Posted on 03/14/2008 1:52:40 PM PDT by NYer
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — The Shroud of Turin is undoubtedly the most famous relic in Christendom — and the best loved.
During those rare times when it is displayed, millions of pilgrims travel from all over the world to see the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ, a piece of linen 3 feet 7 inches-by-14 feet 3 inches that bears the detailed front and back images of a man who was crucified in a manner identical to that of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the Scriptures.
In 1978, more than 3.5 million people stood in line for up to 16 hours for a brief glimpse. Twenty years later, another 3 million filed past when it was displayed as part of the celebration of Turin cathedral’s 500th anniversary.
So why do so many people care so much about a relic that according to available records was first displayed in the French village of Lirey in 1357 and was supposedly “proven” by Carbon-14 dating done in 1988 to have been created somewhere between 1260 and 1390?
Beyond the compelling attraction of the image itself, the answer lies in part with the dozens of men and women around the world, experts and amateurs working in a wide range of unrelated disciplines who spend their free time studying the Shroud.
They have uncovered enough anomalies and unexplained phenomena to be certain of one thing: Whatever the Shroud may be, it clearly is no run-of-the-mill medieval forgery.
One such researcher is Dr. August Accetta, an obstetrician-gynecologist from southern California, husband and father of three daughters and founder of the Shroud Center of Southern California (Shroudcentersocal.com).
First opened in 1996, the center is dedicated to discovering the truths within the Shroud.
While appreciating the importance of the work done by researchers seeking to confirm the date of the artifact — for instance, three years ago Dr. Ray Rogers showed that the 1988 Carbon-14 dating was not done on the original burial cloth, but rather on a Shroud patch that in the Middle Ages had been cleverly re-woven into the border area — Accetta focuses on uncovering the mysteries that lie within the Shroud itself.
Image of Suffering
Accetta is particularly interested in the image’s photographic aspects, including its three-dimensional qualities and its human anatomical features. He has published four peer-reviewed papers on the Shroud in the area of nuclear imaging.
The doctor’s work with nuclear imaging demonstrates that in terms of the Shroud’s inverse color intensity (often described as being like a photographic negative, but actually a mere reversal of light and dark), the image encodes only about the top 1.5 inches of the face and body in three dimensions.
“It’s like a relief sculpture,” he said, “sort of like when Han Solo was frozen in carbon in" Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
Of equal interest to Accetta is the X-ray-like imaging upon the Shroud; the image reveals the roots of several upper teeth, the metacarpal bones in the left wrist and the femur under the left hand.
Furthermore, the image reveals bruising on the cheek just below the left eye. Bruising, according to Accetta, is completely part of the body image, not at all like the bleeding wounds that left blood residue on the surface of the Shroud.
It is a natural mistake to assume the image on the Shroud resulted from visible light emitting from the body, Accetta said. But even if light had streamed from the body’s surface any resultant image would have been as flat as a photograph, possessing no 3-D information.
Instead, Accetta has shown by injecting nuclear isotopes into his own bloodstream that he can produce a similar image, complete with 3-D information, in photos taken by the gamma camera doctors use to make images of internal organs.
“The amount of radiation in the skin and bones,” Accetta said, “correlates to the number of pixels on the Shroud.”
Nevertheless, exactly how the image was imprinted on cloth remains a mystery that, so far as anyone knows, has never been repeated.
Studies by other scientists have shown that the actual image — which lies on the very surface of the linen fibers at a depth less than 100 times as thick as a human hair — is the result, not of paint or any sort of pigment, but of rapid dehydration of the natural cellulose present in the fibers accomplished without heat.
Shroud investigators stress that while relics like the Shroud are not central to belief in the divinity and salvific mission of Christ, they can serve as powerful aids to developing a working faith.
“It’s silly to suggest that evidence like the Shroud should play no role in undergirding our faith,” said Gary Habermas, chairman of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and co-author of two books on the Shroud. “Jesus himself said if people could not simply believe what he said, then ‘at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves’” (John 14:11).
As an evangelical Christian, Habermas is careful to separate his own appreciation for the Shroud — “There’s a good chance it is authentic,” he says — from his worship of the living Christ. Still, for him the Shroud is nothing less than a pictorial Gospel.
“It’s all there: deity, death and resurrection,” he said. “The Shroud shows that he’s dead, but that there’s something happening to bring him to life.”
He also suggested the evidence of Jesus’ awful suffering imprinted on the Shroud should cause every Christian to re-examine his commitment to the faith.
