most recognisable and most important Christian/Catholic relic in the world?

I’m not sure why I should believe your claim that I made a ‘total reversal’ of your position.

Either you have a habit of using a lot of hyperbole in your statements, or your mind shifts a lot from one post to the other.

As for why I’m doing it. Then it is not out of a desire to be ‘iconoclastic’ or anything like that, though I think if Catholics were honest we’d agree that over 50% of all “relics” we have now are largely frauds made in a century where the sale and trade of them became highly popular. An embarrasing chapter in the history of the Church.

The shroud is popular because its believed by a lot of Catholics to be a genuine relic of Christ. There is no doubt that this is why it enjoys such an enormous popularity. However I don’t think the typical arguments given for why the shroud is genuine are very good. At the very least, bad arguments for it being genuine deserves to be criticized.

I see no reason why I shouldn’t post such criticism.

I don’t do it for evangelism. I do it because I believe in intellectual integrity, and that Catholics should love truth.

 

[abucs]

Hello Hugh,

do you have any comment on the Spanish cloth of Oviedo that has a documented history I believe that goes back to at least to the 7th century and which I have heard many times on Shroud documentaries that it has many 'points of congruence (agreement) with the shroud of Turin.

The cloth is purported to contain blood stains and is suggested to have been the cloth around Jesus head as he was taken down from the cloth.

I am assuming the charge against it is that there is not really a science of post mortem blood stains of face shrouds and that such findings start from a position of knowing what you want to find and then ‘finding the evidence’ accordingly.

 

[thistle]

We most certainly do know that the miraculous Image on the Shroud is that of Jesus.

We most certainly do NOT KNOW that. It is your opinion. It is NOT A FACT.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

I work away and it is impossible for me to post until I return to home at the weekend, which makes it difficult to engage.

That’s quite alright.

I think it is correct to finish this dialogue as I believe it has been an important contribution to this thread, namely your motivation as a leading “sceptic”.

Fine.

On the point of engagement, this is both illogical and unfair. I have ipso facto been engaging with you by asking about your motivation.

You have indeed. It seemed to me that at this point, however, you wanted to leave the arguments for and against the authenticity of the Shroud to one side, and concentrate more on the motives of the presenters. Nothing wrong with that, although I hope that my credibility rests on my presentation of evidence and the conclusions I draw from them rather than my motives for posting at all.

Your next few sentences show that you try to consider your words carefully, which is splendid. I do the same myself. However, “demolishing” a “relic” is not at all the same thing as “demolishing” an “argument” as I’m sure you’ll agree. As I said before, if the Shroud of Turin is not a “relic”, then I am obviously not “demolishing” it. If it is a relic, then I have no more wish to “demolish” it than the most ardent authenticist.

No doubt you also used the word ‘iconoclast’ advisedly. Unfortunately, it is, I fear, ill chosen, as quite clearly I am the opposite of an iconoclast. I champion the image, and other images. If you mean that the motive behind iconoclasm was to prevent people worshipping idols, then I don’t think it applies to me, as I don’t think people worship the Shroud. What’s more, the concept of the acheiropoieton (and belief in both such objects and their value) was to some extent advanced by the iconoclastic movement precisely in order to permit ‘miraculous’ images while at the same time condemning man-made ones.

I have already stated that I am not a Baha’i. Do I now have to state formally that I am not a Protestant or a Muslim?!

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Do you have any comment on the Spanish cloth of Oviedo that has a documented history I believe that goes back to at least to the 7th century

I am not an expert on the Sudarium of Oviedo as most of the investigations carried out on it have not been published, and those few that have are mostly in Spanish and not on the internet. However … (!)

