I thought it would be a good idea to start a separate thread specifically to discuss the Turin shroud and related relics as it concerns the events leading up to the resurrection, but not the resurrection itself. So hopefully we can discuss it without interfering with the Resurrection thread itself. One of the best sites I’ve found which argues for the authenticity of the shroud is whocanhebe.com . Michael Kowalski and David Rolfe are involved in maintaining and running this site. David Rolfe directed and produced the films, ‘The Silent Witness’ (1978) and recently, ‘Who Can He Be?’, which the above site links to.
This video features Rolfe talking about his involvement in shroud research.
What was wrong with the 1988 radiocarbon dating procedures? How was the image produced? How has the advancement in technology affected shroud research? The image has purportedly shown not to have been produced by any photographic technique, nor painting, nor rubbing, nor scorching, nor any other known means, and one million US dollars has been offered to the British Museum if they can manufacture a fair reproduction of the item.
It’s fast approaching the 2000 year anniversary since the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection was supposed to have taken place, so I think it’s a good time to discuss the mystery of the shroud.
I’d like to hear what others have to say on this topic, any evidence they would like to share, whether for or against the authenticity of this very controversial relic.
(Thanks to colewd for bringing this subject up.)
One particular linen cloth which can be traced with confidence back to Jerusalem in 570 a.d. is the Sudarium of Oviedo. Mark Guscin discusses it here and he features in a BBC documentary on the shroud here
Detailed analysis of both the Turin shroud and the Sudarium provide convincing evidence that they both came from the same person prior to the 6th century a.d., and most probably in the Jerusalem area. And it is possible that the sudarium was referred to in the 3rd century.
Both the shroud and the sudarium contain deposits of blood type AB, Both cloths have bodily fluid stains which align when, the cloths are placed one on top of the other and there is some resemblance in the patterning of the stains.
Below is a photo of the experimental set up designed to recreate the staining of the sudarium. This was done using real bodily fluids. It was taken from the first video I linked to above. (Mark Guscin – Sudarium of Oviedo)
I would like to see some arguments justifying the accuracy of the 1988 radiocarbon date testing carried out on the shroud.
When I encounter articles about Christian relics, particularly like the Shroud of Turin, I’m reminded of a passage from Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad. In Twain’s incomparably subtle satire, he hits the nail on the head, so to speak:
“Not far from here [the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem], was a niche where they used to preserve a piece of the True Cross, but it is gone now. This piece of the cross was discovered in the sixteenth century. The Latin priests say it was stolen away, long ago, by priests of another sect. That seems like a hard statement to make, but we know very well that it was stolen, because we have seen it ourselves in several of the cathedrals of Italy and France.”
chuckdarwin,
Yes, well said (by Twain).
It seems very likely that these shroud artifacts are fake. And that’s even without the radiocarbon dating.
BornAgain77 tells us that the Shroud of Turin reconciles general relativity and quantum mechanics. How could it do that if it were fake?
Neil Rickert,
Based on what? So far you have not made an argument to support this assertion.
Based on:
(1) there was a market for fake artifacts. There is probably still such a market. As PT Barnum supposedly said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
(2) it is highly implausible that there would have actually been such a shroud that showed up in the marketplace.
No, I don’t have any actual evidence (and neither do you). My understanding of human nature is that there are always opportunistic people who will try to profit from such fakery.
Incidentally, Wikipedia has a quite extensive discussion about this. People have done radiocarbon dating, have analyzed the chemistry in detail, have looked at the type of weave, have compared the shroud with other known fakes from the same time period, have looked at DNA samples of pollen and other impurities, and much more.
In the end, the authenticity of the shroud is in every case defended with special pleading. Maybe the carbon datings (there have been three) all sampled some invisible more recent repair job. Maybe someone in antiquity did use a herringbone weave (common in the 14th century, though none is known from any earlier epoch.) Maybe Jesus’ bodily proportions were well outside the norm for people (but of course not for artwork). Maybe the close similarity between the shroud and other known 14th century fakes is a coincidence. And so on. The carbon dating and several other analyses place the age of the shroud at close to the time it first appeared. None of the analyses can place the shroud anytime close to the life of Jesus, but most analyses are indeterminate — the shroud has traveled widely and been handled by a great many people in the last 700 years.
And Neil is correct: there was a thriving market in fake Christian artifacts around that time.
