This is a skeptical Website, where empirical arguments in support of supernatural claims are subjected to heavy scrutiny. The subject of today’s post is Eucharistic miracles, which if true would violate the laws of chemistry. I happened to attend a Catholic Mass last Saturday evening. It was in a cathedral, but I won’t say exactly where it was, as I wish to respect the privacy of those who attended. I was sitting at the back of the church, which is where bad Catholics like myself tend to sit. At this time in the liturgical year, the Mass readings focus heavily on the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist: that when the priest celebrating Mass says the words of consecration over the bread and wine (“This is my body … This is the chalice of my blood…” – full text here), the bread and wine, while remaining unchanged in their outward appearance and their empirical properties, are actually transformed into Jesus Christ’s body and blood, which spiritually nourishes those members of the Church who receive the Eucharist worthily, and who believe it to be the body and blood of Christ (which they confess when they say “Amen” at Holy Communion). The priest celebrating the Mass which I attended had a fervent faith in the Eucharist, and he said he wanted his parishioners to say their Amens more enthusiastically when receiving Communion, so during his sermon, he attempted to inspire faith in his audience by talking about Eucharistic miracles, of which (he said) there were 107 that had been officially certified by the Church as worthy of belief by Catholics (although I should point out that they are in no way obliged to believe in them). Naturally, the priest didn’t have time to discuss them all, so he proceeded to focus on the best-known one: the miracle of Lanciano, said to have taken place in the eighth century as a sign given to a Catholic priest-monk who was having doubts about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
What was remarkable about this miracle was that the bread and wine didn’t maintain their outward appearance during the celebration of the Mass. Instead, they had visibly changed into human flesh and blood, which had been in recent years been authenticated by scientists. What’s more, the blood type was AB, the same as the blood type found on the Shroud of Turin. I’m sure that many of the people listening to the sermon would have found this miracle story extremely impressive. Naturally, I said nothing, but I could not help thinking that religious faith should not be supported by bad arguments. Unbeknownst to the good priest who was giving the sermon, the three best-known eucharistic miracles had already been debunked by Dr. Stacy Trasancos, a devout Catholic chemist with a Master’s degree in theology, who is also a mother of seven and a grandmother of six.
One common myth regarding the miracle of Lanciano is that it was authenticated by the World Health Organization. For example, the Catholic Website therealpresence.org in its description of the miracle of Lanciano, declares (bolding and links are mine – VJT):
In 1970, the Archbishop of Lanciano and the Provincial Superior of the Conventual Franciscans at Abruzzo, with Rome’s approval, requested Dr. Edward Linoli, director of the hospital in Arezzo and professor of anatomy, histology, chemistry, and clinical microscopy, to perform a thorough scientific examination on the relics of the miracle which had occurred twelve centuries earlier. On March 4, 1971, the professor presented a detailed report of the various studies carried out… This report was published in The Sclavo Notebooks in Diagnostics (Collection #3, 1971) and aroused great interest in the scientific world. Also, in 1973, the chief Advisory Board of the World Health Organization appointed a scientific commission to corroborate Linoli’s findings. Their work lasted 15 months and included 500 tests. It was verified that the fragments taken from Lanciano could in no way be likened to embalmed tissue. As to the nature of the fragment of flesh, the commission declared it to be living tissue because it responded rapidly to all the clinical reactions distinctive of living beings. Their reply fully corroborated Professor Linoli’s conclusions. In the extract summarizing the scientific work of the Medical Commission of the WHO and the UN, published in Dec. 1976 in New York and Geneva, declared that science, aware of its limits, has come to a halt, face to face with the impossibility of giving an explanation.
Other highly credulous accounts of the alleged WHO investigation can be found here and here. Interestingly, Catholic apologist Matt Nelson repeats the same claim in an article here, which cites a report from zenit.org, but if you scroll through the comments on Nelson’s article, the very last one quotes from a letter signed by WHO archivist Reynald Erard, the final paragraph of which reads as follows:
So we are not sure how this story started about WHO’s involvement, but other than many citing the https://zenit.org/articles/physician-tells-of-eucharistic-miracle-of-lanciano/, we have found nothing else that supports any connection between WHO – the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano.
