Miracle of the Shroud II: The Second Coming

[Slowvehicle]

- Look it up.

Your side issue; your onus. Where does one "look up" what "free will" means, to you?

Why the evasion?

 

[Mojo]

- Free will requires the breakdown of cause and effect.

Since you now seem to be arguing for the breakdown of causality, are you trying to get around the carbon dating evidence by proposing that the Cloth in Question could have been used as a shroud over a thousand years before it was actually manufactured?

Or are you just going nuclear?

 

[carlitos]

Your side issue; your onus. Where does one "look up" what "free will" means, to you?

"Messiah or not" dot com?

 

[Stuart]

Vermeer?

Or even Stuff like this

 

[rakovsky]

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.

Dear Lucian,

Thanks for writing back. I like the entrepreneurial spirit you had when you decided to go and test this for yourself. As you showed, if the cloth was draped, we would expect the ears to be showing out on the sides.

However like so many issues on the shroud, this one has also been noticed by proponents of the shroud's authenticity. I think I saw it explained in one of the movies on the shroud, however I found some articles that deal with it.

The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Birth of Christianity By Thomas de Wesselow says:

The answer is provided ... by Jewish burial practice. It is customary in many cultures to tie a band around the head of a corpse, underneath the chin and over the crown, to prevent the lower jaw dropping and the mouth gaping open. Among ancient Jews, this was considered such an essential duty that it was even permitted to bind up the chin of a corpse on the Sabbath, when no work was allowed... Tucked behind the beard, the cloth band would have passed up the sides of the face in front of the ears... These circumstances would have caused the hair to rest relatively far forward, propped up by the headband, so that it created, in effect, a facial frame.

https://books.google.com/books?id=9...page&q="sides" shroud turin flattened&f=false
The author goes into more depth about this.

Isabel Piczek has a different theory of there being a collapsed event horizon.
https://books.google.com/books?id=W...EwEQ#v=onepage&q="sides" shroud turin&f=false

http://www.khouse.org/images/eventhorizon.jpg

http://www.khouse.org/images/eventhorizon2.jpg

However, this Canadian scholar disagrees with Piczek, claiming in a lengthy, scientific, scholarly article:

The Turin Shroud Was Not Flattened Before the Images Formed and no Major Image Distortions Necessarily Occur from a Real Body

Mario Latendresse, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT
If a cloth is appropriately laid on the front part of a body,and a body image forms by a vertical projection on the cloth, no major image distortions occur. Small image distortions are to be expected, and indeed we can observe some on the Shroud. These two aspects– the Shroud was not forcefully flattened before the images formed and no major image distortions occur due to the way the Shroud was laid on the body – give the simplest scenario for the formation of the images. There is no need to claim a special event that would have flattened the Shroud before the images formed.

https://html1-f.scribdassets.com/69euj048hs44pdpz/images/8-a80bb76181.jpg

https://html2-f.scribdassets.com/69euj048hs44pdpz/images/9-85152c8204.jpg

https://html1-f.scribdassets.com/69euj048hs44pdpz/images/11-230c63b805.jpg

CONCLUSION
...
It was also shown that a flattening of the top half of the Shroud is not required to avoid major image distortions. That is, there exists some natural way for the Shroud to lay on the body while the images are formed without causing major image distortions– albeit the Shroud had to be laid carefully over the body. Moreover, it appears that there are some small image distortions, coherent with the Shroud laying on a human body form. This covering is also consistent with the known blood stain locations on the Shroud.

Meanwhile, John Jackson points out that the blood on the shroud in some important places does not correspond with their locations on the image of the shroud, although if the shroud was an intentional painting, one would expect the two locations to match.

