The Shroud of Turin: What's Your Opinion?

[petra22]

Is that a book or a set of scrolls he is holding in the picture???

 

[abucs]

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.

Which brings us neatly to your thoughts on the Hungarian Prayer Index and how the pictures therein of Jesus’ shroud has been said to copy the Turin shroud in the weave of the cloth and the ‘L’ shaped burn holes.

Of course the Index is said to be from before the earliest carbon dating date given to the Turin Shroud.

 

[Lost4words]

No need to search as the Shroud of Turin is the one and only Shroud. It is indeed the Shroud of Christ.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Yes. I wonder who it was who first associated the Pray Codex pictures with the Shroud. I’m afraid I think a great deal of nonsense has been written about it, although there are a couple of mysterious elements which I will agree are difficult to explain. Still, here we go…

There are two pictures on one page of the Pray Codex which show the Anointing and the Three Women at the Tomb. In subject matter, and iconography they are wholly concordant with thousands of other similar pictures.

Bodies with arms crossed over the pelvis are as common was those with arms by the side or crossed over the chest, and the convention of not showing thumbs is also quite common. The body of Christ shows quite a young person, with no beard or moustache. He looks nothing at all like the the man in the Shroud. Some authenticists identify a tiny smudge above the Pray Christ’s right eye as the episilon blood mark over the left eye of the Shroud Christ, which I think is unrealistic - it is incredible, in my view, that an artist could fail to copy anything at all accurate about the face of Christ except to make a tiny dot over one eye. I concede that the fact that Christ is nude is unusual.

The picture below, like thousands of others, shows the tomb of Christ, a curiously angled, rectangular lid, and the crumpled shroud of Christ on top. An angel stands on the lid, and three women attend. The angled lid is patterned with a series of concentric zig-zag pyramids. There is no possibility that this lid can be the shroud, and the claim that the zig-zag pyramids in any way resemble herringbone weave is too far fetched to be credible. However, both the tomb below, and its lid, do have designs of little circles on them, which some authenticists insist must reflect the pattern of the alleged ‘poker holes’. I find that incredible, although I certainly admit I don’t know why they are there myself. As with every other version of the “Three Marys” or “Holy Women at the Tomb” I have ever seen - and I have seen hundreds - there is no suggestion of an image on the Shroud.

ps. The Codex is named after its discoverer Gyorgy Pray, and has nothing to do with ‘Prayer’, although it is, in general, a prayer book.

[new edit] pps. A Codex is the general term for an early manuscript “book” as opposed to a “scroll”. It is not an Index. The Pray Codex doesn’t have an Index…

 

[Lost4words]

Have you seen how naive / childlike the drawings on the bayeux tapestry are? Its the same with the many ‘drawings / paintings’ from centuries past. The pray codex is a good example of that.

 

[undead_rat]

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

The evidence mentioned by prominent theologians such as James Tabor is very simply the confluence of the C-14 data with the first European public appearance of the Shroud.

Skeptics say that it is just not credible to regard this confluence as a coincidence. I have previously addressed this issue as to why I think that the C-14 data appears to coincide with the Shroud’s public display in 1357.
It is no coincidence.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Skeptics say that it is just not credible to regard this confluence as a coincidence. I have previously addressed this issue as to why I think that the C-14 data appears to coincide with the Shroud’s public display in 1357.

You have indeed. For the benefit of those who might have missed it, you wrote: “this ought to be a sign to us that our Creator is willing to trick those who oppose Him”.

 

[nooooby]

Thank you both for the replies.

So I suppose that for me, the lack of a contemporary parallel is what gives me the biggest pause for thought.

This is indeed a point that reason holds up as anomalous.

The evidence mentioned by prominent theologians such as James Tabor is very simply the confluence of the C-14 data with the first European public appearance of the Shroud.

Skeptics say that it is just not credible to regard this confluence as a coincidence. I have previously addressed this issue as to why I think that the C-14 data appears to coincide with the Shroud’s public display in 1357.
It is no coincidence.

Sir, are you saying that it is the C14 dating that is the main evidence pointing to the Shroud as a fake? Or are you saying rather that there is zero evidence indicating it is a fake?

 

[undead_rat]

Sir, are you saying that it is the C14 dating that is the main evidence pointing to the Shroud as a fake? Or are you saying rather that there is zero evidence indicating it is a fake?

The British Museum’s interpretation of the Shroud’s C-14 data together with the Shroud’s unprovenanced appearance in 1357 are what skeptics such as Joe Nickell cite as the irrefutable reasons for the Shroud being a medieval creation.
I think that I have already expressed my opinion as to exactly how much evidence actually exists that the Shroud of Turin is such a creation.