Best regards,
Reynald Erard
WHO Records and Archives
Dr. Stacy Trasancos, who is a trained scientist, does an excellent job of shooting down the myth about the WHO investigating the miracle of Lanciano in the seven-minute video clip below (which is actually an excerpt from a longer interview with Catholic apologist Gary Michuta):
But there’s more. Readers can listen to the entire interview between Dr. Trasancos and Catholic apologist Gary Michuta here. Long story short: Dr. Trasancos was invited by a bishop to write the third and part of a book titled, Behold, It is I: Scripture, Tradition, and Science on the Real Presence, defending the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, in which she was supposed to present the scientific evidence for Eucharistic miracles. She decided to focus on three well-known Eucharistic miracles: the eighth-century miracle of Lanciano, the thirteenth-century miracle of Bolsena, and the 1996 Buenos Aires miracle (see here, here and here). Being a very thorough person, Dr. Trasancos requested to examine the original scientific reports, which she was eventually able to obtain. She had hoped to uncover authenticating evidence for these three miracles, but she was disappointed to find that in all three cases, the evidence was unconvincing. She felt compelled to admit as much in the section of the book which she authored.
Gary Michuta’s interview with Dr. Trasancos is made up of three parts. Part 1, which deals with the miracle of Lanciano, starts at 14:44 and continues until 27:58, when there’s a commercial break. In this part, Dr. Trasancos debunks the myth that the World Health Organization tested samples of the flesh and blood from the Lanciano miracle.
Part 2, which starts at 30:38 and continues until 42:58, deals with the Buenos Aires eucharistic miracle of 1996 (see here, here and here) and the Lanciano miracle (starting at 40:16). Dr. Trasancos debunks the apologetic claim that the flesh and blood violate the law of the conservation of mass – a claim based on a single experiment performed in (wait for it) 1574! Other researchers failed to replicate this finding.
Part 3, which starts at 45:45 and continues until 58:53, deals with Dr. Odoardo [Edward] Linoli’s testing of the Lanciano biological samples in 1970 (documented and photographed in meticulous detail here, on pages 22 to 40, and summarized here), and with the thirteenth-century miracle of Bolsena (starting at 51:12).
Three miracles for which the evidence is wanting
To cut a long story short: with regard to the Lanciano miracle, Dr. Trasancos (who has read Dr. Edward Linoli’s original report in its entirety) points out that Dr. Linoli wasn’t trying to prove anything, because he already believed in the miracle. Nevertheless, he conducted his testing carefully and impartially, using controls, and he observed some experimental results that were the same as those he observed for human flesh and blood. (Dr. Linoli did not perform genetic testing back in 1970, but he performed histological testing for glucose, thin layer chromatography tests and electrophoresis tests.) He concluded in his 1971 report that the tests he performed were consistent with the Lanciano samples being flesh and blood because they exhibited some of the same characteristics as the human flesh and blood he used as controls, and he added that the tissue taken from the Lanciano sample which he examined through the microscope looked like cardiac tissue, but he also acknowledged that these tests did not prove the occurrence of a miracle, and that in any case, there was no way to establish that the samples he was testing dated from the eighth century, as the oldest reports of the miracle claimed. (By the way, the earliest reports were written eight centuries after the alleged miracle itself. How’s that for good documentation?)
As for the thirteenth-century miracle of Bolsena (described here), which is said to have occurred in the year 1263, when Urban IV was pope, it’s highly doubtful that it even happened in the first place, as contemporary records make no mention of it. The first reports of it in the literature do not occur until seven decades later.
Dr. Trasancos was particularly scathing in her criticisms of the unscientific way in which the 1996 Buenos Aires eucharistic miracle was investigated. The sample of the host wasn’t subjected to a blind test: the forensic pathologist was someone the Church authorities had worked with before, when investigating miracles, and his lab work was televised and made into a documentary. Surprisingly, the Buenos Aires parish where the mysterious events happened doesn’t call it a miracle or even an alleged miracle, but merely a sign.
But what about the matching AB blood type?
