It may well be the best publicized conference yet
by a long shot
It started tonight with a multiscreen “Shroud Encounter” presentation by Russ Breault.
The Post-Dispatch story by Lilly Fowler about the conference was syndicated on Religion News Services (RNS). It was picked up by the national paper, Huffington Post as The Unsolved Mystery Behind The Shroud Of Turin Still Has The Power To Captivate. The Washington Post and at least forty other news outlets, large and small, also picked up the story.
Is the Shroud Real? Possibly.
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
If anyone’s wondering why St.Louis was chosen as the venue, here’s a possible clue from the wiki entry (under ‘People’):
The perception of Louis IX (ed. St.Louis) as the exemplary Christian prince was reinforced by his religious zeal. Louis was a devout Catholic, and he built the Sainte-Chapelle (“Holy Chapel”), located within the royal palace complex (now the Paris Hall of Justice), on the Île de la Cité in the centre of Paris. The Sainte Chapelle, a perfect example of the Rayonnant style of Gothic architecture, was erected as a shrine for the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the True Cross, precious relics of the Passion of Jesus. Louis purchased these in 1239–41 from Emperor Baldwin II of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres* (the chapel, however, cost only 60,000 livres to build).
*That was more than 10% of France’s then current national income, according to information elsewhere in the same wiki article. Oh, and St.Louis won’t be Barrie Schwortz’s favourite Roman Catholic saint, assuming he has one, as the rest of the article makes painfully all too clear.
Every one knows they picked St. Louis because of the great barbecue joints.
Would that be after one has feasted on the “soda/popcorn daily in (hotel) lobby, 3-10pm daily”?
http://www.stlouisshroudconference.com/updates/recent-post-one
Personally, I attend conferences to expand my horizons – not waistline.
It might have something to do with the fact that the sponsors live in St. Louis and Joe Marino once lived in St. Louis. It is also a good conference city.
Awesome. I wish I could be there with you all.