Bravo: More Stephen Jones on Charles Freeman
Stephen Jones continues his critique of Charles Freeman’s "The Turin Shroud and the Image of Edessa: A Misguided Journey," part 2: First Century Relics in Medieval Europe Continuing from part 1.
This is a good piece. I guess you might want to read it in order: ( part 1 and part 2 )
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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
Bravo? Jones begins with a false statement:
Freeman employs the “guilt by association” tactic beloved of atheist/agnostic Shroud anti-authenticists like Joe Nickel (sic):
1. Most Christian relics are fake;
2. The Shroud of Turin is a Christian relic;
3. Therefore the Shroud of Turin is a fake.
Nowhere in the article says Freeman that the Shroud of Turin is false “because many relics are false”. Freeman concludes: “I think it is unlikely to the very first of these thousands to be proved to be genuine and the onus is on those who claim a first century origin to provide the evidence for this.” He concludes that after examining the evidence and refute it. We may agree or disagree with this rebuttal, but not falsify his argument. This is unacceptable.
It is useless intend to argue with someone who refuses to discuss with others claiming that he is too superior to stoop to the level of the plebs. This is the case of Mr. Jones. (And Mr. Fanti also! This is an epidemic!) But since his comment starts with something false (and it is not the first time he does it), the rest does not interest me at all. I guess it will be similar.
Bravo? I do not see why.
I think there are two interesting things about the Shroud… No one has copied it… and … well… one thing that is very interesting about the Shroud is that there are NO copies after all these years.