Is the image on the Shroud due to a process heretofore
unknown to modern science?
John P. Jackson

2.1.3 Inference 3. The Shroud was in two different draping configurations when the body and blood images were formed.

Recently, Lavoie and Adler have identified a location on the Shroud where body image features and associated bloodstains are in significant misregister(Ref14). In particular, consider the bloodstains that appear in the hair regions along either side of the face. If we ignore the body imagefor a moment and ask where these bloodstains came from, we would find, by a simple draping experiment of a cloth over a face,that these bloodstains originated from the sides of the face.However, the sides of the face are visible in the body image and appear several centimeters inside the pattern denoted by the bloodstains. That is, the bloodstains and the locations where, according to the body image, they must have come from by direct contact do not coincide spatially on the Shroud.

http://www.shroudofturin.com/Resources/ShroudFallThroughSDTV2.0.pdf

For me, this exercize further suggests that the image was not a painting. Even if it is a hoax, it would still be easier to make a more convincing hoax if a real 3-D object was used, like a real corpse or sculpture.

I just spent several hours researching online to rebut a single, seemingly persuasive contention- that the ears are not distorted as would be expected. For me, a good explanation was either that there was a headband on the sides or that like the Canadian scholar claimed, the cloth can be placed so that it isn't draped on the sides. This just convinces me further of the futility of coming to a conclusion one way or the other based on my own efforts.

Each side makes claims that sound good and then the other side makes counterarguments that are also good, and it goes on and on. Of course, there is a real answer. I just have lots of difficulty on it and see how people who dedicated not a few hours but decades to the object comes to opposite conclusions.

Also, I recognize that the discussions here are an important part of the scientific and social process of discovery and coming to public conclusions. It's just not something I can spend lots of time studying, perhaps fruitlessly, which is what is required. I would like it if I could be there at the making of the object and could have someone say "Look, here is how it is being done." On the upside, I suppose that makes me a "hardcore skeptic" because I am skeptical of claims that it's real or claims that it's a hoax. But I'm also a pretty mortal and weak one: If I just keep discussing it online, it's going to go on for days and maybe years, driving me nuts as I look into each argument like I just did and not coming out with anything conclusive.

For me, the best I can say is that it's the image and blood of a real corpse wounded in detail like Jesus in the 1st to 14th centuries AD from Europe or the Middle East and produced by a process that we haven't reproduced or demonstrated nearly conclusively enough to reach public consensus. If it's a hoax, then it's easy to believe someone used a real cadaver to make it convincing. What's really interesting for me and what keeps the discussion going for so long is the debate on how exactly it was made.

The best evidence I see in favor of it being real includes:
A. Claims of traces from the Middle East like stone, dust, or flower particles from Judea.
B. A traceable chain of possession from Turin to the French Crusader de Charney to Constantinople to Edessa in the 6th century.
C. The matching of the wounds to Jesus'.
D. The difficulty in explaining how it was made.
E. Claims that tests date it to ancient times
(eg. Infra-Red Light and Raman Spectroscopy, www.datingtheshroud.com)

The best evidence I see against it being real includes:
A. Skepticism about miracles.
I think that sometimes scientific anomalies happen but they are rare.
B. The carbon dating
But proponents of the shroud give explanations like it could have been taken from the 14th cent. repair, there could be contamination, the radioactive reading could be off because of a radioactive process that created the image in the first place. We are only looking at a reading from one piece of cloth, and more tests from other parts could better confirm it.

I'm not discouraging people from discussing it, in fact, I hope you will continue to so that people will have clearer arguments than what I just posted. But I can't go on and on researching it or else I'll end up like the "shroudies" and "anti-shroudies" who spend years and a "forest" of trees' paper debating it.

Edited by jsfisher: 

Multiple hotlinked images replaced by URL tags.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Dear Lucian,

Thanks for writing back. I like the entrepreneurial spirit you had when you decided to go and test this for yourself. As you showed, if the cloth was draped, we would expect the ears to be showing out on the sides.

However like so many issues on the shroud, this one has also been noticed by proponents of the shroud's authenticity. I think I saw it explained in one of the movies on the shroud, however I found some articles that deal with it.

The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Birth of Christianity By Thomas de Wesselow says:

https://books.google.com/books?id=9...page&q="sides" shroud turin flattened&f=false
The author goes into more depth about this.

Isabel Piczek has a different theory of there being a collapsed event horizon.
https://books.google.com/books?id=W...EwEQ#v=onepage&q="sides" shroud turin&f=false

[qimg]http://www.khouse.org/images/eventhorizon.jpg[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.khouse.org/images/eventhorizon2.jpg[/qimg]

However, this Canadian scholar disagrees with Piczek, claiming in a lengthy, scientific, scholarly article:



Meanwhile, John Jackson points out that the blood on the shroud in some important places does not correspond with their locations on the image of the shroud, although if the shroud was an intentional painting, one would expect the two locations to match.