(The Church, caught in the middle, has been careful to neither dispute nor vouch for the authenticity.)
I don’t think he said this. In reality I owe, a great deal for getting me “infected’ with quantum mechanics. BA77 just wants his belief system to be true, don’t you?
CharlieM,
Didn’t you say you liked gardening or something???
Why would you start a thread like this?
BA77 says a lot of things—over and over and over……….
But he is not naive to have believed Darwin’s fairytale…
I suspect most of the posters here also do not believe the Darwin fairytale, because most of them know (1) What Darwin actually wrote; and (2) What has been learned since. I have never seen a critique of Darwin that was in fact anything other than a critique of a fairytale.
Quite. My favorite rendition of this observation comes from a commenter on a Forrest Valkai video:
Favorite because the author is, I kid you not, a nun.
Thank you, Sister Kathryn.
The fact that the
fourthree independent carbon-dating tests and the first historical mention of the shroud both agree with a 13th/14th century origin is pretty damning.But what would the shroud demonstrate if it did date to around 30 CE?
ETA link
Hi chuck, do I know you? Your name rings a bell. 🙂
You wrote:
Mark Twain had a point. Any old piece of wood could be passed off as coming form the cross.
But how many whole body shrouds do you know of that are claimed to have come from from Christ? I would love to know of any others so I can make comparisons to the Turin shroud.
The Turin shroud is certainly unique in the amount of public attention it has received. Since 1988 and the infamous radiocarbon dating test, very many people, including myself, thought that it was practically beyond doubt that it was a very clever medieval work done with great skill to make it look authentic.
Here from the Wikepedia page on Christian relics:
On the face of it this sounds pretty damning. But where are the references for the above claim? Which scientific refutations are they talking about?
I have just watched David Rolfe’s documentary, “Who Can He Be?”, and it does a good job of debunking the radiocarbon dating test, and it gives me plenty of information about people, places and times which I can take a further look at.
You seem to have a pretty critical attitude towards the story of the shroud, but how much research have you done so far? Only you can answer that.
Even a smidgen of confirming evidence would be nice. Or is it so obvious to you that it needs none?
Any links to his arguments on this?
So you don’t have anything by way of solid evidence, and you also know what colewd has or hasn’t got?
I was hoping for a bit more substance from the sceptics.
At last some substance. Thankyou Flint, you’re a rock. 🙂 It’ll take me some time to anwer this, but for starters, you wrote:
At first glance it seems as if there is evidence of herringbone fabric prior to the time you state.
Following the link from wikepedia here it leads to this article by Diana Fulbright which purports to repudiate the repudiators
And from here:
I’ll look at this a bit more, but from my initial search it seems not impossible that the ancient Jews would have been capable of producing this type of fabric, especially for important religious practices.
This underscores a point I tried to make: that other than the carbon dating, the other details could have been possible for the time. Yes, it’s possible that that particular weave, common in the 14th century, could have been used in the time of Jesus (assuming Jesus actually existed, of which there is considerable doubt outside partisan Christian circles). The pollen, the pigments, the weird body shape could have been from that time. The fact that (again, other than the carbon dating) all aspects of the shroud were commonly used by the fake artifact artisans in the 14th century, and that the shroud first appeared for sale in a market for such artifacts at that time, do not themselves constitute dispositive evidence of a 14th century origin. It MIGHT be a case of a whole long list of extraordinary coincidences consistent with a 14th century fake. That’s what makes the carbon dating so enthusiastically disputed, and why the church won’t let any more such dating be done.
Yes, it would be nice to have some actual evidence.
Apart from that — yes it seems pretty obvious that it is a fake. I base this on my estimate of probabilities. If this were real, we might expect some blood stains but would would not expect that image. It’s the image that makes it highly likely that this is a carefully crafted fake.
I’m intrigued by the radiocarbon dating story. Dr. Michael Tite from the British Museum acted as invigilator of the 1988 procedure and he was later to take over the Oxford lab which carried out the radiocarbon dating the shroud. The Oxford lab was run by Edward Hall who would retire in 1989.
All of the following protocols agreed upon before commencement of the procedure were abandoned. These were:
1. Multiple sample areas
2. Simultaneous comprehensive examinations
3. Seven C14 labs would participate
4. Blind tests
5. No conferring between the laboratories.
In the end only one sample from a corner of the shroud was used (not samples from diverse areas). It was cut into three pieces, one of each being given to each of the three participating labs (not 7 labs as per the protocol). There were no blind tests.
