As you know, everyone on Earth has bias. And I regard most scientists as having high character, but not the particular few who have been found to have committed fraud. We are all just people.
With that in mind, here's a good article on the shroud from LiveScience. ================= Voice of Reason: The Truth Behind the Shroud of Turin By Joe Nickell While science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud of Turin is not the burial cloth of Jesus but instead a fourteenth-century forgery, shroud devotees continue to claim otherwise. In medieval Europe alone there were more than forty "True Shrouds," although the Turin Cloth uniquely bears the apparent imprints of a man, crucified like Jesus in the gospel narratives. Unfortunately, the alleged "relic" has not fared well in various scientific examinations--except those conducted by Shroud partisans like those of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), whose leaders served on the executive council of the pro-authenticity Holy Shroud Guild. The following facts have been established by various distinguished experts and scholars: The shroud contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes multiple cloths (including a separate "napkin" over the face), as well as "an hundred pound weight" of burial spices--not a trace of which appears on the cloth. No examples of the shroud linen's complex herringbone twill weave date from the first century, when burial cloths tended to be of plain weave in any case. The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century, when it turned up in the possession of a man who never explained how he had obtained the most holy relic in Christendom. The earliest written record of the shroud is a bishop's report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing scheme, with "pretended miracles" being staged to defraud credulous pilgrims. The bishop's report also stated that a predecessor had "discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested to by the artist who had painted it." Although, as St. Augustine lamented in the fourth-century, Jesus' appearance was completely unknown, the shroud image follows the conventional artistic likeness. The physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in Gothic art), and there is a lack of wraparound distortions that would be expected if the cloth had enclosed an actual three-dimensional object like a human body. The hair hangs as for a standing, rather than reclining figure, and the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs. The alleged blood stains are unnaturally picture-like. Instead of matting the hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on the outside of the locks. Also dried "blood" (as on the arms) has been implausibly transferred to the cloth. The blood remains bright red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with age. In 1973, internationally known forensic serologists subjected the "blood" to a battery of tests--for chemical properties, species, blood grouping, etc. The substance lacked the properties of blood, instead containing suspicious, reddish granules. Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the "blood" as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire image had been painted. In 1988, the shroud cloth was radiocarbon dated by three different laboratories (at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of Arizona). The results were in close agreement and yield a date range of a.d. 1260-1390, about the time of the reported forger's confession (ca. a.d. 1355). Those who defend the shroud as authentic offer explanations for each damning piece of evidence, but these often veer toward pseudoscience and pseudohistory. For example, they offer various objections to the radiocarbon date, suggesting that it could have been altered by a fire in 1532, or by microbial contamination, or by imagined medieval repair in the sampled area--even by a burst of radiant energy from the Resurrection! However, none of these claims has merit. Clearly beginning with the desired answer, shroud enthusiasts work backward to the evidence, picking and choosing and rationalizing to fit their belief--a process I call "shroud science." Some researchers have even claimed to see--Rorschach-like in the shroud's mottled image and off-image areas--a plethora of objects that supposedly help authenticate the cloth. These include "Roman coins" over the eyes, "flowers of Jerusalem," and such crucifixion-associated items (c.f. John, ch. 19) as "a large nail," a "hammer," "sponge on a reed," "Roman thrusting spear," "pliers," and other hilarious imaginings including "Roman dice." Also reportedly discovered were ancient Latin and Greek words, such as "Jesus" and "Nazareth." Even shroud author Ian Wilson (The Blood and the Shroud, 1998, p. 242) felt compelled to state: "While there can be absolutely no doubting the sincerity of those who make these claims, the great danger of such arguments is that researchers may 'see' merely what their minds trick them into thinking is there." In contrast, the scientific approach allows the preponderance of objective evidence to lead to a conclusion: the Shroud of Turin is the work of a confessed medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively interlock and corroborate each other. In the words of Catholic historian Ulysse Chevalier, who brought to light the documentary evidence of the Shroud's mid-fourteenth-century origin, "The history of the shroud constitutes a protracted violation of the two virtues so often commended by our holy books, justice and truth." Joe Nickell, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. He is author of numerous investigative books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (Prometheus Books, 1983, 1998) and Detecting Forgery (University Press of Kentucky, 1996). ============================ https://www.livescience.com/6912-voice-reason-truth-shroud-turin.html
SA6: In one breath, you post an acknowledged egregiously dishonest video as part of your argument - and in the next breath you complain about being criticized. There was no assassination here - it was suicide.