“A university student once said to me that it removes the flippant approach,” he recalled. “You know how some people talk, ‘Yeah, Christ died for my sins. Hey, you wanna get a burger?’”
For his part, Accetta grew up Catholic but left the Church as an agnostic in his youth, convinced that belief in God was “pretty much just a way to deal with mortality.”
In spite of his skepticism, he was intrigued by a radio talk on the Shroud in 1992 by Dr. Alan Whanger, professor emeritus at Duke University and chief researcher for the Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin (duke.edu/~adw2/shroud). He met with Whanger and began to collect information, enthralled by the “clarity” of the materials available.
Nevertheless, it was not the Shroud itself but his study of it that made Accetta a believer, he stressed. To know more about the Shroud, he had to study Scripture and Tradition.
To learn about the cloth’s early history, Accetta had to research the Church Fathers. “Somewhere in 1997,” he said, “I realized my data had changed and that I was now a believer.” But not, at that point, a convinced Catholic. That quickly changed and Accetta came back to the Church of his childhood as he read the Ante-Nicene Fathers and understood their emphasis on sacramental theology.
“The Shroud became the fulcrum that turned my life in a new direction,” said Accetta. “The Christian faith had been a puzzle, but as I studied the faith in order to understand the Shroud the pieces fell into place.”
I have been interested in the shroud since I was a kid.
Ping!
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I don't recall hearing this before. It's very interesting.
Hi.
why was test not on original cloth ?
What amazes me is how often Christians focus on everything but the teachings of Jesus. And recently, I’m watching the clips of Obama’s pastor, and I’m not hearing him say anything about Jesus or his teachings, just hateful politics.
P T Barnum gave a great explanation to answer that question. "There's a sucker born every minute".
What leads you to believe interest in the shroud and focus on Jesus teachings are mutually exclusive?
It was. The test was done on a small piece near the edge that was both representative to the whole but considered expendable compared to taking a piece out of the center. The BS about that tiny piece being interwoven later was the outrageous excuse the hoaxers made up later when the scientific test results (done independently in 3 different labs) proved they were holding a forged relic.
It was. The test was done on a small piece near the edge that was both representative to the whole but considered expendable compared to taking a piece out of the center. The BS about that tiny piece being interwoven later was the outrageous excuse the hoaxers made up later when the scientific test results (done independently in 3 different labs) proved they were holding a forged relic.
"The presence of a patch on the shroud doesn't come as a surprise. The linen cloth has survived several blazes since its existence was first recorded in France in 1357, including a church fire in 1532. Badly damaged, it was then restored by nuns who patched burn holes and stitched the shroud to a reinforcing cloth now known as the Holland cloth.
"In his study, Rogers analysed and compared the radiocarbon sample with other samples from the controversial cloth.
"As part of the STURP research project, I took 32 adhesive-tape samples from all areas of the shroud in 1978, including some patches and the Holland cloth. I also obtained the authentic samples used in the radiocarbon dating," Rogers says.
"It emerged that the radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than the main part of the shroud, Rogers says.
"The radiocarbon sample had been dyed, most likely to match the colour of the older, sepia-coloured cloth. The sample was dyed using a technology that began to appear in Italy about the time the Crusaders' last bastion fell to the Mameluke Turks in 1291.
"The radiocarbon sample cannot be older than about 1290, agreeing with the age determined by carbon-14 dating in 1988. However, the Shroud itself is actually much older," says Rogers. "
Papertyger has always said "if you have an easy answer for a tough question, you probably don't understand the question.
At the time of the testing (the 1980s) a considerably large piece was needed to test, which in the testing is destroyed. The curators of the shroud were reluctant to allow any of the cloth be snipped out, but finally allowed one place, off to the side of the image to be tested. Subsequent imaging and other non-invasive testing has shown where they tested was a very carefully woven in patch...evidently from the medieval times.
Serious testing would demand several pieces from all over the cloth—which at this time I think would only need a thread or so....yielding no holes in the cloth.
The Vatican should allow it to be retested except, there’s really only a practical downside. If a better uniform test proves its medieval, well, then it’s value as a relic becomes useless. If it’s shown to be 1st Century, the skeptics won’t care, and still won’t believe. As it is now, believers believe, and skeptics don’t, and who wants to rock the boat?
If it is indeed the Shroud of our Lord, waiting a few years or so seems judicious.
I always preferred to paraphrase Newman with “To practice eisegesis with history and Scripture is to be deeply rooted in the Catholic faith” myself. (Thanks for the spelling and usage correction, Mrs. Don-o and Campion!)
