More on the Lombatti story in the Daily Mail
Donna Anderson from Coast to Coast Radio reacts:
In an article published June 10, 2012, the Daily Mail website asks readers to believe that the Shroud of Turin is a fake, one of 40 such cloths produced during the Middle Ages. Yet the article offers no evidence whatsoever to substantiate this claim, and after years of hearing the subject discussed by more than one expert on Coast to Coast AM, the “facts” that the Daily Mail are putting out there for consideration are a tad bit weak, to say the least.
[Quoting the Mail]:
“Not only is the Turin Shroud probably a medieval fake but it is just one of an astonishing 40 so-called burial cloths of Jesus, according to an eminent church historian.”
“Antonio Lombatti said the false shrouds circulated in the Middle Ages, but most of them were later destroyed.”
“He said the Turin Shroud itself – showing an image of a bearded man and venerated for centuries as Christ’s burial cloth – appears to have originated in Turkey some 1,300 years after the Crucifixion.”
“Probably a medieval fake?” Is it or isn’t it? Curious readers want to know.
“Most of them were later destroyed?” What does “most” mean? How many were destroyed? If they weren’t all destroyed, where are the others? If you’ve seen no others, how do you know they really exist or ever existed at all?
“Appears to have originated?” What’s so earth-shattering about that tidbit of information? Wake us up when you know for sure where it originated.
Go read Shroud of Turin expert makes lots of claims but where’s the proof? But be careful, Coast to Coast is going to warn you about UFOs. They are big into that sort of thing and unfortunately this goofiness rubs off on the shroud.
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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
I think M. Lombatti should read my recent open letter about the evidence of the bloodstains. He can find it here : http://shroudofturin.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/please-dont-forget-the-evidence-of-the-bloodstains/
Maybe the reading of this letter could be an eye-opener for him ? Probably not but I think he should read it nevertheless…
That’s funny. This is better than the back of the paper to find Dilbert.