|
To be convinced, to be skeptical, or to be merely intrigued are all fair responses to a well informed understanding of the Shroud.
One serious skeptic is Walter McCrone. Another is John Dominic Crossan.
|
|
|
Some of the material in this essay is obsolete. Please refer to the The Searching for Sister Ann's Bishop Who Thinks Ann is Nuts An Episcopalian's Perspective -- AN ONLINE ESSAY -- By Daniel R. Porter |
|
|
Part 6: Vetting As Ann had said, to be convinced, to be skeptical, or to be merely intrigued are all fair responses to a well informed understanding of the Shroud. Theologians, biblical scholars, more historians, and more scientists, however, must test the data. Serious shroud researchers want this. I have discussed this with several Shroud scholars and have yet to find one who does not agree. The vetting, however, must be well informed and thoughtful. What little skepticism is being articulated today is regrettably mostly polemic and frivolously selective with facts. One important skeptic is Walter McCrone. McCrone, a microscopic analyst well known and respected for his work in authenticating famous paintings and detecting forgeries, examined some fibers collected from the surface of the Shroud in 1978. McCrone reported finding clear evidence that the images on the Shroud, as well as the bloodstains, were painted with pigments that were in common use during the Middle Ages. McCrone reported that an iron oxide pigment, also known as jeweler's rouge, had been used to paint the images. The bloodstains on the cloth, according to McCrone, were red vermilion and red ochre. McCrone's well-publicized findings received significant attention in major newspapers, Discoverer Magazine, Christian Century, and Biblical Archeological Review. McCrone published a book. Thus, the idea that the Shroud was a painting was given significant public credence. McCrone had gained prominence in his field by challenging the authenticity of the Vinland map, a map of the North Atlantic that was reasonably believed to have been produced about 50 years before Columbus's first journey to America. It supported the theory that Norsemen had traveled to America before Columbus. The Vinland map had surfaced in 1957, was purchased by the collector Paul Mellon, and contributed to Yale University. McCrone, by microscopic examination of some flecks of ink, had declared that the map was a hoax. George Painter of the British Museum was suspicious of McCrone's work on the Vinland map and believed that his methods were flawed and his finding unsubstantiated. Following up on Painter's suspicions, scientists at the University of California at Davis found that McCrone's findings were specious and unscientific. Those who have examined McCrone's work on the Shroud of Turin similarly find his work with particle samples from the Shroud absolutely false. Dr. John Heller, Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Physics at Yale, Dr. Alan Adler, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Western Connecticut University, and numerous other chemists and physicists have proven that the Shroud is not a painting. Scientists have X-rayed the cloth, examined spectral characteristics of the image areas, and conducted other tests that demonstrated that it was not a painting; at least it was not a painting produced with any of the pigments reported by McCrone. Though there were trace amounts of iron oxide, they were generally distributed throughout the cloth and were probably contaminants and byproducts of retting flax in iron rich water to produce linen. Tests also showed that the bloodstains are from real human blood derived from genuine clotted wounds. These tests included ultraviolet light examinations for hemoglobin, X-ray florescence, tests for bile pigments and protein, immunological tests for human albumin, protease tests for essential amino acids, and detailed high-magnification microscopic analysis. The proof was beyond doubt; the stains were real - type AB - human blood. Staining characteristics also revealed medically realistic separation of blood and serum, something only a modern-day forensic pathologist would expect. The blood is unusually very red for "old" blood but this is due to a bilirubin bile pigment; a substance produced by a human body under severe traumatic stress. As numerous chemical, spectral and microscopic tests confirm, the image is not from paint. Nor are the bloodstains. There is no wicking, matting, cementing, or capillarity as would be the case if a liquid were applied to the cloth's surface. The image, in fact, is the result of a profound, selective chemical change to the linen cloth itself. Of great importance is the fact that this change took place in only the very topmost surface fibrils of the cloth. Discrete, partial lengths of some of the cellulous fibrils have actually been converted to a brittle, straw-yellow, conjugated carbonyl product. This is the result of an accelerated dehydration and oxidization within some of the fibers. The aging of linen shoud also results in dehydrated and oxidized fiber but without as much yellowing. It is as though the image-producing fibrils were older than the non-image fibrils. Nothing was applied to the surface as a colorant or as a chemical agent to cause this change. Chemists, physicists, and image analysts are very sure of this. As we will see, this has profound implications for understanding how the images were formed. For now, it sufficient to say, that the Shroud is not a painting or a similarly produced work of art. McCrone was completely wrong with his assessment of the Shroud as he was with the Vinland map. McCrone continues to defend his work. In an article in the January/February 2001 issue of the New York Academy of Science's publication, The Sciences, McCrone details and defends his methods (and his art validation business). McCrone probably did find some amounts of the pigments he reports. They are there. Medieval artists who painted copies of the Shroud often rubbed their works on the original Shroud for sanctification thereby leaving small amounts of paint. And we know that the Shroud contains particles of paint that are continuously falling from frescoed ceilings of