Shroud of Turin Mystery Solved

image In the debate about the Shroud of Turin, perhaps the strongest argument that the pro-Shroud side had going for it was that no one could figure out how a medieval forger could have created such a thing. How could the forger have etched a three-dimensional photo-negative image of a crucified man onto a piece of linen? Nathan Wilson has pretty much demolished this pro-shroud argument by showing that it would have been quite easy for a medieval forger to have done this. All he (or she, but probably he) would have needed is some white paint, a large piece of glass, and a piece of linen. You paint a figure of a man on the glass, place the glass over the linen, and leave it out in the sun for a couple of days. The sun then bleaches the material, thereby transferring a three-dimensional photo-negative image of whatever was painted on the glass onto the linen. It's one of those things that seems so obvious when you think about it, and answers so many questions about the shroud, that it has to be the solution. And yet it's taken centuries for someone to figure it out. Wilson has a great (and quite detailed) article in Christianity Today explaining how he went about solving the mystery. There's also a shorter article about Wilson's 'shadow shroud' on discovery.com. Finally, check out Wilson's website: shadowshroud.com. The thumbnail shows a shroud-of-turin replica that Wilson created using his method.

Religion

Posted on Fri Mar 11, 2005



Comments

Oooh... I know some people who are going to be so pissed... I better go and e-mail all these links to them!
Posted by Fay-Fay  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  10:19 AM
Yeah, that's how they made the first photographs too. The trick was that the subject had to be still long enough for the image to transfer. That's why people never smile in pre-Civil War era photos-they had to sit still for hours in the same pose.
Posted by Laser Potato, TO BE CONTINUED...  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  11:39 AM
I still find it troublesome that a medieval forger would go through the trouble of creating an effect that wouldn't have been noticed until the modern camera detected it.
Posted by Andrew J  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  12:02 PM
Even if we assume that a forger were capable of creating something like this, the most recent carbon dating put the original fibers of the shroud within a first century time frame. Should we then conclude that it must be a forgery from one of the earliest christians?
Posted by Andrew J  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  12:30 PM
No, you assume that a medieval forger used an old shroud to create the forgery.

This is all explained in the article.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  12:36 PM
This is a nice idea, and I yield to nobody in the firmness of my judgment (until proved otherwise) that the shroud is a forgery, but where would a medieval artist get such a large piece of plate glass? Until the seventeenth century, flat glass could only be made by blowing a cylinder and slitting it open or by blowing a bubble and spinning it to give bull's-eye glass - that's why old windows are made in such small pieces held together by lead strips. In this theory, the shroud would have to have been exposed with one piece of glass, and I can't think of another transparent substance that could practically have been used.

Have I missed something? Or did the originator of the theory have an answer to that one (I skimmed his website but found it rather indigestible)?
Posted by helen  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  12:53 PM
The glass issue is addressed on the guy's website, in the faq section:

How big was medieval glass? Could they make big pieces, or were they all little like those in stained-glass windows?
Wilson
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  01:04 PM
helen,

He answers the glass plate size question in the faq at http://www.shadowshroud.com/faq.htm. Basically it would have taken two sheets of glass at the sizes they could make.
Posted by bobo  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  01:07 PM
Still, I try to apply Occhams Razer to this and I find myself unsure of what is the simpler answer.

And that's pretty substansial considering the alternative to it being a forgery.

If it is a hoax, I think you may want to revise your list of the top 100. This has got to be numero uno.
Posted by Andrew J  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  02:36 PM
"I still find it troublesome that a medieval forger would go through the trouble of creating an effect that wouldn't have been noticed until the modern camera detected it."

For as long as the shroud has been known, it has exactly been so famous because it seemed to contain a faint depiction of Christ.
People mistakingly believe this depiction was only discovered with the advent of photo camera's, but what they only did was make the depiction more clearly visible, people have been seeing it all along.

Remember that around 1380, shortly after the shroud (re)surfaced, a local bishop already claimed the shroud was a hoax created by painting the figure of Christ on it. Radiocarbon dating has shown that the shroud was probably made a few years before that.

