If I could take what the pope said about salvation seriously, then your shroud would become irrelevant. You don’t need to believe in anything, said Francis according to CNN. As an atheist it is nice to know I’m going to a heaven I don’t believe in where I’ll find out if your shroud is real or fake.

Or not! Here is what CNN is saying online:

But you must read beyond the first two paragraphs.

Francis’ comments received a great deal of attention on social media, with a number of people asking whether the Catholic leader believes that atheists and agnostics go to heaven, too.

On Thursday, the Vatican issued an “explanatory note on the meaning to ‘salvation.’"

The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that people who aware of the Catholic church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.”

Of course, as an Anglican I don’t agree. Nor will many  Orthodox, Coptic, Protestant and Evangelical Christians. But then again this controversial stance isn’t new. Nor is the controversy, also raised in the CNN story, over works and grace new.

“You don’t need to believe in anything,” the letter writer from New York says.

I remember sitting in a discussion forum in an Episcopal church about three years ago. The priest leading the discussion wrote three options on a chart under the heading, “What You Must Believe for Salvation” Under that, in parentheses, he wrote, “Salvation = Heaven.”

1. Because of Christ’s Sacrifice you can be saved without believing in Christ.
2. To be saved you must believe in the resurrection of Christ.
3. To be saved you must believe in the words of the Nicene Creed.

We voted by raising our hands. As I recall each option received eight votes. I was very surprised by the vote for number 3. While I believe in the resurrection I also don’t believe that you must believe in it for salvation.

The Pew Research Forum survey from 2008, “Many Americans Say Other Faiths Can Lead to Eternal Life,” is very revealing, at least for Americans. Based on polling data, 83% of American Catholics believe that Protestants can have eternal life and 49% believe Atheists can.

One twittering pundit asked: Should we believe the pope or the vatican spin?

Does the story in the Huffington Post with the headline that reads, "Pope Francis Says Atheists Who Do Good Are Redeemed, Not Just Catholics” clarify anything?

An article in the Christian Post, “Pope Francis: Non-Catholics and Atheists Can Do Good, Too,” explores this story effectively, at least this early in the news cycle.

Anyway, why does this make the shroud irrelevant?

Thanks for posting the article from Miami. I really think the witness issue is important. I have done a little PPT-video on it. Here is the link from Vimeo.

The Witness from Russ Breault on Vimeo.

The Witness from Russ Breault on Vimeo.

By way of reply to a most unfortunate and desinformative posting of yours entitled “Dear Stephen E. Jones » (May 12, 2013) that triggered Paulette’s most vehement and blind criticism, (“The myth of the coin must end”) and a whole series of biased opinions by a few gullible arch-sceptics, please find here attached, [the paper below].

Although I don’t share Stephen Jones ‘half-blind’ arch-advocacy as far as the coin-over-eye issue is concerned, I must confess I just cannot buy into your ‘half-blind’ arch-scepticism either.

For the sake of good archaeology and fairness of debate, thank you therefore for publishing it in your blog.

And here it is:

Coins over eyes PART ONE: ARE ARCH-SCEPTICS THE VICTIMS
OF THE ‘I THINK I SEE NOTHING BUT’ SYNDROME?
By Max Patrick HAMON

As far as the Pilate coin-over-eyes issue is concerned, for decades, arch-sceptics have been telling arch-advocates they were the victims of the ‘I think I see’ syndrome. How long will it take arch-sceptics before they could realise they are themselves the victims of the ‘I think I see nothing but’ syndrome? The true fact is there is a fine line between a falsely positive and a falsely negative perception and BOTH SIDES can be the victims of optical illusions as long as none of them is a true expert in numismatics, palaeography and/or archaeological image analysis/cryptanalysis? Actually this is one thing to think you see Pilate coin partial imprints that are not really there, yet another to more sense than correctly identify the partial imprints that are really there and still quite another to correctly detect (their absence or presence), extract and identify them if need be.