Apologists may object that it is still highly coincidental that the Shroud of Turin and the Lanciano blood pellets both agree on Jesus’ blood type being type AB, the rarest of the four human blood types. Catholic science teacher and Shroud skeptic Hugh Farey debunks this argument in the video below, which discusses the Shroud of Turin and another Christian relic, the Sudarium of Oviedo, both of which are alleged to contain blood type AB:
In brief: first of all, blood type AB is nowhere near as rare as generally believed (in fact, its frequency is up to 11% in some countries); second, the tests used to determine the blood type for the Shroud of Turin didn’t examine antigens, but antibodies, and blood type AB is unique in having no antibodies in its plasma; and third, plant samples such as rose petals can sometimes produce false positive results, so scientists need to make sure at the outset that what they are testing is indeed human blood. Hugh Farey is inclined to think there is real blood on the Shroud of Turin, but as he points out, the original Spanish report on the Sudarium of Oviedo makes it clear that sample contamination may explain the result observed, so we cannot be sure it contains any blood at all, let alone type AB blood.
As for the Lanciano samples: back in 1970, Dr. Odoardo Linoli was not able to test them genetically. Today, scientists can do that. Only when they have properly ascertained that the five pellets are indeed human blood can testing of their blood type proceed. Until then, miracle proponents should be leery of making tendentious claims.
I’d like to conclude by saying that apologists for Eucharistic miracles really need to pull their socks up, and present more rigorous evidence for their claims.
A final reflection on blood types
Come to think of it, if Jesus was (as most Christians believe) born of a virgin, then why would he have had a blood type of AB anyway? Isn’t that the blood type you’d least expect, as it suggests he had one parent with type A blood and one parent with type B blood?
Another “proof” that the Shroud of Turin is authentic?
Meanwhile, Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity has just produced a video citing a 2022 scientific study (which seems to have remained unnoticed by the American press until this week, when a report about the study suddenly appeared in Newsweek) arguing that the Shroud of Turin could be as old as 2,000 years, on the basis of a new dating technique called WAXS that the authors first proposed as a method of dating ancient linen threads in 2019. To his credit, Bertuzzi points out that the 2,000-year-old date is only possible if the Shroud was kept in a cool, humid environment during its first 1,300 years, which on the face of it seems highly unlikely. At any rate, here is Bertuzzi’s 13-minute video clip, which is sensationalistically titled, “New Scientific Proof that the Shroud is Authentic”:
Readers who would like to hear a more balanced discussion should listen to Dr. Dan McClellan’s three-minute review of the 2022 study here: .
Last, one of the authors of the 2022 study cited above has a history of propounding questionable theories about the shroud:
In March 2013, Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua conducted a battery of experiments on various threads that he believes were cut from the shroud during the 1988 carbon-14 dating, and concluded that they dated from 300 BC to 400 AD, potentially placing the Shroud within the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth.[48] Because of the manner in which Fanti obtained the shroud fibers, many are dubious about his findings. The shroud’s official custodian, Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia of Turin, told Vatican Insider: “As there is no degree of safety on the authenticity of the materials on which these experiments were carried out [on] the shroud cloth, the shroud’s custodians cannot recognize any serious value to the results of these alleged experiments.”[49][50]
What do readers think? Comment is welcome.
Is the English language teaching business slow in Japan, or is it just you unable to sleep?
VJ,
Have you ever thought of changing your profession and writing sci-fi? It pays better than the nonsens you publish now… Unless you don’t want to change and remain like RNA_joke…
Hi J-Mac,
I might only be an English teacher, but at least I know how to spell “nonsense.”
I might one day turn to science fiction writing, though. Thanks for the suggestion.
I’m dyslexic and so is my new friend IPad with the keyboard that gets the word suggestions right but when I choose them, they don’t get inserted right. Could this be the evolution of the English language right in front of our eyes?
BTW: A good friend of mine just recently moved to Japan to marry a nice Japanese girl but also to get away from the North American culture… Did you?
Hi VJ
I think the Shroud is most likely real. The only arguments are cherry picked ones as you can do this and easily create doubt. The evidence is not based on a single finding but many.
