Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[azzthom]

No, because I think the Shroud is a mediaeval forgery. But your linked page is most unimpressive as a source about Jesus' physical appearance. It contains NO "descriptions", according to any rules whatsoever. Quite so. I gasp in amazement at this being presented as a "description" of Jesus, or even as an indication of his stature, for these reasons:

The account is from John, and is not confirmed in the other gospels. John is not historical.

The "gardener" was Jesus and Mary didn't recognise him! In such circumstances her mental condition doesn't inspire confidence as regards the practicality of her intentions, or her ability to describe the Jesus she couldn't even recognise.

As to "lifting up", NIV renders this passage as "Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Which doesn't mean she intended to lug his body away by herself without assistance.

Angels are present too. Enough said. Pity they didn't leave us a description. For sure. In the other case almost nobody at all in the crowd would have seen Jesus. I abstain from making any comment on the use of this as a source; and I have already ruled out the Slavonic Josephus interpolations. All the early representations cited are Roman frescos, in which he was of course depicted as a Roman. That he actually was a clean shaven toga wearer is quite impossible, and this image indicates that the Roman Christians had indeed no idea of his real appearance.

Right, The linked page is a summary. If you read my earlier posts, I specifically say 'other' gospels, meaning those outside the NT because they haven't been messed about with as much, the 'other' gospels quoted on that page do describe Jesus. They corroborate each other. Granted, they are not particularly detailed, but it's enough to see the image on the Turin shroud is wrong. Since that was the purpose of the exercise, I consider the page adequate for the purpose.

The gospels in the NT are devotional works not historical, so yes - they can safely be ignored. Yes, the representations cited are in Rome, and therefore Roman, but they date from before Rome's adoption of Christianity. I am not saying they are 100% reliable, but nor can they be completely dismissed.

As for your ruling out of Josephus, that is of course your choice, but you're going to need a citation to convince me.

If you think the Turin shroud is a medieval forgery, then I agree with you. I suggested earlier that it may be an example of iconography, and I still think that's possible. The point I have been making all along is that the Turin shroud is not the burial shroud of Jesus, or indeed anyone else.

 

[Jabba]

- I'm still here. I'm just having trouble keeping up. But, I'll be back with more questions.

 

[pgwenthold]

A number of groups claim that the area of the shroud sampled for ¹⁴C analysis was a medieval patch¹

You gotta love this. The people who allowed the shroud to be dated were so stupid that they didn't realize they were send labs material that was from a patched area? They think the people handling the shroud are a bunch of moronic clowns, apparently?

 

[Reno]

I must be getting "good" at "thinking" like a theist maybe due to being exposed to the posts of some people in this thread.


But here is a solution to the dilemma from a theistic twisted point of view....

Jesus when he was in Israel looked like a common place guy in the society of Israel of the epoch.

However, when he got resurrected he deliberately changed his looks to look like a European guy in anticipation of his future role as an inveigler of Europeans.

This also explains why the Disciples did not recognize him when he appeared to them after the resurrection..... he was European looking by then and not at all like the Guy who taught them how to huckster fish for Jewish men. Mark 16:12, Luke 24:18, Luke 24:36-37, John 20:14

Accordingly the shroud would have the image of his new manifestation.

See..... anything is possible for the theistic warped mental gymnastics of casuistry.....reality is what they wish it to be.

I felt conflicted writing this post. On the one hand I did not want to give the casuists more material, and on the other I wanted to beat them to it in order to demonstrate to them that an atheist can beat them at their game.

Jebus was.....Dr Who??

 

[Craig B]

Right, The linked page is a summary. If you read my earlier posts, I specifically say 'other' gospels, meaning those outside the NT because they haven't been messed about with as much, the 'other' gospels quoted on that page do describe Jesus.

I have little if any more faith in the "apocryphal" than in the canonical gospels. Here is an account of the resurrection from the Gospel of Peter:

They [soldiers on guard] saw three men come forth from the tomb, and two of them supporting one, and a cross following them. And the heads of the two reached to heaven, but the head of him who was led by them overpassed the heavens. And they heard a voice from the heavens, saying, You have preached to them that sleep. And a response was heard from the cross, Yes.