I. ‘I THINK I DON’T SEE’ A HIDDEN CAT IN FULL VIEW. REALLY?

Here is a test for arch-sceptics just to realise how unreliable and inaccurate their allegedly ‘objective’ observations can be, even when it comes to correctly figure out a familiar image such as that of a hidden cat in full view. Can they ‘spot’ for instance a crap-heap cat, an over-crowded beach cat and a muddy-field cat in the three following pictures seen as they appear here i.e. with no rescale no enhancement and standing back 40 cm from their computer screen (additional clue: to the initiated eye-and-brain coordination system, it can take less than five seconds to correctly figure out all the three cats and less than 15 to less to 30 seconds to the gifted non-initiated eye):

1/Hidden crap-heap cat IN FULL VIEW… figure it out? How long does it take you?

2/Hidden over-crowded beach cat IN FULL VIEW … figure it out? How long does it take you?

3/Hidden muddy field cat IN FULL VIEW … figure it out? How long does it take you?

Most likely a non-professional (and maybe even some professional!) image analyst or technical photographer either will find it hard or even fail to correctly detect all the three cats within a reasonable time (15-30 seconds per cat) although a cat is really there hidden in full view each time. Some ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics can even go as far as complaining about the picture quality and/or scale and telling you the test is inappropriate or this is a practical joke rather than acknowledge they have a blind spot in their eye-and-brain coordination system. Since none of the ‘anti-coin-over-eyes’ have ‘the eye-and-brain’ for palaeographic forms, one can easily guess how long it should take such wrong experts to correctly detect the presence of any small ancient coin partial faint tiny blood imprints about 0.5-1.5mm high in average and embedded within background visual noise and random shapes! Why don’t they stop their endless repetition of what other ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics have erroneously said on the matter and leave it to professional/scholar numismatists, palaeographers, archaeological bloodstain pattern analysts and archaeological image professional analysts or cryptanalysts? And why don’t Schwortz, Lombatti, Rinaldi, Guscin, Porter, Di Lazzaro, Murra etc mind the right experts to help them finally see what is really there hidden in full view on the Turin Shroud Man’s eye areas… for a change?

II. INFORMATION VS DESINFORMATION

The truly sad fact is some ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics who are neither forensic medical examiners nor archaeological image professional analysts/cryptanalysts keep concurring to ‘think they see’ “nothing but the normal curvature of eyes, perhaps swollen eyes”. This ipso facto implies no less than three eminent forensic medical examiners1 and three computer-science experts2 (who confirmed the finding, by the American physicist John Jackson and 3D image analyst William Mottern, of flat somewhat rounded foreign solid object imprints on the eye areas), were all the victims of the ‘I think I see’ syndrome. This is not serious!

When it comes to discriminate between “normal curvature of eyes” and “swollen eyes” as opposed to flat somewhat rounded foreign solid object imprints on the eye areas, do ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics really think they are best qualified than three eminent professional forensic pathologists like Bucklin, Zugibe and Baima-Bollone who examined both life-sized authentic 2D photographs and contrast-enhanced digitized 3D close-ups? Shall non-initiated eye consensus reality prevail? Thus unless one can convincingly demonstrate the intersubjectivity of Bucklin et al, the presence of flat button-like solid object imprints on the eye areas is a rather well established optical and ‘extra-anatomical’ fact (no matter whether most misleadingly ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics dismiss any 3D image that provides the arguments against their pet theory and only rely on very low con-trast-enhanced 3D images or Downing’s half-artistic/biased reconstruction(s) of the Shroud face to back up their unqualified forensic claim).

Tamburelli’s contrast-enhanced reversed 3D reconstruction of a Turin Shroud face close up

1. – Bucklin, Zugibe and Baima-Bollone. 2. – Tamburelli, Haralick and Balossino.

Besides, while only relying on 3D images showing solid objects whose very lack of clarity actually forbids to scientifically or archaeologically reach any conclusive identification one way or the other, the same arch-sceptics (who are neither archaeologists nor professional/scholar numismatists or palaeographers), also ‘think they see’ “maybe potshards … not coins” (my emphasis) over the eyes! Now when requested to tell what they could see in a photographic enlargement (a third generation reversed photonegative copy of 1931 Enrie’s Turin Shroud face photograph) of the Man’s right eye area, both the American professional numismatist and Greek classical coin expert, Michael Marx and the Israeli scholar numismatist and Jewish coin expert, Ari Kindler, each time ‘at first sight-and-brain’, did independently identify4 the very partial inscription left on the burial cloth inner side by a Pilate coin. The two genuine coin-experts’ opinion is totally overlooked by agenda-driven ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics to promote their unqualified ‘I think I see nothing but’!

