Dr. John P. Jackson / The Shroud of Turin
Posted on 10/07/2009 5:49:28 AM PDT by NYer
.- An Italian scientist is claiming to have re-created the burial cloth believed to have covered the crucified body of Jesus, called the Shroud of Turin. However, CNA spoke with experts who maintain that there are till several major differences between the new shroud and the ancient one.
According to Reuters, Luigi Garlaschelli, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Pavia announced that he and his team “have shown it is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud.” The scientist plans to present his findings at a conference on the paranormal this weekend in Italy.
The Shroud of Turin is considered by many to bear an image of the face of Jesus Christ. Made of herring bone linen, the shroud is nearly four feet by 14 feet and bears faint brown discolorations forming the negative image of a crucified man.
The shroud’s positive image, revealed by modern photography, shows the outline of a bearded man. While skeptics contend that the shroud is a medieval forgery, scientists have been unable to explain how the image appeared on the cloth.
Garlaschelli and his team, who were funded by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics, created their image by placing the linen over a volunteer before rubbing it with a pigment called ochre with traces of acid.
The linen was then “aged” by heating it in an oven and washing it with water. Reuters reports that the team then added blood stains, burn holes and water stains to finalize their product.
CNA spoke with Dr. John Jackson who runs the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado and is a physics lecturer at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Jackson led a team of 30 researchers in 1978 who determined that the shroud was not painted, dyed or stained. He explained to CNA that that based off the Reuters report as well as photos of Garlaschelli’s shroud on the internet, it appeared that it doesn’t exactly match the Shroud of Turin.
Dr. Jackson first questioned the technique used by Garlaschelli’s team, taking issue with the method of adding blood after aging the cloth. Jackson explained that he has conducted “two independent observations that argue that the blood features on the shroud” show “that the blood was on it first, then the body image came second.”
Dr. Keith Propp, a physicist who is also a colleague of Jackson's, told CNA that while Garlaschelli’s shroud “does create an image that could’ve been done in medieval times,” there are a many things that “are not consistent with what the actual shroud shows us.”
For example, he continued, we know that the blood contacted the shroud before the body “because there’s no image beneath the shroud.” He added that this image pattern would be difficult to duplicate “because it would ruin the blood stains.”
Another area concern for the scientists is the three dimensionality of the shroud.
Propp explained that while Garlaschelli’s cloth does have some aspects of light and dark to create a three-dimensional perspective, “it’s nowhere near as sophisticated as the shroud” and that “it misses out on the accuracy and subtleties that are in the actual image.”
Dr. Jackson from the Turin Shroud Center also touched on the same point, saying, “The shroud’s image intensity varies with” the distances in between the cloth and the body. While he admitted that the images of Garlaschelli’s shroud on the internet look authentic, when taken from a 3-D perspective, “it’s really rather grotesque.”
“The hands are embedded into the body and the legs have unnatural looking lumps and bumps,” he explained.
Jackson noted that he or his colleagues would be open to testing the Garlaschelli shroud or any other “idea about the shroud relative to the scientific characteristics that have been documented in respect to the shroud,” however to do so they would need “more detailed information about what was specifically done.”
Garlachelli’s technique has also received criticism from other experts. One scientist from the Shroud Science Group, a private forum of about 100 scientists, historians and researchers provided CNA with some of the critiques made in the forum.
One English-speaking expert explained that the blood used on the Shroud of Turin is not whole blood. “They didn't just go out and kill a goat and paint the blood on the cloth. The blood chemistry is very specific,” he said explaining that the blood is from “actual wounds.”
He added that most of the blood on the shroud flowed after death. “The side wound and the blood that puddles across the small of the back are post-mortem blood flows,” he said, adding that blood flowing after death “shows a clear separation of blood and serum.”
Propp added, “In some ways, it comes out better than most others I’ve seen before. Still there are too many things – the shroud is more than just the image.”
Jackson also pointed out that Garlaschelli’s findings have yet to be peer reviewed. What scientists need “to do is present their work for publication before their peers.”
He explained that any person can conduct his or her own research, but it doesn’t matter whether or not the author believes his or her hypothesis was proven. In the end, what the scientific community decides “upon seeing and reviewing the work” is what counts, he said.
Pope Benedict has announced that the Shroud will be open for public viewing in 2010 and that he is planning to visit the image at some point during its exposition.
The Catholic Church has not taken an official position on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.
Total distraction.
It doesn’t matter what that cloth is or when it originated, or who it belonged to. It’s just a piece of cloth.
We are to worship the risen Savior, not some relic that may or may not have touched him during his time on earth.
For the sake of argument, grant me for one minute that the shroud is the real, genuine, bona fide burial shroud of our Savior. If that is the case, one would have to assume (presume?) that an all wise, all powerful God would have had to have some purpose or intent behind leaving such an article behind. Christ very easily could have stood up on the third day, walked out of the tomb and left nothing behind. Again, assuming the shroud is real, the (assumed) fact that he did not suggests to me that he had some purpose or reason for doing so.
Now, assuming the above is correct, an all loving, and all good Christ would doubtfuly have done so to confuse, bewilder or mislead; His purpose would have been altogether benevolent and altruistic.