-Dating technique that brings 2000 year age back into play
-AB Blood on both the Sudarium and Shroud
-Mention of both relics in the Gospel
-Pollen samples from Middle East
-Image that is not from any known artist medium
-Image that is microscopically thin
-Markings showing blood stains on forehead
-Image showing holes in the wrists
Yep….God left us the evidence
This would be enough to convict anyone in a court of law unless you are OJ. 🙂
Or alternatively, unless you faced a competent defense lawyer. You know, one familiar with the techniques for producing such fakes in the relevant time frame (which were a common cottage industry back then), one who knows and can recognize irrelevant arguments, and most important one whose mind is open to reality and not locked in by religious necessity. Your “evidence” is a combination of misdirection and bafflegab, and rather than argue coherently for the history of the shroud, it argues forcefully for the mind-altering power of the Christian kool-aid.
Flint,
Then why the bald assertion without support? Is this Flint’s expert opinion 🙂
Hi colewd,
You’ve mentioned several items of evidence in relation to the Shroud, but you’ve failed to lay a glove on the carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 dating is a tried and tested technique that’s been in use since 1949. None of the objections to the medieval dating of the Shroud of Turin really stands up. See this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin
You mentioned type AB blood on the Shroud and the Sudarium, but as I pointed out above, there’s considerable uncertainty as to whether there’s any blood on the Sudarium at all, let alone type AB blood. What’s more, type AB blood is the last blood type you’d expect, for someone virginally conceived.
The pollen evidence is inconclusive, as far as I can make out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Flowers_and_pollen
For a more detailed discussion of the pollen evidence, see this paper by Hugh Farey, pages 11 to 14:
https://www.academia.edu/38192476/THE_MEDIEVAL_SHROUD_2
You mentioned the wrist wounds. But according to Farey’s paper, “The image of the hand itself being indistinct, they [Shroud investigators] have then, equally subjectively, been able to identify the exact spot on the skeleton over which this wound mark best fits. At least five different places have been championed, from the metacarpals to the lower arm bones, and three possible routes in between, through the cluster of carpals that form the wrist.” What’s more, the archaeological evidence from crucifixion victims is inconclusive. “Once again, it appears, the marks on the Shroud are far from obviously diagnostic, even to experts.”
Finally, modern-day uncertainties as to how a medieval forgery was performed don’t make it genuine, although there are several hypotheses that account for many (but not all) features of the image:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Hypotheses_on_image_origin
While the Shroud is intriguing, I’d still be inclined to bet against its authenticity. Cheers.
Hi everyone,
Skepchick Rebecca Watson made this video debunking the Shroud of Turin:
Her language is a little colorful, but she manages to put the whole controversy in its proper perspective, and with a dash of humor as well.
Professor Andrea Nicolotti debunks the Shroud of Turin from a historical perspective here:
Andrea Nicolotti is Professor of History of Christianity and the Churches at the University of Turin. His book, The Shroud of Turin, has been highly acclaimed by experts in the field. Here are three reviewers’ comments:
“Andrea Nicolotti has meticulously and proficiently reconstructed events involving the Shroud up to the present day. [It] is a fine book, an exemplary evidence of the value of historical research.”
— Adriano Prosperi, Professor of Modern History, Scuola Normale Superiore and Member of the Lincean Academy
“Andrea Nicolotti’s book is a work in which the author succeeds with masterful measure and proficiency in the far from simple task of combining questions of the past with the reality of the present. In his informed use of investigative tools drawn from diverse disciplines and fields, the author deploys a refined research technique and an intellectual sensibility, in so doing revealing a rare breadth of approach.”
— Pier Giorgio Zunino, Member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin
“Andrea Nicolotti’s The Shroud of Turin is a first class historian’s analysis of the fraught history of the appearance of the Shroud of Turin in the medieval period, its various travels before reaching Turin, the creation of the myth of authenticity, and the radiocarbon analysis of its medieval fabric. This is the serious historian’s counterpart to The Da Vinci Code.”
— John S. Kloppenborg, University Professor and Chair of Religion, University of Toronto
vjtorley,
HI VJ
The shroud and the Sudarium are both mentioned in the Gospel of John, His claim of “no historic evidence” is a demarkation argument at best.
The carbon dating is iffy for many reasons. Recent methods (X ray) date it to the first century.
The weave of the cloth (herringbone) is consistent with fabric found in Masada
https://www.newgeology.us/presentation24.html
The elephant in the room is trying to tie the microscropicallly thin negative image to a forger with even today’s technology.
