The Shroud of Turin: What's Your Opinion?

[leonhardprintz]

Ok, Fanti’s used 13 different test samples to prove the method’s he was using were accurate. Do you want me to publish them?

I was under the impression that both Hugh Farey and I had given a qualitative description of them: Fibres from medieval manuals, fibres from mummy linen. He also had some modern day fibres for control which were the ones he heated to 200C.

This thread has had some consistent themes from the sceptics, eg show me the scientific evidence and we are only interested in the Truth. Well Fanti has provided the scientific evidence and the response we get is akin to modern day Pontius Pilates; “Truth, what is truth?” … greeted with a barrage of these “tests are not valid because we disagree with them”

Would you mind citing us on that? Fanti used a new technique, and both Hugh Farey and I specifically criticized it. I even went to the trouble of describing what Raman spectroscopy was, at least because you seemed to just use technically sounding words and didn’t seem to realize that it was checking chemical composition.

Among other things we both mentioned that it is not clear how one can compare mummy linen fibres to the shroud. One was from a consistent environment, the other has been in dozens of environments, varying levels of humidity, been folded, refolded and unfolded a large number of times and been exposed to two fires!

Fanti never discusses this problem of comparison in the reports. If he does, be my guest, find where he does that. The closest you’ll find is that he heated flax from modern day fibres to 200C in an oven. He found that this test didn’t impact the mechanical test, but it did impact the Raman spectroscopy test “by a few centuries”.

He still felt justified in using the Raman spectroscopy for a date, but I don’t see him doing the necessary precaution with the heat. That requires quite a bit more testing in my opinion.

Where in that, which is one of several points we made, did we go ‘Truth what is truth?’ or ‘We don’t like it therefore its inaccurate’. I personally think the test is novel and interesting, but its problematic.

On the whole the science community hasn’t been interested in Fanti’s technique. You don’t think that’s a problem, but it is. New techniques, new methods, new hypothesis have to gain traction. They need to be in use otherwise we don’t get to see the problems and limitations with them.

I’m sure for reasons like the ones we’ve listed its dubious to see it in use by others, and Fanti hasn’t tried to use the same technique to date other known relics, say one of the countless third-order relics from a martyr, simiarly handled and exposed to similar temperatures.

I’d love to see that, which would help demonstrate the validity of Fanti’s techniques.

 

[leonhardprintz]

I would bet any amount of money that if any new dating tests demonstrate a mediaeval date, the sceptics would be citing them as scientific evidence that corroborates the C14 dating.

Actually both Hugh Farey and I have both stated the kind of evidence that could come into play that would make us change our mind on the shroud. Such as a new C-14 date from the center of the cloth showing a C-14/C-12 ratio consistent with a date in the future for instance. This would support the radiation hypothesis. I haven’t seen any other hypothesis yet that would explain the observed C-14/C-12 ratio.

I have also criticised plenty of theories about how the Shroud came to be. Though not in this thread. Just because I am not convinced it is a genuine relic doesn’t mean I believe all the various mutually inconsistent (and some of them preposterous theories) about how it came about, such as the camera obscura ancient photography technique.

If another C-14 dating was done, from say… the center of the cloth and it yet again confirmed the 14th century date, then if it was done as well as the 1988 test was there’d be little reason to doubt it.

I hope you agree that it would put the authenticist camp in an awkward spot. Even the elaborate radiation hypothesis wouldn’t be able to explain that.

The comments from both Mr Farey and leonhardprintz are very long on rhetoric and very short on peer reviewed science demonstrating that Fanti’s new tests are invalid.

The reasons we state don’t require peer review. They should have been part of the peer review to begin with. Let me let you in on a little secret from science. 90% of all novel papers turn out to be wrong on further tests. A priori, without seeing Fanti’s test used by others and a discussion of its applicability be done, that’s how likely I believe his test would be to be applicable to shroud.

The scientific community at large hasn’t picked up his method. And he hasn’t applied to anything other than the shroud.

We don’t have similar doubts about C-14, its been widely applied across fields of paleontology and archeology.

So Fanti and Rogers made strange new novel tests, using chemical and mechanical properties, with extremely wide margins of error, both of which are susceptible to environmental effects. Their results have not been replicated, and neither’s tests have been replicated by others on other artefacts. The problems I listed, and Hugh Farey listed stands in my opinion.

