Replies

They are more powerful than the reasons to doubt.

Especially as several of the reasons not to believe are false statements. For example:

1 In 1988, an international team of scientific experts performed radiocarbon dating on snippets of the Shroud and concluded it was manufactured between 1260 and 1390. They said the Shroud was nothing more than a medieval hoax.

Science is done by doing procedures with proper protocols. The 1988 Carbon 14 test had agreed protocols requiring a minimum of eight exemplar samples taken from a minimum of six locations from the main body of the Shroud with the only limitation that no samples be taken from areas where image would be affected. In addition, eight controls samples were to be provided of known provenance to be simultaneously tested as a blind.

At the very last moment, these protocols were tossed out unilaterally, and a single master sample was taken from the Shroud from a corner which the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project scientists had unanimously agreed should be avoided in any Carbon 14 testing due to it not testing homogeneity like any other portion of the Shroud in chemical, physical, or ultraviolet light photography and was suspected to have been patched. That single sample was cut into five sub-samples, four of which were distributed to three C14 testing laboratories instead of the original protocol six.

The labs were supposed to get the samples, both Shroud and Controls, rendered down to fibers, but instead received woven swatches easily identified as to source, as only the Shroud was known to be three over one twill. The other control samples were simple linen one over one, thus breaking the blind test.

The Tau Square test on each of the sub-samples should have raised a huge 🚩 flag on the Shroud sample testing as none of these sub sample returned dating that was within the ranges of reliability of the statistical testing… by a long stretch…. Despite these sub-samples being cut from the small piece adjacent to each other. This Tau Squared test is an indicator that the items tested are homogeneous to each other. Yet in the space of four centimeters, the ages varied by almost 270 years! The managing lab at Oxford ignored that and impermissibly averaged the data and dates. The sub-samples date as old as 1160AD +/- 20 years, while the youngest was 1390AD +/-20 ears. None of the tested sub-sample data ranges overlapped any other. Statistically, by the Tau Squared test, there was zero chance that these sub-samples were homogeneous enough from the same thing to date each other, much less equivalent or homogeneous to date the Shroud which they were supposed to be representing.

By 2005, the 1988 Carbon 14 testing had been falsified by four different means, including the examination of the retained fifth sub-sample which proved to be a rewoven melange of original flaxen Linen of unknown dating, and a larger portion of dyed, Cotten from a French cotton source, skillfully interwoven into the original weave. The cotton threads had an ‘S’ spin while the original Flax was a ‘Z’ spin. The cotton had been retted with a substance used primarily in France, developed around the twelfth century, and dyed to match the tonality of the aged linen with an alizarin dye.

Ergo, while the C-14 laboratories did excellent technical work, they dated a hopelessly contaminated sample, improperly sampled, thus falsifying all conclusions about the age of the Shroud.

3 The conclusion of a 2018 study in blood pattern analysis was not supportive of the claimed authenticity of the Shroud. The study said the apparent blood splatters could only have been produced by someone moving to adopt different poses, rather than lying still.

From the study: "Borrini said some of the results showed that the man whose image is imprinted on the shroud would have had to be standing vertical, rather than horizontal, for the blood flow patterns to make sense." The author seems to forget that Jesus spent a long time vertices on the Cross, then horizontally on the ground as the nails were removed, then in multiple bent and folded positions as He was carried to the Tomb.

Over 124 years, numerous experiments with cadavers, human volunteers, and mannequins have been performed by numerous other forensic pathologists far more qualified than Borrini, and they have found the blood flow is consistent with human blood laden with bilirubin caused by extreme trauma which prevents it from clotting and increases its fluidity, all ignored by Borrini. This is not the first article in which Borrini has attempted with questionable science to deny authenticity. He’s been around for awhile. One outlying study in a non peer-reviewed publication from 8 years ago, and no support since, is a lack of a reason for it to be given weight.

4 The Turin Commission concluded in 1979 that stains on the garment are likely pigments, not blood.

This is just completely false on its face. The STURP scientists determined that while there was a scattering of pigments on the Shroud, they were not enough to be visible and were likely environmental and due to other Artist pressing shroud copies up to the genuine Shroud to attempt to impart some contact imprimatur. The blood had been determined by the blood specialists on the team to seem to be likely real blood and reacted with human blood antigens. They found no pigments in the blood stained area.

One microscopist, not affiliated with STURP, was granted access to sticky tape slide samples from the Shroud. Walter C. McCrone claimed to have found pigment everywhere he looked on the sticky tapes, identifying red ocher, vermilion, and other Artist’s pigments used in the 14th century. He declared the Shroud a fake, a painting, and the blood, mere paint. He refused his own staff electron microscope department permission to check his work, declaring everything can be seen by his expert eye, only.

However, prior to his claims, electron microscopy including electron micro-spectroscopy had been done on the Shroud, using a technique that could determine the material of the inert baggies the samples were placed before testing it is so sensitive. These tests found nothing that McCrone claimed to have seen in his 300 power light microscope. What the did find were the old, ancient descendent compounds of hemoglobin, bilirubin, iron, the components of blood. . . Meanwhile, McCrone was claiming he could tell the dilution of the egg albumin used in the pigment. No chemist could figure out any way a microscopic image could possible tell the exact dilution of any remnant residue. McCrone later went on to claim the red ocher he found on the Shroud was a specific grind, but that grind was only developed in the early 1800s.

So much for this claim.

5 John’s Gospel records “strips of linen” (John 20:5) being used to wrap the body of Jesus, not a single burial sheet. (Although other versions translate this as linen ‘clothes’, ‘wrappings’ or ‘cloths’.)

Sigh… this old chestnut. This has far more to do with translation of Greek into English and choices made by the translators. One must dig into (excuse the pun) first century Jewish burial practices, discount long standing conflation of Egyptian burials and mummies with anything at all to do with Jewish burials, and burials clothes, and cloths, and bindings. All of the Jewish burial ritual and customs were covered in the Mishnah, and the idea that bodies were bound up in strips of bandages is not there. A shroud was used, the jaw was bound clasped, and the arms and legs were bound to keep the body from flopping akimbo. Shards of pottery or a weight was put on the eyelids to keep the eyes closed. All else is about cleansing and ritually anointing the body, and packing herbs and aromatic plants around it. It had to be interred by sundown. Simple, not elaborate. In the first century, the Greek habit of using small coins on the eyes was adopted. That’s not in the Mishnah, but numerous skulls in a first century Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem were found with such coins in the eye sockets.

After a year, the family would return, collect the bones, and put them into a central ossuary bone pit in the tomb where all of the ancestor’s bones were collected, or, alternately, in a ossuary bone box. This allowed the tomb’s shelves to be reused.

About 30 years ago, in that Jerusalem cemetery, in a section that was destroyed in a first century earthquake, an I disturbed grave of a man was discovered still in the shelf niche. With him were the remnants of a full shroud, binding cloths, etc. this demonstrates the falsity of the strips argument.

I’m not going to go into the various meanings of “othonia" and "sindon" and the other Greek words used for the grave cloths. I’ve done it before on FreeRepublic in detail.