Archive
Struggling with Naturalist Explanations
In referencing a discussion in this blog, Long time blogger, Jason Engwer, in Triablogue writes on The Failure Of Naturalistic Theories To Explain The Shroud Of Turin:
Here’s a thread discussing the failure of various naturalistic theories to explain the Shroud of Turin. We don’t just need to explain how the image could have been produced, but also why it happened with Jesus in particular and not with other individuals, the timing of the image formation (around the time when other evidence suggests Jesus was resurrected), and how the removal of the body from the Shroud didn’t do more to disturb the bloodstains and damage the cloth. I think that Jesus’ resurrection is the best explanation for the totality of the phenomena. But what I want to highlight here is something Barrie Schwortz wrote in the comments section of the thread linked above. Schwortz is an advocate of the view that the Shroud image formed as a result of a Maillard reaction, and Ray Rogers held the same view, yet Schwortz writes:
Ray Rogers told me personally that he believed, “Something else was at work with the Maillard reaction,” but he didn’t know what that was and didn’t live long enough to explore it.
[ . . . ]
Of course, we might imagine that the something else might be miraculous. I rather suspect that Rogers didn’t think so. I do. But then again, as I have said, I consider any image caused by radiation, as well, naturalistic. The only question is where the very natural radiation came from – like from a resurrection event?
I think Jason thoughts on this are most useful.
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 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.
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.
The Signs of the Time: The e-cloud?
John Klotz has a nice post, Behold the signs of the times over on his blog:
And who should emerge as the preeminent spokesman for the Shroud but Barrie Schwortz, a man who in 1978 was a gangly young photographer and in the interim has now aged, and created the number one Shroud source on the web: shroud.com …
[ . . . ]
And now America, the Jesuit Magazine that Fr. Peter Rinaldi avoided in 1934 because of the sway of Shroud critic Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J., reports on his views. http://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/mystery-shroud
Behold the signs of the time! He is coming, but He is coming not on a cloud but through science and the Internet.
Alleluia!
Review of the Holy Shroud Exhibition in Seville
Blogger Sam B. Farkas reviews the exhibition (revised URL):
Each room added a little bit more; the entire time, the suspense built and built. Soon enough, I was ready to scream into my audio guide, "Just tell me if it’s real!"
Then, the rising action right before the climax: the tests.
- The shroud is impervious to water.
- The shroud is impervious to temperatures, both hot and cold.
- The shroud is impervious to light. The image hasn’t faded.
After thousands of years, the shroud has not deteriorated at all, something absolutely unheard of in the archaeological world. Which makes one wonder if it really is a miracle…
By this point I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet with anticipation, wishing the audio guide would go faster (there were no cards next to the displays, so unfortunately I couldn’t just read my way through). I needed to know. Then, finally, it told me to proceed into the next room.
Tell me it isn’t so. They aren’t really saying the shroud is impervious to water, heat and light, right? Something maybe lost in translation, right? Lost in blogging?
Dear Stephen E. Jones
I noticed that you have responded to my criticism of your posting, The Shroud of Turin: 2.6. The other marks (5): Coins over eyes, with an inline addendum. You begin:
Response to Dan Porter In a post, "The Forger and the Coins: One in a Gazillion with 13 Zeroes," Dan Porter, owner of the Shroud of Turin Blog, has criticised my post above, dismissing the evidence for the coins over the eyes of the man on the Shroud as "pure pareidolia":
"… But this is so only if you believe that the images of coins are there. I’ve spent years considering this question; I don’t believe they’re there. What people see, I think, is pure pareidolia.
But pareidolia is (my emphasis):
"…a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant … Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds …"[126]
"… the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features"[127].
Stephen, if you don’t like the term pareidolia – and I still do – then how about visual noise?
You continue:
However, in this Porter is simply ignoring the evidence above, for example, that Jackson, et al. found on their VP-8 Image Analyzer three-dimensional `relief map’ of the Shroud, images of two, round, flat objects over the eyes, which were the same size and shape of Pontius Pilate leptons.
Round flat objects? Let’s look at several images:
1) This is perhaps the most famous of the images. It is a VP8 image prepared by Jackson. One might say the images over the eyes seem like flat disks. There might be something there. It’s hard to tell. Barrie Schwortz says,
I do not argue that there appears to be something on the eyes of the man of the Shroud, and it may well be coins or potshards . . .