 

[undead_rat]

How very like Undead_rat you sound!

Sir, you are forgetting that in order to sound like myself one must either be a “blatant liar” or be spouting “incoherent gibberish.” TY

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Thank you for your cooperation.

It’s kind of you to thank me in advance, but I’m afraid I’m not going to co-operate. My credentials can be found on this thread, such as they are, but the reason I won’t repeat them is that your request demonstrates a fairly typical non-scientist approach to a scientific argument, which is to believe that factual information varies in credibility according to the person who repeats it. My views may be wholly inaccurate - I’ve never denied that - but the information I have posted is to the best of my knowledge as exact as I can make it, and usually referenced to boot. If you disagree with my conclusions, that’s fine, I have no problem with that. It you think that something I have said is incorrect, then please point it out and I will be happy to rescind and apologise.

I’m not sure what you mean by my being an accuser. If you mean that I accuse Fr Spitzer of promulgating incorrect information regarding the Shroud, then yes, I do. He says in at least two publicly available lectures on youTube that the Shroud was radiocarbon dated to the 15th century. That’s wrong, and I have shown you how to verify that. Whether I have any qualifications or have ever seen the Shroud has no bearing on whether I’m right or not.

Please continue to ask me questions if you like. I shall be happy to respond as politely as I can!

 

[Lost4words]

Science has no way of authenticating a ‘miracle’. The Shroud is just that!

The carbon dating was flawed. The image cannot be explained by science. They have hit a brick wall when it comes to decifering the Shroud.

I have looked at many reports and videos of the Shroud so i am not whistling in the wind! It is indeed a miracle. Jesus left us His image. Everything points to Our Lord.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

This is an ad-hominin attack that you mean to discredit me with (no offence undead_rat!).

Shockin’. To think that being compared to Undead_rat was a discreditation…

However, to business…

You have manifestly failed to provide this …

Absolutely correct. Prof. Fanrti’s groundbreaking new methods of independently dating textiles without using radiocarbon dating, which could have been extremely useful to the archaeological community in situations where doubt was raised by it, have dropped like a stone without ripples into the vast pond of scientific irrelevance. Nobody has picked it up. Nobody has used these methods for dating (even though they are widely used to determine chemical composition). Nobody has refuted them because nobody cares. What a pity…

… and therefore any reasonable person can conclude there is no such evidence and therefore the point is now conceded.

Which point? The point that Fantis methods are useful? I think not. In order to be useful they at least have to be tried out. The point that Fanti’s methods are valid? I think they are, in principle, as both I and Leonhard have explained. But for the same reasons, as we have also explained, I do not think they can be applied to the Shroud.

Therefore, although you will no doubt try to continue as if nothing has happened …

Certainly not. Although I’m not sure what you think has happened.

… I at least will now participate on this thread on the basis that Prof Fanti’s results have scientifically demonstrated that there is a reasonable basis for a date of origin of the cloth consistent with the authentic case.

Fine. I trust that you will also bear in mind that the person who gave you this ‘reasonable basis’ was a convinced non-authenticist. I have been, and will continue to be, completely impartial in my evidence.

The C14 dating results have now been undermined by these new tests, this is a major problem for the sceptics.

I’m often being told that I have problems with this or that. I don’t, of course, as I do not find Fanti’s or anybody else’s authenticist evidence convincing. What you mean is that it would be a problem if I wished to proselytise my opinion, but I don’t. Barrie Schwortz often tells the story of a man coming up after one of his lectures and saying “Mr Schwortz, you can lecture as long as long as you like, but you will never convince me the Shroud is authentic,” to which Barrie replies, “What makes you think I care what you believe? I’ve given you my evidence and told you my conclusions; the rest is up to you.” I feel just the same.

 

[undead_rat]

Science has no way of authenticating a ‘miracle’. The Shroud is just that!

The carbon dating was flawed. The image cannot be explained by science. They have hit a brick wall when it comes to deciphering the Shroud.

