Tiro objects — ‘not so keen’ were his words — when I said, in regards to him calling himself a new Roman pagan, “I guess new as opposed to old who we could burn at the stake.”
I was joking. You wrote:
I’ve long given up wondering how otherwise-pious Christians reconcile the peaceful message Jesus is said to have taught with their apparent desire to see unbelievers burned at the stake. I can only say that these are the Christians least likely to convince me of the merit of their belief system. . . .
I agree with you. But, we shouldn’t give up wondering about this, particularly those of us who are Christians. It is a challenge to theology and our interpretation of scriptural mandates about morality. The author of the Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus said:
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
But somehow we find ways to make the yoke hard to bear by ignoring his teaching. I like to think we have made some progress. But I’m wary. (The stained glass window immortalizes burning Jacques DeMolay at the stake).
My point about the eleventh century was that the carbon dating results concluded that the fibers originated between 1260 and 1390. That is mid-thirteenth to late fourteenth. There never, ever was a qualified scholarly claim, scientific or historical, that the cloth originated in the eleventh century. That was my only point because you specifically called yourself a nitpicker. I was just nitpicking with you. So may I nitpick some more? You wrote:
My understanding is that there’s dispute over the carbon dating of the shroud, with a suggestion that the fibres so tested were taken exclusively from a handy piece of mediaeval patch work. Which I guess is a good hypothesis for those whose faith is founded largely on assumptions about the provenance of this piece of cloth. But I’d have serious concerns if I thought my faith was dependent on so many assumptions. Would it not be strong enough to withstand the possibility that this is a mediaeval hoax, or an artwork unrelated to Jesus, or even an early experiment in photography? Let’s not forget that the mediaeval period saw a massive, truly massive, trade in spurious religious ‘relics’. There was *serious* profit to be made from bits of the True Cross, nails, and so on.
Actually, sir, it is more than “a handy piece of mediaeval patch work” and more than “a good hypothesis.” There is enough evidence of a “reweaving repair,” all nicely documented in peer-reviewed scientific journals, confirmed and reconfirmed, to challenge the carbon dating sufficiently enough to say there is reasonable doubt. The carbon dating needs to be redone and hopefully that will happen someday soon.
And so what if it comes back medieval? Then so what? I hope my faith and the faith of all Christians would be strong enough to withstand that possibility. I have been a Christian all of my life. I’m now 68. I only heard about the shroud about fifteen years ago. For five of those years I remained skeptical of its authenticity. What you say about the “serious profits” being made from fake relics was one of the chief reasons I remained skeptical.
Here is something I wrote several years ago:
I remember being surprised that I knew so little about the Shroud of Turin. Then in my mid-fifties, I had always been an avid reader of history, particularly early church history. I could not recall ever reading anything about the Shroud of Turin. It was so far from being something I cared about that I never paid it any attention. Thus, when in 1979, Walter McCrone, a world renowned forensic microscopist, claimed that he found paint on a few Shroud fibers, I didn’t notice the story. McCrone, having noted that the shroud had suddenly appeared in 1356 in the hands of a French knight who would not say where it came from and that a local bishop soon thereafter claimed that an artist “cunningly painted” it, declared it a painted fake. Had I noticed the story in 1979, I would have certainly accepted his conclusion. It would have made sense to me.
A decade later, when three radiocarbon dating laboratories, using carbon 14 dating, supposedly proved the Shroud of Turin was medieval, I didn’t notice. Had I, I would have certainly accepted the conclusion. I trust science. I did then, and more than ever, I do now.
Moreover, I am naturally skeptical about any relic with a historical footprint in medieval Europe. The year 1356 was a time of unbridled superstition in demons, witches, magic, and miracle-working relics. It was a time of frequent famine and the Black Death plague. It was a time of extreme economic and political turbulence and of war. The same year that the Shroud was first displayed publicly in the small French village of Lirey, nearby, at the battle of Poitiers, England’s Black Prince defeated the French and captured King John II. Adding to the political turmoil, the Pope was in Avignon, not Rome. Indicative of the thinking in this age, some believed that the plague was God’s retribution on the whole world because the Pope was not in the eternal city. In this climate of superstition, naiveté and disorder a lucrative market in false relics flourished. And though the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, acknowledged the problem, church authorities did little to curb the market in them. Our knowledge of this time in history rightly conditions us to be suspicious of any relic that might appear in Europe at this time. But I had not noticed its history, either. In metaphoric parlance, the Shroud of Turin was never a blip on my radar screen. And it would have likely remained that way were it not for a single enigmatic fact that Cahill* mentioned: the picture on the Shroud of Turin was a negative.
*That is Thomas Cahill in Desire of the Everlasting Hills
I am much more interested in truth than assumptions. I can’t tell you why I have so much faith in Christianity. But the shroud has nothing to do with it. I’m just fascinated with it.
Your full comments are below the fold. Click on Read More
Thanks for the nicer of your comments on my post; I appreciate your kind words.
Not so keen on these ones, though:
“I guess new as opposed to old who we could burn at the stake”
I’ve long given up wondering how otherwise-pious Christians reconcile the peaceful message Jesus is said to have taught with their apparent desire to see unbelievers burned at the stake. I can only say that these are the Christians least likely to convince me of the merit of their belief system. Still, moving on:
“Eleventh century? I’m surprised after reading your section on nitpicking. Not even the skeptics say eleventh century.”
My understanding is that there’s dispute over the carbon dating of the shroud, with a suggestion that the fibres so tested were taken exclusively from a handy piece of mediaeval patch work. Which I guess is a good hypothesis for those whose faith is founded largely on assumptions about the provenance of this piece of cloth. But I’d have serious concerns if I thought my faith was dependent on so many assumptions. Would it not be strong enough to withstand the possibility that this is a mediaeval hoax, or an artwork unrelated to Jesus, or even an early experiment in photography? Let’s not forget that the mediaeval period saw a massive, truly massive, trade in spurious religious ‘relics’. There was *serious* profit to be made from bits of the True Cross, nails, and so on.
But I’ll acknowledge that the eleventh-century figure is disputed. In your sidebar, you refer to the carbon dating results as the ‘one stumbling block’ to public acceptance of this conclusion. They aren’t. Certainly for me, it’s only one problem amongst many (and let the record show that I don’t reject the existence of Jesus as a man; only as a god). There are plenty of other issues to be dealt with yet – and even if the shroud is one day shown conclusively to be contemporary with Jesus, that’s still a long way from proving he was wrapped it in. And even if *that* can be shown, that still has no weight in demonstrating his divinity.
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