Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[IanS]

Originally Posted by IanS
...Q1. How could all the many dozens of scientists at three independent labs in different parts of the world, all examine their samples in microscopic detail and all state categorically that there was no sign of any patch, if in fact there were actually signs of a patch? Was that a conspiracy?...
Ian,

- My bad. I should have said that
1) I wasn't sure which scientists you were referring to, but there were only 21 involved in the dating, and only 5 who actually observed the cutting. I didn't say that because it seemed picayune...
2) Your claim that these scientists "all examine their samples in microscopic detail and all state categorically that there was no sign of any patch" seemed like a stretch, even if you were referring to the 21 involved and putting their names to the article.
3) They did put their names to the Nature article which claimed, "The strip came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas." But then, we don't know how they came to that conclusion...
4) Also,were they going from what they had been told by their "leaders" -- the 5 lab scientists who were actually at the cutting? (The leaders being Damon - Department of Geosciences (Arizona?), Donahue - Arizona, Hall - Oxford, Hedges - Oxford and Woelfli - Zurich.)
5) Could the leaders have been referring to the obvious patches and charred areas -- and otherwise the word of those in charge?
6) And then, referring to the sample as coming from the main body of the shroud seems to me technically accurate, but nevertheless misleading.

- Anyway, that was the context of my objection.

--- Jabba

Jabba - the above is still not attempting to answer what I said was the Key question here -


Q1. - how is it possible that three independent labs in different countries all measured the same entirely wrong date?

 

[catsmate]

<snip>
Hint: They did not just show up and said "Now let's cut a sample out of this tablecloth and test it". Instead a lot of people spent many years to see and decide what part of that table cloth to cut a sample from.

Indeed on the day of the sampling the experts present spent two hours examining the chosen area again.

Chris,
- You'll need to provide a source for your claim if you mean that the part decided upon by all these people became the actual sample.

This has already been done.

 

[Giordano]

Originally Posted by IanS
...Q1. How could all the many dozens of scientists at three independent labs in different parts of the world, all examine their samples in microscopic detail and all state categorically that there was no sign of any patch, if in fact there were actually signs of a patch? Was that a conspiracy?...
Ian,

- My bad. I should have said that
1) I wasn't sure which scientists you were referring to, but there were only 21 involved in the dating, and only 5 who actually observed the cutting. I didn't say that because it seemed picayune...
2) Your claim that these scientists "all examine their samples in microscopic detail and all state categorically that there was no sign of any patch" seemed like a stretch, even if you were referring to the 21 involved and putting their names to the article.
3) They did put their names to the Nature article which claimed, "The strip came from a single site on the main body of the shroud away from any patches or charred areas." But then, we don't know how they came to that conclusion...
4) Also,were they going from what they had been told by their "leaders" -- the 5 lab scientists who were actually at the cutting? (The leaders being Damon - Department of Geosciences (Arizona?), Donahue - Arizona, Hall - Oxford, Hedges - Oxford and Woelfli - Zurich.)
5) Could the leaders have been referring to the obvious patches and charred areas -- and otherwise the word of those in charge?
6) And then, referring to the sample as coming from the main body of the shroud seems to me technically accurate, but nevertheless misleading.

- Anyway, that was the context of my objection.

--- Jabba

Once again you are ignoring the facts that have been presented to you. Try post 6137 for answers to many of your questions. And what do you mean by statements such as "only 21 scientists involved in the dating and only five who actually observed the cutting"? How many would you require?

 

[Christian Klippel]

Indeed on the day of the sampling the experts present spent two hours examining the chosen area again.

Well, i have seen dart matches going on for that long

Greetings,

Chris

 

[catsmate]

I'd give this flounce a 7. I might have gone higher but it's kinda long and the last sentence is all too predictable.

Now can he stick it?

He was still here forty minutes ago, at 16:05.