I must respectfully disagree. When it was suggested to the C-14 scientists that they should consider the possibility that the Shroud’s C-14 ratio might have been affected by certain purported historical events, they concluded that, if they were going to consider the possibility of a miracle, then they might as well forgo the C-14 data gathering altogether as being irrelevant.

How wrong they were! Antonacci and Rucker* discovered that the C-14 data was actually evidence that Jesus’ corpse vanished from His tomb! The C-14 data gathering was not flawed, but the atheist head of Oxford’s C-14 lab insisted on wrongly interpreting that data as indicating a date, when, in fact, that data was indicative of an event.

Science has authenticated a miracle, and it was the crime of the century to cover this fact up by misrepresenting the meaning of the evidence—nothing less than the bearing of false witness against our Lord, Jesus Christ.

*TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015

 

[Lost4words]

Ok, but, C-14 dating has been vastly wrong throughout its history. Its not that reliable.

 

[undead_rat]

From TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015:
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 sub-samples each contained differing levels of C-14. Furthermore, his analysis indicates that a relationship exists between the C-14 content within each sample and their 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.

The much ballyhooed “NATURE” report is a lie on two counts.

First, no Shroud expert or theologian was given the opportunity to make an alternate analysis of the Shroud’s C-14 data. For anyone with the understanding that the Shroud had already been proven to be authentic, that data would have been immediately understood to be proof of an event and not of a date. Instead, the atheist Edward Hall was allowed to lead the sole analysis of the Shroud’s (reworked) C-14 data and to present it as a “slam dunk” to the public. Mr. Hall then dismissed the Holy Shroud of Turin as “a load of rubbish!”
The British Museum sealed the deal with its acceptance of Hall’s erroneous conclusions in its NATURE publication. The prestige of that Museum is so great that no serious academic has dared to publish any opinion that contradicts its findings. For instance, the world’s foremost expert on the Image of Edessa, Mark Guscin, writes that this object may very well have been some kind of burial shroud, but not, of course, the Shroud of Turin even though he privately believes that it was the Shroud.

Secondly, the statistical analysis of the Shroud’s C-14 data would not have yielded the published result of 1260 to 1390 if all of the Shroud’s C-14 data had been subjected to that analysis. As detailed by the former prosecuting attorney’s investigation (quoted above), the British Museum was forced to ask for that data to be “reworked” in order to arrive at any date at all.

 

[Lost4words]

What about all the ‘handling’ that the Shroud has gone through during its life? Surely that would cause issues?

 

[undead_rat]

There is no reason to “grasp at straws” here. Leave that to the skeptics.
The Shroud samples were cleaned before being tested, and their radiological data of 1195 to 1448 presents no problem to anyone who understands that the Shroud was proven to be the authentic in 1898 by Pia’s shocking photo negatives.
Pia’s evidence did not prove a miraculous origin of the Shroud’s images, and the STURP scientists were unable to postulate a viable theory as to their formation.
Vignon proposed a “vaporographic” solution to that question of origin, but it was not correct.

The marvelous thing about the 1988 radiological data is that it proves the miraculous origin of the Shroud’s images. They were the result of the vanishing of Jesus’ corpse into another dimension, and a secondary result was the enhancement of the C-14 content of the Shroud’s linen fibers.
It is that enhancement that was discovered in the 1988 C-14 testing, and that testing proves that the Historically Consistent Theory of the Image formation is correct.*

*TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci (in collaboration with nuclear physicist, Robert Rucker,) 2015

 

[Lost4words]

I know. I am just stating that C-14 testing has been drastically wrong over its history. Its not 100% reliable.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

The much ballyhooed “NATURE” report is a lie on two counts.

Well, this is where we came in, of course. I’ve already explained in excruciating detail what the British Museum did with all the results it received from the participating laboratories, and how it was honest about the discrepancies it found. All this is apparent from the paper published in Nature, although it is certainly true that even more detailed results would today be published as Supplements.

There are other ways of explaining the discrepancies, involving miracles, which, not being susceptible to scientific treatment, could not form part of a scientific explanation. Nevertheless, it would be good to radiocarbon test the middle of the Shroud to help reject the particular miraculous hypothesis proposed by Bob Rucker. Until that is done, it is quite wrong to claim that “science has authenticated a miracle”. I’m afraid that wishful thinking like that can only lead to disappointment in the end.