When the Early Church Fathers are allowed to speak with their own voice, they tend to all be making differing music, all tend to have their own take on the Scriptures, and do not sing with one catholic (original meaning) voice.
If you cherry pick their writings you can get from them Roman Catholic sounding notes, but you must cherry pick them, and cannot look beyond to the contexts, lest you lose the Roman Catholic meanings, much like a Roman Catholic has to treat the Scriptures.
good site:
http://www.historian.net/shroud.htm
The Shroud of Turin : Genuine Artifact or Manufactured Relic?
I thank you for enlightening me on this.
It is good to hear from someone with no ax to grind! (sarcasm)
I'm skeptical of the worth of any scientific tests on this issue. Science is only of value when it is applied to situations in which the normal laws of nature are operational.With the Shroud, we are dealing with a situation, which by definition is unprecedented in history and in which the normal laws of science were suspended; namely the physical resurrection of a dead human being.
Would radiation have been given out during this process in the form of light, heat or some other species? Could this have influenced the radiochemical content of material in contact with the body at the time?
We don't know the answers to these questions but they are valid ones and would need to be answered deinitively before absolute faith can be placed in the carbon-14 dating. Any man who presumes that science will record the definitive verdict on this question is a little naive.
One little problem: The Shroud survived two separate fires, which could have affected the amount of carbon isotopes in the cloth. Thus any radiocarbon testing at all, no matter the result, is questionable at best. The issue is explained as part of a discussion here.
“What amazes me is how often Christians focus on everything but the teachings of Jesus. And recently, I’m watching the clips of Obama’s pastor, and I’m not hearing him say anything about Jesus or his teachings, just hateful politics.”
The underlying premise of that argument would seem to be, “If Christianity does not make its followers—and even those who hypocritically exploit it to gain power—perfect in every way, it is fraudulent.”
I saw that on TV in one of their shroud documentaries. It’s all very interesting, isn’t it?
Nope. That would be jumping to a conclusion. Many Christian people go straight to the Bible and avoid the distortions of organized religion.
From the point of view of thorough, in-context, systematic, and multilingual scholarship, please tell me why I should consider you an authority rather than John Henry Newman.
At least you see that the Early Church is different than the current Modern Roman Catholic church.
However the Early Church was NOT at all unified in their beliefs. The Early Church was fractured in their interpretations of many things, hence the early church heresies, as well as problems with the canon, traditions, and such non-central issues of the Christian Church. In this way it was much like the current denominations of the Christian faiths as a whole- Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and the Christian Cults, Mormonism, JW’s and such.
To suggest unity is to read your own faith into what the Early Church Fathers said.
“Many Christian people go straight to the Bible and avoid the distortions of organized religion.”
Sigh. Here we go again.
Many Christians seem to think that just anybody can go read the Bible any time and understand it correctly.
‘Tain’t so, McGee. That leads to error, every time — which is why there are about a zillion protestant denomentations.
Last time I visited there was a life size copy of the photographic negative on display, front and back, lit from behind at Mother Angelica's shrine in Hanceville, AL.
Awe inspiring.
You’re rather cryptic yourself.
I don’t see where.
And this is different from the reality on the ground today in the Catholic Church how, exactly? There have always been heretics, just as there are now ... see the Archbishop Burke thread for a modern example.
Then as now, if you want to be on the side of doctrinal orthodoxy, follow St. Irenaeus' advice and remain in communion with the See of Rome.
Nothing much has changed, really. The Church Augustine and Ambrose knew is the same Church that exists today. We know more, we communicate better and faster ... and that's about it.
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Had a fascinating discussion with my son and Daughter-in-law Wednesday evening regarding the Shroud. They were not aware that the shroud was the inner wrapping and was encased in the outer, myrrh, spices, and aloe drenched wrappings which all remained ‘in situ’ with no body inside them when Jesus left the tomb without unwrapping the death wraps.
Chemist and pyrologist Raymond N. Rogers, (Sandia National Laboratory, University of California) and, independently, Dr. John L. Brown, (former Principal Research Scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Energy and Materials Sciences Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology), have done other research and tests and presented evidence in peer reviewed scientific journals that proved that:
From an article in Thermochimica Acta: "A linen produced in A.D. 1260 would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978. The Raes threads, the Holland cloth [the shroud's backing cloth], and all other medieval linens gave {positive results from] the test for vanillin wherever lignin could be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than the radiocarbon laboratories reported."
"The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud."
