It was supposed to be an interview about the St. Louis conference.
Interviewer: . . . What have you been able to prove?
Dr. Arthur Lind: “Well, I could definitely prove that if … neutrons radiated the shroud, and many people believe that neutrons were emanated during the resurrection, the radiocarbon date would be altered and changed to a younger date . . .”
And then Mark Antonacci discussed his proposal for testing the shroud; you know that petition of his.
Remember when Mark said (Many of World’s Religious Problems Could be Resolved by Molecular and Atomic Testing on the Shroud of Turin):
If, on the other hand, it did not provide such proof, it would not mean that the Shroud is a fake – it would simply mean that this particular hypothesis is incorrect. If unfakable and independent evidence was obtained to confirm this hypothesis however, it could actually be used to analyze the central premises of various religions throughout history and in our world today.
Objective and independent evidence does not exist to prove the central premises of any other religion, agnosticism or atheism. In contrast, the Shroud of Turin could provide thousands of unfakable items of scientific and medical evidence to prove the central premises of Christianity. This new, incomparable evidence could lessen or remove the underlying bases for many of the world’s ongoing wars and conflicts. The world has everything to gain and nothing to lose by the proposed molecular and atomic testing of the Shroud of Turin. (emphasis mine)
[ . . . ]
Unfakable? Time to repeat a posting from last November:
Blowing the Antonacci Proposal to bits
or is it particles?
Colin Berry writes by way of a comment:
. . . All someone has to do is sneak a mixture of ordinary beryllium and americium-241 (present in domestic smoke alarms) into the cabinet housing the Shroud. That mixture then emits neutrons (half life approx.10 days) and before you know what the Shroud will then be impregnated with radioisotopes such as chlorine-36 and calcium- 41 that Antonacci and his pressure group (if invited in with their scanners) could later proclaim to the world as proof that the Christian story based on Resurrection is proven – and a lot more besides (he reckons, see below ) as to the mechanism of resurrection.
You think I’m exaggerating?
See Antonacci comment from this site in September: (my bolding)
http://shroudstory.com/2013/09/16/speaking-of-more-scientific-testing-of-the-shroud/#comment-44624
Please study the keynote address, which can be found on TesttheShroud.com. I’m not trying to be self-congratulatory or subjective, but these procedures could test every explanation for the Shroud’s radiocarbon dating and answer all the mysteries surrounding the Shroud. If the Shroud linen cloth, blood and other particles on it were examined at the molecular and atomic level, you could also collect enough new information that scientists could analyze this data for many years to come. I will be further updating this proposal, as well.
And on the Petition site:(my bolding)
A leading hypothesis published in Scientific Research and Essays in 2012 asserts that particle radiation was emitted from the length and width of Jesus’ dead body while he was wrapped in the Shroud, and it was this “event” which caused the unique images on the cloth. Molecular and atomic testing could prove that hypothesis to be true. ……
…..If unfakable and independent evidence was obtained to confirm this hypothesis however, it could actually be used to analyze the central premises of various religions throughout history and in our world today.
Objective and independent evidence does not exist to prove the central premises of any other religion, agnosticism or atheism. In contrast, the Shroud of Turin could provide thousands of unfakable items of scientific and medical evidence to prove the central premises of Christianity. This new, incomparable evidence could lessen or remove the underlying bases for many of the world’s ongoing wars and conflicts. The world has everything to gain and nothing to lose by the proposed molecular and atomic testing of the Shroud of Turin. . . .
David Goulet responds:
Would the sabotage you are mentioning lead to ‘unfakable’ evidence? If there is a way to skew the evidence then doesn’t this demonstrate the evidence is indeed fakable? And now that skeptics like yourself are aware of the possibility of sabotage, this would undermine authenticity claims based on said testing.
For myself, I share your fear. There is a segment of Christianity that pushes a Christian triumphalism and the Shroud could be be exploited by them. The thought that Christians would use the Shroud to proselytize turns my stomach. It has been called the Silent Witness…that is exactly how it should be seen. If God wanted it to preach he would have added audio to it.
Hmmm, that makes me wonder… could there be audio properties encoded in it? Who needs flowers and coins when you could have music and soundbites. :)
The Antonacci proposal is probably dead.
Well, I was certainly wrong about that last sentence.
Sorry about the missing link to the TV interview. It is http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/local/2014/09/15/stl-hosts-shroud-of-turin-conference/15690671/
One can hardly deny
Sorry, wrong button. One can hardly fault Dr Arthur Lind’s approach. Yes irradiating linen with neutrons would definitely increase its C14 content. But that’s not evidence of authenticity.
“Q. As a physicist, do you believe this is a relic that Jesus used to wipe his face?”
