Mark Antonacci | 11-Oct-2014 | 10:15-10:45 am
This paper summarizes the scientific and medical evidence already acquired from the Shroud that is consistent with a series of events and surrounding circumstances reported to have occurred to the historical Jesus Christ in the most attested sources of ancient history. The physical evidence supporting three scientific hypotheses contending the Shroud’s full-length body images were caused by UV or particle radiation emanating from a stationary or disappearing human body that was wrapped in the Shroud are also summarized.1 One such hypothesis, published in Scientific Research and Essays in 2012, can also explain how neutron irradiated cloth can carbon date centuries younger than its actual age. This hypothesis can also explain the Shroud’s excellent and flexible physical condition; its coin, flower and outer side imaging, if any; and the still-red coloration of its embedded blood marks.
Scientific technology that could be adapted and applied to the Shroud and to strategic samples at the molecular and atomic level are also summarized and recommended. These technologies, along with other forms of proposed testing, were presented as the keynote address at the international conference held in Frascati, Italy in conjunction with the last public exhibition of the Shroud in 2010.2 These and other techniques could possibly provide extensive evidence for and against all proposed Shroud body image hypotheses; all proposed explanations for its medieval carbon dating; the age of the cloth and age of its blood; whether the cloth has been irradiated; the type and amount of radiation; whether it came from the body within the cloth; where and when the irradiating event occurred; the identity of the victim; and whether a supernatural event consistent with the resurrection occurred.
Click on the title to read the full abstract. Click here for the conference home page.
Fool’s gold evidence. BLUSH) I agree with Colin Berry. See Blowing Antonacci Proposal to Bits.
Yannick Clement warned us of this sort of thing years ago. I doubt if there’s a single Shroud scientist outside of Italy who buys into this religious agenda driven pseudo-science. They’ve clearly been carried away watching too many old episodes of Star Trek. So a real genuine William Shatner (Captain Kirk) quote is apposite (check thinkexist web-site):
“Stop and smell the garlic! That’s all you have to do.”
Yup! straight from the commander’s lips!
The hypothesis Antonacci cites was written by him. Why doesn’t he say so? The journal is a vanity publication in Nigeria. Anyone can access the web-only journal. Anyone can write for it, too, by paying a fee. They claim to be peer reviewed. That is hard to believe. Read it at http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1380798649_Antonacci.pdf .
Italy? Is Mark Antonacci Italian? And what about John Jackson and his team in Colorado? Or Elizabeth Piczek? Andrew Silverman? it’s everywhere!
There is a real problem here. paper after paper is going to be rolled out in St. Louis,one half hour after another ( in some cases the Abstract seems half an hour long in itself!) In this case, and presumably there will be others, the subject matter is hotly controversial. So how is anything coherent going to come out of the conference?
I fear you’re right. They’re running this like Comic Con, where it should be run as a scientific convention.
One need not to be too pessimistic if the organisers are on top of the problem. Book festivals have similar tight programmes but everyone is warned long before that they will be cut off just before their allotted times ends. ( I once had a large clock face waved at me!) if the presenters know this they will adjust their presentations to last less than half an hour. If the speakers are allowed to go on then it will be like having an oversized stone at the bottom of a pyramid, the whole thing will be thrown out.
My worry,however, is that, judging from the Abstracts, many of the presenters seem to have enormous amounts to get through ( as most authors at book festivals do if given the chance!) but there should be ample time to get them to slim down before October if the problem is recognised.e.g as virtually everyone of Dan Scavone’s texts is already known he might concentrate on just one or two and examine them properly or only discuss those which have not been revealed before.
There is no need for mud-slinging, talk about nationalities or points of view. No definitive statement can be made yet, and this refers both to natural or supernatural image-formation theories. Apparently there will not be much time for Q&A and discussion at the conference, but that does not mean it is doomed to failure. All the papers presented will probably be discussed later and whoever contests one or more of them will have to write his own paper.
Regarding Paulette’s comment about the citation of Antonacci’s hypothesis: his abstract did contain the citation but the webmaster removed all references in all the abstracts for uniformity. It will be in the version that will be in the printed program and in the full paper as well. Regarding Charles’ comment about something coherent coming out of the conference: with about 40 speakers discussing numerous disciplines, I don’t it’s realistic to expect any coherency. One reason for the conference is just some conviviality. Regarding the tightness of the schedule, there was a similar tightness to the 2008 Columbus Ohio conference that I helped organize. It was managed fairly well there and I’m hoping it will be the same in St. Louis.
I think the good thing about the conference (and about the BSTS Newsletter, among other things), is that it forces people to collect their thoughts, arrange them and present them, with relevent references and logical inferences, in a way that an online discussion, or responding piecemeal to a blog, never quite manages. I very much hope that the full texts of the papers will be available online shortly after the conference, and the discussion will then go on both for much longer than would be possible at any conference, and involve much wider participation than just those who can make it to St Louis. (Come to think of it, the English didn’t make it to the 1904 Olympic Games either!)