cathedrals and churches. The paint flecks are trace amounts and they are never in sufficient quantity anywhere on the cloth to create any kind of image. McCrone, who never actually examined the Shroud but only examined some particulate matter, found some paint and jumped to false conclusions. Another important skeptic is John Dominic Crossan, a preeminent historian, biblical scholar, and Jesus Seminar Fellow. He must be considered because of his excellent scholarly reputation. Unfortunately, with the Shroud, his analysis is flawed. He presupposes an understanding that it is a "medieval relic-forgery" but because he is seemingly impressed by the medically accurate forensic detail of the Shroud's images and bloodstains, he writes: "I wonder whether it was done from a crucified dead body or from a crucified living body. That is the rather horrible question once you accept it as a forgery.6" He then befuddles everyone by arguing that if the Shroud was real and if the Gospel accounts were accurate, "Wouldn't the Shroud of Turin make those events understandable as exaltation, rather than resurrection?" This is gibberish. It is uncharacteristic of Crossan, who is generally thorough with detail and logical in his assessments. Does Crossan imagine that his medieval crucifier and faker of relics added pollen and dirt from the environs of Jerusalem? Did the forger add images of flowers, some which are geographically specific to the Holy Land region? Did he use a fine quality linen cloth that was very likely produced several centuries earlier in the Middle East? Did he flog his victim with a Roman flagrum - where did he get it, how did he know about it? Did the relic faker take the trouble to ensure that, when his victim was crucified, his bloodstains would match those of the Sudarium that has been kept in Oviedo, Spain, since the eighth century? Why and how, we must ask, in an age when any sliver of wood could pass for a piece of the cross and a bramble could pass as part of the crown of thorns, did Crossan's faker go to such elaborate troubles? A letter written by (then) a student at the University of Indiana, Danusha Goska, to shroud researcher Barrie Schwortz, offers a useful perspective. It is useful, in reading it, to consider David Hume's challenge on miracles and wonder what "testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact." Goska writes: There are two consistently un-addressed flaws in the arguments of those who contend that the shroud must be of medieval origin, created by contemporaneously available technology. The first flaw is that even if technology had been available to create an image with all the remarkable features of the shroud, there is no way to explain why an artist would have done so. This question must be explored not via carbon dating, NASA imaging, or pollen tests, but, rather, by comparison with other relics from the medieval era. I have not seen research by experts in medieval relics that attempts to compare and contrast the shroud with comparable artifacts from the medieval era. Does the shroud look like other relics, or does it not? If, as I suspect is true, it does not look like other relics from that era, then it behooves anyone who argues for a medieval date to explain exactly why... In the writings of church reformers like Erasmus and Martin Luther, one can read descriptions of medieval relics. In fact, many relics once popular in the medieval era can be visited even today. Reformers like Erasmus and Luther expressed open contempt at the gullibility of the Christian masses. Bones that were obviously animal in origin were treated as if the bones of some dead saint. Random chips of wood were marketed as pieces of the true cross; random swatches of fabric were saints' attire. Why, in such a lucrative and undemanding marketplace, would any forger resort to anything as detailed and complex as the shroud? Why would a forger resort to an image that would so weirdly mimic photography, a technology that did not exist in the Middle Ages? Well, one might argue, the forger created the highly detailed, anomalous shroud in order to thoroughly trick his audience. This argument does not withstand analysis. The relic market is profoundly undemanding. It was profoundly undemanding in the Middle Ages; it is barely more demanding today... The shroud does more than not follow the simple rules of relic hawkers. The shroud not only does not follow the laws of the expressive culture of medieval relics, it defies them. For example, blood is shown flowing from the man's wrist, not his hands. It is standard in Christian iconography to depict Jesus' hands as having been pierced by nails. This was true not only of the medieval era, but also today. What reason would a forging artist have for defying the hegemonic iconography of the crucified Jesus? Anyone who wishes to prove a medieval origin for the shroud must answer that question, and others, for example: Items of expressive culture are not found in isolation. They are not found without evidence of practice. If one excavates an ancient site and finds one pot, one finds other pots like it, and the remains of failed or broken pots in middens. If the shroud is a forgery, where are its precedents? Where are the other forged shrouds like it? Where is there evidence of practice shrouds of this type? If the technology to create the shroud was available in medieval Europe, where are other products of this technology? Humankind is an exhaustively exploitative species. We make full use of any technology we discover, and leave ample evidence of that use. Given the lucrative nature of the forgery market, why didn't the forger create a similar Shroud of Mary, Shroud of St. Peter, Shroud of St. Paul, etc.? And why didn't followers do the same? 6 See Belief.net archives on the Internet. Search on Crossan.
Dan Porter is an Episcopalian and a member of Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York City. He may be contacted by email at porter@shroudstory.com or by mail at 20 McIntyre Street, Bronxville, NY 10708. (c) Copyright 2001, Daniel R. Porter. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced in full for any non-commercial purpose without further permission.
|
|