But, I’m not even sure of that.
2) In the photo Stephen, you provide, seemingly (I agree with you on this) sourced from Giovanni Tamburelli of the Centro Studie Laboratori Telecomunicazioni S.p.A., Turin, Italy, we see, as you put it, “small, round, raised, object over each eye.” These certainly don’t appear like, “two, round, flat objects.” These could very well simply be eyelids.
You continue:
They did not "imagine" them-the images really are there. And this was confirmed by others using different three-dimensional computer processing. Even if the details on the face of those two objects could not be seen, it would still be a reasonable conclusion that they are Pontius Pilate leptons.
Look! How can this possibly be a reasonable conclusion? Potshards? Um, maybe. Nothing but the normal curvature of eyes, perhaps swollen eyes? It seems so.
3) The History Channel provides an image prepared by Ray Downing during the making of the Real Face of Jesus. I think this provides good confirmation that “two, round, flat objects” ARE NOT clearly (conclusively) there.
If anything, the 3D images, and there are others as well, argue against the presence of coins over the eyes.
But Stephen, you continue:
And Porter is simply ignoring the improbability that a lituus shape and even one letter, in the correct order and angle of rotation around the lituus (both of which can be clearly seen on the Shroud – see above) `just happen’ to be chance patterns in the Shroud weave, which `just happen’ to be over the eye of the man on the Shroud, is of the order of 1 in 1.1216 x 1015. Not to mention that the `chance patterns’ are three-dimensional, round and flat!
If I thought that what constituted particular shapes and letters was completely or mostly the same chemical product that constitutes the image of the man on the shroud, I might think the statistical argument has merit. But I don’t think so.
The statistic that you refer to were based on observations made on the 1931 Giuseppe Enrie photographs, beautiful and detailed, technically wonderful and absolutely wrong for this kind of analysis of small details. Why? Because the film was high resolution orthochromatic film. The problem was compounded when Enrie coupled this film choice with near-raking light thus creating countless miniscule patterns and shapes from the shadows between threads of the weave. Since orthochromatic film basically only records black or white, any mid-tone grays that existed on the cloth as image, background banding patterns in the ancient the linen, and accumulations of centuries’ worth of dirt particles caused more miniscule imaging.
The picture on the right is an approximation of banding found in the face area. The dark horizontal band about a quarter of the way down goes right through the eyes. Vertical banding lines also go through both eyes. Before you can do any statistics you must adjust for the banding noise, shadow noise and visible contamination noise.
It helps to quote from something Barrie Schwortz wrote in 2009:
. . . the high resolution orthochromatic film used by Enrie, coupled with the extreme raking light he used when making the photographs, created an infinite number of patterns and shapes everywhere on the Shroud. Since orthochromatic film basically only records black or white, any mid-tone grays of the Shroud image were inherently altered or changed to only black or only white, in essence discarding much data and CHANGING the rest.
The grain structure of orthochromatic film itself is distinctive: It is not homogenous and consists of clumps and clusters of grain of different sizes that appear as an infinite myriad of shapes when magnified. It is easy to find anything you are looking for if you magnify and further duplicate the image onto additional generations of orthochromatic film, thus creating even more of these shapes.
Although Enrie’s images are superb for general views of the Shroud (they look great), they contain only a small part of the data that is actually on the Shroud so they are much less reliable for imaging research purposes and have a tendency to lead to "I think I see…" statements. I would feel much more confident if these claims were based on the full color images of the Shroud which contain ALL the data available.
As I used to try and explain to Fr. Francis Filas, who first "discovered" the rather dubious coin inscriptions over the eyes and who had enlarged and duplicated the Enrie images (through at least five generations – and always onto orthochromatic film), there is a fine line between enhancement and manipulation. Fr. Filas first presented his findings to the STURP team in 1979 and frankly, not one of the STURP imaging scientists accepted his claims.
And now Stephen, you suggest something that just isn’t true.
From other things Porter has written, for example, his preferring a naturalistic explanation of the Shroud’s image, I assume that he does not want there to be images of coins over the Shroud man’s eyes because that would be more problems for a naturalistic explanation of the Shroud’s image, and further evidence for a supernaturalistic explanation of it.
