An Anglican's, Episcopalian's View on the Shroud of Turin
"Try to be honest - and to
go on from there"
- John A. T. Robinson,
Honest to God
|
An Open Letter to ~ On the Burial of Jesus ~ |
The Maybe Not-So-Miraculous
Images
The images are probably not the direct result of a miracle, at least not in a traditional sense of the word. But they are not manmade either. These seem to be the conclusions from an startling announcement in the completely secular, peer-reviewed, scientific Journal of Optics (April 14, 2004) of the Institute of Physics in London.
So what was the startling announcement? A faint image of a second face was discovered on the back of the Shroud of Turin. This supports a hypothesis that the images are the result of a very natural, complex chemical reaction between amines (ammonia derivatives) emerging from a body and saccharides within a carbohydrate residue that covers the fibers of the cloth. The color producing chemical process is called a Maillard reaction.
A CSI Forensic Science Quest to
Explain the Pictures of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin
But if this is so, how is it that the Shroud became separated from the body it once enclosed? The tomb must have been open. Is there, in all of this, an important clue? And how will this shape debate about the Shroud's authenticity?
There
is no question that the outermost fibers of the Shroud are coated with saccharides and
starch fractions. (The picture to the right is of a single coated fiber). The formed-images are a selective chemical change within this
coating that is as thin (180 to 600 nanometers) as the scratchproof coating
on modern eyeglasses. Spectral and microscopic analysis reveal that the chromophores of the images are
complex, conjugated carbon bonds.
This is sobering news for those who believe or want to believe that the images were formed by a miraculous resurrection event. This doesn't mean that such an event didn't happen. Nor does it suggest that the Resurrection was not a miracle. The Maillard hypothesis merely disassociates the images from whatever we may believe about the Resurrection as an event. More than this, however, this is disconcerting news for those who believe or want to believe that the images were created by a medieval crafter of fake relics.
There
is the matter of the carbon 14 (C14) tests conducted in 1988
that conclude for a medieval provenance. But there is new news on this
subject, too. According to a National Geographic news release
(April 9, 2004), we now have convincing forensic evidence that what was
tested was actually a medieval repair to a damaged edge of the Turin cloth.
While carbon 14 tests (radiocarbon dating) argue that the cloth is but about 600 years old, new lignin decomposition kinetic studies argue that the cloth is at least 1300 years old, if not much older. The kinetics studies are true for the whole cloth but not so for the small section of the cloth from which the carbon 14 samples were cut. The new studies in 2003 and 2004 of material from the same sample area show spliced threads, Madder root dyes and aluminum hydroxide mordants, probably used to make the splice job appear older. And cotton fiber twisted in among the linen fibers has been found in the sample area. Twisted-in cotton is not not found anywhere else on the Shroud; nor are dyestuffs; nor is vanillin (vanilla), the forensic science marker of cellulose decomposition. Vanillin, found in medieval linen, is not found on the Shroud just as it is not found on the wrappings of the Dead Sea Scrolls; that is, it is not found except in one place: the splice site, the carbon 14 site.
Whatever the Turin Shroud is, it is not a medieval fake relic.
Just as modern Christianity is a tapestry of diverse traditions stretched taut between the polarities of unwavering biblical literalism and unbridled modern revisionism, modern beliefs and arguments about the Shroud of Turin are drawn tight between those who seek from it some proof of the Resurrection and those who are firmly skeptical. Could it be that the answer is a via media, a middle way, a reasoned embrace of the facts.
If the Shroud is genuine (see the sidebar to the right) it presents us with more mystery and paradox and confusion than clarity. That, however, is not so perplexing as it is exciting in an age of diverse beliefs and traditions.
I have come to believe that it is genuine. To arrive at that belief, I had to choke down some educated-into-me predispositions: relics with a footprint in medieval Europe were certainly fake, such images were not scientifically possible (I still struggle with this), such an object would not survive 2000 years and an attitude of skepticism about many things. In the final analysis, as strange as it may sound, modern sensibilities prevailed. In the 1960s, I had read John A. T. Robinson's Honest to God. The appeal to letting honesty lead where it may has been key in all my thinking. The science and the history of the Shroud is compelling.
My personal faith, rooted in a rich mix of Anglican-style liberal theology and traditional orthodoxy, is unchanged by the Turin Shroud. However, in the Shroud I find breathtaking possibilities for advancing the quest for the historical Jesus and for better understanding my faith. Surprisingly, to some, the liberal-revisionist Bishop Robinson thought so too.
