Miracle of the Shroud II: The Second Coming

[Dinwar]

Dinwar,
- I was responding to that first quote. I would argue that if Hugh accepts that there was some repair, that conclusion is not based upon wishful thinking.

The hidden premise here is that you expect Hugh to provide your evidence for you. This is irrational. You had this conclusion before Hugh joined. YOUR arival at this conclusion is magical thinking, pure and simple--you want it to be so, therefore you demand the universe make it so. While many here believe skepticism means accepting certain dogmas, I focus on the process.

As for the gradation in the dates of the samples, I believe they are statistical artifacts. We have three dates. Here are hte options (1 being youngest, 3 being oldest). I have bolded those that have graduated dates: 123, 132, 213, 231, 312, 321. The italicized ones can be argued to have gradation as well (I've seen dumber arguments in the environmental field). 1/3 have definite trends, 1/3 would be argued to show a trend, and only 1/3 show no trend. Three samples is not sufficent for this sort of analysis. I can't believe I'm saying this (three samples is pretty big for my field), but it's the truth.

You've got to remember, we're working on the lower limit of what C14 can tell us. The stuff hasn't undergone a single half-life. Variation is to be expected. At the upper and lower end, weird statistical phenomena dominate radiometric dating, because there are so few atoms involved. Furthermore, we're dealing with natural materials--again, variation is to be expected. Simply having a gradation in dates is essentially meaningless, and is completely irrelevant to any rational discussion of these samples.

'Invisible' mending uses threads from the original cloth, so such a repair (if it existed) would not affect the carbon dating results.

Again: Invisible patches (technically, reweaving) would offer a BETTER sample site for radiocarbon dating as they would be essentially a composite sample of the whole cloth, ballancing out the issues inherent in organic materials (ie, variations in uptake of C14 due to local or taxonomic effects). If there was a patch of reweaving in the shroud, it would be the absolute best spot to take a sample of any kind. The fact that Jabba doesn't know this tells you all you need to know about his capacity for critiquing radiometric dating.

Just by looking at it

Oh joy, another example of subjectivistic analysis techniques....

What specific anatomical features are impossible to paint? And how do you know this? Remember, we're talking about a time when dead bodies were frequently (as a matter of legal proceedings) displayed to the public--they were hard NOT to come by in some cases. So finding source material is trivial.

One of the most telling signs is that the image becomes even more clear and more realistic when it's put under negative photography,

I see you're just going to ignore the fact that this is only true of the modern shroud, and that the image is known to have faded over the past few hundred years (but, rather damningly for the authenticist argument, NOT over the previous thousand+ years).

It's quite believable that somebody in the 1st to 14th centuries wrapped a real body in a shroud, perhaps with paint on it, to make a convincing image.

No. Getting this image from such a technique would be miraculous. There's insufficient distortion of the image to account for the drapage that would necessarily occur in such a set-up.

are there other cases in nature or history when a body left that kind of impression on a shroud?

The atom bomb blast, for one. It was a large, essentially (at the scales involved) unidirectional blast of energy that left rather grissly impressions of people on walls. That's what the image on the shroud of Turin shows, if it's not a painting (which it quite clearly is). What that means is that if the shroud isn't a painting (again, it is) you need to demonstrate how a cloth of this nature can be kept flat as a board, AND how the image can be transfered WHILE THE CLOTH IS FLAT. Without, and this should be unnecessary to add, disturbing the hair or bodily fluids involved. Again, you're talking something outside the laws of physics.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Could you please link to the exact post, or better yet photograph, of it being demonstrated?

Try this:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread594697/pg2#pid9241852

and this:
http://www.shaggybevo.com/board/sho...eval-forgery?p=5138783&viewfull=1#post5138783

 

[Slowvehicle]

Just by looking at it I can tell that it was not a mere painting because of the detail involved. I could see it more likely being an impression of statue, but the image is so clearly defined that it is apparently a real person's body.

Precisely what "detail" do you see, that could not have been painted?

The anatomical inaccuracies?