Can religious beliefs evolve, or change overtime? If yes, why and how? If not, why not? Times have changed but some religious leaders continue to look like Santas… why? Is their gold ornaments supposed to cover up their hypocrisy?
vjtorley,
Hi VJ
In glancing through the Wikipedia article I found some points of clear bias in the article.
Ray Rogers found cotton is the sample he had. Ray is used to refute some other strong claims later in the article but not listed here as someone who found a clear problem with the carbon dating sample.
As I said before the carbon dating is very iffy at this point given more recent non destructive x ray methods
I would dismiss this out of hand given other evidence and the use of a label “fringe theories”. as an obvious signal of the authors bias.
Hi colewd,
Regarding the Shroud of Turin, you wrote:
Dr. Falk (who is a Bible-believing Egyptologist) responds to Cameron Bertuzzi on the Shroud of Turin and discusses Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) here:
vjtorley,
Thanks VJ
Dr Falk makes some interesting comments regarding the wax method. I agree that this method cannot nail a reliable early first century date for the shroud at least for now. It does however confirm potential issues with the carbon method as many of this criticisms cut both ways.
For example the sample size argument for the wax method is a bigger problem for the carbon dating method as it is a destructive method.
At this point I think we need to look at all the data independent of the dating methods until the dating looks more reliable.
A few years ago I lost interest in the shroud because of the carbon dating method. The wax method and Ray Rogers finding of cotton in the carbon dating sample make me believe the relic is most likely real given all the other evidence.
This study is interesting and difficult because strong confirmation bias exists on both sides of the argument.
I don’t really understand the issues here (a protestant upbringing ane dearly education in Church of England schools has left an uneasy suspicion about “sacred” relics) but what difference does it make if the material of the shroud is found to date from the first century rather than the fourteenth?
Alan Fox,
Hi Alan
Uneasy suspicion sounds like an uneasy feeling. Does evidence matter in the world view that you hold?
The preamble to my question was a declaration of my likely unconscious bias. I’m still interested in answers, though, if you are offering one, Bill.
Not much difference at all. It would still look like a fake.
Alan Fox,
The date is one piece of evidence points to the cloth being authentic. This is a very highly studied relic and it is incredible interesting if you study up on it. Look at both sides of the argument as VJ is helping facilitate. The other relic that relates to it is the Sudarium of Oviedo both are mentioned in the Gospel of John.
The dating procedures so far permitted confirm a Medieval origin consistent with the style of the image and the absence of any record of the object prior to the Fourteenth century.
But my question was:
What difference would it make if the object was dated to be from the First century?
As Neil says…
Alan Fox,
I would be additional evidence that it is the burial cloth of Jesus. The other evidence is pretty strong as the negative image clarity from a photograph and microscopic depth cannot be reproduced even today let alone 700 years ago.
Hi VJ and Alan
Here is a video that summarises both sides of the argument fairly well. Missing is the WAXS tests and comparative blood analysis from the Shroud and the Sudarium.
That’s actually quite strong evidence that it is fake. An actual shroud would not be expected to have such an image.
Neil Rickert,
Your expectation is based on what?
How did they do this 700 years ago when it cannot be reproduced today? How did they know that a photo would bring out the negative image? How did they create a 3D image?
Additional?
Alan Fox,
Additional to the other evidence.
-Image
-Blood
-Polin
-Documented
etc.
Pollen? Inconclusive. Merely (in the best case) suggests an object was located in a region where plants of that species occur.
Documented? There’s no documentary evidence oof the object’s existence prior to the Fourteenth Century.
Blood? Inconclusive. .
All the above plus carbon dating and other dating methods could be made less inconclusive if whoever grants access to the object were to permit new studies.
Image? Evidence of fakery rather than genuineness.
Alan Fox,
I have no idea what point you are trying to make here except making bald assertions that the image is not authentic.
If this is where you land that’s fine but its not credible analysis IMO.
The 1988 carbon dating clearly established the samples provided as from the Medieval period. It is open to whoever has custody of the object to allow further direct study of the object. Other than the 1988 dating project, the only recent direct study was extraction of surface material by sticky tape culminating in a report in 1981.
There is a considerable amount of conflicting interpretation of the declared esults.
I just wonder why some new non-invasive direct scientific study cannot be permitted. It might bring some clarity.
