By way of a comment A Superfluous Man writes:
I do not pretend to be an expert on the Shroud and am entirely unfamiliar with the state of the art when it comes to sindological research. My main wish in reading Wilcox’s book was that he would have grappled more with the *best* arguments that may be put forward for the opposite side, even if he ultimately comes down in favor of the Shroud’s authenticity. I assume here, based on no knowledge or research, that there must be someone out there who has recently written from a persuasive “anti” perspective when it comes to the Shroud’s authenticity. I’d have liked to see more thrust and counter-thrust from the litigants.
In some respects, the question of the Shroud is similar to the Shakespeare authorship controversy, which in recent years has been pursued through the “adversarial” methods of moot courts, including one broadcast on PBS that involved justices of the Supreme Court. (Incidentally, the Man from Stratford is almost universally vindicated in such reviews of the evidence.)
As you note on your site, the Shroud is a matter of faith. However, unlike many matters of faith (e.g., the burning bush, the Resurrection, etc.), the Shroud’s authenticity is at least partially subject to disproof. This is a good thing for sindonologists: the Shroud’s authenticity is “falsifiable”—either it is or it is not old enough, and if it is not old enough, it definitely is not authentic. Thus, sindonology can aspire to use of the scientific method, as Karl Popper or Thomas Kuhn might define it.
I grant that it would be a challenge to prove dispositively that the Shroud is indeed the Shroud of Christ. If one were able to prove that the Shroud *cannot* be older than the 15th century, that would dispose of the issue in one direction. Technically, if one were able to prove that the Shroud was *certainly* from the year 33 A.D., even this still would not conclusively prove that it belonged to *Christ* (i.e., there were many other men who were crucified and died in or around that period). However, were the Shroud to be proven to have originated in the time of Christ, one would have to be pretty hard-headed in one’s skepticism to deny its authenticity, given the various other indicia of the Gospel story (the wounds match those described in the Bible, etc.).
I was agnostic as to the Shroud’s authenticity before reading Wilcox and remain so now–perhaps I lean a trifle closer toward belief than I did previously, but the title that Wilcox’s publisher slapped on his book strikes me as perhaps an oversell of its contents. In any event, I was very interested to see your site and grateful for the hat tip.
Quote ” I assume here that there must be someone out there who has recently written from a persuasive ‘anti’ perspective when it comes to the Shroud’s authenticity” unquote…I don’t think so Superfluous!
Actually most ‘anti’ writings bring up the same old points which are; The d’Arcis memos, the 1988 c14 carbon dating and the sudden appearance of the Shroud in 14th century…not much else unless you want to hear speculations that Leonardo DaVinci did it. The point is all these above mentioned points have been debunked including the infamous c14, (which by the way was never ‘peer-reviewed’ originally) and debunked by R. Rogers paper of 2005 and consequent peer-reviews. The d’arcis memos which the “antis” cling too are basically hearsay to begin with and with absolutely no proof to back up the alligations, just maybe the desperate rantings of a impoverished clergy. So not much ‘ammunition’ in the “anti’s” favour to talk about….Even the misleading statements to the blood, AB on the Shroud matching that of the Sudarium being of no consequence as apparently “all blood reverts too AB” has been proven false inlight of the recent Tutankhamon DNA tests. Point is;…
You’d be hardpressed to find a good ‘anti-Shroud’ book out there.
R
Ron, Nature is together with Science the most serious and considered scientifc journals. It is a peer-reviewed journal where typically a very high percentage of tentative papers are rejected due to the difficulties raised by the referees. Therefore, I would also assume that the c14 paper also went through a such a process. You mention that the c14-Shroud paper was never ‘peer-reviewed’ originally, could you extend on this a little bit, please? If we are talking about Nature not submitting a paper to peer-review before publishing it only for non-scientifc reasons, this would be a very serious subject for Nature.
