Recently, I wrote down some thoughts in the form of an essay: Slouching Towards Emmaus and Some Nonsense Along the Way. It’s more like a book. I had planned to write a few pages and ended up with 106. There is a lot of good material in that essay about the Shroud and the reasons for some evolving doubts about it.
I’m not saying the Shroud is a fake, not at all. I want to be clear about that. What I do say, in my essay and on this blog page, is that based on the facts, as I see them, I don’t see enough reliable information to be convinced that the Shroud is the genuine burial shroud of Christ. I’ve read and studied almost everything I could get my hands on during the past decade, and the best I can do is to say it is possibly real.
Toad and I were discussing the following statement from the National Catholic Register, an EWTN publication with a print circulation of 40,000 households and an online presence of 1 million reader visitors every month. This is what they wrote about the Shroud in 2015.
If you did not notice it in the Register, then perhaps you read or heard something similar — something that conveyed the same powerful message. It is an assertion that in recent years, has become a cornerstone of Shroud science and a keystone of much advocacy. You will encounter it while looking at authoritative websites. You will read it in books by well-respected authors and while you pore over peer-reviewed papers. You will hear it during a lecture in a church hall. You will see it while browsing through an exhibition or museum display. Wherever and whenever, and in whatsoever wording you encounter it, take it with a grain of salt. The assertion is simply not true.
“Truthy as in truthiness? I wrote back.
Toad reminded me that we live in a country where only 60% of the adult population believes in human evolution, where only 58% of voters believe that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president, and where only two-thirds of both Catholics and Mainline Protestants believe in the foundational miracle of their faith, namely the bodily resurrection of Christ. People believe what people want to believe. If you could prove beyond a doubt that the Shroud is real, if you could even scientifically prove the Resurrection, not much would happen. And if you could prove that the Shroud was fake, not much would happen, either.
Hello Dan. I’m keen to have a brief email exchange with you concerning a couple of messages posted by you to the Shroud Science Group a few years ago. Could you email me at michael@amadeusproject.co.uk so that I can reply with couple of questions? Thanks, Michael
Forgive me asking, Michael K. Can you explain to folks why the Shroud Science Group operates behind its long-closed doors, with just the occasional communication to the open-access literature?
The essence of science is to be open at all stages surely, bar brief silent phases if planning to publish breakthrough ideas where the originator plus immediate collaborators wish to claim credit.
What possible purpose is served by maintaining secrecy to the outside world (internet especially)?.
Ought not science-based thinking, new thinking, new initiatives especially, be open to criticism from the word go (if considered necessary) sooner rather than later?
What does this have to do with the Shroud of Turin authenticity? His crucified corpse dematerialized, returning to the primordial energy base from which it came. It is called rainbow body, a 2,000 year old Tibetan Buddhist phenomenon that takes place in modern times. I think Shroud research needs a new rule. If you have never been to Tibet to study rainbow body you shouldn’t be allowed to comment. This post diverts attention away from truth.
Incidentally, the technique for rainbow body realization can be found in the Gospel of Thomas.
I was present at Accetta’s ‘black swan’ talk at the International Shroud Conference in St. Louis in October of 2014. What was not mentioned about his woodblock hypothesis is that any dye or pigment used, would have penetrated the entire 0.35 mm thread all the way through. But the Shroud image only penetrates to a depth of approx. 0.2 of a “micron”. (1/1000 of a millimeter).
So Accetta’s claim is invalid from the very start. I was surprised to see that the feature of “superficiality” was not used in your blog to disqualify Accetta’s hypothesis. One other item not mentioned is that Accetta went first (of the 42 papers presented over those 4 days), he stayed to receive a polite applause, and then immediately left. Others listened to him, but he did not take the time to listen to them. It was a “drive by abstract”. Forgive me if I seem a bit harsh here but I’m Irish, and being candid is just the way we are. In my opinion Accetta receives far too much attention than he deserves.
