Picture of the Week: Lighting up the night on the South Jersey Shore
From Russ Breault’s Shroud Encounter Facebook page.
Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
Two of my favourite enigmas linked in one photo: the Shroud and the Brendan voyage. Nice.
The secret of the surname Brendan:
Cryptologically speaking (medieval etymology), the surname Brendan (feminine form Brenda) plays with the Latin words brandeum and its plural form brandea, i.e. a textile contact relic as substitute and can refer to a Holy relic or even the Relic of relics namely the Shroud.
Etymologically speaking (scientific etymology) this is a Celtic name that literally means “he (the Virgo male) with a stag head” referring to a young man wearing a white stag mask with real antlers symbolic of Divine Power. In the feminine form, “she (the Virgin) of the stag-headed (young virgo male)” symbolic of Materia Prima (the Human condition) in conjunction with a fecundation rite dedictated to Celtic G-od Cernunos.
Iconosteganlogically speaking, you can see the young stag head (as archaeoprareidolia
/optical illusion) in the TS man’s bloodied image of his forearms. This TS steganic image accounts for the parallelled hagiographic legends of saint Stacey/cie, saint Julian and saint Hubert.
Now:
– the scientific etymology for Stacey/cie is Greek word eu-stachys, “nice ear (of barley/wheat)” (and can be read in light of the TS weave pattern). All the more so as the latter surname plays with Greek word Anastasis, “Resurrection” too.
– the surname Julian derives from the Greek word ioulos, “whole (ear of barley)”, which echoes Stacey/cie).
– the scientific etymology for Hubert is ()possibly) Germanic hug, “thought, reflection, intellect” and bert, “to shine,enlighten, awaken”. The former copies the Aramaic word HOug, “mental activity” and Chaldaic HâGoH, “to meditate, think, reflect, reason, deduce”. In Celtic houg/huw, “meditation, thought, inspiration”.
All this speaks volumes on icono/cryptosteganology image and word interconnections.
Then finally one can also notice the word brend (“antlers”) derived from the Celtic brand “to split (a host)”, “to divide (into TWO)”. The Celtic word comes from the Aramaic word PRaD “to divide, split, share” (Heb. PâRaD). The latter plays with the Heb. Para ‘Aduma, ‘”the Red Heifer”, which plays in his turn with Heb. Phar, “bullock” referring to the covenant between G.od and Man, of a bullock cut into two. Now Torino/Turin/torino, the Italian name of the city in which the Shroud is kept is the very word for bullock…
Typo: The Celtic word comes from the Aramaic word PRaD “to divide, split, share” (Heb. PâRaD). The latter plays with the Heb. PARA ‘ADuma, ‘”the Red Heifer”, which plays in his turn with Heb. PAR, “bullock” referring to the covenant between G.od and Man, of a bullock cut into two. Now Torino/Turin/torino, the Italian name of the city in which the Shroud is kept is the very word for bullock…
Additional Note: The Greek word PARADeisos, “Paradise” stands for a garden sePARAteD from our own world,
…and the dorsal and ventral Shroud bloodied images do appear as those of a man sagitally cut into two…
In Old Celtic word caro means “stag, deer”. Now in medieval ecclesiastical Latin the homonym caro means Christ’s body…
David, now you can re-read saint Brendan’s Voyage in this crypto- and iconosteganological light. Enjoy it.
And don’t forget ‘Brendan’ is an anagram giving us the old Germanic word ‘Bandern’ -a plural form meaning ‘ribbons’ or ‘swaths’ of linen — a clever nod to the Shroud and it’s dual images.
David,
On April 23, 2014 at 6:07 pm, I wrote:
“The Gundestrup cauldron (a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date to the 1st century BC) depicts people and deities from Celtic mythology. The most famous image from the cauldron is that depicting the celtic antlered God (one of the five rectangular long inner plates) that is mostly identified as Cernunnos, the G-od of fecundity and master of the animals. ”
“He wears a zigzag weave patterned linen cloth. The god is more usually associated with antlers, especially of the red deer. ”
“Now in old Celtic language caro means “deer/stag” and its Latin homonym caro is liturgical Latin to designate Christ’s body/flesh… Zigzagged weave patterned linen cloth in conjunction with Christ body and a deer, Christ turning into a deer, Merlin riding a deer, a deer appearing to Saint Hubertus, Julianus and Eustachius etc; ring any medieval symbolical/historiographic/legendary bell?”
“Actually, on the TS bloodied forearm area lies the dormant archaeopareidolia (or semblance/Rorschach-image-test-like vision) of a deer/stag head with a small cross over its head… you just have to turn the positive bloodied forearm image upside down…”