For me, this exercize further suggests that the image was not a painting. Even if it is a hoax, it would still be easier to make a more convincing hoax if a real 3-D object was used, like a real corpse or sculpture.

I just spent several hours researching online to rebut a single, seemingly persuasive contention- that the ears are not distorted as would be expected. For me, a good explanation was either that there was a headband on the sides or that like the Canadian scholar claimed, the cloth can be placed so that it isn't draped on the sides. This just convinces me further of the futility of coming to a conclusion one way or the other based on my own efforts.

Each side makes claims that sound good and then the other side makes counterarguments that are also good, and it goes on and on. Of course, there is a real answer. I just have lots of difficulty on it and see how people who dedicated not a few hours but decades to the object comes to opposite conclusions.

Also, I recognize that the discussions here are an important part of the scientific and social process of discovery and coming to public conclusions. It's just not something I can spend lots of time studying, perhaps fruitlessly, which is what is required. I would like it if I could be there at the making of the object and could have someone say "Look, here is how it is being done." On the upside, I suppose that makes me a "hardcore skeptic" because I am skeptical of claims that it's real or claims that it's a hoax. But I'm also a pretty mortal and weak one: If I just keep discussing it online, it's going to go on for days and maybe years, driving me nuts as I look into each argument like I just did and not coming out with anything conclusive.

For me, the best I can say is that it's the image and blood of a real corpse wounded in detail like Jesus in the 1st to 14th centuries AD from Europe or the Middle East and produced by a process that we haven't reproduced or demonstrated nearly conclusively enough to reach public consensus. If it's a hoax, then it's easy to believe someone used a real cadaver to make it convincing. What's really interesting for me and what keeps the discussion going for so long is the debate on how exactly it was made.

The best evidence I see in favor of it being real includes:
A. Claims of traces from the Middle East like stone, dust, or flower particles from Judea.
B. A traceable chain of possession from Turin to the French Crusader de Charney to Constantinople to Edessa in the 6th century.
C. The matching of the wounds to Jesus'.
D. The difficulty in explaining how it was made.
E. Claims that tests date it to ancient times
(eg. Infra-Red Light and Raman Spectroscopy, www.datingtheshroud.com)

The best evidence I see against it being real includes:
A. Skepticism about miracles.
I think that sometimes scientific anomalies happen but they are rare.
B. The carbon dating
But proponents of the shroud give explanations like it could have been taken from the 14th cent. repair, there could be contamination, the radioactive reading could be off because of a radioactive process that created the image in the first place. We are only looking at a reading from one piece of cloth, and more tests from other parts could better confirm it.

I'm not discouraging people from discussing it, in fact, I hope you will continue to so that people will have clearer arguments than what I just posted. But I can't go on and on researching it or else I'll end up like the "shroudies" and "anti-shroudies" who spend years and a "forest" of trees' paper debating it.

Do you understand the nature of "special pleading"?

Look, for instance, at the posture in your diagram. Your diagram shows a posture not seen in corpses laid on flat surfaces; the only reason the diagram depicts that posture is to make the "shroud slouch^TM" so that the arms cover the genitals, NOT because a corpse on a flat surface will be configured so.

Nor does it even begin to explain the fact that the head comes to a wedge point; that the arms are too long; or that the front and back of the figure to do not correspond.

To say nothing of the misstatements about 1st Century CE Jewish funerary customs, or the lack of conformity with the 'god'spiels.

 

[Dinwar]

rakovsky, Slowvehicle adequately addressed the imaging techniques. I'll deal with your lists.

A. Claims of traces from the Middle East like stone, dust, or flower particles from Judea.

This merely proves that the cloth was in the Middle East. Not exactly difficult at the time to come by such things.

B. A traceable chain of possession from Turin to the French Crusader de Charney to Constantinople to Edessa in the 6th century.

Doubt it, but go ahead.