All that stuff about “the atheist head of Oxford’s C-14 lab insisted on wrongly interpreting that data” is mere calumny, and unworthy of a Christian commentator to this forum.

 

[undead_rat]

The real behavior “unworthy of a Christian commentator to this forum” is the stubborn insistence on supporting the atheist head of Oxford’s C-14 lab’s finding that the Holy Shroud of Turin is a “load of rubbish.”

Every point that I made is supported. Wilson reports that Prof. Hall was an “unabashed atheist” who dominated the interpretation of the Shroud’s C-14 data instead of more properly allowing an archaeologist team to do that work: “Hall positively relished the opportunity to be judge, jury, and executioner of the Shroud.”*

Farey’s insistence that a miracle is not “susceptible to scientific treatment” and “could not form part of the scientific explanation” is ridiculous. That is exactly what the Antonacci/Rucker team did with the Shroud’s C-14 data.
Farey’s primary failing (aside from harboring a hidden agenda) is that he refuses to understand that the Shroud of Turin was proven authentic long before the C-14 testing. (He might as well join the Flat Earth Society.) Therefore, if the results of that testing did not show an age of 2000 years, then that data was perforce the evidence that a miracle had happened. And since the miracle that the Gospels report in relation to the linen burial cloth is the vanishing of Jesus’ corpse from His tomb, that is the miracle that we rightly assume to be the cause of the unexpected C-14 data.

*THE SHROUD, Wilson, 2010, pg. 98

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Farey’s primary failing (aside from harboring a hidden agenda) is that he refuses to understand that the Shroud of Turin was proven authentic long before the C-14 testing. (He might as well join the Flat Earth Society.)

Yes, foolish of me no doubt. However, my foolishness is shared by almost everybody else who has ever studied the Shroud. With the exception, as far as I know, of one single advocate for that point of view. Not even Mark Antonacci or Bob Rucker believe that the Shroud has yet been “proven authentic”. Hence the need for further testing, in their view.

 

[Rob2]

The real behavior “unworthy of a Christian commentator to this forum” is the stubborn insistence on supporting the atheist head of Oxford’s C-14 lab’s finding that the Holy Shroud of Turin is a “load of rubbish.”

The behaviour of the Oxford scientists at the press conference they gave about the carbon dating was far from what one would have expected of scientists .

 

[undead_rat]

At this point we might remember Pope Pius XI’s words:

“These are the images of the Divine Redeemer. … They derive from the object, surrounded by mystery, which – this can safely be said – it has now been established is no product of human hands. It is the Holy Shroud at Turin. We say it is surrounded by mystery because much remains unexplained about this affair which is certainly holy as no other is. But this much can be said – it is absolutely certain that it is not the work of man.”

 

[undead_rat]

Aside from its failure to understand the Shroud’s c-14 data, this is a good article.

https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/the-templars-the-shroud/

 

[TheOldColonel]

Nice work, sailor. Hoorah!

 

[Hugh_Farey]

The possibility that the Knights Templar might have held the Shroud in secret between the sack of Constantinople (or even before) and its reappearance in Lirey has been much explored, and is certainly one of a number of possibilities held by the ‘authenticist camp’. It has even been suggested (by the ‘non-authenticist’ camp) that the death of Jacques de Molay (by mock crucifixion and burning) is what is depicted on the Shroud. Although I personally do not believe these ideas, they should not be rejected out of hand. However, to claim, as the article referenced suggests, that is it certain that “the Knights Templars had possession of the shroud and kept it folded in a wooden container with a viewing window, so that the face of the Man in the Shroud was visible as an object of worship for them”, is wholly unjustified. Most convinced authenticists do not accept it at all.

Much has been made in the past of the spurious etymological confusion of “San Greal” (Holy Grail) and “Sang Real” (Royal Blood), and similarly, as here, between “Sant Graille” (Holy Grail) and “Saint Greille” (Holy Grill, or trellis work, providing the window for seeing the Shroud), but the second is even more far fetched than the first, requiring a synecdochian interpretation too extreme, in my opinion. Both the contexts in which these words are found, and the various synonyms unrelated orally in different accounts, render such reconstructions unreliable.