Please read:
The Shroud of Caiaphas:
a forensic science mystery
For those interested in the non-religious science of the Shroud, I recommend the following 19-question FAQ by Ray Rogers. Rogers, a chemist, is a Fellow of the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory and a charter member of the Coalition for Excellence in Science Education. In his half-century long career he has published many scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and U.S. government publications. In 1978, together with several other scientists, he personally examined the Shroud of Turin for several days and collected numerous samples of fibers and particle materials for further study. He continues to study the Shroud today.
THE TOUGH QUESTIONS
- The peculiar Mozarabic Rite: what does it suggest about the Shroud of Turin?
- The Sudarium of Oviedo: what is the connection to the Shroud?
- The Hungarian Pray Manuscript: what does it tell us about the Turin Shroud?
- What can we understand from image characteristics of the Shroud of Turin?
- What did 'Honest to God' John A. T. Robinson think about the Shroud?
- What do we know from forensic science & pathology?
- What does the Lignin & Vanillin evidence suggest about the Shroud's age?
- What does the presence of Travertine Aragonite mean about it origin?
- What can we learn about the Shroud from pictures of Jesus in history?
- Are there coins over the eyes of the man of the Shroud?
HISTORICAL TOPICS
Until
1204 CE, when crusaders sacked Constantinople,
there was in that city, a picture of Jesus on a
piece of cloth. It had been moved there from the
city of Edessa in 944 where it was discovered in
the city walls in 544. Historians think that the Edessa
Cloth, also known as the Mandylion,
is what
we now call the Shroud of Turin. 
MORE
ON EDESSA
Since
the eighth century, there has been in Oviedo,
Spain, an ancient piece of linen known as the
Sudarium. Blood stains and forensic analysis
link it to the Shroud. MORE
ABOUT THE SUDARIUM
Scholars
have found an amazing connection between
the Shroud and depictions of Christ. These
depictions date
back as far as the sixth century. MORE
ON THE ART CONNECTION
If the Shroud is indeed the Edessa Cloth, as
most shroud and many art scholars now believe, then what
happened to it after the sack of Constantinople?
MORE
ON THE MISSING YEARS
The
Shroud was displayed in Lirey, France in the
1350s. Later, moved to Chambery,
France it was almost destroyed in a fire in
1532. It is now in Turin, Italy. Nothing in its
later history has been more significant than a
century of research since Secondo
Pia's amazing discovery of its negative image
properties in 1898. MORE
ON THE SHROUD'S LATER HISTORY
FORENSIC SCIENCE TOPICS
Twentieth
century forensic medicine tells us that the image
on the Shroud is an anatomically correct picture
of man in a state of rigor mortis who was tortured
and crucified. The blood stains are realistic to
the point that only modern-day pathologists would
know how to explain them.MORE
ON FORENSICS
The
Shroud is an old, blood-stained piece
of linen with traces of dirt. The historical
nature of the cloth, the
peculiarities of the blood stains, and the
particles of travertine aragonite limestone dirt
that suggest an origin in Jerusalem, are all
significant to understanding the Shroud's origins. MORE
ABOUT THE CLOTH
The
work of Dr. Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Uri
Baruch, a pollen specialist at the Israel
Antiquities Authority is highly significant.
Pollen grains and flower images suggest that
the cloth was at one time in the Jerusalem
environs as well as the
Anatolia area of Turkey, that includes the cities of Constantinople and Edessa. MORE
ABOUT POLLEN AND FLOWERS
Chemists
and art scholars have ruled out the possibility
that the Shroud is a painting or any other known
form of art, including photography. MORE
ON IT NOT BEING A WORK OF ART
IMAGE TOPICS
The
images appear to be a 3D encoded chart of the
front and back of a man that also happens to have
the important characteristics of a photographic
negative. This unique dual quality may help
theoretical physicists understand how the
image was created.
MORE
ON 3D
The
image is very faint and composed of discolored lengths of
coated fibers that have been chemically
altered (dehydrated, oxidized and conjugated). Scientists call
the lengths
of discolored fibers: pixels. Different shades of
yellow in the image are achieved by the
density and size of pixels in an area in very much the
same way as half tone photographs are printed in
newspapers. Pixels are only to be found in the topmost
layers of the cloth. MORE
ON THE PIXELS
It
seems there is something over the eyes. It
is quite possible that coins were placed on the
eyelids to keep the man's eyes closed. This was a
common burial practice. There is some evidence
that these may be coins that were struck about 30
CE.
MORE
ON THE COINS
Scientist do not know
for sure how the images were created. Having
ruled out a work of art, they also rule out many
natural causes known to science at this time.MORE
ON NATURAL CAUSE EXPLANATIONS
A TIMELINE FOR THE SHROUD
WHAT IS IT, REALLY?
Shroud Story Shroud Forum Shroud.com Quest for the Historical Jesus
© 2004 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York