 

[nooooby]

Ok, I think it is reasonably safe to conclude the following:

The C14 dating is the largest issue (but not the only issue) facing the authenticists. This matches my anecdotal experience with friends, family and colleagues (pretty much all secular) who when asked about the Shroud state either, “what’s the Shroud?” or for the older people “science has proved its a fake, it is irrelevant” (referring to the C14 dating).

The uniqueness problem is one of the largest (if not the largest) issue facing the sceptics. Nothing in this world is truly unique, so if something is…

Enough doubt has been cast on the C14 dating with new data to bolster its authenticity becoming available that my own position (as stated) is that I think it is authentic based upon the balance of probabilities.

In order to change people to believe in authenticity or that it is a fake to the test of beyond reasonable doubt, more concrete information needs to be available.

To that end, my next question to Mr Farey and undead_rat is the following:

If you were both (separately) given practically unlimited access with an unlimited budget with only 1 condition that you cannot damage the Shroud in any way (my Opus Dei hit team will monitor very closely), what test(s) would you and your crack team conduct to bring reasonable people to believe beyond reasonable doubt your side of the argument?

I apologise for the personalising of these questions, of course anybody can answer, but the leading protagonists seem to be the right people to answer the questions quickly.

 

[undead_rat]

. … what test(s) would you and your crack team conduct to bring reasonable people to believe beyond reasonable doubt your side of the argument?

Mark Antonacci has postulated that new C-14 testing would show even younger dates that the youngest so far of 1448. He thinks that, for every inch that a Shroud sample becomes closer to the Image, its C-14 date will become younger by about 100 years until impossible future dates are recorded. That’s quite a prediction.

I have already stated my own thoughts on this subject. My opinion is that Pia’s 1898 photo showed that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus, and that all subsequent findings and data must be seen as corollaries to that proof. The STURP investigation supported Pia’s evidence. One thing was lacking and that was proof that the Shroud’s Image was formed by a miraculous event. The evidence was provided by the 1988 carbon fourteen dating which would have only been indicative of a date if it had shown an age of 2000 years. Since it did not, and since (in my opinion) the Shroud had already been proved to be authentic, the 1988 C-14 data must be regarded as indicating an event rather than a date. That event, of course, was the vanishing of our Lord’s corpse from this world into another dimension.

So, in answer to your question, my opinion is that no further testing is needed. It’s a done deal, just as much as the belief that our solar system is heliocentric.

 

[nooooby]

Mark Antonacci has postulated that new C-14 testing would show even younger dates that the youngest so far of 1448. He thinks that, for every inch that a Shroud sample becomes closer to the Image, its C-14 date will become younger by about 100 years until impossible future dates are recorded. That’s quite a prediction.

Indeed it is, before anybody else jumps on your post it does seem obvious that the prediction would need to be demonstrated by new comprehensive C-14 testing. This would be a clear way to move to the test of beyond reasonable doubt assuming the hypothesis was demonstrated by new tests.

In addition, since 1978, scientific tests and instruments have only gotten more accurate and comprehensive, not less. A new STURP 2020 would surely reinforce one side of the argument or the other.

Let us see how Mr Farey answers before I finish my series of questions!

 

[TheOldColonel]

Indeed, let us see.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

If you were both (separately) given practically unlimited access with an unlimited budget with only 1 condition that you cannot damage the Shroud in any way (my Opus Dei hit team will monitor very closely), what test(s) would you and your crack team conduct to bring reasonable people to believe beyond reasonable doubt your side of the argument?

The best ‘find’ for me would a record in some European archive of an Easter Sepulchre (of which there are countless) holding a life-size figure of Christ (of which there are a few), wrapped in a cloth with an image of the figure on it (currently none). I do not know if any such thing still exists, but I believe that it certainly used to, and would spend quite a lot of my research grant looking through the archives of convents, monasteries, and churches to see if there is any reference to it.
As for the Shroud itself, then a better organised and more transparent radiocarbon test from a place selected by an ardent authenicist would obviously be good, and sufficient scrapings of ‘blood’ to see if it can be characterised to the sartisfaction of non-authenticists as well as authenticists. I think the nature of the image can probably be detected by comprehensive close up photography using light and UV.
Some of this may have been done already, but the results retained unpublished.

 

[nooooby]

Thank you both (Mr Farey and undead_rat) for your time in answering, I take the responses to indicate what most reasonable people would conclude that a new series of tests using the latest technologies, and in particular new dating tests to prove/disprove the various hypotheses, are the surest way to confirm either sides position.