Jim, you are not being harsh, at all. And I like Irish candor very much. But let me ask you why should we disqualify everything Accetta said if some part of his presentation is perhaps incorrect? I certainly was not convinced by his woodblock hypothesis but I was completely intrigued by his suggestion that a certain photograph of a death mask might contain all of the necessary data to allow making a 3D heightmap terrain projection (for that is really what the VP-8 Image Analyzer does). The woodblock proposal and the death mask are nor related one to the other in any way that I can see. The death mask is simply an example. In fact, it was Colin Berry who showed that Accetta’s 3D assertion was correct. Moreover, what does superficiality have to do with it? Interestingly enough, I don’t know that I’m convinced that the image on the Shroud is really as superficial as was believed by a consensus of STURP scientists. Colin Berry has done some work that challenges this claim. As for your statement that the image only penetrates to a depth of approximately 0.2 microns, hasn’t Ray Rogers questioned this in a meaningful way. I applauded Accetta for his courage before what I felt was a very biased audience — and I was no exception. I don’t buy his hypothesis. I do accept the challenge he gave us. Good for him.
(Kindly allow me a little while, Tom – say a year or two – to deliberate upon your reply – one where I attempt to phrase an informed reply to your frankly somewhat out-of-this-world – oops, correction: Earth based, albeit back of-beyond Tibet at any rate – pronouncements).
Moving to a different topic (if I may):
I too was hugely grateful, Dan, when STURP’s Joe Accetta re-appeared on the scene for that October 2014 St.Louis Congress. But it was not (how can I put it politely) unqualified praise. Why not?
Joe advanced the line that the TS body image can/could be better explained by supposing it to be some kind of dye imprint, whether from a woodblock or something else. It would explain a host of distinctive TS image properties (negative, tone-reversed image, responsiveness to 3D-enhancing computer software, etc etc). But there was a downside. What you may ask?
Answer: the TS body image is exceedingly faint. Can that be explained away as age-related fading of the dye-imprint, whether generated using plant Joe’s plant tannins or something else? Maybe, but there is another consideration: dyes for printing purposes are/were rarely used in isolation, since they would tend to detach easily – flaking etc.) from the linen (or paper) after drying. Thus the use of mordants for securing dye-attachment which Joe properly considered, but mainly I politely suggest in insufficient detail. Why do I say that?
Answer: it’s to do with the detailed chemistry of dye mordants, used for many centuries, going back to the Middle Ages, maybe earlier. Mordants were typically a narrow range of chemicals that contained (??? sorry, name escapes me) as binder, plus, importantly, iron and sulphate. (A typical mordant would be iron alum, i.e. iron aluminium sulphate. Here’s the rub: the mordant is acidic ( due to partial hydrolysis to dilute or medium strength sulphuric acid, probably increasingly so with age.
So who’s to say that the faint TS body image we see today is not the original dye plus the still chemically-intact mordant? Who’s to say that it is not what is generated by the slow long-term action of the final sulphuric acid on the linen fibres (or maybe a surface additive) rendering it pale yellow or brown?
It’s a question I personally considered (experimentally) in some depth and detail back in 2015, and make no secret that I quickly became deeply bogged down in a mass of chemical detail.
Fortunately an escape route presented itself, albeit one that detached me from the Joe Accetta school of thought, interesting though it was (and a welcome departure/escape route from all that miraculous flash of radiation and attendant so-acalled “photographic” image capture|).
Brief outline of escape route? Answer: I began by looking in detail at the action of diluted sulphuric acid on linen ( not, repeat NOT, STURP’s misuse of the syrupy concentrated lab-confined variety!). Yes, there was a hint of browning. But then came a new idea. Why use sulphuric acid? Why not nitric acid, which we know was around in that era, and one that quickly yellows loadsa things with which it comes into contact (notably human skin!).