It's a hoax and it's even a pretty obvious one.
Posted by Nathan  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  05:06 PM
The world's first contact print! 😜
Posted by Vic K.  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  06:23 PM
Alex, I agree with Andrew J. If this guy's tested theory isn't the closest we'll probably ever get to the truth about the shroud - then it would get my vote for the #! hoax in all human history.
Posted by stork  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  06:39 PM
In 'The Templar Revelations: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ.' the authors, Lynn Picknett, and Clive Prince, claim that it would have been very easy for someone knowledgeable, such as Leonardo da Vinci, to fake a shroud using everyday chemicals easily obtainable during his times. Apparently they believe a history of the shroud prior to Leonardo's time is a fabrication..
In fact they claim that Leonardo is the faker who created the shroud and then delighted in watching an audience worship it while he hid to observe.
The motive? He was supposed to have been a member of a secret society that did not believe in Christianity but could not express their disbelief due to the power that the Catholic Church had at that time. This and numerous other hidden message by him, esp. in 'The Last Supper' and several other paintings are supposedd to confirm his stand against the church.

pepe
Posted by pepe nero  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  06:50 PM
"then it would get my vote for the #! hoax in all human history."

Right behind the bible, and Bryan Adams music.
Posted by Annie Nonamoos  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  06:53 PM
All one has to do to KNOW that the shroud of Turin is a fraud is to read John 20:6-7 "Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen cloth lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, NOT lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by ITSELF."

In other words, the head was wrapped seperately from the rest of the body (which was wrapped in mutiple pieces of linen itself). The fact of the matter is that if the REAL shroud had been found, it would have been mutiple pieces of linen, not just one.
Posted by Christopher  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  07:32 PM
Could such large pieces of glass have been made in the 14th century? Yes. How common were they? Not very since glass was extrmely expensive until modern times. The guild system limited knowledge to a select few so that jobs would not be lost nor power be shared since the medieval towns were run by the guild officers. Glass was used for very few objects and it is a sign of intense respect and/or wealth when glass was used. That is why medieval glass was almost exclusively used in cathederals. Also, medieval glass had a lot of impurities due to the methods used to blow the glass. As I understand it, it requires more heat in the furnace than was available to the medieval smiths to ensure glass without a lot of bubbles throughout it. However, since the Shroud was a huge pilgram draw, the cost of the glass might have been made up in taxes/fees and the price of souvenirs.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  07:57 PM
I goofed. I guess I was thinking of steel when I made the comment about furnace heat. It was a lack of soda that kept glass from being common, and that was solved prior to the shround becoming well known. However, Alex, why would a forger even bother to use an old cloth? This was the era of tons (literally) of relics. There were enough pieces of "The True Cross" to crucify the population of a small town. Various relics abounded, including a vial of milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary. No one would have thought to investigate the cloth, and it would have been easy and natural for a forger to just grab a sheet and no one would question the age of the sheet.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  08:34 PM
So, the Shroud is lie-dyed
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  08:45 PM
Sorry, Anne N, but you'll never get me to say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ would actually qualify as the biggest hoax in all of history. I could easily be assassinated for saying that, although it's probably true. So I'm not. But the Shroud of Turin is less of a holy object than WE are, and it deserves to be finally debunked.
Posted by stork  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  10:51 PM
I'd me more inclined to say the death was more of a hoax. *dodges bullets*

Of course, whoever told the egyptians that pyramids would give them eternal life must have giggled themselves to death. Since it seems likely that the Egyptian citizens (rather than the slaves) built them out of respect for their emperor/god/king dude, with promises of having their own miniature pyramids built, one could call it one gigantic pyramid scheme. *dodges groans*

And whoever talked us out of the trees with promises of digital watches should be spanked. Actually, whoever talked us out of the ocean should be spanked. Actually whoever talked us into
meiosis! Mitosis was bliss, damnit. At least as single celled organisms we were too smart to fall for christianity.
Posted by Annie Nonamoos  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  03:10 AM
huh?
Posted by John  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  08:40 AM
Christopher, I have a page on this site about the medieval relic trade:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/relics.html

I don't see why a forger wouldn't have used a piece of linen taken from an old grave. It would be cheap (just rob a grave), and even folks in the middle ages might have hesitated before believing that a brand new piece of linen was the burial shroud of Jesus.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  08:57 AM
Actually Alex, anthropologists and psychologists have pretty well determined that the medieval mindset was not the same as ours, which is why in all their paintings they showed people of bibical times wearing medieval clothes and armor. There was a relic of the Virgin Mary's wedding dress that went around and it was a medieval dress. Your line of thought is based upon the scientific method, something the medieval mind did not use. Nor many people today even. A new piece of cloth would not have registered to the medieval mind, or if it did it would have registered as a miracle of preservation.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  11:02 AM
Christopher, I know about the strange medieval mindset that seemed capable of happily believing the most bizarre things. I've even written about it in my book.