The impossible hair?

The anti-gravity "blood"?

Seriously, what do you see?

Here is a list of photographs of shrouds intentionally made to look like the Turin shroud. Some of them are good fakes, but they are still clearly just paintings:
http://greatshroudofturinfaq.com/History/Western-European/manycopies.html

...missing the point that to "duplicte" the CIQ, one would need to "duplicate" what it looked like when it was displayed in the 13th Century CE; NOT as it appears after 700 years of wear.

One of the most telling signs is that the image becomes even more clear and more realistic when it's put under negative photography, something that came about in the modern era. In other words, if it was a painting it would not be so much clearer when viewed in the negative with technology they didn't have. Besides that, you don't have to believe in miracles or something so unusual to think they used a real body. It's quite believable that somebody in the 1st to 14th centuries wrapped a real body in a shroud, perhaps with paint on it, to make a convincing image. What is much more curious is how exactly such an image was created from that body.

That's why I asked- are there other cases in nature or history when a body left that kind of impression on a shroud?

"Other" is misplaced, since even a cursory glance demonstrates that the anatomically impossible, posturally unachievable, byzantine styled image was not made from the "impression" of a body.

 

[gabeygoat]

Just by looking at it I can tell that it was not a mere painting because of the detail involved.

you've never seen a detailed painting?

 

[hugh farey]

We have three dates. Here are the options (1 being youngest, 3 being oldest). I have bolded those that have graduated dates: 123, 132, 213, 231, 312, 321. The italicized ones can be argued to have gradation as well (I've seen dumber arguments in the environmental field). 1/3 have definite trends, 1/3 would be argued to show a trend, and only 1/3 show no trend. Three samples is not sufficient for this sort of analysis. I can't believe I'm saying this (three samples is pretty big for my field), but it's the truth.

True, if we only had three dates, but Riani and Atkinson worked on 12 dates, not three. Fortunately, they did not have to analyse 12! variations, as they knew, for example, that all the four Arizona dates came from one end of the cloth, but then they did not know how the Arizona sample was cut up - in strips, lengthways or transversely, or in quarters, for example - and the same went for the other two laboratories. So 387072 possible graphs were analysed (age versus distance) statistically. By a fairly staggering piece of number crunching, a gradient was sensibly demonstrated as being the least improbable configuration of the dates.

 

[Dinwar]

Fairly staggering pieces of number crunching tend to lead to finding conclusions you want to find, particularly when you don't know how the samples were cut up. Sorry, I don't buy it.

 

[Slowvehicle]

True, if we only had three dates, but Riani and Atkinson worked on 12 dates, not three. Fortunately, they did not have to analyse 12! variations, as they knew, for example, that all the four Arizona dates came from one end of the cloth, but then they did not know how the Arizona sample was cut up - in strips, lengthways or transversely, or in quarters, for example - and the same went for the other two laboratories. So 387072 possible graphs were analysed (age versus distance) statistically.

By a fairly staggering piece of number crunching, a gradient was sensibly demonstrated as being the least improbable configuration of the dates.

WADR, the apparent gradient being an artifact of the different error bars used, and the fact that the CIQ is near if not within the minimum limit for meaningful ¹⁴C dating, seems much less "improbable"--even without all the staggering.

 

[rakovsky]

Try this:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread594697/pg2#pid9241852

and this:
http://www.shaggybevo.com/board/sho...eval-forgery?p=5138783&viewfull=1#post5138783

Thanks. If the shroud was fully wrapped around the head, the ears would be way out on the side when the shroud is laid totally flat.

However, if the shroud was laid flat on the face without wrapping, then wouldn't the face image be more like a portrait like we see there?

Second, as to the blood on the arms, if the person is dying on a cross, then their arms are up in the air and the body leans forward. So the blood trickles against the direction of the body's hairs - ie toward the shoulders and clots that way. Then when the arms are laid down on the body, the blood flow looks like it went antigravity.