C. The matching of the wounds to Jesus'.

Really? You can think of NO other explanation for the wounds to match the description in one of the best-known books in European history, and likely one of hte only books many folks in that time were exposed to?

D. The difficulty in explaining how it was made.

The difficulty lies only in the fact that you ignore the potential for fading. Once you accept the documented faiding of hte cloth, it becomes much easier.

E. Claims that tests date it to ancient times

None that have been verified, none by methods that are well-established, and all are disproven by the C14 dating.

The best evidence I see against it being real includes:

A few pages ago I listed out the evidence against authenticity. You missed about 90% of it.

 

[carlitos]

Isabel Piczek has a different theory of there being a collapsed event horizon.

Thanks for the laugh.

 

[jond]

The best evidence I see in favor of it being real includes:
A. Claims of traces from the Middle East like stone, dust, or flower particles from Judea.
B. A traceable chain of possession from Turin to the French Crusader de Charney to Constantinople to Edessa in the 6th century.
C. The matching of the wounds to Jesus'.
D. The difficulty in explaining how it was made.
E. Claims that tests date it to ancient times
(eg. Infra-Red Light and Raman Spectroscopy, www.datingtheshroud.com)

The best evidence I see against it being real includes:
A. Skepticism about miracles.
I think that sometimes scientific anomalies happen but they are rare.
B. The carbon dating
But proponents of the shroud give explanations like it could have been taken from the 14th cent. repair, there could be contamination, the radioactive reading could be off because of a radioactive process that created the image in the first place. We are only looking at a reading from one piece of cloth, and more tests from other parts could better confirm it.

I'm not discouraging people from discussing it, in fact, I hope you will continue to so that people will have clearer arguments than what I just posted. But I can't go on and on researching it or else I'll end up like the "shroudies" and "anti-shroudies" who spend years and a "forest" of trees' paper debating it.

Slowvehicle and Dinwar have answered large parts of your post, but I wanted to add a couple thoughts. 1: you really REALLY need to read the thread. You have missed or ignored most of the significant reasons why we are sure the shroud is not "authentic". Many of which have been posted multiple times by multiple posters. Further, any discussion of "patching" or "repairs" has been dealt with extensively, and doesn't warrant any further consideration. 2: miracles have no place in a discussion of evidence. Scientific anomalies are not miracles.

 

[Dinwar]

2: miracles have no place in a discussion of evidence. Scientific anomalies are not miracles.

A relevant essay on this point:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyNoMiracles.HTM

The key bit is the bulleted list at the end.

 

[jond]

A relevant essay on this point:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyNoMiracles.HTM

The key bit is the bulleted list at the end.

Excellent, thanks!

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I don't think it's overly fair to expect rakovsky to have to read three years of Jabba saying that he's maybe at some point going to post something of tangential relevance before rakovsky can contribute to the thread. It would, however, be useful if there was a place with all the relevant information and links to more detailed points in one place. icerat is looking for a purpose for this place beyond being a message board, perhaps a repository of pages of links on various subjects could be one thing it could do?

In the mean time, I'll link to this post again:

The shroud is a medieval fake. This has been well established by scientific testing (chemical, microscopic, spectroscopic and radioisotopic), expert examination (textile, weave and artistic style) and historical research (comparison to others, culture and documentation) and is supported by other evidence:

Historical: the lack of evidence for the shroud's existence prior to the mid fourteenth century; further it's emergence during the 'holy relic' craze (along with about forty other such burial shrouds); lack of mention of a miraculously imaged Shroud in any early Christian writings; the distinct changes in the shroud, fading of colour, since its first exposure.

Physiological: the lack of resemblance of the shroud image to an actual human body; likewise the position of the body with hands folded across the genitals isn't possible for a bo.dy lying flay (the arms aren't long enough).

Textile: the weave patten of the shroud does not match anything known from first century Mid East but matches medieval Europe well; no example of the complex herringbone twill weave has even been shown to come from the first century Mid East.

Testimony: the d'Arcis Memo indicates the shroud was created around 1354 and was a known fake not many year later.

Artistic: the face of the image resembles medieval Byzantine style, with Gothic elements; the unnaturally elongated body shape and extremities are typical of the elongated style the Late Medieval/High Gothic period.

