Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[IanS]

- So anyway,
1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar.
- Early on, that seemed to me your (you guys') major reason for dismissing Rogers' paper. You guys didn't believe that Gonella supplied Rogers with the samples that Rogers claimed that Gonella did.
- I looked around and found what seemed to me good reason for believing that Rogers was telling the truth -- basically, no good reason for believing that he wasn't.
- And as I recall, there was no substantial argument about that after I presented my case...
- If you think there was, let me know.
--- Jabba
P.S. Unless I'm redirected, I'll try to answer #2 next.

I pointed out to you, at least 5 or 6 times that it really did not matter so much whether Rogers was lying. The much more important points were (a)how did Gonella take fibres from the C14 sample, when he should never have been doing any such thing, and when he apparently did not have the opportunity to do that before the samples were handed to the radiocarbon labs … and (b)was Rogers right to rely on his vanillin tests conducted in his own home, and was it reasonable to suggest that there was an “invisible” repair of some kind that everyone had somehow overlooked. And which was in any case after extensive examination in 2002 lasting a month, declared by the Vatican’s own most senior examiners to be impossible and definitely not true?

Add to that the question of why anyone in c.1500 would attempt to make an invisible repair on a completely insignificant corner edge of the shroud, when at the same time circa. 1500 they were making repairs that were and are so obvious that anyone can see them from 40ft away?

Those are the first complaints that anyone is likely to raise about Rogers paper.

Try dealing with those.

 

[Ladewig]

This deserves a closer look. See, I've taken samples before. Every time I do, I have to fill out a Chain of Custody, a legal document demonstrating who had control of the sample at what time. Without that document, the sample is meaningless. If there are gaps in that document, the sample is meaningless. Moreover, there are also things called custody seals--essentially strips of paper that are signed in such a way that the signiture must necessarily be destroyed in order to access the sample. If that custody seal is broken by anyone other than the person who signed the Chain of Custody, the sample is meaningless. In both cases the quality of the sample is irrelevant--it may be a perfectly fine sample, the seal may have been broken by an accidental jostling of the UPS truck or something (don't ask how many nights' worth of sleep I've lost over that one), and the sample would still be useless, because if the seal is broken or the COC is missing or has data gaps there is no way to prove that the sample in question is actually the sample that was taken from the system being sampled.

These are the requirements for sampling groundwater in EPA Region 9. Pretty basic stuff, the kind of thing that any geologist fresh out of school is expected to do as a mater of routine. You freak out the first time because of the horror stories you hear about people being sued over this sort of thing, then you just learn to do it almost without thinking about it. It becomes second nature.

What I want to know is, why do you expect us to accept a lower standard of evidence for this shroud that supposedly is the burial shroud of the Son of God than we do for a relatively minor groundwater sample?

See, that's not the way science works. In science, the more important something is the tighter the controls are. A paradigm-shifting idea must necessarily be demonstrated under the most harsh of conditions. Critical samples must be handled with extreme caution to ensure that even the harshest (honest) critics cannot contest their validity. The Vatican and the samplers who did the C14 dating recognized this, and established the best controls over sample provenance that I've ever heard of. You're trying to reverse this, however--you're trying to get us to accept a violation of the standard practices of science for, if you're correct, the most important find in the history of humanity.

And the solution to this is simple. Please provide the Chain of Custody that shows that Rogers had legitimate acces to the sample, and the channels by which he obtained that access. If you can't, the sample is meaningless EVEN IF IT CAME FROM THE SHROUD. If you CAN, any discussion of Rogers' honesty is irrelevant because he has legal proof that it's what he says it is.

Again, the issue here isn't Rogers' honesty. It's the provenance of the material he tested, and the validity of his tests--among other things, but you want to focus on Rogers for some reason and those are the major areas of contention with his work. Provenance cannot be established by mere hand-waving and saying "I don't see anything to suggest he's dishonest"; there are legal requirements backed up by a long history of general practices in the field that place specific requirements on the establishment of sample provenance, and those simply have not been met.

Very much true.
The other thing I would add is even if broken seal does not mean it has been replaced it most certainly means that it could have been accidentally contaminated with other things on the UPS truck, or in this case, contaminated with other things in Rogers's pockets, desk, etc.

Rogers could be the very paragon of virtue and honesty, but without better documentation we cannot place his "evidence" above the evidence that was carefully documented by 20+ people with cameras.

Before we leave item 1, Jabba, we need to know that you understand Dinwar's post. Are there any questions or concerns we can help you with.