 

[Giordano]

Chris,
- You'll need to provide a source for your claim if you mean that the part decided upon by all these people became the actual sample.
--- Jabba

What on Earth are you talking about? The process was extensively planned and documented. Do you think after all that planning they handed a pair of scissors to a five year old to snip off a piece at random?

 

[Dinwar]

Once again you are ignoring the facts that have been presented to you. Try post 6137 for answers to many of your questions. And what do you mean by statements such as "only 21 scientists involved in the dating and only five who actually observed the cutting"? How many would you require?

To put this in perspective: when I've taken C14 samples there was, at most, 2 scientists present. Usually the one not taking C14 samples was involved in some other activity on-site--we're expensive, so having two of us doing something that there's not room for 2 of us to do is simply stupid.

Jabba is now saying that 10 to 20 times the normal number of scientists is insufficient--agian, basically saying that the best isn't good enough, without giving any reason.

 

[Aepervius]

To put this in perspective: when I've taken C14 samples there was, at most, 2 scientists present. Usually the one not taking C14 samples was involved in some other activity on-site--we're expensive, so having two of us doing something that there's not room for 2 of us to do is simply stupid.

Jabba is now saying that 10 to 20 times the normal number of scientists is insufficient--agian, basically saying that the best isn't good enough, without giving any reason.

I am guessing but the reasonning is probably among those line:
1) I have faith/know/have belief the shroud is real
2) the result of N scientist experimentation is a conclusion which contradict my faith
3) That means N was not enough they came to the wrong results, and if there had been N+X scientist they would havecome to the "correct" conclusion : that the shroud is true.

Replace N by 21 and X by an arbitrary number. The bummer for Jabba is that he is holding onto 1) thus forcing him to make excuse out of thin thread and bare cloth for 2) to be wrong. Number of scientist is one of such excuse.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Chris,
- You'll need to provide a source for your claim if you mean that the part decided upon by all these people became the actual sample.
--- Jabba

Oh, Rich...

Have you even read any posts but yours, in the last several days?

Do you find your tone ("you'll need to provide a source...") the least bit ironic, given that the source has already been provided, several times?

Why does Chris "need" to provide a source, when you are perfectly content to promise to try to find evidence, if and when you get around to it?

When do you intend to address the fact that you are accusing an entire community of dishonesty, incompetence, or outright fraud?

 

[Akhenaten]

Investigation of the Shroud is a multidisciplinary affair, not restricted to the field of radiocarbon dating only, and to the sole methodologies of the exact sciences.

Nobody has said otherwise.

Quite the opposite, in fact, with many here having said that the shroud is well worth studying for what it is - an artefact of the the 14th century.

I have regretfully come to the conclusion that participation in this discussion would be a pure waste of my time -

Thanks for sharing.

- the membership seems interested in nothing other than the C¹⁴ reading, as if this were some kind of magic bullet proving every single thesis of the "mediaeval forgery" theory with a single shot.

No. The membership, as you call it, sees the C14 dating as doing nothing more than establishing that the shroud is a 14th century artefact, not a 1st century one.

Everything else is up for grabs, whatever the eval media might have to say about it.

Sadly, this "discussion" seems to have degenerated into the notion that even *questioning* the "mediaeval forgery" theory is seen by most members as a direct assault upon the scientific and methodological integrity of the scientists and technicians who performed that dating -

You should read the thread then, because your less-than-fully-informed impression of what's been going on here is faulty.

- which I personally have ZERO interest in attempting to participate in, but the knee-jerk reactions and ponderous insistence of far too many people in this thread permit the discussion of basically NOTHING else.

This is not interesting.

Good-oh.

More tellingly, the ONLY things that I've discovered about the broader ongoing Shroud debates since first posting in this thread have been from my own research into the various pros and cons of the various theories of provenance -- though ONE member did post ONE useful link (for which, thank you).

And here I was panicking about the whole thing being a waste of your obviously precious time.