No. No. I don’t “prefer” a naturalistic explanation. I only prefer a true explanation. Less than a month ago I posted So which hypothesis, of all those ever proposed, do I prefer? in which I wrote:
I consider any image caused by radiation, of any kind, naturalistic. The only question is where the very natural radiation came from. I remain totally unconvinced from any evidence or by any argument so far presented that miracles produce energetic byproducts.
So which hypothesis, of all those ever proposed, do I prefer? None!
Let me repeat what I said: None!
Actually, I have a gut feeling that the image is miraculous in ways none of us have yet imagined (supernatural if you prefer that term). How is not something I am ready or able to articulate. I doubt the image was caused by the resurrection or by any energetic byproduct of the resurrection just as much as I doubt it is the accidental product of a pre/non-resurrection chemical reaction.
Stephen, you conclude:
Therefore Porter blithely dismisses all the evidence above that there are Pontius Pilate coins over the eyes of the man on the Shroud with the `magic’ word "pareidolia"! But in so doing he goes far beyond what the word "pareidolia" means. However, Porter is welcome to his beliefs and I don’t see my role as convincing him, or anyone, but just presenting the evidence and letting my readers make up their own minds.
Blithely? You mean, lacking due thought or consideration? Talk about going beyond the meaning of a word.
I know there are still a few people who think there are images of coins over the eyes. That’s unfortunate.
The Forger and the Coins: One in a Gazillion with 13 Zeroes
Yesterday, in his blog, Stephen Jones revisited the topic in a posting entitled, The Shroud of Turin: 2.6. The other marks (5): Coins over eyes. He concludes:
Finally, this is yet another problem for the forgery theory[§14]. A medieval, or earlier, forger would have had to imprint the tiny letters 1.3 mm (1/32 inch), four of which are barely visible, and the rest invisible to the naked eye, on linen, in photographic negative[123], when the very concept of photographic negativity did not exist until the early 19th century[124]. Moreover, these leptons were not identified as being coined by Pontius Pilate until the early 1800s[125], so even in the unlikely event the 14th century or earlier forger knew of these coins, he would have no reason to think they were significant.
But this is so only if you believe that the images of coins are there. I’ve spent years considering this question; I don’t believe they’re there. What people see, I think, is pure pareidolia. (see: Paper Chase: Why There Are Probably No Images of Coins, Lettering, Flowers and Whatnots on the Shroud of Turin). Unless Jones can prove the images of coins are there, he cannot legitimately say that a forger would need to “imprint the tiny letters.”
Jones, to his credit, tries to prove it. He is thorough. His posting is comprehensive with extensive notes and citations. Maybe its me. Can someone explain this to me?
Fifth, the probability that there is a lituus and one letter in the correct position over one of the eyes of the man on the Shroud is 1 in 1.827 x 106 x 6.1389 x 108[122] = 1.1216 x 1015, i.e. 121 with 13 zeroes after it. Therefore the evidence is very strong that there is an image of a Pontius Pilate dilepton minted between AD 29-32 over the right eye of the Shroud. This is true irrespective of whether there is over the left eye the image of one or two Julia leptons, minted by Pontius Pilate in AD 29; and despite the mistake of Filas and Whanger in not realising that since the lituus on the image of the coin in an Enrie 1931 negative photograph over the right eye of the Shroud has a reversed question mark shape, then the Pontius Pilate lepton coin which was the basis of that image must have a question mark shape.
The Shroud of Turin: A bit scary for Atheists?
Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton introduces a Barrie Schwortz video in her Public Catholic blog over at Patheos and then gets into a big argument with a Bill S.
Believers are, for the most part, quite equitable about whether or not the Shroud of Turin is the burial shroud of Christ.
Atheists, on the other hand, tend to get worked up about it. They seem almost to fear it. I am guessing that this is because they’ve got so much ego invested in their non-belief that the thought that some artifact might rattle that a bit is scary to them.
I may not agree with Bill S. but I don’t agree much with Rebecca, either. Some of the most adamant shroud skeptics I have encountered are believers: biblical literalist fundamentalists who argue that the shroud is fake because it shows Jesus with long hair. Many of these same fundamentalists insist that Jesus was wrapped in strips of linen, mummy style, and not a shroud. They are not equitable at all. It is not uncommon for them to send some very insulting fire and brimstone emails.
And when it comes to Atheists, I often encounter people who are completely unfazed by the shroud. They are so convinced that it can’t be real that they shrug and walk away.