But the facts seem to be that a) the material of the shroud dates to around the 1st century; and b) it would have been relatively easy, even for someone in the middle ages, to put the image of the crucified man on the shroud by using the bleach-in-the-sun method.

Therefore it makes sense that a medieval forger bleached an old shroud in the sun. It's the simplest explanation.

The other possible theories (that it was a 1st century forger, or that the shroud really is a miracle) don't make a lot of sense.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  11:21 AM
I've been following this thread, but honestly don't care how it ends. As an atheist, I've kinda already made my decision on whether or not the shroud is real.

It's real. Just kidding.

But when I read this page today, the google ads at the top of the page had a link to this... http://www.shroudstory.com/faq-carbon-14.htm

I just thought it was a funny place for it to show up...
Posted by Rod  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  12:25 PM
Ok, folks.. No flaming about religion, please.

Actually, given the prevalence of false relics and readily available shrouds, it's entirely possible that some monk, looking for good relics, pulled out a shroud and found that the previous occupant had left a bit of a stain on it.

Since relics could be made 'real' through belief in them and their ability to perform miracles, and I *think* a few miracles have been ascribed to the Shroud, then you're left with the following conclusion:

The Shroud *IS* a relic of Jesus.

While it may not have actually been worn by him, it's the belief and faith involved that matters.
Posted by Bobcat  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  01:14 PM
And how is stating what I believe flaming?
Posted by Rod  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  01:32 PM
Actually, the shadow shroud only simulates some of the features of the Shroud of Turin and fails to work chemically.

Read: http://www.shroudstory.com/art.htm

The actual image substance is a caramel-like product that can be scratched from the surface, pulled away with adhesive and reduced with diimide. A reverse bleach process WILL NOT produce such an image.

Also check out http://www.shroudstory.com/enhanced.htm for a summary.

Dan
Posted by Dan Porter  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  02:15 PM
First, just because one guy got lucky and produced a similar looking linen does not necessarily mean that thes shroud was created by the same means. There is no evidence indicating any thing like this.

Second, the method used to create the shroud has been shown to be entirely believable to any people whether they are from the middle ages or from modern times. Then why wouldnt other fake relics have been made. Especially considering that the shroud had to generate enough revenue in order to pay for the glass screens that were used. These screens could have also been used multiple times.

Third, for the forger to have acquired the material he would have needed to collect it from the middle east. The fabric, according to research, contains pollens and flaxs indigenous to the middle east region. The likelihood that a first century linen composed of these materials would be available during the middle ages is very slim. Furthermore if it was just an ordinary linen or grave linen that was swiped then why has it decomposed very little?

In all likelihood this shroud could verywell have been recovered from the tomb and been preserved by the early Christians and later recovered by the Crusaders. Just because someone discovered a method to make similar images does not necessarily indicate that is what truly happened. I would not cat my vote yet regarding this artifact.
Posted by Jared  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  02:38 PM
I guess we could say, that any wrong theories about The Shroud would be erring Jesus' dirty linen...
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  03:47 PM
seriously, decomposition of the shroud material is obviously based on storage conditions... ancient linens are found in the sands of the Nazca Plains, fully intact
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  03:51 PM
I'm no expert on The Shroud (dar), so I don't know what to believe. But, I welcome fresh theories or insight into what's claimed to be the cloth of Christ... doesn't hurt.
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  03:55 PM
So, you're a true believer, with doubts. In answer to your first question (minus the question mark), the history of relic forgeries throughout the Middle Ages is infamous, and covered here at the Museum quite extensively. Alex doesn't miss much. In answer to your second question; the atmosphere of the Roman catacombs is an ideal place to preserve quality linen for centuries. While the shrouded body decays, the fluids dry up so thoroughly and quickly, that the cloth is in no further danger of deterioration without the invasion of humidity from outside. This property can be easily continued thru relatively humidity-free encasement, as the Shroud of Turin has been preserved in for many more modern centuries. And lastly, the similarity of your last statement regarding the Crusaders to that involved with the subject of the search for the Holy Grail is remarkable. Guess "someone's" been paying attention in class.
Posted by stork  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  04:14 PM
Sorry, Hairy. I was responding to Jared's post, just took a while. Drive on, dude.
Posted by stork  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  04:16 PM
stork said:

"Sorry, Anne N, but you'll never get me to say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ would actually qualify as the biggest hoax in all of history. I could easily be assassinated for saying that, although it's probably true. So I'm not. But the Shroud of Turin is less of a holy object than WE are, and it deserves to be finally debunked."