In other threads on this matter, I've referenced St. Thomas. He was one of the first recipients of the (literal) Word, and his faith was found wanting as he was filled with doubts and disbelief. That the Word was not sufficient for St. Thomas was not grounds for Christ casting him away and condemning him as an infidel, but rather, Christ invited him to probe and sample the physical evidence of His death and resurrection. While I can't and won't attest to, or affirm the validity of the shroud, it seems reasonable to me that Christ (the most principled and consistent figure in history) would likewise leave some type of physical evidence for the Thomas's of all ages, for whom the Word is not enough.
I do not worship the shroud. If the shroud is definitively and irrefutably demonstrated to the satisfaction of all to be a fraud, my faith will not be shaken. As others have posted to me:
"Most of our Lord's miracles were performed to make people believe. There's no reason to think that the Shroud of Turin would be any different."
"Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not. (John 4:48)
Absolutely wrong! The Gospel of Christ's Passion and death are visible on that piece of cloth. Count the whiplashes, observe the thorn punctures and bloodflow from the wounds, the puffy cheeks ... meditate on these wounds ... and reflect on what our Lord endured for you.
There has been a lot of research done on the resemblance between the face on the shroud and coins printed in Edessa long before the supposed medieval hoax. The idea is that the creators of the coins took the representation shown on the shroud and used it as the model for the coins. The little twist of forelock hair is reproduced a lot in different representations prior to the middle ages. So, if there is validity to the shroud, it would show the face of Jesus.
I’m intrigued by the shroud, too — and reports that Noah’s ark is on some high mountain in Asia or that the Ark of the Covenant is hidden in Africa. It’s all very interesting, BUT it’s all unnecessary and counter to the very definition of faith, “the evidence of things not seen.”
As Christ said, recorded in Matthew 16:4: “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
The resurrection is enough for me. I don’t need a relic to confirm my faith.
I like to think I'm in the same boat...but there may be others who are not. All of our individual and personal faith has a starting point...whether it was the instruction we received from parents or ministers as children, a book that one reads in college, a painting, a song, or even a movie that makes us contemplate the reality of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf.
I suspect that for many throughout history, the shroud has been the starting point for some, or reinforced and preserved the faltering faith of others; IIRC, there was an agnostic shroud researcher in the 1970's for whom the shroud became a "road to Damascus" revelation. As I stated before, we can not at this point, rule out that this is in fact, the burial shroud of Christ, and if that's the case, it was left here with a Divine purpose and intent.
Thanks for the ping.
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Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin with over 500 comments.
Italian group claims to debunk Shroud of Turin
Plus, here is another article from Barrie Schworz's website, Shroud.com that also debunks the debunkers...
Science by Press Release? An Editorial Response to the latest Shroud of Turin announcement
Excellent recap of the Radiocarbon testing fiasco. Thanks, Cycle.
I note you are not a member of the Shroud of Turin Ping list. Would you like to be?
Ah, but there are all those nice charred, almost ready to be tested, clippings that Mechtild Fleury-Lemberg cut from the Shroud in the mis-guided 2002 "restoration" of the Shroud—because she was afraid they were still burning (!) after the fire of 1534. These were cut away before the Shroud was placed into the new reliquary with the contaminating chemicals that would prevent RadioCarbon testing. They CAN be tested without doing further damage to the Shroud.
Cheers!
But did he reproduce the seeds that were found on the original cloth? Agronomist date these seeds to the era of the birth of Christ and given normal plant mutations would not be found in the shroud if it was “manufactured: in the 12th century!!
A nice looking start fellows but you are going to have to really work on that hot-flash technology to convince us you can duplicate it....
Ultimately we might not be able to tell any more than Moses’ snakes could be told from Pharoah’s magicians’ snakes. (At least till one ate the other.)
Cheers!
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the ping, Swordmaker.
"But did he reproduce the seeds that were found on the original cloth? Agronomist date these seeds to the era of the birth of Christ and given normal plant mutations would not be found in the shroud if it was “manufactured: in the 12th century!!"
To which grey_whiskers cheerily asked: I've never seen this before, can you supply a reference, please?
I suggest you start here, with the research of Dr. Avinoim Danin, the top botanist in Israel: Pressed Flowers—Where Did the Shroud of Turin Originate? A Botanical Quest.
Here is another paper written by Dr. Danin and Dr. Uri Baruch, the Israeli Antiquities Authority's top expert on Palynology, the study of pollen in archaeology.
Florisitic inidicators for the Origin of the Shroud of Turin". Another resource on this:
Another source:
Botanist Uses Pollen to Place Shroud of Turin in Mideast at Earlier Date, by Adelle M. Banks And here is a comment in the St. Louis Commerce Magazine report on the International Botanical Congress held in St. Louis, where Dr. Danin announced that he had found pollens on the Shroud of Turin were dated before 800AD.
"PLANT DISCOVERIESDr. Danin's conclusion was based on the fact that several of the plants he had identified on the Shroud were extinct by the seventh Century... yet their pollen was found on the Shroud.Almost 5,000 scientists from 100 countries attended the 16th International Botanical Congress in St. Louis in August. The IBC is held every six years and the last time an American city hosted the event was in 1969 in Seattle. Scientists made several announcements throughout the week-long event:
- Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, concludes that pollen found on the Shroud of Turin dates to at least the 8th century.
Thank You!
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