Initially I had linen plus nitric acid in my sights (plus sites, websites) . But Ray Rogers’ focus on a starch-coating additive as the real target for image capture suggested another possibility, not starch pure, impure or otherwise, but another white solid, one comprising some 70% starch plus , importantly, more sensitive targets for yellowing by acids, namely white wheaten FLOUR.
Nitric acid plus flour occupied thoughts for a brief time – a week or two at most. Then a new thought entered this ageing cranium: why look for a chemical to yellow up white flour when the same coloration can be obtained via an everyday alternative seen when converting white flour dough into bread, namely simple application of heat from roasting in a breadmaking oven – or even, dare one suggest – over an open albeit flame -free fire with red hot charcoal embers.
Model 9 appeared in short order, namely imprinting front and back off a real naked adult make using a paste of white flour as liquid slurry, later replaced (thanks to critical input from Thibault Heimburger) by use of solid white flour dusted onto an oil-smeared subject, then transferred by applying a wettened sheet of linen as overlay. Then, finally, roast the imprinted linen to get, openly and VISIBLY, the desired degree of yellow or brown coloration. Then give the body-imprinted linen a final wash with soap and water (to remove encrusted material). Result: hey presto: my final (yes FINAL!) Model 10.That’s when and where I drew the line (needing access via a STURP Mark 2, with or without myself, to the real McCoy).
Sorry, couldn’t resist the temptation to tack a new bit onto the end of your largely complimentary references to Joseph Accetta, Dan, pushing, opportunistically some might say, an abridged account of my personal learning curve, read protracted foot-slogging journey from Model 1 to final Model 10!
Postscript: Yes, it was all reported via the internet over the course of some 10 years or so. I recommend my detailed week-by-week, year-by-year research ramblings via my two main internet sites to anyone with nagging insomnia, seeking desperately an alternative to overdosing on sleeping pills, as distinct from your own more buzzy shroudstory site despite its thousands (yes, THOUSANDS) of my own comments. I see I’m placed numerically third from top no less in that published list of most frequent commentators from the Alaska Shroud group!). Top of that list (Max Patrick Hamon) plus some other frequent commentators (Yannick Clement, John Klotz etc) are sadly no longer with us.
https://shroud.netlify.app/authors
Your reply is typical. First you make a comment you can’t defend. Then you brush the matter aside in a light, insulting way. Are you aware that, as lead blogger, you are a central player in what may be the biggest boondoggle in the history of science. What we have is a 45 year effort to study the 2,000 year old death of a man who died without leaving a corpse behind without any consideration given to innumerable like-deaths which took over the same period. As highly regarded Catholic Priest Father Francis Tiso wrote in his book, “What modern science says is impossible turns out to be possible and within the reach of experience, and even of observation, thus satisfying those who object to the intellectual hegemony of natural science.” All the scientific measurements, the chatter, the scholar fist-fights, but the players can’t see the forest for the trees. It would be laughable were it not so sad.
The introduction to my soon to be published book, The Shroud of Turin – The Ticking Time Bomb is at https://jthomasdevins.com/shroud-of-turin-the-ticking-time-bomb/ in case you are interested.
Let’s put to one side all the imaginings re Tibet and rainbows, Thomas, and try focusing, albeit briefly, on a key essential. It’s one you (or a commentator) on a newly published book of yours alluded to in passing back in 2017:
https://religionnews.com/2017/09/21/the-shroud-of-turin-the-ticking-time-bomb/
Here’s a small passage of something you said at the time:
“…The cloth was exposed to a flux of atomic radiation so intense that it altered its chemical composition, made it impossible to accurately radiocarbon date …”
So what one might ask is the crucial word, the one that demands the closest scrutiny to check its scientific veracity?
Answer: “chemical”, part of “”chemical composition”.
Why single it out?
Answer: I challenge you, Thomas, and others, to supply a single shred of chemical evidence that it was the linen of the TS was chemically modified to generate the faint yellow colour of the body image chromophore.
Yes, I know that STURP pinpointed (correction: assumed) that it was the linen that had been chemically modified to generate the colour.