Huh? What are you trying to say here? I'm not following you.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  06:00 PM
There was a book published about 25 years ago or so on the Shroud, entitled strangely enough THE SHROUD OF TURIN. I've been looking for my copy but I can't find it. So, I will sumerize the book as best as I can remember.

The Shroud first appeared, as the Shroud, in 1358 in a display by an impoverished French knight. After some legal hassels and the family ending without heirs, it became the property of the cathedral of Turin where it has stayed to this day. Prior to that there is no known evidence of the Shroud. The author however, believes it was known under another name - Veronica's Scarf or Veronica's Handkerchief; this being the cloth that Veronica used to wipe the face of Jesus while on his way to be crucified. According to legend his face appeared on the cloth. It travelled to Constantinople and was lost during the sack of the 4th Crusade. The above mentioned knight had an uncle who was there at the time and later became a Templar. When the Templars were supressed, one of the charges was that they worshiped the image of a man on a cloth, or a demon on a cloth or something similar. Not all of the Templar treasures were found when they were surpressed.
The author presented a case that if the Shroud was indeed the burial cloth, after the Ressurection, the followers of Jesus would have wanted nothing to do with it, since being devout Jews touching it made them ritually unclean. It went north to a non-Jewish Christian community and later to Constantinople where it was stolen by the Crusaders of the 4th Crusade.

The crusaders were kicked out of Palestine long before the Shroud was displayed, so there is no way for a forger to have gotten into the area and robbed a tomb of a 1st centruy burial cloth. The pattern of welts on the back and sides match the Roman whip, the design of which was lost after the fall of the Western Empire. The hands and feet show signs of being bound in the manner common to 1st century Palestine and the head has a hairstyle also common to that era and area. The bloodstains are consistent with crucifition where the torso raises and lowers as the person tries to breathe and gets tired. The image is not flat as one might think, it is consistent with a burst of energy from a body with the cloth wrapped against the body, with the spaces proper for where the cloth did not touch the body.

All in all, the author presents a great deal of evidence against a forgery. The book is out of print, but I know that copies are still floating around.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  07:00 PM
Okay, I'm definately NOT picking sides here (I already did that, remember?), I just would like Christopher to clarify a few things from his post.

"Not all of the Templar treasures were found when they were surpressed." - And this statement is based on what? Do you have knowledge of lost treasure only you are privy to?

"The pattern of welts on the back and sides match the Roman whip, the design of which was lost after the fall of the Western Empire." - So, if the design was lost, how can it be claimed that these patterns match it?

"The bloodstains are consistent with crucifition where the torso raises and lowers as the person tries to breathe and gets tired." - But you say it is his burial shroud, not his shroud while he was still "on the cross". I'm not sure I understand what his breathing while crucified has to do with the blood patterns while back on terra firma. Please explain.

"The image is not flat as one might think, it is consistent with a burst of energy from a body with the cloth wrapped against the body" - Did I miss the burst-of-energy-from-a-body page in the textbook? What do you mean?

"I know that copies are still floating around." Literally? Just kidding, took it out of context for the humour only.
Posted by Rod  on  Sat Mar 12, 2005  at  11:56 PM
It doesn't belong to Christ for the simple fact that He wouldn't have left something behind to be an idol. This is why His actual birth date is not known. Joseph & Mary travelled to Bethlehem after the harvest...

But...the death is a specific time (Passover), b/c that's the part of the story Christ thought was significant. It doesn't matter if it's real or not (personally, I think not).
Posted by Maegan  on  Sun Mar 13, 2005  at  05:09 AM
Oh, sorry, CMG; just forgot my salutations for a second. All Blessings, - The Pope
Posted by stork  on  Sun Mar 13, 2005  at  08:33 PM
stork said:

"Oh, sorry, CMG; just forgot my salutations for a second. All Blessings, - The Pope"

Oh, well, THAT clears it up for me! Now I see EVERYTHING.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  01:21 AM
Most of the Shroud of Turin doubters have long been saying that it was in reality a painting of one sort or another, so I'm not sure this new study adds a lot to the debate.
No amount of evidence will convince the true believers that this isn't the true shroud of Christ, even though, as a couple of people have already pointed out here, the Bible accounts of the Resurrection actually contradict the Shroud legend.
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  01:53 AM
The cloth that would have covered the face would have been removed prior to burial. It was a sort of napkin used to catch blood while a victim was still nailed to the cross.(I forget the technical name) It's presence in the tomb would likely have been separate from the body in the first place.