A. As a physicist and a scientist I rely on laboratory data.
Q. Alright. … From your passion for this Shroud, do you believe it really is a religious relic?
A. I… no, I can’t say that.
Q. You cannot separate the two.
A. No, I’m a Christian and I believe in the resurrection of Christ, and he died for my sins, but as far as the Shroud goes, that has to be proven to me.”
Jo Marino and his Committee has assembled an awesome array of speakers for this Conference at St Louis, and heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Jo and others involved are surely deserved. It is to be hoped that those able to attend will depart better informed as a result. An inspection of the Program available at: http://www.stlouisshroudconference.com/app-get-involved/program
will show that it is full on, with many of the papers only given about 30 or 60 minutes of presentation time.
Clearly the emphasis has been given to presentation time only, which raises a concern that issues raised by the more contentious papers will not be given the airing needed to explore and argue pros and cons, or how solid is the evidence presented, or to challenge assertions made which some may feel are needed.
The example that Dan gives above would only be one such perhaps of many others that need to be challenged and argued before the informed forum of those attending. It would seem that presenters will have their way and air their ideas, but will depart without being given the benefit or opportunity of full discussion, which might lead them to improve or refine their ideas, or for that matter adopt an entirely different approach, or even backtrack.
I imagine that everyone will have a great time, and I wish the proceedings well. Doubtless the more contentious items will be discussed during the various social get-togethers, and participants may come to their own conclusions. But these can hardly form part of the official record of the formal presentations. At the various conferences that I attended during my professional career, the official record of proceedings always included the record of discussions following each paper, and everyone was all the wiser for it. I do wonder how much discussion will be possible at St Louis, with such a solid agenda.
We plan to have an online discussion between authors and readers–no requirement to have attended the conference. We also will have a discussion at the conference about future testing of the Shroud.
Many believe neutrons emanated in the Resurrection? That would not be a Resurrection. It would be a “radiating away”. The men/angels at the tomb on the First Easter morning told the first visitors that Jesus had risen, “egerthe” in Greek. When you get out of bed in the morning and go from horizontal to vertical you “egerthe”. Resurrection means the entire body rising. Release of neurons would be radiating away, not resurrecting. If Jesus “radiated away” then HIs post death appearances were apparitions, they were not the same body that was put in the tomb on the first Good Friday. If He radiated away, He is still with us today, His atomic make-up now chemically combined with everything impermeable that got in their way as they were emitted from His body, such as the fibers of the linen cloth, the walls of the tomb, the Sudarium and so forth.
The conclusion that Jesus body emitted atomic radiation is a very serious one for it challenges the very heart of Christian doctrine.
Peter Enns in his latest book, ” The Bible Tells Me So…-Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read it” argues that the words in the bible should not always be taken literally. If you disagree with that then you put yourself in the position of trying to defend the Adam and Eve story, the flood story and many other things in the bible.
Interesting idea. However, one’s skin (to take an arbitrary example) completely regenerates every month. Over 30 years, that 360 complete skins replaced by new cells created from food. Some of it is recycled internally, some simply flakes off, perhaps 3kg a year. During his life, Jesus, in common with everybody else, lost about 100kg of his skin to the environment.
Then there’s hair, fingernails, and general proteinacous waste coverted into urea, etc. It is doubtful if any at all of the neutrons Jesus died with, were the same neutrons as had been part of him 10 years previously. Real bodies continuously replace themselves. A hypothesis that the resurrection consisted of a rapid loss and replacement of the material of Jesus’s body need not trouble theologians.
Scientifically, it’s wholly incredible, but that wasn’t your point, I think.
Science doesn’t know everything about creation, and maybe there are some things about creation that it will never know. Do parallel universes exist, or multi-verses? We do not know and we may never know. It is fair to speculate providing we are logically consistent and can agree about semantics. I might speculate for example that this universe in which we exist is actually a subset of a higher universe. A goldfish might imagine that his bowl is the entire universe, but we might place him in some other aquarium. For him, he has moved to a different universe. An ant on a table may imagine that the universe has only two dimensions, but we say there are actually four which are commonly known, although some would have it there are actually ten or twelve but the others are curled up.
At the Resurrection, the body of Jesus was transformed in a way that we do not understand, except the bounds of our known universe were no longer any constraint for him. After some forty days of popping in and out of his friends presence to say goodbye, he returned to his Father.
To talk of the emission of neutrons, and other atomic particles, is trite. These are bounded by this world, in a way in which the resurrected body of Jesus was not. For Him, this world of ours was merely a subset of a higher universe, and maybe that’s the real secret of the Shroud image. But of course, that’s only my speculation, and neither I nor anyone else can demonstrate it by any experiment! But just maybe, it will be revealed to us one day, but probably not in this life!