Reproducibility: contrary to the claims of shroudies the image can and has been reproduced using medieval methods.

Analytic: examination, microscopic (including electron microscopy) and chemical testing show the shroud image is made from common artistic pigments of the period of its origin.

Cultural: the shroud does not match with what is known of first century Jewish burial practices or the only extant sample of such burial cloths; nor does the shroud match the biblical accounts; nor are there any demonstrated artifacts of the putative Jesus extant today; nor does the supposed historical background indicate that such a cloth would have been preserved, certainly without much publicity prior to ~1355.

Serological: a minor point (as blood probably wouldn't survive this long anyway) but despite the best attempts of (and much lying and pseudoscience by) shroudies there is no evidence for blood residue.

Frankly the consensus of all the factors is the strongest reason to accept the medieval origin of the shroud, not any one factor.

 

[catsmate]

I don't think it's overly fair to expect rakovsky to have to read three years of Jabba saying that he's maybe at some point going to post something of tangential relevance before rakovsky can contribute to the thread. It would, however, be useful if there was a place with all the relevant information and links to more detailed points in one place. icerat is looking for a purpose for this place beyond being a message board, perhaps a repository of pages of links on various subjects could be one thing it could do?

In the mean time, I'll link to this post again:

I'd like to add that rakovsky's claims regarding the supposed pollen are rubbish; that nonsense was based on convicted fraudster Max Frei's supposed tape lifts. Other examinations found no such pollen grains.
As for the inability to reproduce the cloth, well Luigi Garlaschelli for one would disagree.

 

[rakovsky]

Do you understand the nature of "special pleading"?

Look, for instance, at the posture in your diagram. Your diagram shows a posture not seen in corpses laid on flat surfaces; the only reason the diagram depicts that posture is to make the "shroud slouch^TM" so that the arms cover the genitals, NOT because a corpse on a flat surface will be configured so.

Nor does it even begin to explain the fact that the head comes to a wedge point; that the arms are too long; or that the front and back of the figure to do not correspond.

To say nothing of the misstatements about 1st Century CE Jewish funerary customs, or the lack of conformity with the 'god'spiels.

I know this is a good point about the arms, but I've seen explanations made by pro-shroudies for that too, which sound plausible to me eg.

One of the arms is near the knees ... You might not be an Orang Utan, the depicted figure's arm (only 1) looks like one. ~ Poster 1

I think this visual unsimilarity has to do with a flat projection of a 3D person that is not lying down flat.
http://www.forteantimes.com/gallery/images/shroud.jpg

How long would ones arm be if it were in turn pulled out of socket at elbow and shoulder? ~Poster 2

How long would ones arm be if it were in turn pulled out of socket at elbow and shoulder?

Good point! Crucifixions often resulted in dislocations. ~Poster 3

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-171353.html

They give explanations like how the arm length is not impossible in people, how the image length can be distorted because of wrinkling, because it's not an exact match of linen to skin and so can look distorted, because one arm can look longer if it was disjointed from crucifixion, etc. etc.

I think you can do the same thing with tons of other proofs and disproofs of the shroud, spending a half hour looking up all the other proofs shroudies/anti-shroudies give. You can write to pro-/anti-shroudie organizations who have put in thousands of man-hours researching the issue, asking them for their explanation of a good-sounding disproof of their position, and then will write back with some explanation that sounds good.

http://lifesphilosophie.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rmf4c.gif

Edited by jsfisher: 

Hotlinked image converted to URL.

Now maybe if I am lucky I could spent thousands of man hours too going through all these proofs/disproofs, reading books on the subject, and finally coming to a strong conclusion one way or the other, which would be nice.

Yes, I have read some of this thread, have seen photos and good-sounding allegations wherein the Carbon sample was not taken from the repaired part, and have read other counterarguments to the Carbon dating. And thanks Squeegie for saying:

I don't think it's overly fair to expect rakovsky to have to read three years... It would, however, be useful if there was a place with all the relevant information and links to more detailed points in one place.

But even after all that reading I might not have ascertained anything more than that it was created through oils - bodily or otherwise - or photography and venerated in 6th century Edessa.