So rather than being a disproof of the shroud, it's actually a proof. Now I have not spent years studying the shroud in depth. But it's these kinds of things that make me feel kind of helpless when reading the arguments. I see scholars arguing back and forth and back and forth. And then I see good arguments by one group saying there was Carbon 14 dating putting it at the 14th century. And then I see other scholars giving good-sounding counterarguments about the dating, adding on other pieces of evidence like the pray codex showing it is older than that.

It's not that I have the answers - I don't. It's that it's frustrating to see scientists and scholars who I would rely on come to opposite conclusions and give evidence like which way the blood flows and then understand that the blood flow actually acts more like a confirmation of the shroud. I understand that this is the normal process of scholarly debate- a scholar thinks up a way to refute the shroud - eg. maybe the blood flow is wrong, but it's still frustrating when scholars who I rely on to know better present their evidence as if it's a truth and i see that it isn't.

This is the kind of thing that gives me the uncertainty about the shroud that I described earlier and what makes it such a dogged mystery in its creation. I could ask again and again for more examples of attempted shroud recreations but based on what I've seen they don't come out nearly as good or as realistic.

So apparently it's either:

• (A) The shroud of Jesus produced by some miracle
• (B) The shroud of Jesus produced by a method we don't know
• (C) The shroud of someone killed in the 1st to 14th centuries in Europe or the Mideast like Jesus and produced accidentally by a process we don't know; or
• (D) The shroud of someone killed or a corpse disfigured in the 1st to 14th centuries AD in Europe or the Mideast like Jesus and produced intentionally by a process we don't know or haven't verified conclusively in order to make it look like the shroud.

I've already seen this thread go on for so many pages that they have to create a whole new thread to it. I have seen supporters and skeptics of the shroud argue on and on and on ad nauseum. That's not what I want or can handle. However I do appreciate your responses!

 

[Slowvehicle]

Thanks. If the shroud was fully wrapped around the head, the ears would be way out on the side when the shroud is laid totally flat.

However, if the shroud was laid flat on the face without wrapping, then wouldn't the face image be more like a portrait like we see there?

...as long as you are willing to presuppose a miraculous image transfer mechanism...

There is not room at the top for the thickness of an actual head, if the cloth were held flat. The distance from the front of a real head to the back of a real head is as far as the distance from the chin to the hairline...that space is not there in the image on the CIQ.

...have you READ this thread, and its predecessor? These points have been made before.

Second, as to the blood on the arms, if the person is dying on a cross, then their arms are up in the air and the body leans forward. So the blood trickles against the direction of the body's hairs - ie toward the shoulders and clots that way. Then when the arms are laid down on the body, the blood flow looks like it went antigravity.

Umm...the "blood" on the arms is NOT the issue...and, if the CIQ were the image of a body prepared by 1st century CE Jewish customs as alleged in the 'god'spiel, it would have been washed off, anyway.

The issue is the "blood" that flows "down" the "hair"...while the "body" is on its back. Not to mention the way it ignores the reality of capillary action.

These points have been made in this thread and its predecessor. The "search" function is your friend.

So rather than being a disproof of the shroud, it's actually a proof.

If, and only is, you presuppose a miraculous, supernatural provenance. Do you understand what a circular argument is?

Now I have not spent years studying the shroud in depth.

Nor, evidently, much time reading this thread and its predecessor.

But it's these kinds of things that make me feel kind of helpless when reading the arguments. I see scholars arguing back and forth and back and forth. And then I see good arguments by one group saying there was Carbon 14 dating putting it at the 14th century. And then I see other scholars giving good-sounding counterarguments about the dating, adding on other pieces of evidence like the pray codex showing it is older than that.

I encourage you to present what you consider to be "good-sounding" counters to the ¹⁴C date. I would be willing to wager that they have been dealt with in this thread and its predecessor.

It's not that I have the answers - I don't. It's that it's frustrating to see scientists and scholars who I would rely on come to opposite conclusions and give evidence like which way the blood flows and then understand that the blood flow actually acts more like a confirmation of the shroud.