1. Do parallel universes exist, or multi-verses?
2. I might speculate for example that this universe in which we exist is actually a subset of a higher universe.
Yes Jesus mentioned about many mansions. So may I speculate that there are material Universes as well as Spiritual Universes. Recent studies in NDE proves this. There is a spiritual body as well as a material body for each human. Even Jesus mentioned that at resurrection we are like angels. So I strongly believe that Jesus resurrected spiritualy rather than materialy. Image on shroud is an evidence for that. So dematerialisation of the material body by emiting radiation seems to be true for me.
“So I strongly believe that Jesus resurrected spiritualy rather than materialy.”
Sorry, Sampath, I disagree. Jesus’ resurrection was material, but in a way that is beyond our present understanding. This is demonstrated by: a) Body not found; b) the post-resurrection encounter with Thomas recorded in John; c) He walked and spoke with apostles on his journey to Emmaus, although it took them some time to recognise him; d) He cooked breakfast for them while they went fishing e) Mary Magdalen mistook him for the gardener. None of these suggest a ghost, an apparition, or pure spirit, but the manifestation of a corporeal person.
His body was transformed. It did not perish in the grave. That is at the heart of Christian belief. That is why I speculate that this universe is a sub-set of a higher universe.
Yes According to Gospels Jesus appeared and then again disapeared. Also Gospels tells us Jesus entetred to completely closed room without opening the door? I can’t explain this with a material body.
In cannot be explained in terms of materiality as we know it. That is why I referred to higher dimensions. Our known universe was no constraint for these manifestations. But they were clearly understood by the witnesses as corporeal presences. Modern examples are the gifts of bilocation, the ability to be in more than one place at a time, not to be confused with omnipresence. Check the web-page below for striking examples of Padre Pio’s ability at bilocation.
https://www.ewtn.com/padrepio/mystic/bilocation.htm
Thank you daveb.
Like Padro Pia NDE people also had this sort of out of body experience. That is mainly due to their spiritual bodies and not due to the material body.
I suspect you are not seeing far enough. You are only seeing either spiritual body (whatever that might mean) or material body. There is more. When we die, we only survive as spirits and leave our material body behind, and we must await the general resurrection at the end time. That didn’t happen to Jesus. After his death, his body was living and tangible. A spirit is not tangible. What did the American bomber pilots see over San Giovanni Rotondo during World War II? They saw a brown-robed friar appear before their aircraft, and they were unable to release their bombs? A pilot later visited the friary at Foggia, and identified the friar he had seen as Padre Pio. How can a spirit prevent pilots releasing their bombs? The friar had been at two places at the same time. Our universe was no constraint for him. It is interesting that according to reports, monks of other religions also appear to have remarkable abilities.
Thank you Daveb
That didn’t happen to Jesus. After his death, his body was living and tangible.
This is what you are believing. However I believe that Jesus was raised with his Glorified Body rather than a Material body. Also at resurrection we will also recieve our Glorified bodies.
” I can’t explain this without a material body.” After His Resurrection, Jesus appeared to 10 of His disciples (sans Thomas) and said; “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have. And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet.” Luke 24:39-40. Sampath, you will not be able to explain many things about God. They are far deeper than our small minds can comprehend. It is clear Jesus was referring to His material body. It was transformed (metamorpho). No need to search for something other than what the text plainly tells us.
Thank you David
“you will not be able to explain many things about God”.
Yes, that is why each one of us are having our own opinions. Yes, I respect your opinions but only God knows whose opinion is true.
None of the Gospels mentioned anything about the Image of Jesus on his Burial Cloth (TS). Why didn’t they mention it? As a result of that now we are speculating how his image got printed on his burial cloth. Still there are so many opinions and hypothesis but only God (or Creator) knows exactly how that image got printed.
There are a number of reasons why the Gospels might not mention the image on the burial cloths. a) The apostles were Jews, and had a tradition against any kind of image representation, particularly in light of the first commandment forbidding “graven images”, so they might have felt compromised by it; b) the images might not have yet formed but possibly could have taken some years to become visible (see ref to Volckringer patterns below) so they did not see it at the time; c) if the images had formed, they may have decided to keep it secret for any number of reasons, protection of the cloths from Roman and Jewish authorities, or because it seemed a departure from their Jewish tradition.
However consider the following gospel texts:
John 20:5-10: “5 He (John?) bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. 6 When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths* there, 7 and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. 8 Then the other disciple (John?) also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. 9* For they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”
What did he see that made him believe? Was it just the empty tomb? Was it just the burial cloths set aside? Or did he see the image? We do not know!
John 20:11-12: “11 But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.”
Did Mary see two angels, “one at the head and one at the foot where the body of Jesus had been” Or did she interpret the sight of the image as angels? Again we do not know, but we just might interpret the text that she may have seen the image.
Volckringer patterns: Check the following paper for a comparison of the Shroud image with these patterns:
“THE IMAGE FORMATION PROCESS OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN AND ITS SIMILARITIES TO VOLCKRINGER PATTERNS”; by JOHN A. DeSALVO
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ssi06part4.pdf