Flury-Lemberg Mechthild a textile expert is quoted here
It is beyond me how anyone could put their faith on this one inconsistent plan to put the age of the shroud beyond doubt.
The Shroud owners decide who gets to do what in terms of forensic studies. The reluctance speaks volumes.
What would you put your faith into instead? From what you say, clearly, appropriate dating procedures were not followed. Why not? Clearly, proper procedures could be followed anytime. This isn’t allowed. Why not?
Just maybe, could there be parties with a vested interest in NOT accurately dating the shroud? Ya think? Do you suppose anyone might mind if the shroud were definitively determined to be a worthless fake? Who might that be?
This is one of the most impressive own goals I have ever witnessed.
We start out with the epic “Apart from the radiocarbon dating, what evidence do you have?”, which smacks a little of : “How was the play, Mrs Lincoln?”.
Neil makes a very important point, which I guess had been there in my subconscious, to wit “The image is evidence against authenticity.”
Now would be a good time for the Christians to learn about what evidence is.
I was aware that people unhappy with the results of the radiodating had made the (valid) complaint that the sample location was less than ideal, but I had thought that the complaint centered on the large amount of organic staining at the edge.
Today I learnt that it is the water-borne concentration of dust that believers are hanging their hats on. That’s a poor strategy. They don’t seem to have realized that, to achieve their goal of a 2,000-y-o cloth, the modern contamination must comprise at minimum the majority of the sample taken. So, no, there’s no reason to doubt the radiocarbon date that is inconsistent with a first century shroud. But, as Alan and Flint note above, the most damning evidence is that the keepers of the shroud have resolutely refused to allow the kind of thorough testing that everybody is advocating.
But do tell me about all the first century shrouds from Israel that have a herringbone weave. Or how you explain the anatomical errors — forehead size matches medieval art, not reality, and the hand position points to a living model rather than a corpse, or details of the wounds match the bible story, and not first century execution practice.
None of this matters, if the keepers of the shroud decline radiocarbon testing.
When it is unique, a hoax is a better word than fake. The word fake implies there may be a true original somewhere.
Shroud of Turin is, as far as known, not a fake, because it is not faking any original, and it does not represent a multitude of similar items. It is a unique artifact.
Technology has moved on since 1988 when the radiocarbon dating technique was used on small samples of the shroud. The following research designed to estimate the age of the shroud, was carried out using Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS).
X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud’s Linen Sample, April 2022
In this paper they reference other dating methods that had been applied and the results that were obtained:
Scientific research proves nothing, and neither should it. When there is conflicting results as in the case of the dating of the shroud, it becomes obvious that more research is needed. In this respect t is advantageous to gain information from as many and as varied sources as possible.
I am looking for reliable evidence that might establish periods or dates when the should seemed to be in existence. Even if I do believe the original radiocarbon dating tests were faulty, it means nothing unless or until sufficient evidence against it to put it beyond reasonable doubt that it was faulty.
I will share any further info that I find relevant and I hope others will do the same.
Hmmm.
The Wikipedia article on Wide angle xray scattering doesn’t mention the technique being used to determine age of artefacts.
Sounds to me like no amount of evidence will satisfy Charlie until the results match what he wants them to be. When that happens, he will consider ANY evidence to be convincing. Sadly, this is true of most people — start with foregone conclusions and the evidence either fits or it’s insufficient.
Yes, they do. Interestingly, four out of the five references they cite are to different techniques reported by the paper’s author, Giulio Fanti, an associate professor of mechanical and thermal measurements at the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padua.
The last reference is my favorite: renaissance man that he is, Dr. Fanti wrote a book about how the iconography on coins from the period 692 – 1204 match the shroud image.
Of course they do…
The WAXS paper is a bit of a mess: they are using WAXS as a (presumably) non-destructive way of measure the degree of cellulose breakage. Short answer: there’s too much breakage for a cloth kept for 700 years in Western Europe, although they replaced their anode between ancient samples, and only re-calibrated using the modern sample, which is a bit naff.
They concede that brief periods of high temperature could artificially increase the apparent age of the cloth, but conclude that natural events (such as the Chambery fire) could not have achieved this degree of ageing. They are assuming their conclusion. They have not even considered the idea that a forger would need to be an expert at accelerated aging — my money is on cooking the cloth in piss and vinegar — prove me wrong!