Read again. it does no such thing.

I understand that this is the normal process of scholarly debate- a scholar thinks up a way to refute the shroud - eg. maybe the blood flow is wrong, but it's still frustrating when scholars who I rely on to know better present their evidence as if it's a truth and i see that it isn't.

And, of course, you seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that the image is not anatomically possible, much less correct; that the front and the back of the image do not correspond; that the image is posturally unachievable...to name but a few.

Nor is there any actual evidence of the CIQ even existing before the mid-13th Century CE.

This is the kind of thing that gives me the uncertainty about the shroud that I described earlier and what makes it such a dogged mystery in its creation. I could ask again and again for more examples of attempted shroud recreations but based on what I've seen they don't come out nearly as good or as realistic.

Why do you continue to ignore the fact that a duplicate of the CIQ would have to look like the CIQ did when it was first made, not as it looks after 700 years of fading? (Especially since it did not, evidently, fade AT ALL in its first 1200 years, if the myth of its 1st century CE provenance are given any credit.)

So apparently it's either:

• (A) The shroud of Jesus produced by some miracle
• (B) The shroud of Jesus produced by a method we don't know
• (C) The shroud of someone killed in the 1st to 14th centuries in Europe or the Mideast like Jesus and produced accidentally by a process we don't know; or
• (D) The shroud of someone killed or a corpse disfigured in the 1st to 14th centuries AD in Europe or the Mideast like Jesus and produced intentionally by a process we don't know or haven't verified conclusively in order to make it look like the shroud.

Or, just what it appears to be: a manifestly medieval artifact of ordinary provenance. No "miracle", no "mystery".

I've already seen this thread go on for so many pages that they have to create a whole new thread to it. I have seen supporters and skeptics of the shroud argue on and on and on ad nauseum. That's not what I want or can handle. However I do appreciate your responses!

 

[Lucian]

Thanks. If the shroud was fully wrapped around the head, the ears would be way out on the side when the shroud is laid totally flat.

However, if the shroud was laid flat on the face without wrapping, then wouldn't the face image be more like a portrait like we see there?
<snip>

Two years ago, when this thread's predecessor was active, I tried an experiment. I mixed dark Halloween makeup with baby oil-based lotion, slathered it on my face and ears (I avoided the eye and lip area). Then I lightly draped (not wrapped) an old pillow case over my face. The result was the Shroud of Chippewa Falls:





I know it looks barely human, but it does show the distortion.

 

[Dinwar]

rakovski, what arguments do you have against the C14 dating? Why do you ignore the fact that the shroud has raided over the last few centuries? Why do you ignore the distortion necessarily introduced by a draped cloth over a human form?

No scholar has come to the conclusion that the shroud is real. Even religious scholars admit it is not. Only a handful of crackpots relying (you can find their admission of it here) on wishful thinking believe the shroud is real. And if you put wishful thinking in the same category as conclusions based on evidence, you have bigger problems than interpreting a cloth!

 

[hugh farey]

WADR, the apparent gradient being an artifact of the different error bars used, and the fact that the CIQ is near if not within the minimum limit for meaningful ¹⁴C dating, seems much less "improbable"--even without all the staggering.

You may think so. The calculations are ably set out and easy to understand in Riani and Atkinson's paper. Although some of the co-authors were undoubtedly Shroud enthusiasts, the main purpose of the statisticians themselves was to attempt to find any kind of pattern from such irregular parameters, irrespective of where the data came from. Their conclusions say nothing at all about the actual date of the Shroud and, as I said above, were a disappointment to authenticists as they showed a gradient going the wrong way from the one which would support a medieval interpolation hypothesis.

 

[Aepervius]

You may think so. The calculations are ably set out and easy to understand in Riani and Atkinson's paper. Although some of the co-authors were undoubtedly Shroud enthusiasts, the main purpose of the statisticians themselves was to attempt to find any kind of pattern from such irregular parameters, irrespective of where the data came from. Their conclusions say nothing at all about the actual date of the Shroud and, as I said above, were a disappointment to authenticists as they showed a gradient going the wrong way from the one which would support a medieval interpolation hypothesis.