A sky tall Jesus and a talking Cross. An accurate description of Jesus?

Yes, the representations cited are in Rome, and therefore Roman, but they date from before Rome's adoption of Christianity.

But not from before the adoption of Christianity by the people who painted them. They are in Christian tombs and catacombs.

As for your ruling out of Josephus, that is of course your choice, but you're going to need a citation to convince me.

I reject as spurious interpolations the two references to Jesus in the Greek version of Josephus. There is a huge and copious literature on this. Start with http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm by Earl Doherty, and then go on to as many more of the works on the topic available on the net, as you please. If I reject the Greek references, then a fortiori I reject the further interpolations found only in the Slavonic version.

 

[azzthom]

I have little if any more faith in the "apocryphal" than in the canonical gospels. Here is an account of the resurrection from the Gospel of Peter: A sky tall Jesus and a talking Cross. An accurate description of Jesus? But not from before the adoption of Christianity by the people who painted them. They are in Christian tombs and catacombs. I reject as spurious interpolations the two references to Jesus in the Greek version of Josephus. There is a huge and copious literature on this. Start with http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm by Earl Doherty, and then go on to as many more of the works on the topic available on the net, as you please. If I reject the Greek references, then a fortiori I reject the further interpolations found only in the Slavonic version.

The gospel of Peter is not one of those quoted, so why are you using a devotional verse from it to invalidate the descriptions in the works that are quoted? No-one is suggesting we should take any of the gospels as, well... gospel. What I'm suggesting is that the apocryphal gospels have not been translated, interpreted, re-translated and so on as much as the NT gospels, and as such are a better representation of what was originally written. In consistently describing Jesus as 'small and uncomely' and even 'ugly', those works are atleast attempting to describe something real.

Of course the art in Rome of Jesus was created by Christians, who else would have done it? There was a starting point for their image of Jesus, and since 'missionaries' from Judah/Judea/Palestine/The Holy Land were visiting Rome it is probably their words that provided that starting point. We can reasonably assume that such missionaries had reached Rome by this point, because if they hadn't, there wouldn't have been any Christians in Rome. Even if it were just returning soldiers, someone was telling people in Rome about Jesus.

I appreciate the link you provided, but Earl Doherty relies too much on rhetoric in his books for my taste. With that in mind, here is a link that presents both sides of the argument with regard to the Testimonium and uses many sources (including Doherty):-
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html

It may indeed be the case that the contested passages are the work of Eusebius, but that alone does not invalidate The Capture of Jerusalem purely because it's a different work.

I offer here another link which discusses physical descriptions of Jesus, and provides some which we haven't discussed yet i.e Origen, Celsus, Justin Martyr and so on.:-
http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0710JesusMyth.php

Cheers.

 

[catsmate]

What about the Vatican?

Technically most of the buildings and art treasures there are Renaissance, I think.

 

[catsmate]

You gotta love this. The people who allowed the shroud to be dated were so stupid that they didn't realize they were send labs material that was from a patched area? They think the people handling the shroud are a bunch of moronic clowns, apparently?

Like most believers it's the belief and the need to believe that drives them; irritating intrusions from reality must be explained away, no matter how stupid the "explanation", otherwise the believer experiences painful cognitive dissonance.
To rational people the "patch" theory is beyond stupid; the panel that selected the sampled area included textile experts and the shroud was examined specifically to avoid this potential problem.