Basically, I find the signal to noise ratio in this thread to be exceedingly low ; though no doubt several members will handily devise some imaginary motivations for me, likely to do with some preposterous claims about me being a "shroudie" and "unable to handle" the "evidence" or somesuch utterly useless RUBBISH.

I have a feeling that you may be overestimating the impact that your motivations are likely to have on Teh Membership™.

Anyway, cheerio -- I'll possibly contribute further to some other threads.

Further?

I hope you all continue to enjoy your acts of collective cruelty towards Jabba

What a strange desire.

 

[pakeha]

...If anything, that provides an additional layer of assurance that there were no amazing visible invisible patches, as yet another set of people have observed the samples and noted their observations. You need to understand, Jabba, that the scientists were observing and collecting evidence, not forming a hypothesis. That was done later at the BMRI, after all the evidence was gathered, including the results of the carbon dating processes (two of which, we remind you once again, were done blind at the final stage).

You really are clutching at straws with this patching idea, and the only way such a patch could be worked into your theory (as well as the shroud) is by using techniques which defy naturalistic explanations, or by accusing people with vested interests in dating the shroud to the 1st century of fraud during the chain of custody.

You are positing a patch which is invisible to the naked eye, which matches the weave of the shroud and the invisible linen banding so precisely that not even the most powerful microscopes can detect any irregularity in the weave or banding. Further, you are positing that this patch was put onto the shroud in an area well away from the image by people who failed to record their work on the shroud at all, despite the presence on the shroud of huge and very obvious patches, and despite these amazingly talented people having absolutely no idea which part of the shroud would be sampled, hundreds of years later.

Time for you to explain your theory, Jabba. Here are some questions for you to answer:

1. When did this patching of the shroud occur?
2. Who did the work?
3. How did they do it (remember, the weave and the invisible linen banding shows no sign of patching in that area)?
4. Why did they do it?
5. Why was it not documented?
6. Why did they choose that area?
7. Did they know when, where and how much of the shroud would be sampled for radiocarbon dating purposes?
8. Why, if technology that allows truly invisible patches to be applied to fabric which match both the weave and the linen banding, was this technology not used for the other very obvious patches on the shroud?

Off you go. No invoking of magic, or anything illogical. Unless you can produce a tenable theory which accounts for all of that, including the chain of custody, you are wasting everyone's time and the site's bandwith with your patching idea.

No doubt you'll 'come back to this later' or ignore it, but consider the message you are sending to everybody of the paucity of your argument if you simply avoid the hard questions.

No answers from Jabba so far, AFAIK.

Bookmarked ? What are you talking about ? Favorited on your browser, or is this some super-sekrit forum function I know nothing about ?

I use Firefox and in the upper right-hand corner of my screen is a little star symbol marked 'Bookmarks'

... And the other external experts opposed their test plan as it would have ruined the sample for the purposes of radiocarbon dating.
I believe the exposure of the lack of knowledge of STURP, along with their failure to pass to pass to Ballestrero the 1979 Harbottl/Gove letter sent to him, was one of the reasons they were excluded from the latter stages of the process.

The exclusion of Gove and his university (Rochester, one of the original six proposed and notably the only AMS equipped lab to be dropped) was, in my opinion, due to his public out-outspokenness and habit of rubbing others the wrong way.

It's all politics................

As always, thanks for the insights!

...
I have regretfully come to the conclusion that participation in this discussion would be a pure waste of my time -- the membership seems interested in nothing other than the C¹⁴ reading, as if this were some kind of magic bullet proving every single thesis of the "mediaeval forgery" theory with a single shot. ...

Gosh.
I'm left with the feeling JabbaPapa's posts here showed the sum of what their author had to offer the discussion- nothing that hadn't been discussed and rebutted already.