But look at the evidence presented, and what do you find? Answer: nothing whatsoever that stands up to even the most casual chemical scrutiny.
Why not? Because (a) there was no consideration given to non-linen additives being the source of colour, despite that being the subsequent area of focus for STURP’s Lead Chemist (Raymond Rogers), attracted though he was to a supposed technical STARCH coating for having coloured up via Maillard amino-carbonyl chemistry reactions.
Second (b) one finds an appalling liberty having been taken in the STURP Summary, namely to claim a complex chemical pathway involving linen, one which relied solely upon a supposed modelling in which was deployed, quote, “sulphuric acid” as a modelling reagent for colour formation. But go to STURP-member John Heller’s book and what does one find: it was CONCENTRATED sulphuric acid selected for modelling, i.e. the crudest of crude charring agents that quickly abstracts hydrogen and oxygen from any number of organic compounds to generate black carbon PLUS its earler brown intermediates. (I’ll spare you further details).
In short, there’s not a single shred of evidence as far as I’m aware for linen per se being the source of the body image chromophore (replaced in my own final Model 10 by a solid wheat flour imprinting agent transferred under pressure-applied physical contact to wettened linen, then coloured up by roasting over red hot charcoal embers or similar).
Exclude linen per se from the CHEMISTRY, and look instead at likely additions to the linen, whether 1st century or – more likely – medieval, and it takes one away from all the wild speculation re supernatural photography via flashes of hugely intense weirdly unidirectional radiation. It takes you back down to earth, correction, Planet Earth. involving medieval simulation, whether intended forgery or not, or, alternatively, albeit less probably – in view of the C14-dating – a 1st century addition to the linen. ( I refer either to Rogers’ starch, or to dried perspiration as proposed by STURP’s Sam Pellicori, who sadly found himself instantly given short shrift in that eloquent but pie-in-the-sky John Heller book and, surprise surprise, subsequently ignored completely in the STURP Summary.
In short: the TS body image may be faint, scarcely visible if at all in close up, requiring that one stands metres back to perceive and make out as a body form. But that does not forgive or excuse the TS investigator from homing in specifically on the chemical, repeat CHEMICAL nature of the TS body chromophore, as distinct from assuming it to be chemically-modified linen.
What we see there is an appalling failure to investigate in detail the nature and demands of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD, huge chunks of which were , I consider, casually ignored and indeed bafflingly (purposely?) sidelined in that hugely uninformative, unilluminating 1981 STURP Summary.
I have a better idea. Let’s not put aside the “imaginings” of rainbow body and instead ask the question, “By what authority do you say it is an “imagining?” Let’s accept the truth that flows from two thousand years of observation and experience, including modern times, and give science a chance to catch up. You realize don’t you that the words you are now reading originate as electrochemical impulses in your brain and you have no idea how they appear to you in your stream of consciousness. You accept the phenomenon based on “observation and experience” and await a scientific explanation. Observation and experience are powerful indicators of truth. So, again, please tell me by what authority do you reject the observation and experience of rainbow body.
With regard to chemical modification of the Shroud, we know for certainty that resurrection was a radiation event. We know because it is the only way to account for the excess amount of C14 that was found in the cloth. The radiation accounts for the accelerated aging in the image area, the mottled coloring in the threads, torso blood clots being lifted from the mother wound, and no image under the blood stains.
You see, once you accept the fact that a human body can actually dissolve by radiation then you open up an entirely new portal for thinking. Science is divided into two branches: classic and quantum. The quantum approach has been totally disregarded in Shroud research even though the quantum heroes, Einstein, Planck,Heisenberg and so forth tell us that at the essence of existence the atom is just a thought. That is, it is possible for something (like a corpse in a tomb) to become nothing (an empty tomb).
I find your use of the word “imaginings” to be destructive and I think you owe it to your readers to demonstrate with what authority you make the statement.