Most unfortunately, the ‘anti-coins-over-eyes’ still heavily rely on the American technical photographer Barrie Schwortz. Now the latter totally seems to ignore it is common knowledge, among criminologists, archaeological image and text analysts and cryptanalysts that, besides mechanical squeeze, chemical revelatory substance, alternative light and 3D laser scanning, the best aids for reading/deciphering purposes of 3D encoded image, handwriting and inscription “ridges/marks” (invisible or almost invisible to the naked eye) on paper and fabric, are HD digitizing and amplifying if need be (to reach 255 levels of contrast) and applying false colour (via paint brush), 2D to 3D conversion and/or digital squeeze to authentic photographs originally taken under appropriate raking light. 1931 Enrie’s Shroud face authentic orthophotographs are not simply very aesthetic, as ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics want us to believe, far from it.

Once digitally contrast-enhanced and mostly because of a longer time exposure under appropriate raking light and the use of specially designed filters that enhance local contrast, they did capture and reveal the finest details of the Shroud face image and haematic (or blood) imprints along with the characteristic weave pattern and the folds and creases of the linen fabric at scales 1:1 and 2:3. As such and regardless of 2008 HAL9000’s HD digital photograph that should allow researchers to analyze the Shroud in unprecedented detail, Enrie’s digitized authentic reversed negatives and positives are still the best candidates available so far (along with digitized 1978 Miller’s authentic silver black & white + 2002 Durante’s authentic digital photograph of the Shroud face as double or triple check) for detecting and studying any possible 3D encoded (bloodstained) coin tiny patterns embedded in the suspected image areas. Therefore, unless one is in denial and only rely on arch-sceptics’ literature as a new Turin Shroud gospel carved in stone, Enrie’s digitized contrast-enhanced authentic photographs taken under raking light do yield usable and accurate information even more modern photographs fail to do. This is made pretty obvious with the photographic enlargement comparison of the right eye area from Shroud face photographs shot in different techniques (see my December 11, 2012 post on this very blog).

Thus most strikingly, people totally alien to the five-six main fields of expertise and/or approaches here involved5, currently claim ‘they think they don’t see’ Pilate coin partial tiny imprints on the eye areas and adamantly contend they are ‘pure pareidolia’. Most misleadingly again, from technical photograph Schwortz to laser physicist Di Lazzaro and laser engineer Murra or religion historian Lombatti or lawyer Rinaldi or linguist Guscin or business executive Porter, the ‘half-blind’ arch-sceptics tend to totally underrate or even simply ignore falsely negative perception in terms of (colour,) distribution and shape.

Most obviously, they ignore that their own misperception is based on vague dissimilarities, little or no familiarity at all with most specific patterns, sheer critics of biased detection, identification and extraction thus favouring a most subjective non-structuring of hidden palaeographic reality.

4. – Respectively in the late seventies and mid-eighties. 5. – Namely professional/scholar numismatics, palaeography, archaeological bloodstain pattern analysis and archaeological image professional analysis/cryptanalysis.

I have a good news to communicate.

The Night of the Shroud will be aired here in Italy Sunday,May 26 at 9 am on one of the most important Channels here in Italy Retequattro (Channel 4)

The program will also be visible on the satellite then also the many Italian people who live in U.S. could see him, of course, in time-shifted.

Would you be so kind as to post the news in your website?

This is great news and we hope soon to also find a TV in the U.S who send the documentary on the air!

Progress! If anyone knows how to get a stream of this, let me know. And lets hope for a U.S. broadcast soon.

I have always wondered, hypothetically, according to current physical theories (one or more hypothetical theories) _if_ a body (an "object" with mass in space/time, assuming some kind of unobserved QM state)… simply "disappeared".

What would happen? What would be the signature effects?