I came here with an open mind – C1 AD or not? But having read 150+ pages of this thread, reading some of the links (some are above me – too technical) and looking at images, I have come to the belief that it can only be a genuine painting of some description from around 1260-1390.
I don’t understand enough about carbon dating to try to attack that evidence, I take the word of three expert establishments – much as I take the word of my doctor when he tells me what is wrong with me. The way I see it the three establishments were told “measure this”, they did and all came back with and externally verified answer.
To me though the easiest evidence to examine is the actual image (albeit from the internet – nothing original). There are too many details that cannot be accounted for.
As has been mentioned here before – the Shroud Slouch. I am double jointed in a lot of my joints and no – I can’t match this position. My arms are just too short
Where is the crown of the head? The image of back of the head almost touches the image for the front of the head.
The ankles are nice and neatly together – really? Whenever I lie down and relax, mine splay apart. A straw poll of some colleagues at work and my family shows that the same happens to them (to different degrees).

Welcome and thanks for an interesting post.

 

[Akhenaten]

- My bad. I should have said that

<stuff you most definitely shouldn't have said>

- Anyway, that was the context of my objection.

Piffle.

This is the context of your objection:

And then, of course, I want to believe all that...

 

[carlitos]

- My bad. I should have said that
1) I wasn't sure which scientists you were referring to, but there were only 21 involved in the dating, and only 5 who actually observed the cutting. I didn't say that because it seemed picayune...

Picayune? Trivial? Mean? What the ****? Seriously, what the ****? How many *********** scientists have to sign off on something? 21? 5? What the ****?

When you get a blood test or EKG, how many scientists are required before you accept the findings? If you're trying to balance the pH in your pool, how many scientists are required? When your grand-daughter takes a home pregnancy test, does she take it to more than 21 scientists, or does she just see if it turns blue/pink?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Akhenaten]

Chris,
- You'll need to provide a source for your claim if you mean that the part decided upon by all these people became the actual sample.
--- Jabba

I'd be fascinated to hear the explanation underlying your belief that you're in a position to tell people what they need to do and the consequences of their failure to comply with your pettish requirements.

 

[Belz...]

Chris,
- You'll need to provide a source for your claim if you mean that the part decided upon by all these people became the actual sample.
--- Jabba

Source for OUR claim ??

 

[carlitos]

I just spent a moment thinking about this. Jesus relics that appeared in the 12th-13-14th centuries:

In the Christian tradition, the True Cross refers to the actual cross used in the Crucifixion of Jesus. Today, many fragments of wood are claimed as True Cross relics, but it is hard to establish their authenticity. The spread of the story of the fourth century discovery of the True Cross was partly due to its inclusion in 1260 in Jacopo de Voragine's very popular book The Golden Legend, which also included other tales such as Saint George and the Dragon.[citation needed]

...

Saint Louis, the king of France, took over and paid back the Venetians. On 10 August 1239, the king, followed by a brilliant procession, welcomed twenty-nine relics in Villeneuve-l’Archevêque. On 19 August 1239, the procession arrived in Paris; the king took off his royal garments. Wearing only a simple tunic and with bare feet, assisted by his brother, took the Crown of Thorns to Notre-Dame de Paris before placing the relics in the palace chapel. He built a reliquary worthy of housing these relics, Sainte Chapelle.

...

[Iron Crown of Lombardy, which includes a nail from the True Cross]
Twining also mentions a relief plaque in the cathedral which appears to represent the coronation of Otto IV at Monza in 1209 as it was described by Morigias in 1345 and stresses the point that although four votive crowns are shown hanging above the altar, the crown which the archbishop is placing on the king's head bears no resemblance to the Iron Crown.[5] The Encyclopædia Britannica states that the first reliable record of the use of the Iron Crown in the coronation of a King of Italy is that of the coronation of Henry VII in 1312.[6]

...