 

[Ladewig]

You know, if he wants to call that reasoning a victory I'm tempted to let him. It's so sad that I'd almost feel bad ripping it apart.

I am not sure you even could rip it apart - I read in an invisible book that invisible patches are much stronger than the surrounding material.

 

[tsig]

I am not sure you even could rip it apart - I read in an invisible book that invisible patches are much stronger than the surrounding material.

And you can tell they're invisible 'cause you can't see them.

 

[Jabba]

Why I had assumed that Rogers was telling the truth.

Well, if he can adequately address why Rogers' integrity should even be considered, I'd count that as a win. At least it's something, you know?...

Dinwar,
- I'm not sure what you're saying here. If you're asking me to explain why I think that Rogers was telling the truth, I will happily oblige. I tried to do that a ways back, but can't remember exactly where -- so if you want that explanation, I'll give you my latest version, but you'll have to let me know that that IS what you want.
--- Jabba

 

[Marduk]

tell me what you want, what you really really want

 

[pakeha]

... If you're asking me to explain why I think that Rogers was telling the truth, I will happily oblige. I tried to do that a ways back, but can't remember exactly where-- so if you want that explanation, I'll give you my latest version, but you'll have to let me know that that IS what you want. ...

Really?
Something new, not just a repeat of the obituary links?

 

[Ladewig]

I am not looking for redirection, I just want to understand what is happening.

A) you sincerely believe that you have thorough answers for every item on that list?

B) there is no item or combination of items on that list that make you even begin to consider the possibility of the inauthenticity of the Shroud?

C) if we are looking for a comprehensive list I am very confident we can add seven or eight points about the scale and dimensions. Would you like us to add those items to the list now or would you prefer to wait until the first 37 items are resolved?


D) did you leave the ability to reproduce the Shroud using ancient techniques off the list because you believe you have already proven that it is not reproduceable?

E) have you considered the possibility of inviting your fellow believers to come here to help you?​

again this is not meant to derail your plan. These are just five yes/no questions which you can answer off the top of your head (no research required).

 

[Dinwar]

- I'm not sure what you're saying here. If you're asking me to explain why I think that Rogers was telling the truth, I will happily oblige. I tried to do that a ways back, but can't remember exactly where -- so if you want that explanation, I'll give you my latest version, but you'll have to let me know that that IS what you want.

Don't bother. I'm not interested in whether Rogers was honest (ie, whether he thought he was telling the truth) or not. Let's focus on the provenance of his samples, shall we? Can you prove that his samples had an unbroken chain of custody? That'd neatly circumvent the whole honesty issue.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I'll use purple for things that I do not expect to be formally addressed.

This seems like a dangerous precedent. Do you really want everybody to make every post in purple?

 

[pakeha]

^^^
Very true, indeed!
Who's not surprised the unbroken chain of custody issue isn't mentioned on Jabba's little list?

I think the concept of unbroken chain of custodysomething he doesn't understand, or at the least imagine has any relevance here, because Rogers is an honest man.

Is this why you opt for the honesty/eulogy gambit, Jabba?

 

[wollery]

Jabba, it's very simple.

It doesn't matter whether or not Rogers was telling the truth.

A lot of people think he was lying through his teeth, but all know that it doesn't matter if he was totally honest and told the truth 100%.

The actual issue is that even if he was telling the truth, and even if all the samples were from the shroud, and even if his measurements did say what he claimed, they are still irrelevant. They are irrelevant because there's no provable chain of custody.

You also have to explain how so many other experts can be so completely fooled. Good luck with that.

 

[Alex Cured]

An example of invisible weaving?

pakeha, I'm very intrigued by this image you posted. Could you tell me the source of the right hand side? The artist if possible? It isn't Dali is it?

Anyway:

It's such a perfect match and (if any further proof were required) demonstrates that the shroud image is a 2-D rendition of an image when, if it were genuine, it should surely show distorted by having been wrapped round the head.

A picture paints a thousand words they say, or in this case a thousand posts.

Really Jabba: Obvious fake is obvious.

 

[Alex Cured]

Really Jabba: Obvious fake is obvious.

This is something like the idea, but has been faked in photoshop and doesn't have the continuous distortion, but gives an idea of what I mean:

ETA: Perhaps someone has a better example they can post?

 

[wardenclyffe]

ETA: Perhaps someone has a better example they can post?