Here’s a link to Tom Devins, including his piccy, including references to both his total immersion in Eastern mysticism, alleged “rainbow body” phenomenon with bodily disappearance we’re told, but without death as most understand the term.
https://jthomasdevins.com/author/
It makes brief mention of his attempt to seek common ground with the TS. (Really? You don’t say Tom! Oops, yes you do, and forcefully too, at considerable length, soon to appear we’re told as a full-length book…).
That’s all I personally wish to say on the subject of Tom Devins’ somewhat eye-glazing appearance on Dan’s site. Ta ta Tom.
There you go again, “alleged rainbow body.” There is nothing alleged about rainbow body; it happens and has been since before the Christian Era. Nor am I immersed in Eastern mysticism. I am very much a Christian, but one who is invested in quantum science, the avant-garde of physics. Classic science people, like yourself, who study the Shroud are like plumbers working on a computer software problem. By denying rainbow body you elevate yourself as intellectually superior to Einstein, Bohr, Planck and their peers. Credentials please. The atom is just a thought. We know this to be true in the laboratory up to objects which approach in size a human virus. Rainbow body (and resurrection) demonstrate it on a human scale.
“For you are nothing and to nothing you shall return,” unless you choose to believe the atom is real.
Here’s a late acknowledgment Dan from yours truly to your email-sent thumbs-up to my response to the query that appeared (momentarily!) on your site from the SSG member (Michael K. above).
Are we here allowed to enquire as to how you handled it? Did you decide to deal with it personally by email exchange, as requested? Did you perhaps decide to stay quiet as to the nature of the issue involved? Will SSG be able to continue its permanent closed-door policy, leaving the rest of “Shroudology” to guess what’s being discussed, what’s finally likely or not to appear in some distant paper in the future with merely the briefest of mentions only of the mysterious SSG modus operandi where the big wide world is concerned.
What do you say to my suggestion the time has come for someone prominent (notably YOURSELF!) to blow the whistle, so to speak, on the SSG and its peculiar MO (one I simply cannot fathom) ?
Would I not be right in thinking that MO has stunted the development of “Shroudology” over the course of many years? And without wishing to resort to personality-fixation, might I be right in thinking that it’s mainly, maybe exclusively, the professorial high-profile long-term Prezzy of the SSG who is responsible for the behind-the-scenes MO, one that is largely concealed from (a) the open media, and (b) the peer-reviewed literature when papers bearing the SSG so-called stamp of authority do finally appear on the scene?
Has the time not come for a straightforward denunciation of the over-secretive SSG – using your pleasingly revived long-established blog site?
Cheers
Colin
PS Initially sent to your gmail address, but am continuing to have my emails rejected by gmail – I’ll not bother spelling out the likely reasons at this point in time. Suffice it to say that gmail is to my mind behaving disgracefully.
Colin, it is not for me to say anything about the Shroud Science Group (SSG). I was a member for quite a while. Perhaps I still am, for I have never taken any action to disassociate myself. Nor have I ever been dropped that I recall. I simply stopped participating as one might stop going to a certain church or a favorite pub, sometimes with no good reason at all. I have been inactive by choice for years.
I prefer to think of it as private rather than secret, though that may only be a matter of semantics. In retrospect, I would prefer the blog model with widespread authorizations of authenticists, skeptics, and those who are topically agnostic. Then allow the public to read at will.
Back in Jan 2019 I contacted Prof Fanti at Padua University asking if he would be willing to examine microscopically a sample imprint (from a plastic toy) in first instance – with a human hand imprint maybe later). I gave reasons (theoretical, to do with his suggested superficiality of TS body image fibre, as put forward in his collaborative papers with fellow SSG members – though I made no reference to SSG as such).
