John C. Hathaway over at The Lewis Crusade discusses Barbara Frale’s claim that there is lettering on Shroud of Turin. Frale, a Vatican researcher, discusses this in her new book The Shroud of Jesus Nazarene. While I do think the Shroud of Turin is genuine: the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. I respectfully disagree with these findings (but it is a great blog).
Hathaway writes:
And, again, it falls in the category of, “How would an alleged Medieval forger have known this??”
1. In 1978, letters were found around the face area of the Shroud of Turin
2. Shroud researcher Barbara Frale has made a career of figuring them out.
3. The letters say “Jesus the Nazorean” in Greek, Hebrew and Latin.
4. Frale wanted to know *why* the letters were there. She did a great deal of research and found out . . . [Read the full post for more of Hathaway’s posting].
Most scientifically-minded Shroud researchers have problems with the claim. Frale’s conclusions are based on the studies done by French researchers Marion and Courage that was published in the late 1990’s. This study used the 1931 Giuseppe Enrie photographs taken with orthochromatic film and very angular, almost raking, lighting. They look great, visually, but they are not adequate for detail identification of fine detail.
Orthochromatic film only records black and white and interpolates for a limited range of gray with silver grain patterns. In a sense it is like halftone dots of varying shapes of silver clumps. It would be impossible to capture the high definition required for these claimed inscriptions. I believe we are looking at classic pareidolia. See What is pareidolia and why is it important? and Crazy Stuff of the Shroud of Turin.
First of all, I’d like to say your blog is great.
Nevertheless, I disagree with you about the validy of the “pareidolia hypothesis” in this case.
In her last book, which I read, Frale writes she asked his opinion to an expert, papyrologist Mario Capasso, about a possible datation of the letters “discovered” in 1995. Capasso dated the inscriptions from -50 to 50 and found them coherent.
In my opinon, clearly, this expert advice is incompatible with pareidolia. (cf. a discussion on this french forum http://www.linceul-turin.com/forum/forum.html )
Concerning the 1995 peer-reviewed paper, I haven’t got it, but in his book (Le linceul de Turin et la tunique d’Argenteuil, 2006) Marion wrote that during his research he worked not only with a real size Enrie photograph but also with other photographs in order to corroborate his findings.
And in an article published a few months ago in the french Revue Internationale du Linceul de Turin (RILT) Thierry Castex said he could also distinguish the inscriptions Marion saw with Barrie Schwortz photography (1978).
Mark Guscin wrote a devastating critique of Marion and Courage’s claims that there are inscriptions on the Shroud in “The `Inscriptions’ on the Shroud,” British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, November 1999 (http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/guscin2.pdf).
Frale agrees in substance with Guscin’s critique and proposes an other interpretation of this letters.
The fact that the letters on the shroud say ‘Jesus the Nazorean’ is revealing, for if it were written during the Middle Ages is would most likely have said ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ or ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ both of which are inaccurate.
Jesus or Yeshu was a Nazorean and not from Nazareth a town no one at that time had ever heard of until the fifth or sixth century when a Christian Roman Emperor made the town of Nazareth in Galilee the official home of Jesus because he wss embarrassed that no such town existed.
The Nazarenes were an order of Nazarites created by Apollonius of Tyana about a decade after the crucifixion so quite obviously Jesus could not have been a Nazarene. To learn more about how the Romans usurped the ancient scriptures of Yeshu and the Nazorean religion and proclaimed them the revelations of their godman Jesus Christ visit: http://www.nazoreans.com The site is packed with much factual evidence of the Roman fraud.
I find all this fascinating. Especially little idiocyncracies diletants such as myself would never access,’Jesus the Nazorean’
Do you have any comments regarding coins on the eyes and mispelled Lepton!
THREE THINGS –
1) In the absence of definitive exclusionary evidence I am stuck with all the other stuff, including:
Nnazarennos “Nazarene” – http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/big-pic-shroud-turin-claim.html
2) I found a you-tube clip that included both the enhanced photo and the investigator’s script ABOVE AND BELOW each other. NOT superimposed. Unless someone actually jiggerred the pixels even I can make out most of the letters.
In the you-tube presentation the incription has been moved from a vertical position on the right hand side of the shroud face and superimposed accross the face. In the original position it would be close to foot long and two or three inches wide.
A: YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndGnEGCJuaA
B: Large facial representation with all the inscriptions superimposed. http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/big-pic-shroud-turin-claim.html
3) The coin evidence is a conundrum. The larger full body enhancements clearly show a ‘bug eyed’ look on the right eye [left side of the shroud].
I used the coin close-up enhancement, copied it to my own software, and bingo. Unless someone has jiggerred the pixels, I can easily see the outline of a coin. More importantly, I can CLEARLY identify the coin as a Pontius Pilate Lepton.
The Pontius Pilot Lepton from 30AD [LIZ} or 31AD [LIH] is a distintive coin. It includes a Lituus that looks like a shepherds crook with a surounding inscription TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC.
My enlargement clearly shows the outline of a coin and the Lituus sticks out like a sore thumb. It is in the horizontal position with the Lituus starting at the right side of the image, running horizontally then curving up and clockwise and turning in on itself. Just like all the Leptons I have studied that are for sale on the internet.
But here it gets interesting. Whanger claims to observe KAICAPOC includes a misspelling where the K is misspelled as a C. My enlargement clearly shows a distinctive C at about the 8:00 position, with the Lituus horizontal.
However, ALL the Leptons I have studied have KAICAPOC starting at near the very top of the Litus and rotating clockwise to near the bottom of the Lituus. Accordingly, I believe Whanger’s ‘C’ is nothing more then a badly executed O or even P in TIBEPIO, given its appearance on the LEFT side of the Lituus.
Now it gets even stranger. I have identified an actual Lepton where KAICAPOC is CLEARLY spelled with a C at the beginning. But THAT C is located way to the left of the Lepton. If the Lituus is placed horizontally, as in the shroud, the C in CAIPOC is at the 12:00 possition. Not 8:00.
This is where I would EXPECT to find the beginning of the word KAICAPOC, whether with C or K.
STILL. If the image was not jiggerred, I clearly found a lepton coin on the right eye with a very distinctive Lituus on it.