The Shroud of Turin: What's Your Opinion?

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Pam’s exhibitions are very good, with huge life-size photos of the Shroud in positive and negative, a mock tomb with rolling stone, and representations of some of the arma Christi. However, they are over dependent on outdated, and sometimes discredited discoveries, and there is no mention of any evidence contrary to the Shroud’s authenticity.

And no, the Shroud doesn’t travel AT ALL, let alone A LOT! These are photographed copies, sometimes quite good ones on cloth, but not the real thing. But I’m sure you knew that!
 
www.catholic.com

Trial of the Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is an ancient burial cloth containing the front and back images of a scourged, crucified man whom many believe is Jesus Christ. It is the most-studied artifact in human history.
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The pieces of the cloth that were cut from the ends of Shroud for the testing were in fact, pieces of fabric that were of medieval repairs on the Shroud. The textile is much different and not of the same high quality of the herringbone weave of the type that was used during Jesus’s time. The tests would indeed show a medieval age as that was when those particular repairs were carried out.
 
This “Trial” first appeared in 2014. It’s fun, but, as any such reconstruction by one or other of the chief attorneys must almost inevitably be, it’s hopelessly biased. The article begins with that famous quotation from Walsh that is so simplistic as to be fatuous. “Either the most awesome and instructive relic … or one of the most ingenious, most unbeleivably clever products of the human mind … there is no middle ground.” This is transparent nonsense, and, while attempting from the start to prejudice the impartial reader in favour of the Shroud, predudices me in exactly the other direction.
Sadly (and of course a realistic ‘transcript’ would be far too long to include in a magazine article) we cannot read of the examination, and cross examination, of the witnesses. We hear that “experts” have established the journey of the Shroud from 1st century Jerusalem to 21st century Turin, but we do not read how they established it, or how the defence attorney queried it. We hear Zugibe’s, Piczek’s, Marino and Benford’s and Rogers’s evidence, but we do not hear how they responded to cross-examination. We even read that the radiocarbon dating was “likely fraudulent” without any evidence at all.
But Shauf’s biggest error (and being a lawyer he may have made it deliberately) was to make the defence speech exactly the opposite of what he said it had to be at the beginning, namely an attempt to demonstrate how the shroud was made. He explains on on the first page that “the prosecution … must establish the defendant’s guilt … beyond reasonable doubt.” It is therefore quite unnecessary for the defence to attempt to provide alternative explanations, and the list Shauf presents is both incomplete and over-simplistic. If I were defending the putative thief, I would not bother with them at all. I certainly would not attempt to prove that one or other of them was the truth. But I would convince the jury that not a single one of the pages of evidence supporting the authenticity of the shroud was proof beyond reasonable doubt, and although many of them would instinctively think I was wrong, my client would walk free!
 
Rasoleil, where on earth are you getting your ideas from? Not a single phrase of your posting is true.
  1. The radiocarbon sample was not cut from the ends of the Shroud.
  2. The samples were not medieval repairs.
  3. The textile is indistinguishable from the rest of the Shroud.
  4. There is no 3/1 herringbone twill cloth from Jesus’s time, and there were no looms that could make it.
  5. The medieval date was achieved because the Shroud is a medieval artefact.
Of these, even all authenticists agree with 1, and most of them agree with 2 and 3 as well.
 
JimG said:
Trial of the Shroud of Turin | Catholic Answers
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Thanks for a great article. I must point out, however, that the “invisible reweaving” hypothesis has been dis-proven and is out of date*. Fortunately, due to the research of Antonacci and Rucker,* we now have a much better theory to explain the Shroud’s C-14 dating of 1195 to 1448**, and that theory is the Historically Consistent Hypothesis.

*TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015
** as determined by the above.
 
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A SPLENDID RELIC

“. . .several Popes have stated theirs views unhesitatingly: already Pius XI had spoken of it as an image ‘surely not of human making,’ and John Paul II clearly described it as ‘the most splendid relic of both Passion and Resurrection.’ (L’Osservatore Romano, 7 September 1936 and 21-22 April 1980).”**

**THE TEMPLARS AND THE SHROUD OF CHRIST, Frale, 2011 (Introduction, pg 12)
 
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Do you actually think that I’m making all of my points up with no factual basis? There have been hundreds and hundreds of scholarly, historical, scientific articles, cultural, and every field that you can name, and not to mention multiple books on the Shroud. Just for one example, I know a textile expert that has proven ( anyone can see from closeup photos) of the herringbone weave, a weave that existed hundreds of years before Christ. Every point of view has been represented as can be expected. Just for example, look up the Shroud of Turin website ( www.shroud.com) , that has been existence for 20 years, and you will see a wealth of information, pro and con and everything in between, regarding the authenticity of the Shroud. Every point that I have made has been proven or theorized by scores of scientists, and not something I’d pull out of the air. But seriously, check out the website, and if you’re truly interested in the Shroud, I’d advise you to check it out. It will take you days, if not months to read every article on the site.
 