Then again, how do we address the question of what Thomas de Wesselow believes: that the shroud is real and that the very natural image on it inspired belief in the Resurrection and hence led to Christianity.
Don’t get me wrong. I read Rebecca’s bio and I’m impressed.
A mysterious work of art?
Lee Krystek, on his excellent website, The Museum of Unnatural Mystery, after summarizing pretty much everything from STURP to Fanti’s latest, wraps up Visiting the Fake Shroud of Turin:
Probably one of the techniques that got closest to what we see on the Shroud (and by my thinking was probably the method used by the forger, if indeed the Shroud it a forgery) was done by Jacques di Costanzo, of Marseille University Hospital, in 2005. He had a bas-relief ( a type of sculpture that stands out from the background ) created that looked like the figure on the Shroud, then draped it with wet linen. He then let it dry so it molded itself to the statue and then dabbed ferric oxide, mixed with gelatine, onto the cloth. When the cloth was allowed to dry, then pulled off and reversed, the image resembled that of the Shroud. Most importantly the result had no brush strokes. The lack of brush strokes on the Shroud of Turin is often cited as an argument for it not being painted by an artist. [See picture below]
Does it Matter?
So, is the Shroud of Turin real or fake? Just looking at the replica it struck me how much the image on it seemed to be exactly what we might expect to see down to the blood dripping out of a nail wound on the hand. I’ve observed that things in the real world are rarely that neat and tidy. It reminds me of a minister friend of mine that remarks that he doesn’t like pictures of Jesus that make him look too "clean" and unreal. To me, the Shroud looks too perfect to be authentic.
At a certain level, does it really matter if the Shroud is genuine? Even if you can prove that the Shroud was actually used to wrap a victim of crucifixion in Jerusalem in the 1st century A.D., will you ever be able to prove that the person involved was Jesus of Nazareth? The Romans were not shy about nailing people to the cross and it could be one of hundreds of victims.
And even if you prove that it was Jesus, existence of the Shroud really doesn’t prove or disprove the central tenant of Christianity, which is that Christ rose from the dead. Proponents and skeptics seem to fixate on the Shroud as evidence one way or the other of the Resurrection, but it really isn’t.
And I think the Catholic Church, which has owned the Shroud since it was gifted to them in 1983, understands this. They take no position on the authenticity of the artifact, leaving it up to the individual to decide on their own what they think.
Perhaps we should appreciate the cloth for what we know it to be: a mysterious work of art. Perhaps produced by some unknown force of nature, a cunning forger, or maybe just a clever artist.
Phys.org story on Jacques di Costanzo work.
At least as potent as the finest icons
Tom Acemoglu commented on an article, Science still can’t explain Shroud of Turin, researcher says, appearing in the National Catholic Reporter. It warrants more attention:
I have far more respect for someone who studies something as culturally potent as the Shroud of Turin and can say "we just can’t tell where it came from". This isn’t a claim to faith, but an openness that maybe it can’t be explained away so simply. To deny the possibility that this the shroud is legitimate is not to stand on the intellectual high ground, but in the same philosophical muck as fundamentalism. Positivism IS a kind of fundamentalism.
For me, the Shroud is at least as potent as the finest icons. Honestly, it’s more so. The blood is real, the negatives of the photographs are shocking, the wounds are consistent with the kind of injuries that Jesus sustained, and recent research has picked up so many peculiar things about it that it has become far more difficult to be satisfied with the explanation that it’s a clever medieval trick. Read up on it, if for no other reason than to experience a profound meditation on why the Resurrection and our redemption did not come cheap.
The Shroud of Turin Blimp
Any clues to what Daniel Milberg is trying to tell us? Any interpretations? Is that a Nordic cross? Which one?
Click on the image to see a larger version on the artist’s blog. He has some other interesting stuff to look at.
Seemingly Uninformed About the History of the Shroud of Turin
Catherine Beyer, writes in About.com:
As a historian, one might presume I’d love the History Channel. I don’t. I tend to want to scream at it, because the History Channel needs viewers to make money and apparently spectacle and scandal draws more viewers than solid history.
So far, okay. I mean, Ice Road Truckers and Pawn Stars. But they do some good history too.
The Shroud of Turin is going on display in Turin Cathedral, and the History Channel has cashed in on the event with a special about "the real face of Jesus," which is about showing what Jesus actually looked like through examination of the shroud.