Roman whips are known to us now but probably not to a medeival forger because of discoveries made since medeival times.

And actually, I don't think the man in the shroud would have had a hairstyle in keeping with the norm of the time. Most Jews would have kept their hair shorter.
Posted by Andrew J  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  07:31 AM
Here's another explanation of the creation of the shroud that I've always been fond of:

There continues to be controversy over whether the image on the Shroud of Turin is the genuine image of Christ, produced by some supernatural process at the instant of his death, or whether it is a medieval forgery.

Radiocarbon tests completed in 1988 appeared to show that the cloth was medieval, dating from between 1260 and 1390. During the mid-1990s a South African scientist, Professor Nicholas P Allen, conducted experiments to show that, if the image on the Shroud is of medieval origin, it could have been produced in a camera obscura.

He built a room-sized camera obscura containing a lens in one wall. On the opposite wall he suspended a cloth which had been pre-soaked in a solution of a (light-sensitive) silver salt. Outside the camera he suspended a manikin which had been coated in whitewash to reflect the rays of the sun to the maximum extent. After three days he had produced an image on the cloth which he was able to 'fix' by soaking the cloth in urine - a dilute solution of ammonia. The image possessed many of the three-dimensional features of the image on the Shroud of Turin.

All the necessary chemicals would have been available in medieval times.
Posted by deezoid  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  08:54 AM
I knew I could get a copy of the book. It is THE SHROUD OF TURIN by Ian Wilson, published by Doubleday in 1978. I haven't had a chance to do more than glance at it but I discovered that I was wrong on one point, the knight who had the Shroud was Geoffrey de Charny and the Templar was Geoffrey de Charnay. Ian Wilson does suspect a familial relationship due to the name but not is proved, so my belief that it was stated that the Templar was an uncle was in error. As far as the Templars being able to have some of their treasures escape into safekeeping, I can't give a specific reference but I have often come across that claim when reading medieval history. The French king who acted against them was not able to catch all the chapter houses in France at the same time and chapter houses in other countries got plenty of warning since the Templars were not suppressed in all countries at the same time.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  01:04 PM
Okay, Christopher, one down, three to go.

What about the whip?

What about the shroud bloodstains?

What about the "burst of energy from a body"?

You're not doing a very good job of convincing anyone. I wonder how you managed to convince yourself?

😕
Posted by Rod  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  01:39 PM
I wasn't able to borrow the book until about noon today and I have had little chance to read it. Ian Wilson has another book on the subject, THE BLOOD AND THE SHROUD, Dewey Decimal Number 232.966W74B. I haven't read it but I presume it covers much of the same material with extras.

The evidence of the blood is that the arms show two trails of blood, one at 55 and the other at 65 degrees from the axis of the arm. This is consistent with the crucified person changing position, either to breathe easier or to relieve the pain alternatly in the arms and feet. The blood on the arms starts at a location known as the Space of Destot in the wrist. Medieval artists always showed the nails in the hands and it wasn't until Dr. Pierre Barbet, then Chief Surgeon of St. Joseph's Hospital in PAris, conducted some experiments in the 1930's that it was known that the space would expand and allow a nail through without breaking any bones. The blood trails on the head are consistent with a crown or cap of thorns being worn while the crucification was happening and the head moving while the blood flows. The knees show signs of injury, with a large contusion on the area of the left kneecap and several smaller ones on the right kneecap. The wounds caused by the scourging on two areas of the body show signs of further damage, after the scourging, consistent with carrying a heavy load, and the location of these are again consistent with the size and weight of what we now know to have been the standard crossbeam for a cross. The condemed carrying the crossbeam as the upright was kept in place. The side wound is consistent with a Roman LANCEA and not the more commonly known PILUM or HASTA or HASTA VELITARIS. The hair is of a style identified by German scholar H. Gressman as being typically Jewish. The Romans kept their hair short and were clean shaven (given the razors of the time perhaps stubble shaven owuld be more accurate) and the Jews had beards and long hair in a pigtail braided and tucked under their headgear. The body has been identified by Harvard Professor and ethnologist Carleton S. Coon as of a type represented in modern times by Sephardic Jews and noble Arabs. A Medieval forger would not have painted the body as anything other than European Caucasion. In 1898 two professional artists, identified as Reffo and Cussetti, painted a copy of the Shroud. They got the details of the damaged areas and the repairs right but all other details do not photograph as the Shroud does and do not have the same life-like quality of the Shroud. (An image of a dead man being life-like? We need a new phrase.) I haven't finished reading the book, ir is quite dense with information but I will add more information later.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  07:09 PM
Wow, if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit, eh?
:gulp:

For a few minutes I was willing to concede that you may not have understood what I meant about the shroud not touching Jesus' body until he was already dead and on the ground, but then I went and re-read my question. I don't really see how you could have misunderstood. My point about that is that he was not bleeding anymore when he was in the shroud, so how would his moving during crucifiction affect blood patterns on the shroud?

So, here is a not-so-quick recap of my questions. Listen closely, print them out if you have to, but just PLEASE answer them.

"The pattern of welts on the back and sides match the Roman whip, the design of which was lost after the fall of the Western Empire." - So, if the design was lost, how can it be claimed that these patterns match it?

"The bloodstains are consistent with crucifition where the torso raises and lowers as the person tries to breathe and gets tired." - But you say it is his burial shroud, not his shroud while he was still "on the cross". I'm not sure I understand what his breathing while crucified has to do with the blood patterns while back on terra firma. Please explain.

"The image is not flat as one might think, it is consistent with a burst of energy from a body with the cloth wrapped against the body" - Did I miss the burst-of-energy-from-a-body page in the textbook? What do you mean?
Posted by Rod  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  10:51 PM
I am trying to go through the book and get the specific references. My original comment was based upon memories of reading the book over twenty years ago.

I wasn't clear about the point of the Roman whips, the design details were lost after the fall of the Western Empire but rediscovered long after the Shroud was known to exist.

The image on the Shroud is described as "fuzzy" and is consistent with the cloth not touching the body continuously, and then a burst of energy from the body making an imprint on the cloth. Somewhat similar to the "nuclear shadows" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The images on the cloth are not bloodstains, nor paint nor any other known substance. This was determined during the 1969 investigation of several of the threads of the Shroud by two Italian laboratories. The stains on the Shroud are on the surface of the threads where blood or paint would have penetrated the threads. Nor was there any sign of the stain between the threads. Trying to disolve the stains resulted in nothing, so the investigators Professor Frache in Modena and Professor Filogama at the University of Turin stated not only that there was no blood, but that the cause of the stain was unknown. Presuming that the stain was caused by some sort of energy burst the details of the body could be imprinted on the cloth without the cloth touching the body at any specific point.

Have I been a bit clearer? I am trying to read the book and present the points made in the book and unfortunately it is going to be piecemeal.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Mar 15, 2005  at  09:52 AM
Okay, here I go, Christopher...

The Whip...
Sez you. Can you show me a couple of references? One is not enough. I would imagine something like the rediscovery of the type of whip that they beat Jesus with would have been noticed and written about extensiveley. Everything else to do with this subject has been.

The Bloodstains...
Are you deliberately avoiding the question I put forth about the bloodstains or what? And if this stuff is not blood, what the hell difference does it make if it matches the pattern of someone's wounds?

The Burst of Energy...
I fail to remember reading or finding any references to Jesus being a nuclear weapon. Also, why was the shroud not destroyed if the power of a nuclear weapon was released inside of it?

You're still doing a good job at avoiding the answers that I asked for.
Posted by Rod  on  Tue Mar 15, 2005  at  12:59 PM
At the moment I can't find a reference for the whip, so if you want chalk it up to bad memory and count it against me. I refer to the stains as bloodstains since that is what they how they are called in the book THE SHROUD OF TURIN. The point is that they match how blood flowing on a crucifixion victim would look. I doubt that a 14th century forger would have that sort of data available as a reference. Medieval artists typically painted all Bibical scenes as if in their present-day, so why would a forger go to such detail when any pilgrims who viewed the image would not understand such as being required for authinticity. I didn't say that Jesus was a nuclear weapon. I said that the image was consistent with a burst of energy from a body onto a cloth that did not touch the body at all points. The reference to the nuclear shadows was to point out that there are modern examples of energy producing hazy patterns when the source of energy was not in contact with the place where the shadow or image ended up. Is this clearer?
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Mar 15, 2005  at  01:36 PM
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