[Holy Robe]
The history of the Trier robe is certain only from the 12th century. On May 1, 1196, Archbishop Johann I of Trier consecrated an altar in which the seamless robe was contained. It is no longer possible to determine the exact historical path that the robe took to arrive there, so that many hold it to be a medieval forgery. The various attempts at preservation and restoration through the centuries have made it difficult to determine how much of the relic (if genuine) actually stems from the time of Jesus. A scientific examination of the specimen has not been conducted. The stigmatist Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth declared that the Trier robe was authentic.[1]

I could list more, but it's not important. My question is - does anyone believe that any of these relics were more than just marketing for Christianity? Just another set of tools to keep the peasants in line? Am I way off base here?

 

[Dinwar]

When you get a blood test or EKG, how many scientists are required before you accept the findings? If you're trying to balance the pH in your pool, how many scientists are required? When your grand-daughter takes a home pregnancy test, does she take it to more than 21 scientists, or does she just see if it turns blue/pink?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

It's all Jabba has left. Jabba can't understand the science (or, at least, he demonstrably doesn't), and we've so completely demonstrated this that even he can no longer ignore that fact. So he's switching tactics: he's attempting to attack the researchers. If he can discredit the researchers, perhaps that will negate the research, goes that line of reasoning.

Unfortunately, in science that doesn't happen. In this case, it's particularly false. In science, results must be, at least in theory, reproduciable in some manner. In this case, the results WERE reproduced, twice. Thus, unless the samples were switched with some other cloth (they weren't, as we know from the unblinded sample), we can safely ignore the researchers entirely. It's not that they don't matter; it's just that their bone fides are irrelevant for the discussion of the data, because even those with other bone fides--and opposing desires--find the same results.

Compare this with Rogers' work. It cannot be reproduced even in principle, because he's never proven where the threads are from (as opposed to the C14 dating, which was proven to be from the shroud). And it HASN'T been reproduced, which doesn't disprove it but which allows for at least the posibility of it not being true. (Again, compare this with the C14 dating, which WAS reproduced, and therefore almost certainly true).

 

[Dinwar]

I just spent a moment thinking about this. Jesus relics that appeared in the 12th-13-14th centuries:



I could list more, but it's not important. My question is - does anyone believe that any of these relics were more than just marketing for Christianity? Just another set of tools to keep the peasants in line? Am I way off base here?

Well, to some extent, I'd say you're off base. Many of the relics were, of course, known frauds. They weren't necessarily for keeping the peasants in line, however--they were for selling to the nobles (usually the higher-ups). Remember, these people actually believed in Christianity. Transubstantiation was as real to them--more, for many--as nuclear decay is to us. Artifacts had, in their minds, very real potency. Where there's demand.... Either way, the peasants weren't a very serious concern. Salvation, on the other hand, was. This is evidenced by the fact that many noble houses donated children and land (the latter being more significant) to monasteries, for example.

Also, there's no doubt that at least some thought they had actually found real artifacts. Archaeology wasn't a science until very recently (some argue it still isn't, but all historical scientists acknowledge the field's validity). No one knew how to determine the age of artifacts back during the start of the Crusades (which, oddly enough, coincides with your timeline). You had a huge volume of uneducated people going into the Holy Lands (the Peasant's Crusade, for example); I'd wager that many of them were honestly mistaken about the stuff they brought home. You find a cup burried in an area you were told is where Christ died, you might think "This could be Christ's cup!" Three generations later your great-grandchildren are saying "This IS Christ's cup!"

And then there are the real relics, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. There ARE real historic relics, which may have been found only by chance but which are real none the less. That's why we have to examine each individually.

 

[tsig]

I just spent a moment thinking about this. Jesus relics that appeared in the 12th-13-14th centuries:



I could list more, but it's not important. My question is - does anyone believe that any of these relics were more than just marketing for Christianity? Just another set of tools to keep the peasants in line? Am I way off base here?

The relics were meant to strengthen faith so were all good.

Martin Luther

"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church...a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."

I'd say you'd have to work out every day to get your conscience that flexible.

 

[carlitos]

Total coincidence that I was a Lutheran. But thanks for the reminder, I need to work out more.