The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth that bears the image of a man that clearly wasn’t having a good day because he has depictions of wounds caused by thorns, whipping, nails, etc… which some think makes it an exceptionally good match to Jesus after his death around 30 CE.
The history of the linen cloth however can only be traced back to medieval times, starting in the year 1357 where it first appears when the widow of the French knight Geoffroi de Charny displayed it in a church at Lirey, France.
Curiously, when the Shroud was Carbon 14 dated by three separate independent labs in 1988, it came back with a date range of 1260-1390 in which the year 1357 fits nicely.
What also fits in nicely is the fact that the Shroud first turns up in Europe at a time when middle age relics (not talking about couch potatoes) were big business. For example, it’s been said that at that time there were enough splinters from the cross being sold to build dwellings for an entire town.
Also popular were pieces of cloth from Mary’s clothing, bones from the “earliest saints,” and items that had been touched or worn by a “saint.”
These relic forgeries were either directly sold or contributions were collected during displays (some were traveling displays).
Lately the Catholic Church has decided (whoops) that the sample of linen they gave scientists to Carbon 14 test was accidently samples of a patch used to repair the Shroud after a fire in 1532 instead of the actual linen.
Since then, the Church has curiously declined requests to give scientists samples of the “real” linen for Carbon 14 dating.
There are a few problems with the “oops..patch nevermind…”
- The carbon dating, which is very accurate, dated the linen to back before 1390, not at the time of 1532 when the Shroud was first repaired. This would mean that the “patch cloth” would have had to also happen to come from that time frame which would have made the patch at least 150 years old when applied, which is unlikely.
- The sampling was from an extreme corner of the Shroud which was not likely repaired.
- I’ve personally seen film footage of the sampling taking place and there didn’t seem to be anything different about the weave or any indications of an applied patch on that extreme corner of the Shroud linen from the rest of the linen.
- The sampling was witnessed by Robert E. M. Hedges from Oxford University who verified that the Shroud linen had a unique weave and the sampling also contained this same unique weave.
To sum up part I: The Shroud was carbon 14 dated back to the time that it first appeared in Europe when there were a large amount of relics being faked to swindle people out of their hard earned money.
The conclusion is that the Shroud was most likely just another relic forgery from that time.
the carbon dating instruments were fouled up by god to deceive these devilish scientists
just like he has created all those rock fossils to deceive them about the age of the earth.
I have a question about your conclusions and mockeries. How do you explain how the sides were burned on the cloth, but were proven, SCIENTIFICALLY, not to have been printed onto it, and couldn’t have been forged???? If you’re so knowlegable and concerned with the truth of the cloth, then what about the cloth’s markings? How do you decifer, apart from the carbon 14 dating, that the scorch marks could not have been forged, but were formed by a supernatural phenomenon of radiation? Do you think about the whole picture or is it just that it conveniently covers His “wee-wee” that you base your “authentic” conclusion? If anything, the covering of that area is becuase Yahweh was protecting it from being uncovered that no man should lust after Him!
I’m not sure where you are getting that the Shroud was proven scientifically to not be printed or otherwise forged. The STURP team did determine that it wasn’t painted with paint pigments, but not that it wasn’t printed or painted with something else besides paint.
There were scorch marks because in 1532 it was burned by melting liquid metal while inside of a metal box in a church that was on fire. If you look at a picture of the Shroud, you’ll see funny looking patches that were sewed onto it by nuns who repaired it afterwards.
I was suggesting that whoever forged the Shroud of Turin conveniently put Jesus’ hands over his wee-wee so it could be displayed in front of religious people (I’m guessing that most Christians would not have paid to look at the Savior’s hoo-haa). As I mentioned in the article, relics were a big business at the time in Europe when it was dated to by Carbon 14 testing and curiously the same time it first appeared. I listed many facts (Carbon 14 testing, when it first appeared, middle age cloth weave, doesn’t match the bible’s description of it, etc…) which conclusively point to the fact that the Shroud was a forgery produced in the 1300s.
Chrisitan states that since the shroud was not a forgery and we don’t know how it was produced, it must, therefore, be of supernatural origin. I am unaware whether any scientists have been unable to produce the same effect, but that hardly means it is supernatural. To my knowledge we still don’t know how Elmer’s glue works or how a bumblebee can sustin flight, but the glue works and the bee flies, all with out the direct intervention of the supernatural. I can’t explain why my wife married me but I don’ think that proves supernatural intervention either. Anyone else notice that the people who are the most insistent on displaying the ten commandments in school cannot name all ten?
Proving authenticity of Christian relics even now would be tough. I can only imagine how people centuries ago had to deal with being prsented with a “relic” of a saint or other religious figure. Many would probably take the honest word of an individual only to realize that they had in fact been swindled later. You really would need the history of an item and be able to trace it back through the centuries based on written record. Seems almost impossible.
The commercialization of religion and religious events was no different during the medieval period than it is today, maybe even more so. Trinkets and “artifacts” were sold to an unsuspecting public at markets and stalls at every opportunity. A gullible and “ignorant” public were easy prey for charlatans and con artists. However, there are many feats in history that still cannot be explained by today’s technology and science, the building of the pyramids being just one of them. Just because we cannot explain something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Ah, the scraps that the religious will cling to…
futon phil:
When it comes to reliques – don’t stop milking that cow!
The Church STILL has a lot to lose if their “valuable” bones are proven to be a deer thigh bone.
In 1395, the church was your life.
That’s why it’s called the “Dark Ages”
Science does know how Bumblebees fly.
Another gap filled.
Science also knows how Elmer’s glue works (what with there being an actual patent on it). Eventually scientists will also discover exactly when it was that humans created religion and gods.
At least we already know exactly *why* religion was created: so that individuals (priests, shamans, tribal mages, wizards etc.) could live on the expense of others and control their thoughts and actions.
OK all superstitious bs aside. frigging think this through, those of you capable of independent thought.Cloth layed over a face and dirty greasy hair doesnt leave a perfect photograph like picture. Try it with chalk powder and white cloth.
(jesus walks into a bar and the bar tender says “why the long face?”) Whos got a head like that?
of course it was done w/ gods magic, right?