Would there be any non-local QM side-effects? What happens with "entanglement"? Is unobserved "disappearance" (or collapse to nothing) possible given current hypothetical physical theories?

And Thomas Aquinas only wanted to know if an angel in going from point A to point B had to travel through the in-between. It’s a good thing the good saint didn’t know about entanglements.

Here is a readable article by Tia Ghose from LiveScience that appeared in the Huffington Post just last month: Quantum Entanglement Experiment Reconfirms Physics Phenomenon Einstein Called ‘Spooky’

Want a brief definition?  This is from a HuffPo mouseover for the above picture:

According to quantum mechanics, two or more particles can become "entangled" so that even after they are separated in space, when an action is performed on one particle, the other particle responds immediately. (Shown here, two entangled mechanical oscillators made up of two pairs of trapped ions.)

“The one thing that convinces me most that it is authentic has nothing to do with science or history, it has to do with theology,” [Russ] Breault told The Florida Catholic. “Every miracle of Jesus had eyewitnesses and yet the greatest of all miracles had no eye witnesses — but yet there was a kind of witness and that is the linen shroud itself. It becomes a witness for all generations.”

The Silent Witness? We hear this in various ways from many people. I think it is an idea that needs more discussion.

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.

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.

Watch for the next update on shroud.com (due at the end of this month) for an article titled, “Behind the Scenes of a New Smithsonian Channel Shroud Documentary” in which I will give some details on the techniques the producers used for creating the program.

And now for Yannick’s comment:

After having seen the TV program, I have some good comments to make :

1- In the program, there are two huge historical mistakes : 1- The program seem to suggest that Geoffroy de Charny was some kind of an obscure knight when he became in possession of the Shroud, which is totally false. In fact, de Charny was one of the leading knight of all the kingdom of France when he build the Lirey church. And 2- The program tell us that de Charny claimed he get the Shroud during a crusade he made, which is also totally false. In fact, de Charny NEVER SAID A WORD about how and when he became in possession of the Shroud. It’s also very important to understand that de Charny never participate in the 4th crusade, which saw the Latin crusaders making the sack of Constantinople. This terrible event, which most probably lead to the transfer of the Shroud from that city to Europe, happened a century before de Charny’s time. The only crusade in which Geoffroy de Charny participated is the Smyrna crusade in 1346 and it’s highly improbable that he could have come in possession of the Shroud at that occasion, no matter what Ian Wilson and other “historians” can think.

 

2- Once again (history always seem to repeats itself), Garlaschelli and Allen didn’t said a damn word about their incapacity to reproduce the forensically accurate bloodstains and scourge marks we see on the Shroud. I think these guys should read carefully the paper I wrote concerning the evidence of the bloodstains (link : http://shroud.com/pdfs/n76part5.pdf). How in the world can they pretend having succeed to reproduced the Shroud, while at the same time, they completely failed to reproduced the bloodstains we see on the cloth with any kind of credibility whatsoever? Here’s a good question for them: How in the world someone in medieval time could have artificially produced the forensically accurate bloodstains and scourge marks we see everywhere on the Shroud, while it is a well-known fact that the exact Roman method of crucifixion was at the very least partially unknown at the time (the nails driven in the wrist instead of in the palms is just one example of this)? Obviously, in order to produce the bloodstains and scourge marks we see on the Shroud, a forger would have needed to scourge and crucified a real man with the exact Roman method of crucifixion. Not only did such a gruesome idea is ridiculous when you think that our medieval forger did not needed to go that far to produce a false Christian relic (some drops of animal blood in liquid form could have easily do the job), but it is also completely ridiculous to imagine that our forger would have wait until the bloodstains were completely or partially dried before placing his corpse inside the Shroud, while he would have been anxious to leave some clear bloodstains on the cloth in order to reproduce the stigmata of Christ. In sum, the simple fact that Garlaschelli and Allen were, once again, not able to reproduce the bloodstains and scourge marks we see on the Shroud is well enough to understand that their work is NOT a replica of the Shroud.

