The best piece of Shroud of Turin reporting I have ever read
John Klotz writes in a posting, The Shroud, Dr. Pangloss and Sammy Glick;
There is a controversy brewing about a Smithsonian Channel documentary about the Shroud of Turin. It sounds like another attempt by the Main Stream Scientific Community (the “MSSC”) to debunk the Shroud. The most interesting thing about this controversy seems to be the FACT that the militant atheists can’t escape the Shroud and so must destroy its authenticity. They can not accept a world (or existence) in which the Shroud of Turin proves not only that Christ existed, but that in three days his body parted company with his burial cloth.
I come to this controversy as a lawyer who has had a life long interest in science and, alas, politics. I have ridden too many horses going-off in too many different directions. I also write and did win an honorable mention award from New York Press Association for –In-Depth Reporting. That piece was about corruption in the appointment of mortgage foreclosure receivers and was a least one cause of reform in the appointment of receivers in the New York State. I also remember someone remarking that one of my briefs read like a novel (it was meant as a compliment – I think.).
The late New York Supreme Justice Theodore Roosevelt Kuperfman described one article I wrote as “the best piece of political reporting I have ever read.” . . .
Aw shucks, dot dot dot. You’re just going to have to read The Shroud, Dr. Pangloss and Sammy Glick for yourself.
The pig experiment was not Barrie’s experiment
Yannick Clément, in a very long winded comment repeated below, does have a point. Well several. But for your clarification, as you read it, I did talk with Barrie Schwortz yesterday. I can confirm that the experiment with the pig was not his idea and not his experiment. He was thrust into the situation, unaware, during the production of the documentary. He offered his comments and the rest was a matter of creative editing. As Barrie writes:
Watch for the next update on shroud.com (due at the end of this month) for an article titled, “Behind the Scenes of a New Smithsonian Channel Shroud Documentary” in which I will give some details on the techniques the producers used for creating the program.
And now for Yannick’s comment:
After having seen the TV program, I have some good comments to make :
1- In the program, there are two huge historical mistakes : 1- The program seem to suggest that Geoffroy de Charny was some kind of an obscure knight when he became in possession of the Shroud, which is totally false. In fact, de Charny was one of the leading knight of all the kingdom of France when he build the Lirey church. And 2- The program tell us that de Charny claimed he get the Shroud during a crusade he made, which is also totally false. In fact, de Charny NEVER SAID A WORD about how and when he became in possession of the Shroud. It’s also very important to understand that de Charny never participate in the 4th crusade, which saw the Latin crusaders making the sack of Constantinople. This terrible event, which most probably lead to the transfer of the Shroud from that city to Europe, happened a century before de Charny’s time. The only crusade in which Geoffroy de Charny participated is the Smyrna crusade in 1346 and it’s highly improbable that he could have come in possession of the Shroud at that occasion, no matter what Ian Wilson and other “historians” can think.
Gary Vikan to release book on the Shroud of Turin
An article, Ten objects that sum up Gary Vikan’s life, by Mary Carole McCauley in The Baltimore Sun reports that he is working on a book about the Shroud of Turin.
Vikan is best known in shroud circles for an article published in Biblical Archaeology Review in the November/December 1998 issue reprinted on shroud.com. (See the article here and read the comments on the same page).
From the Sun:
You can get a pretty good idea of someone’s journey through life by looking at the objects with which he surrounds himself.
For Gary Vikan, who stepped down this spring as the director of the Walters Art Museum, those objects include a pair of tickets to Woodstock, a piece of the gate guarding Graceland, a collection of Russian icons and a miniature replica of the Shroud of Turin.
[ . . . ]
He’s just completed his next big project: a book on the Shroud of Turin, in which he attempts to prove that the linen burial cloth that many believe once wrapped the body of Jesus actually was made in the Middle Ages, around 1350.
"I’ve been working with a scientist who found out how the image on the Shroud was made," Vikan says. "And I think I know when and why. It was made to deceive, at a time in the Middle Ages when relics meant pilgrimages, and pilgrimages meant money."
Vikan said the manuscript could be published as soon as this fall.
