At least three readers of this blog have informed me that the article by Wahlid Shoebat included an embedded YouTube video that featured Barrie Schwortz. In my posting about Shoebat, I had been so focused on the controversy surrounding him that I missed the video altogether (see Walid Shoebat on the Shroud of Turin).
One of the readers was shocked by the source of the video so I decided to examine this video simply called Shroud of Turin Update. It does indeed feature Barrie. The image on the right is from the title screen at about the one minute mark. I would love to know who produced it. Anybody?There is no identification in the video other than a Sword of God logo in the upper right corner . The YouTube page tells me it was, in fact, published by Sword of God on April 26th, this year.
I doubt that Sword of God is the original publisher. Here is why: Sword of God claims to have published (uploaded) 116 videos. When I look at the list it seems obvious that many of them if not most of them are from other video publishers. They seem to have been copied and republished, perhaps with some editing. Facilities from YouTube make it possible to splash that Sword of God logo.
While nosing around, I found this complaint from Sword of God:
It’s been brought to my attention that YouTube isn’t showing all the new uploads to my subscribers. Also having a issues with YouTube not showing all comments being made in videos.
It could be because the videos violate YouTube’s acceptability criteria. It could also be that some of the videos were taken down due to copyright complaints under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Title 17). (In either case, that little red not-so-smilely replaces the play button). It wouldn’t surprise me if many of the Sword of God videos fall into those categories. You can see the list of 116 videos. Those that actually work are a hodgepodge of good and bad stuff. It includes a lot of Prophesy in the News (PITN) video, Russ Breault on PITN, L.A. Marzulli on the alien agenda (that is, aliens from space) and so forth.
Hathos Warning: It is obvious that Sword of God is picking out videos that fit his/her/their worldview and republishing them. And that leads me to this awful video: Satan in the Vatican? part 1. The first one and a half minutes is all you need to watch to get the idea. The implication of any association of these hateful views with the the shroud nauseates me. It is not a single example, either.
Sword of God has a right to express his/her/their point of view. They have the right to quote content under Fair Use provisions of the law. That includes video. They do no have the right to copy whole segments of video and republish it as though it was their own.
If you are interested, you can follow some links. From YouTube go to their website. Click on Prophecy Update. Ignore donations and the store and hover on More while clicking on About.
I really don’t like to see a Shroud of Turin video being shown under the Sword of God logo
The video in question is an edited and shortened version of a program produced in 2010 by nuns from the Chemin Neuf community in Lyon, France. The original title is “He Is the Image of the Invisible God – Shroud of Turin,” which was released in June 2010 on a 16 language DVD. Here is a link to the original program on our website store page: http://www.shroud.com/obtain.htm#Video. Also appearing in the original program were Thibault Heimburger, Christian Cataldo, Ed Prior and others. I have no idea who re-edited the program or whether they obtained permission to do so. You can view the entire original 35 minute version of the program on the Net For God website at this link: http://www.netforgod.tv/VOD/index.html (Scroll down the list of programs and select: “Il est l’image du Dieu invisible Le Linceul de Turin,” then select the language you wish to view in).
Erratum: It is Sébastien Cataldo and not Christian Cataldo. By the way, Sébastien should be at the next conference in St-Louis to present our conclusions versus the Mandylion hypothesis of Wilson and the possible ancient history of the Shroud…
Note: This program is very good. I liked the testimonies of those who appear in it, especially the one of Barrie…
Ooops! Sorry.
Hello, Barrie. Perhaps I will have a couple interests to you.
The first one is, do you plan to include infor about newly released materials from Oxford, regarding 1988 carbon dating (see http://shroudstory.com/2014/06/07/1988-pictures-and-details-from-oxford/ )? They came the same day as the latest update on shroud.com, and they may be highly important.
The second one, I will send on an e-mail.
Hello O.K.! Yes, I intend to include it in our next update, which will go online as soon as the Archdiocese of Turin activates their reservation system. I just got two e-mails from you but there was no message in either.
That is nauseating. When they quote the Apocalypse about the “women riding the dragon” and then focus on a statue of the Mother of Jesus, that makes me sick.
Hello O.K.! Yes, I intend to include it in our next update, which will go online as soon as the Archdiocese of Turin activates their reservation system. I just got two e-mails from you but there was no message in either.
Hello Barriee.
On you place I would consider those infor from Oxford as ‘breaking news’, and put it immediately on the site.
I had some temporary bugs with e-mail. The message should bein 4th or 5th e-mail from me.
Hello O.K. – I got your e-mail and have just responded. I also have house guests for the next 3 days so cannot do an update until the beginning of next week at the earliest. However, I expect the reservation system will be going online by the end of this month. (In 2010 it went online about 9 months before the beginning of the exposition).
The issue goes much more deeper, to affect those who believe in monotheistic religions. The quest has affected Jews, particularly after the Nazi Holocaust, and Christians and Jews with discoveries in science. It does not affect — so much — people whose belief in God is vague in the sense that they do not believe in Revelation, as Jews and Christians understand it, their belief is more a philosophy of life than a religion. It also does not affect — so much — people who have a religion/philosophy of life where there is no deity. They are more prepared to take things as they come because they expect nothing like believers in monotheistic religions and are therefore sort of indifferent to developments.
That is the reason why churches in the Western world are becoming empty as each day passes by, why less Jews attend synagogues in the US, why the new generations are not tied to beliefs held by their forefathers, being more interested in “electronic friendships” and in building careers.
In a way, RD made a strong effect when he went around London in that bus proclaiming that God does not exist, wrote a number of books against belief in a Supreme Being and so forth.
But RD has had second thoughts, recently refusing to sign a letter criticising UK Prime Minister David Cameron for calling England a Christian nation. He is intelligent, understanding, perhaps, that there is more room for science-theology dialogue, that he leaped without looking to a certain extent.
Whatever new discoveries science can show us, it is bound to affect all believers, whether they believe in monotheism or not, whether they believe in some deity (however vaguely he is defined) or not, whether they believe in no deity, only in some philosophy.
The quest for Jesus in Shroud research is interesting to believers and atheists alike, to see who is right and who is wrong. But as I have stressed more than once, even if it is “proved” that the Man of the Shroud is Jesus, that the relic demonstrates the Resurrection in some way or the other, it will still leave questions answered. The Church could not be more correct in not including the relic as an article of faith, in not thinking of adding …”wrapped in the Turin Shroud” to what is said in the Creed.
No one has to believe, like Gould, that life on earth began like a big joke, just like an accident. There is more to it, scientists cannot indulge in scientism, there will have to be more science-theology dialogue, to reduce the feeling of emptiness that many may feel if they are not indulging in electronic illusions:
https://www.academia.edu/7343768/Viktor_Frankl_and_the_Human_Search_for_Meaning
Sorry, “questions answered” above should read “questions unanswered”.