3- For those of you who pretend that Barrie’s experiment with the pig can be seen as some kind of proof that the Maillard reaction hypothesis is false or cannot, alone, pretend to explain the body image on the Shroud because he wasn’t able to get a clear image on his linen cloth, I have this important comment to make : Barrie did not baked his linen sample in the same way Garlaschelli did with his artistic image in order to reproduce ageing, which is why no image whatsoever could be seen on his linen cloth. If you read again the part of Rogers book in which he present the very good coloration result he obtained in a lab experiment he did with an old-fashion linen sample that was exposed for a time to ammoniac gases (this is, for me, the closest matching result ever obtained by anybody concerning the coloration of linen fibers like we see on the Shroud), you will note that he specifically said that it was only after he baked his linen sample to simulate ageing that a clear coloration could be seen at the surface of the cloth to the naked eye. I’m certain that if Barrie would have baked his linen sample, a visible image would have appeared on the cloth. I don’t pretend the image of the pig would have been as good as the body image on the Shroud (in fact, I’m sure it would not because of the conditions in which Barrie did his experiment), but I’m certain we would have seen a faint yellow coloration at the surface of the cloth that would have shown a pretty good chemical and physical match with many aspects of the body image we see on the Shroud. In sum, the fact that no image was clearly visible on the cloth right after Barrie’s experiment can be seen as another good confirmation of an hypothesis first described by Paul Vignon if I remember well (and backed-up by Rogers later on), which state that the image on the Shroud is most probably a latent image that only developed at the surface of the cloth after some time. Note that this probable fact can easily explain why there is absolutely no mention in the Gospels of a body image on the Shroud of Christ after the Resurrection. The probable fact that there was no visible image right after the event (pretty much like there was no clear image on Barrie’s linen sample), along with the probable fact that this gruesome and bloody burial cloth was hidden well soon after it was discovered and kept by the disciples on Easter morning is the most rational explanation for why there is no mention in the Gospels of a body image on the Shroud of Christ. In such a context of hiding, it’s very probable that the latent image only started to become visible to the naked eye many years after the Resurrection event, at a time when the cloth was most probably kept hidden in the dark, which probably mean that no one (not even those who were keeping it hidden) was able to noticed it on the cloth. This pretty funny situation could well have last for many years, decades and even centuries after the Resurrection… All this reflection of mine is true of course only if the Shroud is truly the authentic shroud of Jesus-Christ. In the end, when it comes to the body image we see on the Shroud, it’s very probable that the disciples of Jesus were not able to distinguish any clear image on the cloth on Easter morning, no more than Barrie was able to distinguish any clear image on the linen cloth he used for his experiment. Time is a very important factor in the production of a Maillard image coming from the close proximity of a linen cloth made the ancient way and a fresh corpse and, in the case of Barrie’s experiment and also in the case of the disciples of Jesus on Easter morning, there was not enough time that had been spent for a clear image to get formed on their cloths. In my mind, Barrie’s result can truly been see as another clue that tend to back-up the hypothesis of a latent image that come from a natural image formation, which imply, at least for a part that remain to be know, a Maillard reaction at the surface of the cloth… The main problem that remains to be solved is, of course, the question regarding the very high resolution of the image. That’s why more researches that involve a Maillard reaction (like the one done by Barrie) are truly needed to get closer to the truth regarding the Shroud image. And it’s important to understand that such researches will need to be done in the future with some baking of the linen samples to simulate ageing and to clearly see an image at the surface of the linen cloth.

4- Obviously, Barrie’s experiment with a pig and a tiny linen sample left in open air is very far from having reproduced the most probable environmental conditions that were present inside the tomb when the image formation process was active. For this reason, any image result that can come out of this kind of experiment cannot be consider as a proof of anything. In my mind, the only good result obtained by Barrie that can be consider seriously versus the Shroud image (and it’s a huge one) is the fact that he was able to prove that if we take a linen cloth made with an ancient method that leave a carbohydrate layer at the surface of it and we place it over fresh corpse for more than 24 hours, a Maillard reaction will start, which will lead to the coloration of some fibers that look pretty much like we see on the Shroud. This is great because that tend to confirm Rogers’ claim that “when amines and reducing sugars come together, they will react. They will produce a color. This is not a hypothesis: this is a fact. A cloth with crude starch on it (note that Rogers could also have said : “a cloth with a carbohydrate layer on it” and that would also have been correct) will ultimately produce a color, if it is left in close proximity to a decomposing body.” Barrie’s experiment show that Rogers was right about that, which lead me to this conclusion : It’s very hard for me to believe that the body image we see on the Shroud had nothing to do with a Maillard reaction that came from the close proximity of an ancient linen cloth with a fresh and tortured human corpse. Important note: I don’t pretend that a Maillard reaction, in the way described by Rogers, is the only thing that lead to the apparition of the body image on the cloth, but I’m almost certain that it took some part in it (probably a huge part).