But hey, there’s heterogeneity in the radiocarbon data, so the British Museum needs to expand their confidence interval by 88 years. Cool, 88 years down, 1142 years to go.
I’m very flattered that I’m being mistaken for a gardener. But that’s not me. 🙂
One small thread for our group, but an 8 by 2 cubit weave for the anthroposphere. 🙂
Who knows where this thread will lead. Some are pulling on the thread hoping to unravel the shroud, but I don’t think it’s that easily undone.
For carbon dating, there is a well-evidenced calibration curve. There doesn’t appear to be anything so rigorous for the WAXS technique.
Yet the temperature was high enough to melt silver which dripped on to the cloth.
The late Raymond Rogers who was part of the original team authorized to examine the shroud agreed that the radiocarbon dating was accurate and so he originally thought that the shroud must be medieval.
When Joe Marino and Sue Benford proposed that the the dates obtained were due to invisible mending in the samples, Rogers initially dismissed this thinking of the two researchers “as part of a lunatic fringe”. But on examining samples he had in his possession he concluded:
.
He determined that cotton threads had been expertly woven into the cloth and dyed to match.
Although (from your link) textile expert, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg dismissed these claims as she had found no traces of these repairs.
What’s the true story, I don’t know.
Then it would be most probable that a man had been executed in the style of a Roman crucifixion and his body wrapped in a shroud, at around the time when Christ was supposed to have been crucified.
Do you have any references to confirm your claim that the church won’t let any more such dating be done?
How do you explain how the image was put onto the material? It is very superficial with no penetration into the material and it was laid down after the bodily fluid stains appeared on the cloth. It is in effect a negative image. And unlike a photograph it also contains topological information.
I’ll repeat the question I asked Flint’ How was the image done?
The British Museum can pick up $1000000 if they can replicate the process by which it was made.
Whatever else it is, it’s a historical treasure and needs to be treated accordingly. They have already let scientists do 5 days of examination followed by destructive testing of samples, and in 2009 David Rolfe was given permission to professionally film the actual shroud.
I think the future will open up the way for more advanced forms of non-destructive testing.
I put my faith in future research giving us more certainty.
Because when they realized the original protocols were unworkable they should have, at the very least, postponed it. Instead they carried on regardless.
Can you give references to further testing proposals and any refusals by the Turin authorities.
Even if it turns out to be a fake or hoax, don’t you think it would still be worth a fortune? Do you believe that the Catholic Church would ever sell it?
Fake or no fake it can still generate a lot of income:
I presume if they have it insured, it is as an icon and not as an authentic relic. Even so I hate to think what the premium is.
Neil Rickert,
How would you estimate probabilities without knowing how the image was formed.
If you look at the matching blood type of the sudarium and the shroud the chances of them both being AB blood type are .03 x.03 and not being the same person is around 1 and 1000. How do you explain two relics with separate chains of custody matching rare blood types? How do you explain that both of these relics are mentioned in the Gospels?
Well, no. Because, as you say, nobody so far has been able to duplicate the process that resulted in the image.
Also, I believe, nailing through the palm risks the nail ripping out between the fingers, which is why nailing through the wrist was used.
Don’t be silly. They had known and proper protocols before they started. They were not permitted to use them. Yes, they did the best they could with what they were allowed to test.
I seriously doubt it would be worth much beyond entertainment value if it were proved beyond doubt to be a hoax. And the Catholic Church would surely look foolish for having revered a hoax for so long AND for having denied scientists the access to do a dispositive test for decades. My sense of this situation is that once carbon dating proved it was a hoax, what the Church did was (1) come up with as much plausible deniability as they could, even if plausible only to gullible fools like you; and (2) refuse any further carbon dating.
But you join several others in validating the claim that religious faith is impervious to facts. You either deny the facts, or attempt to explain them away, or claim they are forever insufficient. To quote Dawkins, “no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference.”
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This will be my only post today as it brings up two very important though poignant points, especially the second point. So thankyou Alan for highlighting this.
But a skilled person would have been able to reproduce the staining caused by blood and interstitial fluid which marked the cloth before the image was transferred onto it. It is the staining and not the image which provides the evidence for a crucifixion.
EXACTLY! From the earliest known artworks of the Crucifixion to masters such as Giotto, El Greco, Delacroix, even the great Michelangelo and Raphael, they all depict the nails passing through the palms and the middle of the feet. As far as I known Leonardo da Vinci never used the Crucifixion as a subject.