The most I can say with probability at this point is that it is a real cadaver with wounds like Jesus' from the 1st to 14th centuries.

The issue is that I am an all-round skeptic. To "prove the shroud", I would want some 1st-3rd century document detailing it, clear chemical tests showing ancient origins, or tests showing miraculous qualities like nuclear-reaction lighting. From the anti-shroudies, I suppose what I am looking for is some almost indisputable disproof like the corpse's penis being uncircumcised or else someone being able to make a reproduction of the cloth so successfully that I could not tell the difference. I mean, there are excellent art forgeries of Rembrandt, so why couldn't someone make an exact copy of the shroud if the technology exists? I could probably post here three years of requests for a perfect copy and would just get more answers like "It's all been proven a hoax already, see the Carbon 14", a test which looks to me like one of the best proofs for the anti-shroud position.

I better go before I get sucked in.

http://survivethat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/whirlpool-1-300x224.jpg

Edited by jsfisher: 

Hotlinked image converted to URL.

Peace Ya'll

 

[rakovsky]

I'd like to add that rakovsky's claims regarding the supposed pollen are rubbish; that nonsense was based on convicted fraudster Max Frei's supposed tape lifts. Other examinations found no such pollen grains.
As for the inability to reproduce the cloth, well Luigi Garlaschelli for one would disagree.

http://www.sindonology.org/archives/2009/shroudGarlaschelliPos5.jpg

Edited by jsfisher: 

Hotlinked image converted to URL

Large:
http://www.sindonology.org/archives/2009/shroudGarlaschelliPos.jpg

Very good, and if I were in the 14th century, I might try something like this. But I would use a cadaver too. But I can tell that what he did it is not as good as the shroud and actually found his product on a webpage with good sounding objections.

The 3D effect does not have the precision found on the Shroud. On the tentative reproduction there are many locations where no image appears whereas one is perceivable on the Shroud of Turin. This is due to the technique used: an image made by contact.
http://www.sindonology.org/archives/2009/index2009.shtml

Must... avoid... 3 year whirlpool...

 

[carlitos]

Almost any painter could make a reproduction of the shroud. The knowledge exists, it's paint. What the hell?

 

[Agatha]

Would you expect someone to make an exact copy of the shroud as it looked like when it was first made, or an exact copy of it as it looks like now? Because to make something that looks like the shroud as it is now, a person would need to replicate the effect of 650 years (at least) of time on the cloth, not to mention some fire damage and the obvious patching by the Poor Clares.

 

[carlitos]

http://www.sindonology.org/archives/2009/shroudGarlaschelliPos.jpg[/qimg]

Very good, and if I were in the 14th century, I might try something like this. But I would use a cadaver too. But I can tell that what he did it is not as good as the shroud and actually found his product on a webpage with good sounding objections.

[I]
Must... avoid... 3 year whirlpool...[/I][/QUOTE]


You would use a cadaver for what? If you wanted to re-create the shroud, the last thing you would need is a cadaver.

 

[Olowkow]

I suspect they, the shroudies, might have heard of this thread already and monitor it regularly. It is curious that Jabba has not been able to assemble a huge posse of authenticists in the years that this thread has been running to come join him in his attempt to save the shroud from the atheists and "pseudo-skeptics".

rakovsky
I think you can do the same thing with tons of other proofs and disproofs of the shroud, spending a half hour looking up all the other proofs shroudies/anti-shroudies give. You can write to pro-/anti-shroudie organizations who have put in thousands of man-hours researching the issue, asking them for their explanation of a good-sounding disproof of their position, and then will write back with some explanation that sounds good.

 

[Jabba]

Map/Diagram

I don't think it's overly fair to expect rakovsky to have to read three years of Jabba saying that he's maybe at some point going to post something of tangential relevance before rakovsky can contribute to the thread. It would, however, be useful if there was a place with all the relevant information and links to more detailed points in one place. icerat is looking for a purpose for this place beyond being a message board, perhaps a repository of pages of links on various subjects could be one thing it could do?
In the mean time, I'll link to this post again:

Squeegee,
- I think you're alluding to the same thing that I was alluding to that got moved to AAH. We could map the discussion...