The initial response looked promising. But he then began making references to “confidentiality”. Would he be free to discuss his findings with “friends” (again, no specific mention of the SSG). That issue (“confidentiality”) did nor concern me in the slightest, and I said so. It was the next development that got me initially worried, then somewhat irritated. I found myself on the receiving end of questions as to why I had resorted to my Model 10 technology, deploying white flour, oil, heat etc. with the focus taken off my prime reason for making contact, namely to see how an imprint generated with Model 10 compared with one of his own via that corona discharge idea of his involving sudden and intense burst of high energy radiation (whether natural or result, dare one say, of Third Day Resurrection).
Things went rapidly downhill. I got a reply acknowledging my sample had been received but that he was too busy at that particular moment to attend to it immediately. Fair enough, but I also got directed to a list of 24 points he and (SSG) colleagues had drawn up defending, albeit indirectly, the corona discharge and/or similar processes, asking me to defend my own more mundane hands-on technology. In short, I was being diverted away from a request merely to put our two chalk v cheese END-RESULTS side by side to compare similarities v differences via microscopy – much neglected TRANSVERSE MICROSCOPIC SECTIONS especially (not relying on LS viewing only). I was being being criticized for the sceptic thinking that had generated Model 10, despite my progressively sequential science-based self critical multi-year model building that considered and rejected 9 prior models no less.
I did not mince my words. I spelled out the nature of the scientific method, the self-critical approach.
Guess what. The correspondence came suddenly to a halt. Prof Fanti failed to come back with my request for microscopic evaluation, TS especially, of my Model 10 end-result, as distinct from the manner in which it had been obtained. My time, effort and expense in preparing and sending the sample (registered mail) had been wasted!
Later, in correspondence with another SSG member (winner of my £100 prize compo) I confided by email what had – correction had not- been achieved through my suddenly terminated dealings with his SSG head. Back came a communication from Prof Fanti, accusing me of breach of confidentiality! Yes that dreaded C-word – yet again!
Yes, call it what you will Dan – confidentiality, privacy, secrecy – it’s the SSG lead man – albeit not addressed by myself as such – who was first to flag up those issues, while at same time trying to shift focus from end-result to mode of production.
Sorry Dan, but I made feelings clear at start of my final posting re Model 10: the SSG needs either to drop “science” from its title if trying to wave aside model-building experimentation of the kind this accredited scientist had been pursuing. OR, alternatively, it needs pronto to get itself a new Prezzy if wishing to keep “science” as its main descriptor where that single sheet of mystique-laden linen is concerned.
Science – the real commodity – has zero patience with pseudo-science dressed up /masquerading as if the real thing.
Hi Jim Bertrand!
I’m sorry I have not commented sooner on your comment above. ShroudStory is taking a bit of time to get to know us all again, it seems, and I didn’t know you had commented until just now.
I’m intrigued about your experience with woodblocks, and the information that “any dye or pigment used, would have penetrated the entire 0.35 mm thread all the way through. But the Shroud image only penetrates to a depth of approx. 0.2 of a “micron”. (1/1000 of a millimeter).”
I wonder if you have tried this, or are simply quoting received wisdom. I think you’ll find, as I have, if you can get hold of a tightly woven cloth, that gently applied paint certainly does not penetrate the threads at all, and, if it seeps through to the other side, it only does so via the interstices between the threads, and not through the threads themselves. If the Shroud were laid on a painted substrate, it is quite unlikely that that would happen. Interestingly, Prof. Giorgio Frache of the 1973 Italian scientific commission, largely ignored by STuRP and subsequent, anglophone, scientists, noted that even the blood, which actually does soak through to the back of the Shroud, did not penetrate the threads at all. His report says, ““it could be observed that the reddish tint of the thread was limited to the surface, while the inside appeared to be perfectly white.”
Similarly, I wonder why anybody should be astonished that the paint does not penetrate the fibres. Why should it? A paint medium may cause a very minor chemical disturbance to the surface of a fibre, but there is no reason why it should penetrate the primary cell wall at all.
Some experimenters have suggested that a dry powder may have been the chromophore. Such a substance does not penetrate either a fibre or a thread. Try scribbling on a piece of cloth with a pencil.