1. The date. The Sudarum of Oviedo seems to have been dated several times - at least twice - and invariably found to be round about the 7th century. The reason for this is most likely to be because it is a 7th century artefact. Just because 700AD is closer to 1st Century than 1300AD is not evidence that the Sudarium is authentic.
2. Pollen. It is often alleged that Max Frei-Sulzer carried out similar studies on the Sudarium to the ones he did on the Shroud. I can find no evidence for this, and note that at the 2007 conference on the Sudarium, palynologist María José Iriarte stated “that she has not been able to identify pollen that could pin the cloth down to any given geographical location.”
3. Blood. The Sudarium does seem to be covered in blood, in a broadly symmetrical pattern which, if the cloth is folded in two, broadly corresponds to the forehead, nose and mouth area of a man. To suggest that the blood on the Sudarium corresponds exactly to the blood on the Shroud is extraordinary. There is almost no blood on the face of the Shroud. If the blood on the Sudarium comes from a man, it seems to have flooded out from the nose and mouth, in three separate phases, with time for each phase to dry between each outpouring. Attempts to demonstrate that this could have occurred while the dead body was being lowered from the cross and prepared for burial are to my mind very far fetched. In addition, there is some variation in the alleged ‘serum-stains’ of the Shroud and the Sudarium, in that the first fluoresce under UV light and the second don’t.
   Finally there are some more defined stains on the Sudarium which slightly resemble the blood clots on the back of the Shroud images head. When overlaid, inevitably there are places where these stains overlap, and other places where they don’t. I do not consider this a definitive ‘match’.

 

[nooooby]

you wanted to leave the arguments for and against the authenticity of the Shroud to one side

I actually do want to return to the Shroud! I have some questions, which may contribute to the debate itself, but I wanted to ask re motivation in the first instance. This point has been closed satisfactorily, but I still have a problem which has been prevalent in the responses:

I hope that my credibility rests on my presentation of evidence and the conclusions I draw from them rather than my motives for posting at all.

Quite so, which is where my problem lies. The problem is that I believe you have misconstrued some of my comments, which as you clearly articulate does make me concerned over other points you have made, in particular very detailed and scientific points that are difficult for non-experts like myself to check.
I will give you 2 examples from your last post:

However, “demolishing” a “relic” is not at all the same thing as “demolishing” an “argument” as I’m sure you’ll agree.

It is clear that I did not mean “demolish” in a literal sense, but in the metaphorical sense of proving it is not authentic, i.e. demolish its status. If this is does not describe your position, I don’t know what does.

I have already stated that I am not a Baha’i. Do I now have to state formally that I am not a Protestant or a Muslim?!

I have never said you were a Bahai and it seems to me I used plain and clear language regarding the point around iconoclasm (I expected you to refute this which you duly did). I gave 3 examples of religious iconoclasm, I did not state that you are simultaneously a Byzantine, Protestant and a Muslim, which would be absurd.

The thread should return to the Shroud itself, I quite agree, it is important to make my point though.

 

[undead_rat]

undead_rat:

We most certainly do know that the miraculous Image on the Shroud is that of Jesus.

We most certainly do NOT KNOW that. It is your opinion. It is NOT A FACT.

theflatearthsociety.org

Just because some people postulate that the earth is flat does not mean that heliocentrism is not proven.
And likewise just because skeptics refuse to acknowledge the Shroud of Turin for what it is does not mean that it is not proven to be the burial cloth of Jesus containing His miraculous Image.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

That’s OK. No hard feelings. I didn’t really think you thought I was a Protestant Muslim! By all means hit me with hard questions. Several very sensible points have been made on this thread, and I can’t answer all of them. If I could, the issue of the authenticity of the shroud would be much easier to determine.

 

[nooooby]

Ok, I would like to ask a simple question to the main protagonists of each camp, Mr Farey for the sceptics and undead_rat for the authenticists:

What, if any, is the most compelling evidence/data that indicates the Shroud is the opposite of your stated position?

i.e. for Mr Farey, what is the best evidence that supports authenticity?
for undead_rat, what is the best evidence that supports the fake position?

Thank you in advance

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Oooh, that’s a challenge. What I am searching most earnestly for at the moment is some kind of reference, perhaps in a church inventory, that clearly shows that other ‘shrouds with images’ existed. So I suppose that for me, the lack of a contemporary parallel is what gives me the biggest pause for thought.