Wow!!! This is so off of the mark!!! Great example of Fictional writing there!!! Why are people so desperately trying to hide and/or run from the Love of God? It is truly incredible the lengths people will go to in order to avoid God’s love for them! I Praise your Name Lord Jesus!!! All Your ways are Wisdom, Truth, Justice, and Love!!!!
What has believing in a shroud got to do with the love of God? By the way, I know Christians who say that the Shroud of Turin could not be Jesus' shroud because His head was wrapped in a separate cloth: John 20:6-7 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.They don't reject the Shroud because they're trying to hide from God's love. They reject it because it doesn't match the story.
Hopefully I am occasionally important, as I try to love and be a blessing to others around me, regardless, of my faith in God. Just like you! But without God I would have no freewill. I would be only a biochemical robot, deterministically predestined by the Universe to do everything I do and, predestined by the Universe to think everything ever I think. And so would you! Every word I am typing right now would have been predestined by the Universe billions of years ago. My thoughts would only be the result of atoms bumping into each other and the direct result of an intricate series of chemical reactions. I would not be capable of choosing anything. I would also be incapable of real love, it might look like love, but in reality it would only be a series of chemical reactions. Real Love would not exist in anyone ever. I would be a robot! Are you only a robot? Do all your own thoughts really just come from a long series of chemical reactions? Or does your ability to love others, blow that idea to dust? Personally, I think that your own ability to really and truly Love others, blows Atheism into the dust. Is your computer able to love you???
Indeed His head was wrapped in a separate cloth, and they have that cloth, and the blood stains match the Shroud of Turin in distribution. Where is the problem for you, with this?
This is false. The radiocarbon dating places it in the Mediaeval period, close to the date at which it first makes an appearance in history.
Right, the head covering was only used as He was being taken down from the cross, as was customary, and was removed, and then he was wrapped in the Linen cloth. Both have many points of alignment from the wound locations and blood markings, indicating both had been on the the same body. Both have the same blood type as well. The age and history of the head covering cloth is even better known than the Shroud itself, linking the two together. There is no negative face image on the head covering. There is an entire negative body image on the Shroud. And that negative image was not painted, according to the study, and was not a photographic negative either, according to the study. How did a full body negative image of this man appear on the cloth, without paint, and hundreds of years before photography was invented? An energy burst of some kind at the moment of resurrection is one theory, that matches everything else found on the Shroud, and also matches the multiple historical written accounts as well. You have to decide for yourself.
The radiocarbon dating test was found to be inaccurate because of the poor sample that was used. The sample area had been repaired with cotton, and that moved the date range later than it should have been. Ray Rogers, verified this.
If we are only biochemical robots, we would be constrained and limited absolutely by naturalism and determinism. No one functioning under determinism could ever really love because there would be no ability to choose between loving someone and not loving someone. There would be no freedom to make the choice. Love requires freedom to be real. And no one could really be held accountable for doing evil either, because evil requires freedom to be real as well. Robots, are not good or evil. Your phone, laptop, or computer is not good or evil. It can’t be! But people can be considered to be good or evil, because they have the ability to choose between the two. In Christianity, this is one of the many arguments against Calvinism. You can actually love, if you choose to, therefore you are not absolutely constrained by determinism and naturalism. There is much more to you than that. You know very well that there is more to reality than determinism. No one even has to tell you, you already know it.
Are you saying that the Bishop's report on the shroud did NOT say it was a fraud? Are you saying that carbon dating did NOT reveal that the material was made around 1300? Are you saying that there ARE other examples of herringbone twill weave from the first century? Why would believing a bishop who said that the shroud was a fake be running/hiding from God's love? If the shroud was proven to be a fake (which you have to admit is a possibility) would that mean that God's love would disappear for you?
Why? No other intelligent species on the planet is so constrained. Gorillas love, and feel remorse, and lie to get out of trouble, and get angry at people, and feel ashamed when they do something selfish. Of course there is. Just because you are a biochemical machine doesn't mean that you can't love. Agreed. Which you have. Because they're not complex enough or well programmed enough to be self aware.
I agree, of course. You can be agnostic and be a warm, loving, wonderful, creative, person, have feelings, make choices and much much more. Sorry, what I was just trying to say was that I don’t see how naturalistic determinism alone, can ever explain love, good, or evil in a real way. Perhaps I am not being very clear, sorry!