“So Accetta’s claim is” certainly not “invalid from the very start.”
If there’s one thing I have learned about Shroud studies over the years, it is never to take a single thing for granted.
Anyway, Dan, while pleased to see you (and Hugh Farey) still prominent on the Internet blogsite, I for my part have finally said all I wish or arguably need to say..
I reported my initial Model 1 back in Dec 2011 – picked up by your good self on your own site, Dan, namely a response to the mass-media publicized claim from Dr.Paolo Di Lazzaro et al at his Government-run Italy-based ENEA Institute, hinting – via eyebrow-raising resort to ultra-modern-day uv laser beams- that the TS body image had been generated miraculously as a Third Day Resurrectional flash of intense light. .
(That was despite the 1988 C-14 dating to 1260-1390 (which I personally have, and never had, any grounds to doubt, since it corresponds with the first description of the TS at knightly Geoffroi de Charny’s Lirey-based private chapel , approx. 1356 or thereabouts, financed as it was by his close associate, none other than King John 2 of France (“The Good”) etc etc).
But let’s skip the historical detail. Let’s focus on the here and now.
I reported my online learning curve, deploying the methodology acquired over a 10 year portion of my lifetime, namely as a progressive model building, from Model 1 in 2011 (Thermostencilling):
https://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com/2011/12/turin-shroud-could-it-have-been.html
Then, finally to Model 10 (contact Imprinting off real two-sided adult male volunteer(s) deploying wheat flour dusted onto an oil-smeared body/bodies, followed by dabbing on of preliminary Mark 1 “blood”), followed by roasting over red hot charcoal embers or similar to develop that tone-reversed (“negative”) body image, followed (probably) via a rinse in soap and water to get rid of surface encrustation, leaving the enigmatic faint, scarcely-visible yellowish body image that we see today on the modern-day TS.
https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.wordpress.com/2020/06/20/shroud-of-turin-final-report-of-my-8-year-learning-curve-entirely-consistent-with-my-final-flour-imprinting-model-10-crucial-second-stage-roasting-of-a-medieval-body-contact-imprint-to-mimic/
Model 10 (“flour-imprinting” as shorthand) was first flagged up some years ago, and has withstood my own repeated attempts to discredit , far less shoot it down. It frankly fits the bill, in my own humble opinion (while clearly grating on others’ pro-authenticity opinions, to say nothing of being ignored by that frightful Google Search engine !!!). (The latter is part of the reason for taking my leave at this point – thank you Google Search. You are what is known proverbially as the PITS…!!!)
No, I shan’t try posting to the peer-review literature, feeling as I do that the ’88 carbon dating excludes the Lirey-reported TS with its highly unique and specific details from being accorded that privilege. The TS is of 14th century fabrication, unless or until proved otherwise by repeat of the C-14 dating. Forget credulity-stretching bursts of radiation that advanced the creation date to the mid-14th century (miraculously coinciding with the Lirey narrative!).
This retired scientist has spent years in serial, model-building research – advancing from mere long-shot speculation at Model 1 to experimentally-based narrowing -down of alternatives, culminating in my final Model 10.
I shall leave it there. Goodbye folks.
My role from now on will be merely that of interested observer. I personally shall remain silent, at least where the Internet is concerned, governed as it now is by that exclusionary law-unto-itself Google Search engine (I see you too Dan are still missing from the 200 or so main entries under “shroud of turin” on Pages 1-20 of returns, despite your earlier prominent positioning!).
Bye folks. Bye internet. (I may respond to learned bodies or the MSM if suitably approached).
Better still, a STURP Mark 2 will be set up, for which I’d be happy to serve as informed advisor as to fact-revealing new experimental approaches thus far not deployed.
This is my first comment here, and may I be forgiven if I state things that are obvious. I am a Swede, and though I had heard about The Shroud sometime, the only thing I knew was that it was a fake. That was what the media reported back in the day, especially here. But I became a Catholic, and I must add that The Shroud had quite a lot to do with that. Why?