But the History Channel production, which is now years old, was not shown to cash in on the “display” of the Shroud on March 29. It was a repeat, repeated so many times now, that I failed to even blog about its Eastertide showing this year.
Beyer went on to write:
Forget the fact that the authenticity of the Shroud has long been questioned. There’s no historical record of its existence before the 14th century. Oops. And multiple carbon-datings of the shroud dates its creation to the 13th or 14th century. Oops.
But the History Channel has an answer for that, something that might mollify casual viewers but makes no sense within the context of studying history:
Since then, however, further studies have cast doubt on those results, suggesting that the shroud may indeed date back to the time of Jesus Christ’s life and death.
No, that does not suggest the Shroud dates back to the time of Jesus. If the carbon-dating is wrong, that means we have less evidence pointing to a Medieval dating. It does not miraculously produce evidence of a Biblical dating.
Oops. History Channel show didn’t say so. Watch the video again.
Beyer went on to quote Cardinal Severino Poletto, the Archbishop of Turin. That was a good idea.
There is no mathematical certainty that the Shroud is indeed the cloth in which Our Lord was wrapped. It is quite clear to all that our Christian faith is not based on the Shroud but on the Gospel and the teaching of the Apostles.
From her bio we learn that, “Catherine Noble Beyer is an educator, illustrator and web author, as well as a practicing Wiccan.” I have no issue with any on this – any of it. My issue is with her non-objective, seemingly uninformed, approach to the shroud’s history. As an historian, has she read any books on the Shroud’s history? Has she read any papers by Scavone or Markwart? Has she ever heard of the Pray Manuscript?
Interpretive Literalism
Charles Creager Jr. and his Genesis Science Mission website, a young earth creation science site, has an up-to-date article on the shroud. Note the references to Fanti’s recent work:
Using infra-red light, spectroscopy and multiparametric mechanical tests on fibers taken from the shroud during the 1988 study Professor Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua and other scientists discovered that the fibers were compatible with those from the time of the death, burial and resurrection Jesus Christ in about 30 AD. Combining the results from different tests tests, produces a date of 220 B.C.- 280 AD. The conclusion is the Shroud of Turin is not a medieval forgery but is from a time range consistent with it be authentic
But, in the end, authenticity gets down to Biblical tests. For the life of me I will never figure out how that is science. Keeping in mind that many fundamentalists and biblical literalists reject the shroud’s authenticity on scriptural grounds, read the following and explain to me how this isn’t “interpretive literalism.”
Matthew refers to Jesus’ body be rapped in a linen cloth while Luke and John refer to linen clothes, with Mark simply referring to linen. John also refers to "the napkin, that was about his head." John’s account is often used again the Shroud of Turin being authentic because it refers to cloths and with the napkin requires at least three cloth’s to be present. However when you include Matthew which indicates the Jesus Christ’s body was wrapped in a linen cloth then an answer presents itself. The best way to reconcile these accounts is that the was one main large cloth in which the body was wrapped and one or more smaller long ones use to bind the rapping together. This possibility is supported by the fact that along one side if the shroud is a strip a little shorter than the rest of the cloth (see the to of the above image) that was sewn on that seems to have originally been part of the cloth that was cut off and later sewn back on. If the main part of the Shroud of Turin were the main rappings and this strip were used to bind the bundle then what we have in the shroud would fit the description of the linen clothes thus making the Shroud of Turin consistent with the Gospel account. . . .
I also believe the Shroud is authentic. And I believe the universe is 13.7 billions years old and that the human species evolved over millions of years. And I believe that all of this is consistent with scripture, but so without tortured apology (interpretive literalism). The shroud can be authentic no matter what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John say.
John Klotz’ new Quantum Christ Blog
His first posting in very intriguing. I understand what John is saying because he is quite clear. On the other hand I have no idea what the answer is to his big question in the middle paragraph below.
Why this may be important is that to the extent the formation process operated non-orthogonally, the image on the Shroud would show some distortions. This may be one reason why there is such a variance in claimed measurements. The simple version of the process would be the image projected through a taut and therefore perpendicular Shroud. To the extent the Shroud was not perfectly flat, the image would be distorted. It is likely that Shroud image contained both orthogonal and non-orthogonal properties and that is what Adler is writing.