That makes me young again.

That was like, 25 years ago ? I was working in a lab in the university of villetaneuse north of France. I thought I had found an artifact in data and something new.

It turns out that if you take an incredibly amount of measurement, you can have some of them present artifact like ordering or apparent derive. In my case it was measurement of plasma temperature of a H2+CH4 10K plasma (if I recall correctly) in a lab working on making diamond lens, where we derived the temperature from the spectra.

Now I may have misunderstood the problem.... But if I understood it I think this date ordering is irrelevant.

Those 12 measurement , they are not independent. They are a group of 3 and each group are 4 with their own ranges and errors bars if I understand correctly. The probability to have the 3 groups ordered is 1/3. the chance of 4 date being ordered are 1/12. So the chance of both being order by cheer chance are 1/36. It isn't as if it was 12 independent date ordered.

Are you really arguing about a 1/36 chance ? Because so far as I can tell it has pretty much zero statistical significance with only 1 set of sample and such a high chance by chance alone.

 

[Jabba]

Believe What We Want to Believe

...
I've already seen this thread go on for so many pages that they have to create a whole new thread to it. I have seen supporters and skeptics of the shroud argue on and on and on ad nauseum. That's not what I want or can handle. However I do appreciate your responses!

Rakovsky,
- Sorry I wasn't paying better attention.
- I agree with everything you've said...
- If you can hang on a bit longer, I'll try to follow your lead.
- We humans believe what we want to believe. I'm human, but so is everyone else on this thread (I assume).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201107/you-end-believing-what-you-want-believe

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

WRT the impossibility of a painting with that level of detail - the following aren't even paintings, they're drawn with a biro:

A cheap biro. I'd say that there's more detail there than on the Shroud, wouldn't you?

 

[Mojo]

Rakovsky,
- Sorry I wasn't paying better attention.
- I agree with everything you've said...

If you had been paying better attention you might have noticed that everything Rakovsky has said has already been debunked.

 

[Rincewind]

WRT the impossibility of a painting with that level of detail - the following aren't even paintings, they're drawn with a biro:

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/ZH0oAMf.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/vfxX6At.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/PWxll3X.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/Fmv2nSQ.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/J4O3ylP.jpg[/qimg]

A cheap biro. I'd say that there's more detail there than on the Shroud, wouldn't you?

I'm sorry - what did you say?

 

[Belz...]

You don't understand: it has nothing to do with belief, but EVIDENCE. Do you understand this ?

Jabba ?

 

[hugh farey]

Are you really arguing about a 1/36 chance ? Because so far as I can tell it has pretty much zero statistical significance with only 1 set of sample and such a high chance by chance alone.

No, it's more complicated than that. Although there are 24 ways of arranging four dates in a line, other configurations, such as cutting a sample longitudinally, or into small squares, were also considered, bringing the total number of arrangements of the Arizona samples alone to 72. There were some assumptions made, of course, regarding the sub-sample sizes and shapes, but given those assumptions - and the fact that, of course all four Arizona samples were at one end and all three Oxford samples were at the other, then a regression line derived for all 387042 variations, and each regression line tested for closeness of fit. Had the whole sample been homogeneous, the line/s with the closest fit would have had little or no gradient. This was not observed. Incidentally, a 1/36 chance is considered significant - a 95% probability, which is the normal test of significance, having only a 1/20 chance of being wrong.

 

[jond]

Two years ago, when this thread's predecessor was active, I tried an experiment. I mixed dark Halloween makeup with baby oil-based lotion, slathered it on my face and ears (I avoided the eye and lip area). Then I lightly draped (not wrapped) an old pillow case over my face. The result was the Shroud of Chippewa Falls:
View attachment 32961

View attachment 32962

View attachment 32963
I know it looks barely human, but it does show the distortion.

That's the one I remember!

ETA: Jabba? rakovsky?