I am educated in scientific research method and is like Raymond Rogers allergic to bad science. Was that what STURP made themselves guilty of? I don’t think so. The protocol in itself was indeed very all-round and probably gave as valid results as you could expect in 1978.
But ‘scientific’ is a problematic term in this case, and a case it is. The only way to view The Shroud and its authenticity is from a forensic point. The reason is simple: if every result is going to be questioned, which it scientifically spoken should be, the important question about The Shroud will remain unanswered until every one of the 100 separate questions are answered in unison – in a way they because of the very nature of The Shroud reasonably never will be.
It will always remain a mystery in some ways, there will always be some contradictions between results, but it is extremely hard to rule out that it most likely is The Shroud of Christ. That will never be possible to prove scientifically, that will always be a forensic matter, and a question of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
I have absolutely found it to be beyond reasonable doubt, and that fundamentally changed my view on Reality. If a Miracle could happen once, it can happen twice and actually how many times as God willst.
But it is a good thing that the results are discussed. I have been rather horrified by the way a lot of the Evolutionary ideas have been beyond discussion and completely speculative claims have been used as truths without being viewed through critical eyes.
There must be critical eyes. People who say what other people want to hear will always be heard. No matter who they are and what they stand for.
Very well said. Thank you.
As a voice in the wilderness I disagree with most everything in your post. The Shroud dilemma is very solvable. But first, the words “miracle” and “God” need to be banished from the narrative. That which happened to Jesus on the first Easter Sunday is the natural way the human body is designed to gracefully exit the planet.
How can something, like a human body vanishing into primordial nothingness, be a God orchestrated miracle when it has been happening in the non-theist Tibetan Buddhist culture for thousands of years, even in modern times? In fact, there is a school in Tibet that teaches how. The phenomenon is called rainbow body.
This little known fact is adamantly rejected by Shroud researchers with vigorous insult and mockery. The truth is, Shroud principals are trapped in classic science and lack the capacity for creative thought. Resurrection was a rainbow body event. Steeped in ignorance, they reject the new information as pure silliness and throw rocks at anyone who dares to believe otherwise. Go to Tibet as I did, twice. Mingle with the monks, meditate in the stark mountain terrain, talk to eye witnesses, visit sites of rainbow body attainment, experience the respect and reverence that is given to the adepts, stand in awe of the great memorials erected in their names, and you will walk away, as did I, a believer. Most of my critics can’t even find Tibet on the map, let alone understand its mystical culture. How arrogant it is to back-handedly call a world figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the Dalai Lama, a phony. But that is what Shroud research is doing.
Resurrection is an avant-garde quantum event that is being studied in a dull, classic physics platform. It is like hiring a plumber to investigate a computer software glitch. And so, the researchers resort to miracle to cover up their self-inflicted ignorance. The Shroud is not a religious relic. It testifies to the true nature of reality. It is a treasure whose message affects the entire world population but is held hostage to a bunch of closed minded “scientists” who can’t see the forest for the tree.
I trust the scientists who know there is secret encoded 3D in the shroud that requires a US government VP8 machine like the enigma machine used to find encoded stuff in german secret messages. Mr. Jackson knows what he is doing and you don’t. He worked for the NASA.
It’s Dr. Jackson, BTW.
Hi, Anonymous, good to hear from you. On the whole it is a good thing for non-specialists to trust “scientists who know.” Particularly as I am one! However, you don’t seem to know anything about us or our work. The VP-8 Image Analyser was not a US government machine and it was nothing like the enigma machine. The ‘encoded’ information derivable from the Shroud can be easily ‘uncoded’ by anybody with simple image manipulation programs. I’m sure you’re correct that Dr Jackson knows what he is doing, and although I probably don’t know it all, I am certain that I have a better understanding of it than you do. If there’s anything specific you’d like to discuss, do feel free to raise it here.