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www.shroud.com has been in existence for 20 years and will give you a wealth of information ( hundreds of articles, books, lectures) on the shroud, both pro and con and everything in between.
 
Rasoleil said:
I know a textile expert that has proven ( anyone can see from closeup photos) of the herringbone weave, a weave that existed hundreds of years before Christ.
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I agree with you, Herringbone weaving did date well before the Living Christ. Ramesses III Girdle was made in a herringbone fashion. He was assassinated 1155 BC

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The crisscrossing herringbone structure allowed for the compression and movement in cloth/clothing no different to the long lasting herringbone structure of the Roman Roads.

Celtic history: horsehair herringbone cloth has also been found in Ireland from around 600 B.C

Archeology always reminds me how talented our ancestors where.
 
Do you actually think that I’m making all of my points up with no factual basis?
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Not all of your points, no. But the ones I mentioned, yes. Not necessarily intentionally, and sometimes, no doubt, you have lifted an untruth from somebody else, assuming it was true.
I know a textile expert that has proven ( anyone can see from closeup photos) of the herringbone weave, a weave that existed hundreds of years before Christ.
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This is a perfect case in point. There are lots of these thin bands, mostly from Egypt, woven in much more elaborate patterns than the Shroud, using Tablet Weaving, which is a remarkably simple technique which can lead to astonishingly complex patterns. It is wholly useless for manufacturing sheets of cloth, as the textile expert you mentioned knew very well. For that, heddles are required, to raise thousands of threads at a time, and in the case of the Shroud, four of them. No cloth woven on any kind of four-heddle loom in known from the first century, in Egypt, China, Scandinavia, or anywhere else. You probably have not researched this, but don’t worry, you are not alone. Very few believers in the authenticity of the Shroud care to delve too deeply into ‘expert opinion’, as below the entirely superficial, it has never yet substantiated any of the evidence they require for conformation.
Just for example, look up the Shroud of Turin website.
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I do, often. I have even contributed to it. I have also communicated personally with many of its other contributors (alas, so many have died now) to find out a little more about their evidence. I have even bought all the papers only accessible behind pay-walls.
Every point that I have made has been proven or theorized by scores of scientists, and not something I’d pull out of the air.
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No. Let’s have a look at the others, shall we? [continued]
 
[continued]
The pieces of the cloth that were cut from the ends of Shroud for the testing…
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A single piece of cloth was cut from one corner. You know that, I’m sure. and I’m sure you think it’s pernickety to quibble about “ends” rather than “end”. However, details in these matters count.
… were in fact, pieces of fabric that were of medieval repairs on the Shroud.
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No. This idea was the first proposed by Sue Bedford and Joe Marino, who obtained verification of sorts from some textile companies to whom they sent a photo of the Zurich sub-sample. On the basis of a single square centimetre, the companies suggested that the weave on one side of the ‘herringbone’ spine was more irregular than on the other, which could be evidence of different manufacture. Bedford and Marino used this idea to draw a picture of the radiocarbon sample, yellow (original) on one side and pink (medieval piece of fabric) on the other, to claim that each sub-sample contained a proportion of medieval to ancient fabric, sufficient to provide the dates claimed by the labs. This idea was quietly dropped (and replaced by another) when it was pointed out that the labs had cut their sub-samples up even further, so that the medieval/ancient ratio did not apply to some of them, and that ‘pieces of fabric’ have to be attached to each other in some way, which they had not considered at all.
The textile is much different…
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No. Freers and July, in Arizona, and Donna Campbell, in Belfast, studied a fragment and some close-up photos of the radiocarbon sample respectively, and found that there was some loosening of the weave. This was almost certainly due to the process of cutting up such tiny pieces. Otherwise, the radiocarbon sample is indistinguishable from the rest of the Shroud. The latest version of the ‘patch hypothesis’ is that the Shroud was ‘invisibly mended’ precisely in order for it to be indistinguishable from the rest of the Shroud.
… and not of the same high quality of the herringbone weave of the type that was used during Jesus’s time.
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Now you must have made this up. No “herringbone weave of the type that was used during Jesus’s time” exists. In fact there is very little cloth remaining from first century Israel at all (some from Massada and others from tombs) and none of it is high quality. Some authenticists have seen this as a real stumbling block, and speculated that the Shroud was imported from Europe. However, as I mentioned above, no 3/1 herringbone is known from there either.
The tests would indeed show a medieval age as that was when those particular repairs were carried out.
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It is a truism to say that if the Shroud is medieval, a medieval date would result. Which it did.
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
It is a truism to say that if the Shroud is medieval, a medieval date would result. Which it did.
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C-14 dating is very accurate with a range of about 5%, plus or minus. So if a supposedly 700 year old sample yields C-14 dates that show a 250 variance in the raw data, then something unexpected has happened to that sample. The C-14 labs refused to consider the possibility that the story of Matthew about the disappearance of the holy corpse might have affected the C-14 results. ***

So it can be just a much of a “truism” to say that even if the Shroud is ancient, a medieval date might result.

***TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015
 
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undead_rat said:
C-14 dating is very accurate with a range of about 5%, plus or minus. So if a supposedly 700 year old sample yields C-14 dates that show a 250 variance in the raw data, then something unexpected has happened to that sample.
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Forgive me if I disagree with this without explaining why. From, earlier posts it is not clear to me that you understand enough about radiocarbon dating to understand.
The C-14 labs refused to consider the possibility that the story of Matthew about the disappearance of the holy corpse might have affected the C-14 results.
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What nonsense. They were not asked to consider a miraculous explanation for why their results disagreed with an authenticist point of view, so they didn’t refuse.
 
Thank you for your opinion, and I really mean that. You took time to respond and give your opinion to every point that I mentioned, by explaining some facts of which I was unaware. You do have valid views and you have added to my knowledge of the Shroud. I appreciate others views and make an effort to learn from others.
 
That’s quite OK. I participate in Shroud discussion forums for various reasons, but one of the most important is to emphasise to all interested parties, authenticist or non-authenticist, the importance of primary sources, and the duty of the historian not to arbitrarily accept one and reject the other, but to understand why they differ, and try to assess the probable truth from both. In this I differ from lawyers like Mark Antonacci (undead_rat’s principal reference) or Lawrence Schauff (mentioned by JimG above), whose declared intention is to persuade people of a particular point of view using all the wiles of a criminal attorney.
 
Hugh_Farey said:
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undead_rat:
C-14 dating is very accurate with a range of about 5%, plus or minus. So if a supposedly 700 year old sample yields C-14 dates that show a 250 variance in the raw data, then something unexpected has happened to that sample.
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Forgive me if I disagree with this without explaining why. From, earlier posts it is not clear to me that you understand enough about radiocarbon dating to understand.
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We have had this discussion before. Your reply was that Mr. Antonacci doesn’t understand, and that his collegue, Prof. Rucker does, but then he collaborated on Antonacci’s book which would have been based on a premise that he disagrees with. As you say, sir, “What nonsense!”

From TEST THE SHROUD:
Based on private correspondence with two scientists at Oxford and one at Arizona, chemist Remi Van Haelst states that the British Museum solved this problem [the 250 year variance] by asking Arizona to combine or essentially average the two radiocarbon sample ages from each of the four above dates … . The British Museum and the Arizona laboratory thus combined eight measurements into only four . … This combination was not mentioned in the official “NATURE” report containing the Shroud’s radiocarbon date of 1260-1390 with 95% certainty. . …
[Dr. Brian] Walsh states that his statistical analysis indicates leads to the conclusion that Shroud subsamples each contained differing levels of C-14. Furthermore, his analysis indicates that a relationship exists between the C-14 content within each sample and thier location on the cloth.
Walsh’s statistical analysis indicates that the C-14 content within the samples increases with their distances from the edge or bottom of the cloth. . . Moreover, if Arizona’s two youngest ages of 540 and 574 weren’t completely eliminated from the [NATURE] report, this correlation would have been more obvious to everyone who read the report. …
Furthermore, they [the coordinators at the British Musem] should have revealed the raw data from all three laboratories, explaining that the outliers were too great for a sufficient degree fo certainty.
 
Hugh_Farey said:
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undead_rat:
The C-14 labs refused to consider the possibility that the story of Matthew about the disappearance of the holy corpse might have affected the C-14 results.
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What nonsense. They were not asked to consider a miraculous explanation for why their results disagreed with an authenticist point of view, so they didn’t refuse.
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From TEST THE SHROUD:
It was [Harvard physicist Thomas] Phillips who first suggested in light of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and the Shroud’s body images and their general properties, that the body wrapped within it could have irradiated neutrons. He noted that this event would have created C-14 atoms (isotopes) whose amounts would “vary in different parts of the Shroud.” . . .
Remarkably, the very first sentence of [Dr. Robert] Hedges’ reply states, “The processes suggested by Phillips were considered by the participating scientists.” In his second sentence he he adds, “However, for the reasons given below, the likelyhood that they influenced the date in the way proposed is in my view so exceedingly small that it beggars scientific credulity.” . …
The failure to consider the evidence [aquired from this burial cloth] or the possibility of such an event [the resurrection] lies at the heart of their erroneous dating results…

I stand corrected. The C-14 dating scientists did consider the idea that the disappearance of the corpse would have affected the C-14 content of the Shroud’s linen, and they rejected that idea as “beggaring scientific credulity.”
 
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