New study claims Turin Shroud is authentic

[Still Waters]

Just days before Christmas, a new study has emerged that suggests that one of Christianity's most prized but mysterious relics – the Turin Shroud – is not a medieval forgery but could be the authentic burial robe of Christ.

Italian scientists have conducted a series of advanced experiments which, they claim, show that the marks on the shroud – purportedly left by the imprint of Christ's body – could not possibly have been faked with technology that was available in the medieval period.

The research will be an early Christmas present for shroud believers, but is likely to be greeted with scepticism by those who doubt that the sepia-coloured, 14ft-long cloth dates from Christ's crucifixion 2,000 years ago.

Read more...

[George Ford]

So has it got Jesus blood on it, like DNA and stuff? Do you think it's long overdue a wash? I'd say 60°C wash with a non-bio.

[Grey14]

MAybe add some oxi-clean in there as well.

[Lilly]

In the end it all comes down to faith. I think some things will always remain a mystery.

[Imaginarynumber1]

There seems to be a 'new study' every few years that 'proves' that the shroud is authentic, yet carbon dating continuously puts the shroud between 1260-1390 C.E. with 95% confidence.

(And cue people claiming that carbon 14 dating is an erroneous method of dating.....)

[__Kratos__]

So no actual tests were done on the Turin Shroud at all... Just some theories being played out on how it could or couldn't have been faked based on the condition of the shroud today.

Also from the Telegraph today:

The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it

First things first. The "authenticity" or otherwise of the Shroud of Turin does not have any implications for whether or not Christ was real, or whether He was divine. If it was a medieval forgery, it doesn't mean the stories aren't true; if it really was made in the first century AD, it doesn't mean they were. Until we find a reliable method of linking the shroud with Christ Himself – a nametag stitched in it by His mum, perhaps – the existence of a 2,000-year-old cloth does not imply that a particular person who died around the time it was made was the Son of God.

I mention this because today, we report that a group of scientists – working, unexpectedly, for the Italian sustainable energy agency ENEA – claim that the marks on the cloth could only have been made by ultraviolet radiation. They say that "When one talks about a flash of light being able to colour a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion inevitably touches on things like miracles and resurrection," and that they "hope our results can open up a philosophical and theological debate". They do, however, say "as scientists, we were concerned only with verifiable scientific processes."

The implication, of course, is that a divine light shone when Jesus's body was resurrected, and that this emitted a burst of high-frequency photons which burned an image on the cloth around him. This possibility has been discounted in the past by Raymond Rogers, a member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (Sturp) which examined the fabric in the 1970s, who said: "If any form of radiation degraded the cellulose of the linen fibers to produce the image color, it would have had to penetrate the entire diameter of a fiber in order to color its back surface", but that the centres of the fibres are unmarked. There are many hypotheses about how the images could have been made, and they have each come in and out of favour. Without wanting to be too cocky, when the ENEA scientists say that radiation is the "only" way the image could have been made, I imagine that many of their fellow researchers will say it's the only way that they managed it.

More of the article here: Source

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Edited December 20, 2011 by __Kratos__

[rashore]

I found it interesting that the lab was in a town noted for it's white wine... hmmmm...

I don't doubt that the shroud is old. But even if, big if, the shroud was proven by some remote chance to be as old as Jesus.. Still would be kind of impossible to prove Jesus was the person that the shroud wrapped. If the shroud was that old, for all we know, it could have been the shroud of John the Baptist, or some other man.

Or maybe it really is newer, and wrapped up some saint. Maybe it is a divine imprint, but there have been other notable divine people since Jesus.

Personally, I don't think it's a divine imprint of Jesus, or anyone else. But I guess that's what leaps of faith are for.

[Superglobe]

Saw this on another site and decided to check here to see if any related discussion was going on. And sure enough, anyway, i'll just quote myself.

Frankly I'm kind of skeptical to any findings done by a "Shroud of Turin Research Project", it just seems fishy to me.

Not sure who this professor is either.

If they can't explain it at all, I'm sticking with the guy who could.

Unfortunately I don't really remember specifics, can someone help me out here? The team proved it was made with some sort of obscure brush technique. They aired a special on I think the History channel years ago (before it started sucking).

Link to related discussion on another forum.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Superglobe

[keven3]

Thank you for the post. I like to hear about new Shroud studies.

Keven

[Omnaka]

I found it interesting that the lab was in a town noted for it's white wine... hmmmm...

I don't doubt that the shroud is old. But even if, big if, the shroud was proven by some remote chance to be as old as Jesus.. Still would be kind of impossible to prove Jesus was the person that the shroud wrapped. If the shroud was that old, for all we know, it could have been the shroud of John the Baptist, or some other man.

Or maybe it really is newer, and wrapped up some saint. Maybe it is a divine imprint, but there have been other notable divine people since Jesus.

Personally, I don't think it's a divine imprint of Jesus, or anyone else. But I guess that's what leaps of faith are for.

Well i'm pretty sure it is not John The Baptist's shroud, He lost his head to a jealous king, and there would be much more blood around the neck area Lol.

Happy Chanuka!

Love Omnaka

[gnostic-deity]

i saw a thing on tv, probably history or discovery channel, where they used a large lens to "burn" an image into a piece of cloth, to show that it was probably a fake.

[glorybebe]

i saw a thing on tv, probably history or discovery channel, where they used a large lens to "burn" an image into a piece of cloth, to show that it was probably a fake.

That makes more sense to me than this article.

Edited December 21, 2011 by glorybebe

[Paracelse]

i saw a thing on tv, probably history or discovery channel, where they used a large lens to "burn" an image into a piece of cloth, to show that it was probably a fake.

