Posted on 01/28/2005 1:45:31 PM PST by shroudie
This is significant commentary as it was Nature that published the results of the 1988 carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin.
Rogers has spoken of "the pseudoscience surrounding the shroud". Future studies, he says, "must be carefully planned and executed, and they cannot involve management by dilettantes". He has complained about the uncooperativeness of the shroud's guardians in Turin, saying that because of this, "competent scientific efforts to understand the shroud have a bleak future".
This should not, perhaps, make anyone terribly distraught. The scientific study of the Turin shroud is like a microcosm of the scientific search for God: it does more to inflame any debate than settle it.
And yet, the shroud is a remarkable artefact, one of the few religious relics to have a justifiably mythical status. It is simply not known how the ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made. It does not seem to have been painted, at least with any known historical pigments.
Perhaps more compelling is that most of the shroud lacks vanillin, a breakdown product of the lignin in cotton fibres. There is vanillin in the Holland cloth, and in other medieval linen. Because it decomposes over time, this suggests that the main body of the cloth is considerably older than these patches. By calculating the rate of decay, Rogers arrives at his revised estimate of the shroud's age.
The original testing went wrong because Ted Hall at Oxford just threw a few threads into a fire and then faked the results up.
That's not Ted Hall the communist physicist and atom spy, is it?
My reading on this indicates the shroud is probably from near the time of Jesus, but it is not sure that this is Jesus.
However, I wonder why the Church would preserve a burial cloth, if it had no significance. I also have never hear of any other burial cloth with an image like this. These two things make it more likely this really is Jesus image.
Jesus was a singular anomaly of God coming in human form. That he may have left a singular anomaly of a three dimensional picture of himself on his shroud is not out of the question.
This cloth, if it is a burial cloth, survived the tomb. It was separated from the body in enveloped. There is much to infer from this.
I have more material on this at Shroud Story 2005. Dan
The scientific evidence so far points to a middle eastern origin about the time of Jesus.
The known provenance of the shroud is also consistent with such an origin.
The image resembles some of the earliest portrayals of Jesus.
Another important factor is that no one has been able to suggest any plausible natural explanation for how the image was created. It resembles a photographic negative, made long before photography was thought of. And it doesn't look like the product of any known method of painting or dying images on cloth.
If you include the possibility of supernatural causation, which some scientists simply rule out, Ockham's razor supports the theory that it is genuine, which is much the simplest explanation and the only one so far that fits all the facts, other than such arbitrary assertions as, "I don't believe in anything supernatural, so it MUST be a fraud."
My own view is that, although it's not an article of faith, it's almost certainly genuine.
I think it is more likely a genuine cloth from the first century. It seems unlikely just anyones cloth would have been saved like this.
But, as a scientist myself, there is not enough evidence yet to say it is Jesus.
As a Christian, I tend to believe it is Jesus. I don't need the shroud or any other relic to believe.
Why honor a burial cloth.
This is without a doubt the very first time, and I suspect the very last, that I have seen Ockham's Razor used as an argument FOR the supernatural.
I am still in a state of mild shock, and shaking with laughter.
Jesus followers and family would have tried to preserve anything Jesus owned or touched.
Since if God exists He is natural. There is no such thing as the supernatural. It is only if God doesn't exist that He could be supernatural. ;-) How about that for the start of a discussion that will lead nowhere?
One must always be carefull that the object that may have touched Jesus doesn't become the object that is worshiped.
Does anyone remember when Moses came down from the mt. and the Isrealites had a golden calf?
I just saw your page and I mean no direspect.
I just wish people would worship God, not what he may have been buried in.
I understand what you mean. However, today these objects are "builders of faith". Remember how Thomas was told how much more it would be valued to believe without touching Jesus wounds?
Well, there are still a lot of Thomases out there. ;-)
No offense taken.
There are many more idolatries that are worse than worshipping Jesus' icons. Drug addiction is a particularly satanic worship.
I think the image "face" looks just like the late musician, Frank Zappa!!
'Cuz the guy whom it covered is still alive.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the shroud actually did cover Jesus. The World likes to pull strange stunts like that....
Shroud of Turin PING!
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