Stephen E. Jones in his blog writes, De Wesselow fails to answer the reasons why rational people accept the Shroud is a fake:
Because while atheists/agnostics would normally welcome any new claims that Jesus was not resurrected, and therefore that Christianity is false, it is too high a price for them to pay to concede that the Shroud is authentic, because de Wesselow’s claim that Jesus’ resurrection was the Shroud is so "transparently absurd."
Stephen has provided another excellent posting. Take the time to read it.
“Transparently absurd” is about as good a description of DeWesselow’s theory as I have heard.
Haven’t read Stephen’s post yet but the immediate thought that comes to my mind is that anyone opposed to any sort of Religious Faith fears the back door potential of admitting that the shroud is real. I believe it to be precisely for the fact that de Wesselow’s reasoning is nonsensical. Once you admit the premise that the shroud is real and then demolish de Wesselow;s argument regarding the shroud being the Risen Christ you’re left with the stark realization that Jesus actually rose from the dead as witnessed by His Apostles and Disciples. For this reason alone there will never be any acceptance that the shroud is real.
While I believe that de Wesselow’s theory on the Shroud as Christ is “transparently absurd” I think we have to get on with it. He as given us a strong, conclusiveness argument for authenticity of the Shroud. I think we should now treat deniers of the Shroud’s authenticity with the same disdain as we treat those who maintain that Hitler is alive and well in Argentina.
I read the full post and posted a comment directed at the “anonymous” poster. I guess Steve wasn’t too impressed with what I had to say, as he never posted my comment. Porbably for good reason though I’ll admit. Anyways, although I’ve heard and read probably every ‘stupid’ comment these deniers use, it still kills me how untruthful they are. The one point that there is 80 Shrouds is used quite often and used so with intended deceit!… Anyone that spends even a minute of study on these ‘copies’ would know that they are just that; 40 or so painted copies done in view of the REAL Shroud…Yet they will openly lie to defend their FEAR of the overwhelming knowledge this Shroud of Turin is for real.
It’s sad really, I try not to look at them with disdain as that would require the virtue of pride, I pity them.
R
Ron.
I admire your attempt to avoid pride, one of the deadly sins that “cometh before the fall.” However, we are in a struggle for the hearts and minds of this generation. We must not sheath our intellectual swords. It’s time to brandish them. It’s a crusade but it is a bloodless one. The only damage will be to bruised pride of those who have been so dismissive of the Shroud.
It is not difficult to agree with Jones. Wesselow is flawed in his interpretation and in any case the Shroud should not have anything to do with faith.
“… in any case the Shroud should not have anything to do with faith.”
We’ve seen Louis’ comment in its various forms quite often on this site. I don’t agree with it entirely. From memory, we have Jesus’ comment in the gospels:
“A rude and adulterous generation craves a sign, but no sign shall be given to them except the sign of Jonah.” I think “adulterous” in this context means chasing of false gods, and in that sense we certainly live now in a rude and adulterous generation.
There are many cases, some recorded on this site, where honest study of the Shroud has provided the doorway for many agnostics, skeptics and unbelievers to find a path to a rational Faith, and to accept that indeed there is a world unseen, ordained by God,
There are many paths to finding true Faith, some find a path in the order of the Universe, others from some kind of truly spiritual experience. Jesus and his disciples won converts through the proof of miracles. A true missionary spirit engages the understanding of the person where it happens to be for them at the time, It does not prejudge a one way only of approaching Faith.
My problem with statements like Louis’, is that it conjures up an elitist, even an arrogant approach about Faith. “I don’t need evidence like the Shroud provides, so my Faith is better than yours.” Our rude and adulterous generation needs a sign, and it is the Shroud that can provide it.
Daveb, thanks for the remarks. All I can say is that if the Shroud is essential to faith, the Vatican would perhaps make arrangements with the di Savoia family and take it to Rome, to be preserved next to the remains of St. Peter in the Basilica. I don´t see any arrogance or elitist approach as faith in Jesus has no conditions. Take it or leave it, Sometimes there are miracles, sometimes there aren´t.
I didn’t say that the Shroud was essential to Faith. I said it could help people find Faith! Read what I said again if you want! Are you quite certain you’re not exercising some presumtpion in what I actually said?
Why the Shroud of Turin Matters
I hope I don’t alienate too many with the following comment.
We live in an very unsettled age where orthodoxy, both religious and scientific, is challenged as never before. The advance of science has rendered literal readings of scripture close to impossible. The Earth was not created six thousand years ago and man never walked with dinosaurs. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, wrote about the origins of the creation myth of Genesis and concluded, as most biblical scholars do, that it was allegory, not history. Yet, a poll of American Catholics found a majority accepting Genesis as history and blithely unaware of the direction the Church was moving. And when a new Catechism was adopted at the turn of the millennium, biblical scholarship was virtually ignored.
But if uncertainty about the literal truth of Scripture is an issue, take some heart because the scientific method and the “rational” view of existence are taking hits that make the creationist-evolutionist controversy small change.
What is the actuality of existence, both of myself and the Universe? Since the time of Newton, the direction of science has been guided by developing “rational” philosophy that first separated itself from religion and finally rejected any spiritual answers.
But beginning at the turn of the last century, the entire basis of the Newtonian view began to unravel as science delved into the mysteries of the most basic level of existence, the quantum. Quantum Mechanics defied rational analysis and there has emerged, and continues to emerge, the realization that the basic organizing principal of existence is consciousness. Among its quantum concepts is quantum entanglement – a relationship among entities that works beyond time and space and it has been demonstrated that what affects one entangled entity simultaneously affects the other, even if light years away. To Einstein that was “spooky.”
And now, paralleling this ferment is Shroud science. Beginning with the discovery in 1898 that the Shroud of Turin’s faint images of a man, front and back, were in fact negative images demonstrating the reality of the Crucifixion, Shroud science has demonstrated that reality of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion and death. It also lends support to his Resurrection.
The current flash of publicity concerning Thomas de Wesselow’s “The Sign” is an indication of the vitality of the Shroud Science and vindication of the work of a host of individuals in studying the Shroud, particularly the Shroud of Turin Study Group (STURP) whose work is preserved at http:// http://www.shroud.com, among other places.
Wesselow, like the atheist pope Richard Dawkins in “The God Delusion” rejects out of hand any miraculous or spiritual explanation of anything. An art historian by training, he makes mincemeat of the claims that Shroud was a painting from medieval times and concludes that it was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
However, after having stated his bias as a “rationalist”, he then goes on to make many irrational and dubious claims, essentially arguing that the Shroud accounts for all the reported post-Resurrection apparitions of Christ. Instead of the “walking corpse” the rationalists disdain, we now have a “talking Shroud.”
As important as the Shroud is, it is not the Resurrection. It is however a material object that factually supports the Resurrection.
In this era of philosophical turmoil and doubt, where science is now reaching the conclusion that at the most basic level of existence, consciousness governs, it is a new revelation, but a revelation brought to us by the application of science. In this time, and this place, it can not be ignored. To an anxious and confused generation, facing complex and near insolvable problems of existence, Christ is coming again.