Video Posted by Rome Reports: Questions Carbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin
This just in, in English, from Rome Reports:
October 15, 2011. (Romereports.com) It’s kept in the cathedral of Turin in northern Italy. According to tradition, it’s the linen cloth that covered the body of Jesus after his crucifixtion. But a study done back in 1988 denies this. According to the group that performed a test known as Carbon-14, the cloth isn’t the Holy Shroud. It concluded it dates between the years 1260 and 1390.
But, not everyone is convinced of the tests results though, including Francesca Sarracino (sic should be Saracino*).
She’s the director of the documentary called “La notte de la Sindone,” which translates to the “Night of the Shroud.” The story looks into unpublished data that sheds light on the techniques used during the Carbon-14 test.
Francesca Sarracino
Director, “La notte della Sindone”“The results were not reliable, not because of the exam itself, but because of its irregularities. At first we finished the film in November, but we had to redo it because I found unpublished information that made the test invalid or at least incorrect.”
Franco Fraia (sic should be Faia*)
Lab Technician“These irregularities could be tainted by competition among different laboratories or even by a type of prestige. The idea that ‘I want my lab to be the one that says that the Holy Shroud is real, or not real.’ This is something that’s very normal, very human.”
Francesca Sarracino
Director, “La notte della Sindone”“We found a file that had over 2,000 documents and letters that show that the Carbon-14 test is crippled so to speak when applied to the Shroud. Actions were taken to block some research. There were scientists who did everything they could to discredit the research that had been done before and that which would later come forward.”
It’s a documentary that tries to shed light on the test itself and those who carried it out. To achieve this, the director collected all types of information on the Shroud that has come out in the last 23 years, Whether it’s the Holy Shroud or a simple sheet, still remains a mystery.
* And this by way of a helpful email just arrived from Gian Marco Rinaldi in Italy:
"Francesca Sarracino" should be Francesca Saracino.
"Franco Fraia" should be Franco Faia.
Unfortunately, the misspellings are in the video, as well.
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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
Interesting! It would be nice to be able to watch the whole documentary. It’s also very interesting how much about the 1988 C-14 fiasco is coming to light as of late, but I am sure most of the information has already been published with many people not being aware of it. Many will claim the tests were in error without blaming any of the ‘tester labs’, which to me is a blind statement to the truth. All the labs as well as the Vatican were at fault for a bumbled testing, right from the start. The fact that all protocols were dropped for the choice of samples by the Vatican to the fact that no chemical analysis were done on the samples by any of the labs, too the huge discrepencies found in the final numbers. Not to mention an anonymous donation to one lab of 1.5 million pounds! It (the 1988 c-14 dating) has all the attributes of a true conspiracy. The questions are WHY? and conspired by WHOM?
Personally back in ’88 when the test results were splattered all over the media, I did not believe the results, as too much evidence pointed to ‘authenticity’. I could only feel at the time that something wrong had been done, but unfortunately many important people in the study of the Shroud lost interest, which to me was also unbelievable. How could so many put so much faith in a single carbon dating? Especially when anyone with half a brain understood that carbon dating methods are not infallible, even novices as myself understood that! Personaly I don’t believe any further carbon dating will bring us to any certain conclusions as the cloth as been tampered with way too much (2002 restoration) and is far too contaminated to ever get a true date. The only thing we can hope for, as our friend Yannick states is far more chemical and optical studies must be sanctioned by the Vatican and performed completely in the OPEN.
Ron