Which one of the scientists? And which one of all the many ways it was made?
The Shroud–The Movie
Joe Marino passes along this information on an upcoming film. The working title for this two hour mystery/thriller FILM is The Shroud Conspiracy. We should expect its release in 2014 according to North Star Production Studios. From the website:
LOGLINE: When terrorists detonate a bomb in the Cathedral claiming destruction of the Shroud of Turin, an archaeologist believes the terrorists masked the theft of the Shroud for sinister purposes. He teams with a CIA Agent on a dangerous journey to reclaim the Shroud and seek answers as to who did this and why.
SYNOPSIS: An explosion in the Cathedral housing the Shroud appears to cause the destruction of the revered cloth, the Shroud of Turin, believed to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus. Archaeologist and Shroud expert James Aiello finds clues suggesting the Shroud was likely stolen. He teams with a skeptical CIA Agent Rebecca Ross to piece together clues that lead to a megalomaniac known only as The Falcon who taunts them while plotting to use the cloth in a broader world conspiracy blackmailing the Vatican and assassinating religious and political leaders.
Based on the novel "The Image and The Rose" and Screenplay by John C. Iannone.
Speaking of movies, the word is that The Power of Few, the last feature film about the shroud that made it into just a few theaters, will be released on DVD on July 9, this year.
The Worldwide Conspiracy to Ignore Vincenzo Giovanni Ruello
Vincenzo Giovanni Ruello (aka Vinny Pop) writes to me frequently, usually by trying to add irrelevant comments on this site. He has, as he puts it, developed a new scientific method which enables him to see all manner of things: Jesus with open eyes, or Jesus with missing toes, etc. etc. etc. He then posts videos on YouTube that are supposed to show what he sees. Back in 2011, I posted some material about his claims but stopped doing so because I found that it contributed nothing to the discussion here (search Vinny in the blog’s search box). Moreover, I didn’t want to post anything more that I felt was potentially embarrassing to him. But today, at his insistence, I am posting a comment from him and below it something from a single-posting blog he recently created. He writes:
I have revealed the signature of Jesus Christ ,the face of a lion, a holograph from the second face back which has undergone a second stage processing. http://gloria.tv/?media=446254
I hope you show this as a special separate feature, if not it means you have no conscience at all
sincerely Vincenzo Giovanni Ruello
Okay, Vincenzo, I have a conscience. Thanks for unburdening me. Is it true, as I understand it, that your secret method is filming a severely tilted LCD screen with a digital camera? Why is it that I can’t see any of the things you see? How can what you see and others not see be proof of anything?
Vinny, does the following from you shed any light on the problem? It is from your new blog, Second Face Shroud Turin Decoded Revealed:
In 2011 the experimental film scientist Vincenzo Giovanni Ruello processed the relic known as the Vatican Veronica Veil using AFM, Angular Filming Magnification a process he developed in 2009, an advanced form of negative film processing. What he revealed is startling.
[ . . . ]
Well known Shroud experts who have seen the image have attempted to slow down the awareness campaign commenced by Ruello using tactics of ridicule because unlike them Ruello is an amateur experimental film maker not qualified. Peer review journals have refused to publish his findings on the Veronica for this very reason but Ruello has relentlessly distributed videos and photographs world wide. In April 2013 Ruello used the same filming tecnique to process the ”second face” originaly discovered in 2002 during the restoration by Fanti and Maggiolo. It appears on the back of the Shroud as red marks stains, very faint which are thought by many to be spill over leakage from the front. On processing the ”second face” Ruello revealed an alive Jesus with both His eyes open.
The profound image has left the earlier Shroud experts who discounted his findings on the Vatican Veronica Veil now speechless as the photographic image has been provan to be real, no elements of photoshop or CGI manipulation exist. So we now have the situation where an amateur film scientist has revealed 2 alive faces of Christ from the Vatican Veronica 8th century Rome first appearance and the alive face of Christ on the back of the Shroud of Turin. These Shroud experts are making a lot of money from the mystery they have been selling to the public. Many books are written and the Vatican does gain immense power and control by not informing the innocent of all the facts.