It was done by two different group of people, I've read it first in Picknett and Prince book The Turin Shroud in who's Image and there was an Australian professor who did the same type of study (can't seem to find his name for the moment). And it wasn't a large lens, it was a pinhole camera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera

Furthermore, there is something that seemed to be ignored by all the "scientists" pro-shroudies: the size of the shroud. In days when most people measured 5'0 to 5'4", a 5'10" to 6'2" JC would have been remembered and his size would have been used to prove his "godliness".

And yes the shroud is authentic (it exist thus it's authentic), an authentic fake.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Paracelse

[encouraged]

Fake or not isn't for me to know.

How would you like to be the poor sap who had to move the pinhole camera hole every time interval that was required. I can't imagine getting a consistently even exposure in that manner unless the work were done in a location where the shine of the sun was predictable from day to day. And one wonders if the concept of positive and negative images was yet discovered at those dates. It seems if so, then there would be a popular period in which artists experimented with it. We surely would have examples of such to this day, if artists had done so. (I am unsure as to if such exists or not.)

I am currently reading Bart D. Ehrman's book Lost Scriptures--just started two days ago. It has the records of manuscripts that were lost, deemed heretical, or, for whatever other reason, did not get selected for the canon of the "European" region's Christianity. They are all based on the oral Christian tradition of the region in which they were written.

I was amazed to learn that one of the Coptic (Ethiopia, Egypt, etc.) Gospels states that while exiting the tomb, Jesus gave the linen to one of his followers standing just outside the tomb entrance. I thought that to be an interesting new twist I was unaware was recorded in a manuscript.

Anyway, I guess the shroud debate will perpetuate! and humanity will be the benefactor of yet more clever opinion.

[angi chiesa]

The more I read about this shroud,the more convinced I am that my favourite genious made it and the face is his head.LEONARDO DA VINCI. What a clever man. This is the sort of thing he was capable of.

[The Unseen]

Man ,From all the testing I don't believe any of those fools any more,One says it's Real another says it's a fake,What a bunch of morons.It just proves a point,"DON"T TRUST MAN". If I could get a hold of that shroud I would burn it so people would let it rest instead of arguing about if it's real or fake,Like Lilly said" It comes down to Faith".so so true.

[Copen]

If the Turin Shroud is authentic, God has violated His own commandment. Thou shalt have no image of anything in heaven. If we are not supposed to have an image of God, why would He leave one???????

Also, the Shroud shows nail prints that went through the wrist. This also contradicts the Bible which says the nails went throught his hands without breaking a bone.

Also, Romans 1:20 says that God will give something made to reveal the spiritual things. The Shroud of Turin is said to be a "NEGATIVE" imprint. In other words, everything that would normally be white is black and vise-versa just like a "NEGATIVE". The word "negative" also means "NO!!!!" God is giving a means of discernment by the description man as made for this Shroud. No, it is not an image of Jesus.

Have a Christ centered Christmas.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Copen

[harleyblueswoman]

I have always felt it was left as a physical gift to us to prove he was truly resurrected. I also feel it would have been quite an ordeal to try and fake it back in those days anyway....next to impossible in fact for it to have lasted all this time without divine intervention!! Jesus lives!!!!

[Robbie333]

In the end it all comes down to faith. I think some things will always remain a mystery.

I agree. I hope this is true but I think we will never know until we move on. Have a nice Christmas.

[Robbie333]

Thanks for the article SW. Have a great Christmas.

[+DieChecker]

There seems to be a 'new study' every few years that 'proves' that the shroud is authentic, yet carbon dating continuously puts the shroud between 1260-1390 C.E. with 95% confidence.

(And cue people claiming that carbon 14 dating is an erroneous method of dating.....)

The last I heard, about a year ago, the shroud C14 testing was shown to be unrelable, because modern fibers had been woven into the fabric in the section that was used for the testing. The test area was right next to a burned area, which was repaired by un-raveling the fabric fibers, and then reweaving the modern and old fibers together to try to prevent a repair line. Tests on the left over bits of cloth from the C14 testing show these modern fibers do exist, and thus probably skewed the C14 findings. This does not make the Shroud authentic, it only means the cloth is likely from the right time period. I'm sure hundreds of thousands of people were buried in ancient Israel with such a cloth. The Vatican has said they will not provide any new samples from an undamaged part of the Shroud.

It is not the cloth that is miraculous, it is the image on the cloth.

Edited December 21, 2011 by DieChecker

[gnostic-deity]

It was done by two different group of people, I've read it first in Picknett and Prince book The Turin Shroud in who's Image and there was an Australian professor who did the same type of study (can't seem to find his name for the moment). And it wasn't a large lens, it was a pinhole camera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera

Furthermore, there is something that seemed to be ignored by all the "scientists" pro-shroudies: the size of the shroud. In days when most people measured 5'0 to 5'4", a 5'10" to 6'2" JC would have been remembered and his size would have been used to prove his "godliness".

And yes the shroud is authentic (it exist thus it's authentic), an authentic fake.

thank you for clarifying that. i thought for some reason it was a lens, cuz they were trying to prove that DaVinci made the shroud. whatever.

[Cassea]

In the end it all comes down to faith. I think some things will always remain a mystery.

So true, I know it is a silly thing to believe in the Shroud, but it's been one of those symbols of Jesus that have special meaning to me.

[d e v i c e]

For me, whether the shroud is real or not makes no difference. Because it's obvious Jesus as an historical figure existed. So, shroud or grail or toe nail or what have you - is irrelivant.

[The Unseen]

For me, whether the shroud is real or not makes no difference. Because it's obvious Jesus as an historical figure existed. So, shroud or grail or toe nail or what have you - is irrelivant.