 

[Craig B]

Azzthom

Your earlychristianwritings source contains an excellent assessment of the Slavonic Josephus

Steve Mason states, "To have created the testimonium out of whole cloth would be an act of unparalleled scribal audacity." (p. 171) On the contrary, such audacity is paralleled by the extensive interpolations found in the Slavonic Josephus. Concerning the Slavonic Josephus, Meier writes:
The clearly unauthentic text is a long interpolation found only in the Old Russian (popularly known as the "Slavonic") version of The Jewish War, surviving in Russian and Rumanian manuscripts. This pasage is a wildly garbled condensation of various Gospel events, seasoned with the sort of bizarre legendary expansions found in apocryphal gospels and acts of the 2d and 3d centuries. Despite the spirited and ingenious attempts of Robert Eisler to defend the authenticity of much of the Jesus material in the Slavonic Jewish War, almost all critics today discount this theory. In more recent decades, G. A. Williamson stood in a hopeless minority when he tried to maintain the authenticity of this and similar interpolations, which obviously come from a Christian hand (though not necessarily an orthodox one).

 

[azzthom]

Azzthom

Your earlychristianwritings source contains an excellent assessment of the Slavonic Josephus

Agreed. That's one of the reasons I posted the link. This is about showing the Turin shroud to be a fake, and doing so based on evidence rather than opinion. If one of those pieces of evidence turns out to be invalid, the so be it. There are plenty of others. I even posted links earlier, that questioned the validity of the c14 dating, to provide the other side of that argument. We know the dating was valid, but in any question like this we need to examine all the evidence, rather than picking and choosing.

All I'm trying to show with the area we're discussing is that the man on the shroud is not Jesus. One of the areas I'm using is that the image on the shroud is a stylised image that didn't exist before 600AD, and didn't take the form shown on the shroud until about 800AD. All the earlier descriptions are consistent with each other and the man they describe is definitely NOT the man on the shroud. That's it. I have no vested interest in defending any particular text.

On a more personal note, the reason I've bothered responding to your posts is because you have taken the time to read the links I've posted, and you've put up good links of your own. I haven't been on the JREF forums for long, but I already know there are too many people who wouldn't have bothered. I would, therefore, have continued to respond even if you were arguing that the shroud was authentic.

To summarise, we agree that the shroud is a medieval fake. All we're arguing about is the validity of one area of evidence. And it's an interesting area.

 

[Pope130]

Jebus was.....Dr Who??

A Time Lord certainly, but much more likely "The Master". The Doctor avoids publicity.

 

[The Norseman]

What about the Vatican?

I thought the only relic there was the Pope.

 

[carlitos]

Yes, but the shroudies have an answer for that, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRmCaindCpg at about 1:10.

I wish it were a joke.

Ward

P.S. I seem to post this link every time the shroud comes up in a thread. Sorry for the repetition, but it delights me each time.

This was the first time I saw it, so thanks. It's quite a theory.

 

[IanS]

A number of groups claim that the area of the shroud sampled for ¹⁴C analysis was a medieval patch¹ or otherwise contaminated²; this supposition is not generally accepted, nor is there significant scientific dispute on the dating itself.


[/SIZE]

If you read the book by Harry Gove, who was one of the main radiocarbon scientists involved all through the ten years of wrangling with Vatican over precisely how the Vatican would allow their final favoured labs to perform the radiocarbon dating, he describes in detail how the sample was taken from the shroud, who was present, who was supervising, and exactly how and why they made quite sure to the satisfaction of everyone present, inc. all the Vatican and religious observers, that the section taken was definitely not from any repaired or patched area.

He also makes clear that the patched and repaired areas of the shroud were well known and extremely obvious. So nobody there, inc. all Vatican officials, were in any doubt that the sample taken was definitely NOT from any such patch or repair.

The only people who have subsequently tried to claim that the sample was, despite all the above, nevertheless from a later repaired part of the shroud, are the religious Shroud Groups such as STURP ... and, again, reading Gove's book, you will see in detail what a bunch of dishonest religiously driven individuals STURP are.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Yes, but the shroudies have an answer for that, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRmCaindCpg at about 1:10.

I wish it were a joke.

Ward

P.S. I seem to post this link every time the shroud comes up in a thread. Sorry for the repetition, but it delights me each time.