My final question for now is again a general question called Schrodinger’s Shroud:

undead_rat, you were sacked as lead of STURP 2020 and replaced by myself who led the most intensive series of scientific tests on any historical object that has ever been conducted. It was an unmitigated success! Not only was Antonacci’s theory proved beyond reasonable doubt, but the latest tests utilising AI produced corroboration not only of a 1st century AD provenance, but indicate that the image was produced using an amount of energy impossible for 21st century man to reproduce, let alone Roman, i.e. prima facie evidence of a miracle.

Mr Farey, congratulations! you led your team to the definitive proof of a medieval date of 1300 using the very latest dating techniques. On top of that, you also make the discovery of your career, a 13th century manuscript called “How I made the Shroud and why” by Giuseppe Bloggs, a lesser known Italian artist. Even better, using the latest scientific instruments you find his signature on the back of the Shroud dated 1291 and a Latin phrase translated as “I bet they take ages to work out how I made this!”

My question to you gentlemen and any other contributors is - So what?
given the above scenarios, all of your dreams come true, what are the short and medium term consequences on:

1. main stream media - what is their reaction?
2. The Catholic Church - what is the Pope’s reaction?
3. the majority secular people in the west?
4. the Catholic faithful?

thank you in advance.

 

[bobperk]

I have read a lot of this thread (not all of it) so I apologize if this question has been asked previously. But, if the Shroud were indeed the work of an artist, are there any theories on who the artist was? Would someone have really been such a “one hit wonder” as to produce something as elaborate as the Shroud but nothing else? Or to remain anonymous, not taking credit for it despite the presumed popularity of it? Thank you.

 

[undead_rat]

It’s my belief that the Shroud will never again be scientifically tested.
1, It is now the property of the Bishop of Rome, and, having been burned once by the crime of false witness that was committed by the British Museum, the Church’s leaders are not again going to subject the most sacred Christian relic in the world to abuse by an atheist head of a C-14 dating lab.
2. Ominous predictions are in the wind concerning our Popes and the Church in general. It is entirely possible that the Shroud will be destroyed by para-military forces that hate the Church. I am speaking of the visions of Pope St. Pius X together with the 112th phrase that was published in 1595. Number 112 is the only complete sentence in the entire list of 113, a fact which may signify the completion of S.R.E.

 

[leonhardprintz]

112th phrase that was published in 1595

You’re referring to the prophecies of St. Malachy?
undead_rat":

a fact which may signify the completion of S.R.E.

What is ‘S.R.E’ an abbreviation of?

 

[nooooby]

Sir, you have answered a different question… Given that I want make a conclusion after the answers I will try to answer for you.

• main stream media - what is their reaction?
• The Catholic Church - what is the Pope’s reaction?
• the majority secular people in the west?
• the Catholic faithful?

The Shroud is proved to be authentic beyond reasonable doubt scenario:

The MSM is likely to go into overdrive on a global basis. Sceptics and atheists across the world would have the biggest challenge to their beliefs and lifestyles in living memory, in the MSM all hell would break loose. Literally.

The RCC and Pope would surely use the Shroud in a prominent way to spread its core message, belief in Christ and repentance.

The faithful would be re-energised, in a similar way as to the when St JPII did his global trips.

The secular west would be given a test based upon their own formula of “science has to prove it before I believe it”. We can speculate on what would happen, but it is clear there would be no escaping the choice people would have to make, reject even what science is indicating is true and carry on regardless, or take a very different path…

If anybody thinks the above is not likely to be the consequences of science proving the Shroud to be authentic, of course please say.

I look forward to reading what the alternative scenario would likely entail.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Mr Farey, congratulations!

Love it. But it will all turn out to be a damp squib. It wouldn’t reach the front pages of national newspapers. Headlines such as “Turin Shroud a fake - again” will be typical, although no doubt there will be some interest in the artist and his method in more specialist journals. The Catholic Church will say that as it has never endorsed the Shroud as genuine, and already accepted, albeit provisionally, that it wasn’t, the new information does not change anything at all. The See of Turin might formally realise that the Shroud in fact belongs to the Italian Government after all, who will henceforward be responsible (especially financially) for its upkeep and exhibition. Hardly any secular people will notice, and those who do will say that nothing surprising has occurred at all. A few ‘rabid atheists’ will delight in claiming that Christianity has been comprehensively discredited, but nobody will listen to them. The Catholic faithful will carry on carrying on. Undead-rat will claim that the whole thing has been fixed by the Baha’i, who have smuggled the real Shroud to Arizona, were it is buried somewhere on the set of the Moon Landings, under the custodianship of the elderly Elvis Presley.