Thus, the 1988 Carbon 14 Testing has been invalidated because the person who took the sample, literally, at the last hour, changed the agreed sampling protocols and took the sample from an area that had been patched, probably in 1532, with contemporary prepared linen thread that had been spun on a spinning wheel that had also spun cotton, then retted with alum, and dyed with alizarin dye from madder root, all done with 15th century technology. The tests were accurate for what they tested: a melange of old and newer material that gave. The reported a date that is inaccurate for both the old and the new. It is merely coincidence that the false date of the combined old and new happened to coincide with the first display of the Shroud in Lirey France. The repaired area is not the same as the main body of the shroud and tests are invalid.
New C14 testing should be allowed because there are now a lot of loose samples available since the ill advised "restoration" where they cut away the burned edges around the scorches from the 1532 fire.
I can tell you that there was an unauthorized C-14 test done on one of the threads taken during the 1978 STURP examination and the results were 1st Century, with a degree of confidence of 50 years because the sample was so small.
Do some reading of the peer reviewed scientific and scholarly articles on the Shroud? They are mostly available from Barrie Schwortz's website Shroud.com. Barrie was the official photographer of STURP... and he is Jewish. Daniel Porter has put together some of the best and current data in a good popularization of the Shroud information which is more accessible than the scientific papers. Daniel Porter is Freeper Shroudie, and his series of Websites, including Shroudforum.com, Shroud Facts Check, and Shroud Story are an excellent resource based on the latest science...
Most people thought it was... but the agreed protocols were violated and the sample was cut from a corner that had been patched by a very skillful technique that essentially made it almost invisible unless you know what to look for. See detailed explanation in post #40 above.
I see. Peer reviewed science done by world class scientists, who put their reputations on the line, that has not been refuted, showing that the sample WAS NOT HOMOGENOUS with the main body of the shroud is a "hoax."
Shuckmaster, even Harry Gove, the inventor of the C-14 process that was used by all three labs has agreed that the results are invalid. Invalid sample garbage in, accurately dated garbage out!
If the shroud is not authentic, then it was created by one of the greatest artistic geniuses in history... an unsung genius who was a polymath in so many fields that he is still confounding experts 700 years later. That makes the shroud a miracle that still needs explanation. It has not been duplicated with any technology of our day... despite numerous efforts.
Actually, a very outdated site.
"FACT: The shroud of Turin is contaminated with the C14 containing bioplastic varnish of microorganisms still multiplying and present on the artifact.Unfortunately, neither of these facts are true. There is no bioplastic varnish on the fibers of the Shroud. If, as the theory proposed, the Shroud was polluted with this varnish, the varnish would have had to have composed better than 75% of the sample by weight to skew the date from 1st Century to 14th because the dates associated with the bacteria would have been an average of the ages of all the bacteria that had lived, excreted, and died on the Shroud for almost 1945 years. It would stand out like a sore thumb... and it simply is not there.FACT: The bioplastic varnish undoubtedly present on the shroud's fibrils, and incorporating significant amounts of younger and recent C14, is not effected by the cleaning procedure utilized by the three radiocarbon labs."
And there is another problem. The bacteria that live on linen do not breathe the atmosphere... they get their carbon-dioxide from the object on which they live and eat... and would share the same C-14 ratio of that object... i.e., they would date exactly the same. Had there been, the micro-organisms that might have left such a varnish of dead bacteria and bacteria poop would have ha
Additionaly the Veil with which Christ's face was wiped by St Veronica has been graphically compared using present day computer graphics technology. the results suggest that the two visages are very similar!
The soot theory has also been shot down conclusively.
First of all, there is no known mechanism for carbon-14 to be added to an existing carbon isotope matrix of carbon-14, Carbon-13, and Carbon-12 by chemical means, which is what a fire is.
Since very little of the shroud was actually carbonized by either of the fires, that point is actually moot, anyway.
Exposure to radiation might be able to convert the far more plentiful Carbon 12 into 13 or 14... but there is no evidence that exposure to a fire, even one hot enough to melt silver, would provide any radioactivity.
Assuming that soot from a newly made (from wood grown in the few years before the 1532AD fire), burning casket or church surrounding the Shroud permeated the shroud, the amount of carbon soot required to skew the C-14 date from the 1st century to 14th would be approximately 50% by weight of the tested sample. Again, the soot simply is not there.
(The amount to skew the date is less than the bioplastic residue theory because the wood would have been grown and harvested in a much shorter time period [say 50 to 100 years] than the 1945 years that the bacterial theory would require.)
Hilarious... I particularly liked the "true cross coasters" that got water damaged...
Thanks for the ping!
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