Maybe this?:

http://hernandopages.com/famousmask.htm

Ward

 

[Craig B]

Maybe this?:

http://hernandopages.com/famousmask.htm

Ward

Amazing! I'm intrigued by the explanation

How Were They Created? The Mask of Agamemnon, and other Mycenaean masks, were created by hammering gold into a thin leaf. The leaf would be lying over a wooden form. These three-dimensional masks were to be the exact faces of the buried. They included details in facial hair, ears, and eyelids which seemed to appear open at one moment, closed at another.

May we suppose that the wooden form was a three dimensional sculpted head, rather than a flat disc, and that this is the source of the distortion? Like a Mercator projection map of the world representing a spherical object on a flat page.

 

[IanS]

- So anyway,
1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar.
.
.
- I looked around and found what seemed to me good reason for believing that Rogers was telling the truth -- basically, no good reason for believing that he wasn't.

- And as I recall, there was no substantial argument about that after I presented my case...

Jabba - what you say in that quote (above) amounts only to you claiming that you did not find any articles specifically claiming to “prove” that Rogers was lying. Well that’s absurd - nobody is going to bother publishing an article directly accusing Rogers of lying.

What people do, as Flury-Lemberg and professor Ghirbiti actually did (and indeed as Antonacci did) is simply publish statements making clear why Rogers tests and conclusions are not sufficient for him to claim the C14 dates are wrong.

Rogers “lie” was that, even aside from the very dodgy and highly subjective nature of his wet chemistry tests and his microscope views, he was far too quick to accept that what he received from Gonella, really were threads from the centre of the C14 sample - Rogers himself could have no idea where those threads came from. And he must have known that Gonella should never have had access to any part of the C14 sample anyway … and we’ve been through all that with you before (several times!).

Also, when you quoted my comments amongst your list of 37 items, what I said there were not separate points that you have to deal with. They are all just part of explaining to you why Rogers paper is not reliable, and why for example the unreliability has been explained in detail by Antonacci … and also, since you raised the issue, why Heimberger’s complaints to Antonacci are incorrect and misplaced, as Antonacci's first reply deals with in detail (if you care to just read it!).

So you don’t need any of that list of 37 points. All you need to do is appreciate the above points in order to realise why Rogers paper was weak and fatally flawed (eg his central claims from vanillin tests, are based on the shroud never having become any warmer than 20 C to 25C, even during a fire which melted it’s silver container at 700-900C), and you can see that very easily from the article by Antonacci, as well as from the 2002 examination of the shroud (lasting a month) by the Vatican’s own two principal technical experts. Not to mention the fact that the radiocarbon labs themselves, when first commenting on objections claiming their samples were not representative of the entire shroud cloth, made very clear that there was no such evidence in any of the samples they had.

Here, for others, if not for Jabba who either never reads anything contrary to this own shroud beliefs or else prefers to agree with barking mad articles from shroud fundamentalists, is a link to an interesting explanation from Dr Flury-Lemberg on why she says that Rogers patch theory (which is actually taken from the book by shroud fundamentalists Benford and Marino … whose qualifications are that Benford is an ex. Nurse! And Marino is an ex. Catholic Monk!!) is wrong, ie why the Rogers/Benford “patch” theory is wrong (photos for her article are found by clicking the separate link at the top of the article) -


www.shroud.com/pdfs/n65part5.pdf


And finally, here again is a link that I gave previously to a very informative article on a website called “Bad Archaeology”, where amongst generally debunking the shroud, the author shows a magnified photo of the weave in a very rare example (perhaps the only known example?) of a genuinely 1st century death shroud from that same geographical region around the Dead Sea, showing why the materials and weaving etc. were completely different on genuine 1st century cloths, ie showing why the Turin Shroud is typical of cloth made in the middle ages c.1400’s and not typical of cloth woven in the 1st century AD -

http://www.badarchaeology.com/?page_id=322

 

[Ladewig]

pakeha, I'm very intrigued by this image you posted. Could you tell me the source of the right hand side? The artist if possible? It isn't Dali is it?

Is it DaVinci's "The Saviour of the World" (1513) ?

 

[wardenclyffe]

Oh, and the gold mask is another example of how easily an artifact can be erroneously linked to a character from antiquity, like, for example, Agamemnon or maybe Jesus.

Ward

 

[Alex Cured]

Amazing! I'm intrigued by the explanation May we suppose that the wooden form was a three dimensional sculpted head, rather than a flat disc, and that this is the source of the distortion? Like a Mercator projection map of the world representing a spherical object on a flat page.

exactly

and this effect is missing from the shroud