Why would a medieval artist break with this tradition followed by every other artist up that point?? Why would they believe any different??
The shroud shows the genuine positioning of the nails going through the wrists and heels. All other artworks from around the time critics believe it was ‘forged’ get it wrong, even the great masters of the Renaissance. See image below taken from a Raphael painting
These points should be seriously considered and not just lightly brushed of with a shrug of the shoulders.
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OK Charlie, we got it. You are determined to Believe, No Matter What. Enjoy.
I do agree that if someone has an open mind it is true beyond a reasonable doubt that the shroud is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus and is confirming evidence of the resurrection. No one here is able to argue against the evidence you have presented.
The carbon dating is what got me to lose interest several years ago. I think that the current evidence makes the dating data suspect. Your argument about the mid century paintings is quite compelling along with other evidence.
More correctly, if someone has an open mind, that mind recognizes that the evidence Jesus ever actually existed is highly compromised, existing only in the gospels (which have no known authors, no known sources, and are written in the fictional rather than historical style).
It’s also, uh, interesting that the debate over the historicity of Jesus is strictly a debate among atheists, since Christians approach the entire subject with minds closed and locked tighter than a drumhead. Bill here is Exhibit A.
This seems more or less right, except it should also be noted that by these standards, we should also be skeptical as to whether Socrates existed, or any of hundreds of names from antiquity who are attested about as well as Socrates and Jesus.
While it is true that no one cares about whether Socrates was a real person, and lots of people care about whether Jesus was a real person, that should not affect the evidentiary standards we have for ancient documents.
That said, I think the best criticism of organized religion to this day comes from David Hume. If, he argues, we take “miracle” to mean “a violation of the laws of nature,” then the greatest miracle of all is faith itself, which is violation of the laws of human nature, precisely because in faith we abandon all evidentiary standards that we rightly insist upon in everyday life.
Kantian Naturalist
Except nobody attributes supernatural powers to Socrates. I’m prepared to grant the possibility that a Jesus existed. I question whether he turned water into wine.
This also seems right. Although whether these other characters existed is considered by people without obvious religious pre-convictions. Now, if Plato were the ONLY source of information about Socrates, especially if Plato had some other reason for creating the character of Socrates, I’d be more open to Socrates being fictional.
There does seem to be pretty solid agreement that Mithras, Romulus, Hercules, Osiris, and others were as fictional as Paul Bunyan or John Frum. Many of these guys were actually euhemerized, plunked down more or less arbitrarily somewhere and somewhen in history. Plutarch actually wrote full biographies of fictional characters.
When you get to that level of detail, it’s important to distinguish between the gospel Jesus and Paul’s Jesus, who were rather drastically different characters.
Well, Socrates spent all night lying next to a total hottie who totally wanted to do Socrates and Socrates never even touched him. Supernatural self-control!
That would most certainly be the case if, contrary to what I wrote yesterday, it followed the artistic representations of medieval times in the positioning of the nails on the hands and feet, the narrow band making up the crown of thorns, and the depiction of the wounds caused by Christ’s scourging.
And, of course, the fact that even today nobody knows how that image could have been applied to the shroud. See my next post.
Well I don’t hang my hat on contamination of the corner where the sample was cut. There are several reasons why the radiocarbon dating should be taken with a great deal of caution. Blind acceptance was something I was guilty of and it seems that colewd also accepted the radiocarbon dates with little question. It’s only now that I’ve had some incentive to review the evidence that I realize that it’s not as cut and dried as I had imagined.
Why does it have to be from Israel? There was plenty of intercontinental trade going on at that time. I’m sure the romans brought along all sorts of fancy things and wouldn’t have minded doing a bit of business with well off Jews such as Joseph of Arimathea. There are plenty of examples of herringbone weave from around the world going back way before the 1st century A.D.
The thing with facial features is that we are all individuals with various shapes and sizes. Do you have a reference for your statement about the forehead, I’d like to see it for myself?
Which details of the wounds are at variance with Roman crucifixions of the time?
Has there been a proposal submitted to the authorities in charge of the shroud, to carry out a further radiocarbon dating test with details of the procedure to be followed? And if so what reply did they get? Does anyone know, and if so can they share it here?
So many questions! But I’m looking for informative answers and any details would help.