Now my question is this. Can we determine what part of the image is orthogonal (transmitted at a 90 degree angle to the Shroud) and what was non-orthogonal: (striking the Shroud at an oblique angle)? And, can we determine that angle and correct the image?
By the way, I am not saying that image was created by a laser. I am saying that the image formation process acted similar to a laser.
Source: QuantumChrist
Fanti, et al.’s Paper for Free, at Least for Now
Stephen Jones found a link that will let you get a non-final version of Fanti’s paper free. That is probably close enough for most of us. If you are interested jump on over to Jone’s blog: Fanti, et al.’s, "Non-destructive dating of ancient flax textiles by means of vibrational spectroscopy" paper (unedited) can be downloaded free!
Here is what Stephen had to say:
In trying to work out how I would find it online at the library, I found the page "Vibrational Spectroscopy | Articles in Press | ScienceDirect.com"
About half-way down that table of contents page I found Fanti, et al.’s article, with a PDF download link.
I clicked on the link thinking it would pop-up a message saying I had to pay for the article. But much to my surprise it downloaded a PDF of the full text of the article:
I clicked on the link thinking it would pop-up a message saying I had to pay for the article. But much to my surprise it downloaded a PDF of the full text of the article with the proviso that it is unedited and the final published version may be different:
Danusha Goska on Catholics, Atheists, Censorship and the Shroud
I first encountered the writings of Danusha Goska more than a decade ago when I read a comment about the shroud published by Barrie Schwortz (it is about 1/3 of the way down the page). I’ve discussed it in ‘If the shroud is a forgery, where are its precedents?’ almost exactly two years ago. I wrote “THIS IS A MUST READ: Bieganski the Blog: The Shroud of Turin.”
Now I see a new blog posting by Danusha in Send Save Delete: Catholics, Atheists, Censorship and the Shroud of Turin: Who Censored Whom?
It always drives me a little crazy when the popular press repeats this old misconception about the Shroud of Turin: "irrational, devout Catholics believe the Shroud was the burial cloth of Jesus, but scientists and other rational people have proven it to be a forgery."
I’m Catholic and I know that most Catholics have either never heard of the Shroud of Turin or are only vaguely aware of its existence and don’t think or care about it much.
Scientists are the ones who have obsessed on the Shroud, because its unique features make it a mind boggling puzzle worthy of their obsession.
and she concludes:
Although Delage made it clear that he did not regard Jesus as the resurrected Son of God, his paper upset the atheists members of the Academy, who prevented its publication. This act of scientific censorship marks the beginning of the academic refusal even to discuss the origin of the Shroud." Delage wrote a letter protesting the atheists’ censorship of his work. "I consider Christ as a historical personage and I do not see why anyone should be scandalized that there exists a material trace of his existence.”
I recommend it: Catholics, Atheists, Censorship and the Shroud of Turin: Who Censored Whom?
Danusha V. Goska, PhD, is a writer and teacher living in New Jersey. She has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, on both coasts, and in the heartland, of the United States. She holds an MA from UC Berkeley and a PhD from Indiana University Bloomington. She currently works at WPUNJ. Her writing has been praised by a variety of scholars, including John Mearsheimer, Father John Pawlikowski, Robert Ellsberg and Paul Loeb. She has won the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant, the Halecki Award, and the Eva Kagan Kans award.
The photograph is by Jeff Miller and Kesha Weber. © UW-Madison University Communications
John Klotz unpacks details about the 1988 debacle
In Waiting for the for the Mail: the Ubiquitous and Not-So-Right Reverend David Sox, John Klotz writes:
The fact that he had advance knowledge of the results of the Carbon dating is some evidence of the extent to which the protocols were violated by the labs. One interesting fact: Sox claims he has a letter from Fr. Rinaldi stating he was no longer relying on the Shroud to prove his faith. Sox’s implication was that Fr. Rinaldi no longer accepted the Shroud as genuine. He was a skeptic. A bridge too far, to say the least.
John points out:
As a matter of fact, Judgment Day by Walter McCrone is now available from Amazon Kindle. There seems to be an explosion of old Shroud books now on Kindle including Harry Gove’s skeptical book published in 1998. One comes away with renewed respect for STURP. It is subject to bitter attack even as its science seems to escape the authors’ understanding, or discussion. I just regret that Sox’s book isn’t there. Perhaps I should check under farce.
The thing about Kindle: the books are cheaper, never out of print and never in short supply.
