Benjamin Radford is Managing Editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He had written a fairly astute posting. It shouldn’t be ignored. While I don’t agree with his assessment on the Shroud, he is not out thumping recklessly, as we see in other skeptical blogs. Good for him. Now I would, also recommend reading Nickell’s book, but carefully.
Too bad about the last paragraph. It goes both ways, Ben. Are you tipping us off to an upcoming edition, the “March/April 2010 issue of Skeptical Inquirer,” nicely timed for the exhibition in Turin next spring?
I’ve emphasized some text in bold. But Ben, you know very well that the carbon dating is severely challenged. You know that there is significant history before the 1300s. You know better, as a free thinker, than to use the lack of evidence is evidence argument just like the folks who promote ID.
An Italian scientist and his team claim to have replicated the Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia, used linen identical to that on the famous shroud, made an impression over a volunteer’s face and body, and artificially aged the cloth with heat. The result is a fabricated shroud that closely resembles the Shroud of Turin, made with materials and tools available at the time of the shroud’s origin.
I wrote a column on the topic for LiveScience.com, clarfiying some of the claims (for example, while Garlaschelli’s new research is interesting and important, it does not by itself prove the Shroud is a forgery) and adding context to them (for example, directing people to Joe Nickell’s research and books on the Turin Shroud). I also discussed the reasons to suspect the shroud is not authentic:
Just because the Shroud of Turin could have been faked doesn’t mean that it was faked. To cast real doubt on the cloth’s authenticity, there would have to be other reasons–some corroborative evidence–to think the shroud is a forgery. In fact, the shroud had previously been carbon dated not to the time of Christ but instead to the 14th century—perhaps not coincidentally about the time when the first record of the burial cloth appears. If the Turin Shroud really is the most important holy relic in history, it seems odd that no one knew of its existence for 1,300 years. There’s another very good reason to suspect that the Shroud of Turin is a fake: the forger admitted it. As Joe Nickell, author of "Relics of the Christ," noted, a document by "Bishop Pierre d’Arcis claimed that the shroud had been ‘cunningly painted,’ a fact ‘attested by the artist who painted it.’"
More on this can be found in the March/April 2010 issue of Skeptical Inquirer. It often seems that the "Shroudies" are among the most fervent of believers, and for many of them there is no evidence that would convince them the shroud is not real. For as often as skeptics are accused of having closed minds, it is often the believers for whom no evidence will sway their convictions.
Thanks Barrie for bringing sanity and logic to the discussion. My response is along the lines of reproducing the a painting of a Master, does not prove anything about the original! Also, i always say follow the money trail and you uncover motives.
After Jacques De Moray had been nailed to a wall, one hand straight up the other out when he almost dead he was taken down and wrapped in this “cloth of Turin”. He and his assist were then taken and burned.cursing the king and pope advising they would also die within a year.
>After Jacques De Moray had been nailed to a wall, one hand straight up the other out when he almost dead he was taken down and wrapped in this “cloth of Turin”.
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake (not crucified) in 1314.
And the Pray Manuscript is dated 1192-95 (119 years before 1314) and it is clearly based on the Shroud, with at least eleven common characteristics, including a depiction of the sets of four L-shaped burn holes that are on the Shroud. Google my post “Shroud of Turin A-Z: Pray Manuscript”.
Stephen
>As Joe Nickell, author of “Relics of the Christ,” noted, a document by “Bishop Pierre d’Arcis claimed that the shroud had been ‘cunningly painted,’ a fact ‘attested by the artist who painted it.’”
It is amazing that Nickell keeps repeating this, when:
1) The d’Arcis memorandum is just a draft with no evidence that it was ever sent;
2) It is merely hearsay evidence at best, since d’Arcis was writing in 1389 about something that was allegedly said to his predecessor 34 years earlier, with no written documentation to back it up;
3) An artist who painted (or otherwise created) the Shroud would be the greatest artistic genius ever, yet he/she is unknown and never painted anything else like the Shroud;
4) D’Arcis could be sincerely wrong, e.g. he could be confusing the Shroud with one of its many painted copies;
5) As STURP demonstrated in and after 1978, the Shroud is not a painting, because: a) there is no paint, dye, pigment or stain on it sufficient to account for the image; b) the image is non-directional; c) it is extremely superficial on the top fibrils only; d) the image is a photographic negative but photography was not invented until the 1820s and no artist even today can paint a realistic photographic negative; e) the image is 3-D; f) the fingers and teeth are xrays but xrays were unknown until the late 1800s; g) the body is anatomically accurate but accurate depiction of anatomy did not exist until the 1500s; h) the blood is real blood but no artist would use real blood because it turns black (the Shroud blood’s red colour is due to bilirubin secreted in response to traumatic shock but no medieval artist would know that); i) the blood clots have serum halos only visible under ultra-violet light which was unknown until the 1800s; j) the bloodstains are anatomically accurate for arterial and venous flows but the circulation of blood by arteries and veins was unknown until the 1600s; and k) the blood was on the cloth before the image (as it would be if the image was caused by Jesus’ resurrection), but no artist then or now would or could paint an image (let alone a negative image) accurately around bloodstains.
Nickell and his self-styled “skeptics” ilk are the real true believers!
Stephen