5- I don’t think the linen sample used by Barrie for his experiment was treated with some starch in the way described by Rogers in his book. It’s important to note that, for Rogers, the impurity layer of carbohydrates that caused a Maillard reaction at the surface of the Shroud was mostly composed of starch, along with other residues (like some residues of saponaria and probably also some polysaccharides residues that were extracted from the primary cell wall during the retting of the flax plant). It would be a very good idea for a researcher to do another experiment like the one done by Barrie but, this time, with a pre-treatment of the linen cloth with starch. If we believe Rogers, such an experiment would give an even better result than the one obtained by Barrie… And, this time, I hope the researcher who would do this kind of experiment would think of baking his sample after the time of exposure. There’s no doubt in my mind that he would get an image on his cloth. The question is: Could such a natural image show a high resolution? In fact, the real question is this: Under which environmental, biological and linen cloth conditions a Maillard image could present a high resolution like the one on the Shroud? Since we’re almost sure now that a Maillard image would eventually developed at the surface of a linen cloth made with the ancient method if this cloth is placed over a fresh corpse, THAT’S THE REAL QUESTION THAT REMAIN TO BE ANSWERED.

6- Garlaschelli said something like this in the program: “Those who doesn’t accept the validity of the C14 dating result will not accept also my theory of image formation.” I would like to remind Mr. Garlaschelli that even if the C14 dating result of 1988 is wrong and the Shroud is much older than this, that doesn’t necessarily mean it cannot be a forgery done during the first few centuries of Christendom (let say before 500 A.D. and the first apparition of the Pantocrator icon) with the use of a real scourged and crucified corpse. It will forever be impossible for science to clearly and definitely state who the Shroud man really is. Because of this fact, there will forever be an openness (even though this openness doesn’t appear to be very probable) for a natural forgery scenario that would have been done with the use of a real crucified body. Also, there will forever be an openness (very tin nevertheless) for a scenario involving the burial shroud of a real crucified man other than Jesus of Nazareth that was accidentally looking like the Jesus of the Gospel.

7- I hope everybody who will watch this program will understand that if the Maillard reaction hypothesis for image formation proposed by Ray Rogers and partially tested by Barrie Schwortz is correct, THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE SHROUD IS SOMEONE ELSE THAN JESUS AND/OR THAT HIS RESURRECTION NEVER HAPPEN.

All right. That’s all for the moment…

Yannick

Whew!

Vikan is best known in shroud circles for an article published in Biblical Archaeology Review in the November/December 1998 issue reprinted on shroud.com. (See the article here and read the comments on the same page).

From the Sun:

You can get a pretty good idea of someone’s journey through life by looking at the objects with which he surrounds himself.

For Gary Vikan, who stepped down this spring as the director of the Walters Art Museum, those objects include a pair of tickets to Woodstock, a piece of the gate guarding Graceland, a collection of Russian icons and a miniature replica of the Shroud of Turin.

[ . . . ]

He’s just completed his next big project: a book on the Shroud of Turin, in which he attempts to prove that the linen burial cloth that many believe once wrapped the body of Jesus actually was made in the Middle Ages, around 1350.

"I’ve been working with a scientist who found out how the image on the Shroud was made," Vikan says. "And I think I know when and why. It was made to deceive, at a time in the Middle Ages when relics meant pilgrimages, and pilgrimages meant money."

Vikan said the manuscript could be published as soon as this fall.

Which one of the scientists? And which one of all the many ways it was made?