In my opinion, the c14 test was applied correctly but perhaps on the wrong sample. Futhermore, in 2011 there seems to be enough evidences gathered in the scientific literature these years that indicate that the c14 test might not be appropiate to date the Shroud. Something that perhaps in 1988 was not so clear. I have written some comments about this here so I won`t come back to this point again, but I tend to think that the C14 experiment itself was carried out following generally accepted standards. Otherwise, I think it would never have been accepted for publication in Nature.
I guess I worded that a little on the stringent side…my error, sorry. The point I was trying to make is that much evidence has surfaced since the original Nature article was released that shows the ‘peer-review’ IF done by Nature ‘thoroughly’, has been found to have many discrepancies and contrary to what you may believe even the actual procedures during the testing have been questioned! eg; of the actual size of the samples NOT meeting the minimal weight required, proper examination of the samples before sampling etc, etc;. Many of these points have been discussed here before and they are not new. To me it seems the Nature report may have been done in haste and alot of evidence is pointing to that statement,…meaning, in laymen’s terms; Nature did a half-***ed review.
With that said, I was really hoping when posting that someone would have picked-up on my statement about the AB blood of the Shroud. In the Stephen Jones blog, February 2012 posting, a poster directs Stephen to this very interesting topic and one I find may be very important in Shroud studies, as the word has been (over the decades) that all blood will revert to AB and these recent studies may prove this to be wrong!….I’d really like to hear other people’s thoughts on this. Maybe Dan can open a new post on this very intriquing topic???
R
Today a recently published paper in a serious journal of physics (*) has been widely commented in different newspapers (**). I have downloaded the full version from my institution`s library. The point is that the authors have been able to model mathematically the profile of human hair ponytails.
I have read somewhere that on the back image of the Shroud at the head level a ponytail can be devised.
I inmediately have wondered if using a high resolution image a test could be carried out: does that ponytail follow the mathematical shape expected for a human ponytail? Would it be possible to obtain information on whether that ponytail was in vertical or horizontal position?
(*) PRL108,078101(2012) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS. Shape of a ponytail and the statistical physics of hair Fiber bundles. Raymond E. Goldstein, Patrick B. Warren, and Robin C.Ball. Department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics,University of Cambridge
(**)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/science/ponytail-shape-is-determined-by-complex-physics.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2100530/Rapunzel-number-lets-scientists-predict-shape-ponytail–solving-problem-posed-Leonardo-da-Vinci.html
I think to Ron’s point: what was published in Nature and what actually happened may be two different things in a lot of respects. Had the review process had all the facts in-hand it may have gone another way.
Gabriel, I don’t think an analysis of a pony tail would yield any meaningful results. The hair on the back image is fainter than the body image on the same side and it’s very undefined. So I don’t think a definitive outline could be ascertained.
As an aside, this characteristic of the hair on the reverse image is something that proponents of forgery are going to have a hard time grappling with and explaining.
Mr Superfluous, I like the St. Thomas More picture. I think that’s by Holbein? He is one of my heroes and someone who’s courage I hope to imitate.
There have been a few times in my life when I’ve had to depart from others in their path for moral reasons. There have been a least a couple of occasions where I was confronted and asked why I could not go along with others in their behavior when they didn’t see anything wrong with it. My response has always been to paraphrase More: “If you should die and go to Heaven for following your conscience and I should die and go to Hell for nor following mine, will you join me for fellowship’s sake?” The response is always the same as More received: silence. It’s good to know some things are eternal.
Hi!
Mr «Superfluous Man» seems to be honest when dealing with the Shroud but despite assuming he is not aware of «the state of the art» asserts «technically if one were able to prove that the Shroud was certainly from the year 33 A.D. even this still would not conclusively prove that it belonged to «Christ» (i.e. there were many other men who were crucified and died in or around that period)».
That’s a good question indeed, and I invite him to read the post and excellent comments on this blog entitled « Why do we think it is an image of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin» December 7, 2011.
Maybe there he’ll find the answer. I’d be glad to know his advice
regards
Maria da Glória
Centro Português de Sindonologia