But to return to my original question, what difference would it make if new and different samples from the object were investigated again and results gave a first century age for those samples?
Alan Fox,
It has been and it is called the waxs method which dated the relic such that the first century is possibly the correct date.
What was wrong with my last answer 🙂
Do you want to discuss wide angle Xray scattering as a dating technique, Bill?
colewd,
You’re making assertions here with no support. Your entire post is based on circular reasoning. The Bible is not fiction therefor the Bible is not fiction. Circular reasoning of a fringe theory is not going to persuade many people.
Bill I think you are fooling yourself and should take a step back and reevaluate how you came to a worldview based on faulty reasoning.
Alan Fox,
Thanks Alan. No real need to discuss.
DNA_Jock,
Hi Jock
The bible is credible because of its contents and its consistency from the beginning to the end.
The mention of two objects in the Gospel of John that still exist as highly studied relics is real evidence for a truth claim.
The circular reasoning was created by your misrepresentation.
No it really is not. Medieval con men were never motivated to produce fragments of the “one true rack” on which Jesus was tortured, since it is not mentioned in the Gospels. The “one true cross”, OTOH…
I am sorry if you did not pick up on the irony here: I was making fun of your style of (non-)engagement — you make bald assertions about what is credible and what is not, and assert your interlocutors are indulging in one fallacy or failure or another, but, and this is the important bit, when offered the chance to engage on the evidence, you run away.
My comment was a barely edited version of your comment on the thread I linked to, running away from discussing the evidence regarding the Shroud.
And, just to prove me right, on this thread we see this exchange:
Really, you cannot get out of your own way.
DNA_Jock,
Not sure what you are trying to communicate here. You create a straw man which you then deny and claim is irony.
The evidence of the dating has issues on both sides and is trivial compared to the image, the blood and the pollen. The Sudarium is a big part of the puzzle and needs to be understood.
Oh come on, Bill, that object has an even more dubious history.
ETA Which Sudarium?
I am trying to communicate that you never actually engage the evidence, you just make goofy assertions. What precisely is the strawman that I have created here? I took a comment that YOU made, inserted the word “not” twice into a sentence describing the Bible as fiction, and changed “Flint” to “Bill”, with a link back to the 2023 conversation that you ran away from. I am ridiculing how you (fail to) engage. Cannot see what I am “denying”.
Cool. Let’s discuss the evidence. Although you just declined to discuss WACS with Alan, so I’m not hopeful. If you want to discuss the blood evidence, you’re in for a nasty shock, but we should really have that conversation on the thread you ducked out of, and not threadjack a discussion of Transubstantiation.
[Raised, as I was, Protestant, we loved making fun of Transubstantiation; pisses the hell out of my (Catholic-raised) wife…]
Gosh, I am getting senile. I just followed DNA_Jock’s link to the earlier thread.
Good grief!
So you’re admitting you made a straw man fallacy. Let’s move on.
Why would you make an assumption like this? If you have a holistic argument like VJT made I would be interested however I have no evidence yet you have looked carefully at the Shroud, Sudarium and the Tunic. If you can make arguments with primary sources on both sides of the argument that would add value. Constantly spinning the facts and quoting sources that are biased and not primary is not. Also quoting single papers that are advocating a position is also not helpful.
From your current rhetoric you appear to want to show the Shroud is not authentic. Do I have this right or are you open?
You have primary sources to quote, Bill? The Turin shroud is a primary source. Forensic techniques have developed since the 1970s. Why not let scientists take another look?
“The Tunic”? You cannot be serious!
Alan Fox,
Are you claiming you or I have any say here 🙂
On what evidence did you discount this relic?
The shroud is the most studied relic of the three but it appears you are dismissing evidence out of hand.
[emphasis added]
Reeeally? But you do have evidence that I have “looked carefully” at the Shroud; I linked to it upthread. Goalpost shift noted. Without looking, I can say with confidence that the majority of the Tunics are not authentic. 🙂
Well, asserting that the evidence proffered is “biased” or “spin” without supporting your claim is even less helpful. So, if you don’t want to talk about the WACS or the blood, how about the radiocarbon dating or the weave? Is there anything that you are willing to actually engage on? At all?
No. I have no interest is showing that the Shroud is not authentic. You are quite impervious to evidence, positively Tortucan, so I have no such goal. I am merely making fun of your refusal to engage.