So, the shroud doesn't look like it would if it were actually wrapped around a body because Jesus was hovering in a weightless environment between two rigidly-held parts of fabric within the event horizon of a black hole which created a new universe? That's...impressive reasoning. And there was me thinking that it was because it was a piece of artwork.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

A Time Lord certainly, but much more likely "The Master". The Doctor avoids publicity.

His first 8 or 9 incarnations did. Lately? Not so much.

 

[Jabba]

- I think you guys have raised 3 basic objections to the authenticity of the Shroud so far: 1) Jesus didn't look like that; 2) Roman crucifixions in the first century C.E. (A.D.) wouldn't produce a corpse with the foot wounds depicted on the Shroud; 3) the carbon dating.
- I will try to argue the other side, but would like someone to suggest the issue with which to begin. That way I can keep a narrow focus -- which I need to do. Thanks.

 

[Craig B]

- I think you guys have raised 3 basic objections to the authenticity of the Shroud so far: ... - I will try to argue the other side, but would like someone to suggest the issue with which to begin. That way I can keep a narrow focus -- which I need to do. Thanks.

If you believe in the shroud's authenticity, then you must have positive reasons for this belief. Simply let us know what they are.

Also the burden of proof is on believers in anything, not on disbelievers. So the issue is: what evidence do you have in favour of the Shroud, apart from proclamations by the Church, which don't count.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Actually, I'd add one more problem, which I'm sure other people know of, but it seems nobody got around to mentioning here yet:

It's not just one image of Jesus we're talking about. It's one in a whole GENRE of miraculous images of Jesus and Mary, namely the acheropoieta. We're not exactly talking about modern-style paraeidolia, where you're kinda seeing Jesus's face in a dog's ass or burnt tortilla. There were pretty detailed pictures of Jesus, either just the face, or complex scenes with Jesus on a throne and holding a scroll, or whatever, which were supposed to have either just appeared miraculously out of nowhere, or be painted by Jesus himself, or be Jesus's face transferred miraculously to some cloth.

In fact, even the last one was a mini-genre by itself. The shroud is not the only cloth that miraculously got Jesus's mug on it by contact. There was for example a similar cloth around with which supposedly some woman wiped Jesus's face, and miraculously it got a picture of Jesus on it. (And not just a bunch of smears, as would realistically happen.)

So, yeah, that trope wasn't invented by Warner Bros cartoons. Ending up with Porky Pig's or Elmer Fudd's face on a hot towel was first done with Jesus

In fact, even funnier, not only there was A veil of Veronica, with Jesus's face tranferred by wiping on it, there were dozens, and there still are a bunch of different ones around. The legend was so well known that such a miraculous cloth exist, that there was no shortage of people trying to sell you THE veil of Veronica, each with a different face on it. It's like there was an army of Jesuseseseses and Veronicas in some assembly-line kina operation of wiping cloth after cloth on the guy's face

And so eager were people to believe that some oil painting just appeared, or was brought by angels from heavens, that Heraclius for example rallied the Byzantines around such an image as their flag and pushed back the Arabs who had been winning before that religious stunt. You have to really believe in such an image to volunteer to go give your life for it.

But at any rate, it's just one out of several pictures in a genre. Not only it's not the only one in the world, but it's not even the only one that the Vatican has.

The problem though is that every single one of them has a different face of Jesus on it. Unless Jesus was some shapeshifter, they can't ALL be of Jesus. AT LEAST all but one must be forgeries, and frankly, at those odds, why would the shroud be it?

And at that, if we admit that the others are fake, it means that such miraculous images of Jesus were in fact routinely faked. Why would we assume that ANY of them is anything else than a forgery? They say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing 10 times and expecting a different result. If you went through 9 miraculous images of Jesus and they're fakes, why would you assume that the 10'th is anything else than yet another fake?

 

[Craig B]

Hans

To which it may be added that the shroud emerged in a period when Stakhanovite exertions were being performed in the relic-manufacturing industry. We have Chaucer's Pardoner's jar of pigs' bones; and we also have upwards of half a dozen examples of Jesus' foreskin in the possession of various European churches.

The Shroud fits neatly into this range of products.