Love this tidbit from John:
Also, while describing the STURP team as a group of religious fanatics in 1988, in his 1998 article Sox described the STURP team (most of whom he claimed to know) as "a couple of Episcopalians, a Rotarian, one or two agnostics and a sprinkling of Catholics."
Indisputably Disputable
Popular, well read, Clerical Whispers tells us that the shroud is Still shrouded in mystery after all that happened in Holy Week. There was the exposition:
That broadcast came on day two of a Rome conference given over entirely to ‘The Shroud and the New Evangelisation’. Hosted by the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum, the conference looked at the shroud as a symbol of faith in the contemporary world – this being the Year of Faith.
the app:
Meanwhile, for those with a technological bent, any inability to view Italian television was tempered by news that, on Good Friday, a brand new App dedicated to the Shroud of Turin was launched by the Apple store.
A multilingual guide to the famed winding sheet, the iPhone and Tablet-enabled programme was made possible by a process in which 1,649 pictures of the shroud were digitised into one picture comprising 12 billion pixels in a 72 Gigabyte file.
The new App also offers the striking ‘negative’ image of the shroud where the face of the figure previously wrapped in the linen cloth is more readily perceived.
The digitised project means that, from here on, infrequent expositions of the shroud will not be the only means of viewing the famous linen image.
Fanti’s new book:
On these approaches to understanding the shroud, Holy Week also marked a new addition to the canon of research projects that have pored over the ghostly image first photographed and revealed to the modern world by photographer Secundo Pia in 1898.
In an announcement coinciding with the publication in Italian of a new book (Il Mistero della Sindone – The Mystery of the Shroud), authors Professor Giulio Fanti and Saverio Gaeta, a journalist, revealed the results of a fresh examination of the shroud and image, which utilised the most up-to-date technology (utilised by a team of scientists at the University of Padua) to find evidence that the linen cloth itself dates to the time of Christ.
Specifically, the Padua team (made up of experts from various Italian universities) employed three individual tests, described as two chemical – using infra-red and Raman spectroscopy – and one mechanical. In all, some 20 samples of cloth and fibres were minutely examined.
The results returned three time-ranges, claimed as 95 per cent accurate by the team: the infa-red test, 300 BC ±400, the Raman spectroscopy 200 BC ±500, and the mechanical test 400 AD ±400. Most intriguing is the average of all three timelines: 33 BC ±250 years.
In addition to challenging the previous and hotly-debated Carbon 14 tests of 1988 which returned a medieval timeline, the latest test narrows the search for the shroud’s origins to the very time of Christ’s life and death.
In announcing the new findings and book, Fanti and Gaeta point out that their results will now be considered by an independent scientific committee, raising the potential for a fresh round of debate and even controversy as the shroud is once again pulled figuratively to and fro.
and what? various indisputable facts? for example the pollen?
To date, over the nearly one hundred years of investigation, various indisputable facts have been given up by the shroud to warrant continued interest by scholars. Individually, these snippets of evidence take sceptics further from the ‘artistic forgery’ claim and other fanciful theories of a Da Vinci Code nature. Regardless of the ultimate ‘truth’ of the shroud, it is not so easy to write it off when presented with the growing list of finds.
For example, the 1973 ‘lifts’ with adhesive tape from the material of no fewer than pollen grains of some 58 plants, some of them confined to the region of The Holy land and modern-day Turkey.
Public Library Blogs About Shroud of Turin Books
It’s not often that you see a public library in the U.S. featuring the Shroud of Turin or even religion. Here is a nice exception, History’s Mysteries: the Shroud of Turin | …As You Like It…, from the The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana:
Il Mistero Della Sindone (The Mystery of the Shroud) by Saverio Gaeta and Giulio Fanti, which details the results of the University of Padua’s studies, is currently only available in Italian, so I won’t be able to read it any time soon. In the meantime, I can check out Shroud 2.0, an app released on Good Friday, which features images of the cloth along with concise blurbs about its history . Produced by Haltadefinizione, a company which specializes in art photography, the app allows the average person the opportunity to zoom in on high-definition images of the shroud — simply awesome. And there are a variety of titles within ACPL’s collection that I can read or watch — check out these titles and decide for yourself if the Shroud is authentic, fake, or forever a mystery.
Becky C. who wrote the article then goes on to list several books.
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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