I am confident, based on the evidence, that the Shroud is not authentic but, as with all my beliefs, this belief is contingent: provide me with sufficient evidence to the contrary and I will change my belief. In much the same way, I currently believe that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, but I am open to evidence showing that it is not.
DNA_Jock,
Then make your argument why your believe this. I said before that I believe the Shroud is real based on.
Blood evidence that matches the Sudarium
Blood patterns that matches the Sudarium
Pollen evidence the indicates a chain of custody that includes Judea
An image that cannot be replicated even today
waxs dating that among other things puts the carbon dating in doubt
The Gospel of John mentioning both relics
The single most compelling evidence is the image that is microscopically thin and a negative image that is faint until a photo is taken.
There are certainly people who try to discount all this evidence one by one but no one can prove to any certainty all that these pieces of evidence are false.
Here is an interview with an image expert who was part of the original Los Alamos team.
Alan Fox,
https://www.seetheholyland.net/tag/tunic-of-argenteuil/
Well, I think the 3:1 chevron weave (made on a 4shaft treadle…) and the radiocarbon dating are pretty damning.
You mean they are both cross-reactive with rat blood?
If these really were linens that were close to the same corpse, what kind of pattern match would you expect? What if they were derivative forgeries? You really do not understand what constitutes evidence. At all.
Or Turkey. And even that is disputed.
Paul-Henry Blanrue, Luigi Garlaschelli, Jacques Di Costanzo, Joe Nickell, and Henri Brock beg to differ.
waxs is NOT a dating method, which you might have figured out if you were paying attention.
Again, let’s see if we can understand what ‘evidence’ is: the fact that a relic is mentioned in the Gospel makes it (a) more likely or (b) less likely to be a medieval forgery?
See painters listed above.
I don’t believe we’ve met.
ROFLMAO
To understand my merriment, please re-read your commentary on spin and biased sources. Well, that and the fact that I perused the comments section on that youtube video.
Neither of these are strong evidence against authenticity as the weave has been identified with ancient cloths. The carbon dating is very iffy and inferior to the waxs method, which you dismiss out of hand, because it is not destructive. This limits the sampling of the carbon method which resulted in repaired cloth samples. The waxs method can be developed further where the carbon method is a dead end.
There is not good a case it is a medieval forgery. The evidence in Gospels identifies a potential origin of these relics.
Did you see the quote I posted for Alan showing 3 relics with AB blood type? Do you know the frequency of this type of blood?
Hi colewd,
I had a look at that 15-minute video you posted above on the Shroud. It discussed the Sudarium of Oviedo only briefly, in the last two minutes (at 13:19), and it failed to cite a reference for its claim that there was a study that matched the bloodstains on the Shroud with those on the Sudarium of Oviedo, as well as the levels of calcium and strontium. Citation, please?
Shroud believers also argue that the blood type on the Shroud matches that on the Sudarium of Oviedo, but I refuted this in my OP, where I posted a video of Hugh Farey debunking the claim. Here’s what I wrote:
The video you posted also claimed that the absence of brushstrokes on the Shroud proves it couldn’t have been a painting. Not so – and even if it wasn’t a painting, it could still have been a rubbing. Here’s an excerpt from an article posted by Dr. Karl S. Kruszelnicki in an article titled, “Evidence snubbed by famous shroud faithful” (26 August 2009) on the Australian Website, ABC Science (bolding is mine):
The video also mentioned bilirubin on the Shroud, claiming that it was indicative of Jesus bleeding while being tortured. Not so. Hugh Farey debunks the bilirubin evidence in an online article here (December 12, 2023):
The video also mentioned Ray Rogers’ “medieval repair” proposal for why the carbon-14 testing came up with the wring date. However, there are problems with Rogers’ “medieval repair” hypothesis, as acknowledged by the Christian apologist Triablogue in an online post titled.
Triablogue goes on to say that the critiques have themselves been critiqued (see here and here), but acknowledges:
In short: there are no strong grounds for believing in the Shroud, and the mere possibility that the carbon-14 dating was wrong does not make it the authentic shroud of Christ. Nor is “I don’t know how a forger would have made it” a good ground for accepting its authenticity.