. . . But discoveries such as Ruello’s if truly from God cannot be stopped by corrupt soul selling individuals and powers attempting to not tell the world that evidence authenticating the Shroud has been discovered and that physical evidence of the resurrection has been discovered on the back of the Shroud of Turin. Thank God for the internet.
I suspect that I’m thought to be part of the conspiracy to keep the world uninformed about Vincenzo Giovanni Ruello’s work because I block frequent promotional comments of gibberish. Ridicule? That is why I wasn’t posting.
In all fairness I have written to him and asked him to describe Angular Filming Magnification and explain why he thinks he is not generating visual patterns and noise which fuels his imagination. He has never answered.
Okay Vincenzo, you got your wish.
Because it Needed to be Said: Contaminated in the Weaver’s Workshop
Yesterday, on May 17th, Giorgio wrote:
[S]ince Dr. Rogers was aware that the “dye that was used, along with the aluminum mordant and the gum Arabic” was present throughout the TS not just in the location of Raes corner in my opinion he should have addressed that issue in his paper. Instead we had to wait three years for Dr. Maloney’s explanation
(Pictured: Paul Mahoney giving talk in 2008 at the Ohio conference)
The previous day, Giorgio had given us some specifics:
Madder rose is not isolated to Raes corner it’s found throughout the TS based on the sticky tapes from the 1978 STURP studies. So if you do believe in the invisible weave you also have to except the hypothesis stated by Paul Maloney.
” The yellow amorphous tubular flaked like material resin was possibly also the same thing Dr. Nitowski saw and was convinced it was Myrrh and aloes just as Dr. McCrone first thought. Steven Schafersman is also correct when he states the madder root was first announced by Dr. McCrone. This is also confirmed by Paul Maloney, President of ASSIST at a Talk given at the “The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multi-Faceted Enigma” conference in Columbus, Ohio on August 14-17th 2008, when he states, “Walter McCrone had sent him in 1981 several Kodak transparencies of photos he took of Shroud linen fibers. “On those slides, (Guild also has them) McCrone had written the following note: madder rose, linen fiber, medium (blue) sample 3 CB” 4 and sample 3-AB. McCrone was referring to photomicrographs made on STURP sticky tape samples 3-CB and 3-AB which came from the blood flow across the back nearest the side-strip side of the Shroud and directly adjacent to that flow on linen, itself. It was on that side where someone would have been working their repairs if the re-weave theory is held to be correct. McCrone, of course, due to his belief that the Shroud was painted by an artist, was trying to prove that the Shroud had been in an artist’s studio.” Source: Maloney, Paul C. “What Went Wrong With the Shroud’s Radiocarbon Date? Setting it all in Context.” Talk given at the “Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multi-Faceted Enigma”conference in Columbus, Ohio on August 14-17th 2008.
Comments: Regarding the presence of madder rose on the cloth, Maloney says, “There is now a new way of looking at the presence of that madder rose. Although this is some distance from the “Raes Corner” such trace amounts can now be conjectured to explain the dye that was used, along with the aluminum mordant and the gum Arabic as a binder to create the wash to finish the re-weave. Thus, it may now be seen not as a contaminant from an artist’s studio, but rather a contaminant from the weaver’s workshop.”
Russ Breault has a video at Shroud University, of Paul Maloney’s talk, What Went Wrong with the Shroud’s Radiocarbon Date? Setting It All in Context (Note: this link is for a Windows Media Video (WMV) file). Also see, Chronological History of the Evidence for the Anomalous Nature of the C-14 Sample Area of the Shroud of Turin (PDF file) by Joseph G. Marino and Edwin J. Prior.
More support for Treasures Decoded: The Turin Shroud
My old friend, Ray Schneider, from the Shroud Science Group, has just chimed in to recommend the Quest video, Treasures Decoded: The Turin Shroud on his blog, Political Brambles:
I’m a Shroud of Turin expert, sort of second tier I suppose since I restrict my work to processing the images and giving talks on the shroud. This is worth a look for those who wonder how the image got on the cloth.
Go have a look at his blog.
Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
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