I have recently posted about new research into the Shroud of Turin and the significant evidence that suggest that it is indeed a first piece of first century linen that has been in the Holy Land.
In order to demonstrate my impartiality when it comes to assessing the scientific evidence I will now draw attention to an article in the Daily Telegraph which reports on research and an interpretation that puts forward a counter- argument as to how the image on the Shroud could or could not have come about, and indeed when that event might have happened.
The article can be seen at The 3D graphics that ‘prove’ the Shroud of Turin is a fake
I am not a scientist and claim no expertise at all in the technologies that have been implied by researchers into the history and nature of the Holy Shroud.
However, I would make two points against what appears to be the argument in the article.
Firstly, if I have understood the argument aright, it seems to be returning to a an explanation that is predicated on the cloth coming into contact with either a corpse or a living body, or a carved or moulded model that is somehow covered by an ungeant that would leave the marks on the burial cloth. Previous experiments on these lines produced similar distortions to the figure as opposed to those on the relic itself. That idea has, I believe, been ruled out in favour of a so-far unexplained burst of energy, so this seems to be a return to a discredited type of explanation for the markings on the fabric.
Secondly, the suggestion that this is somehow a forgery or, indeed, a piece of “Christian art” produced in the middle ages, requires the creators to have obtained an authentic piece of first century cloth from the Holy Land and furthermore to have used techniques that are completely unknown and unrecorded by contemporaries or indeed by anybody since.
We come back, it seems to me, to the case that on the basis of probability as other arguments are nullified that, however impossible it may appear. that it seems the “impossible” may have to be accepted.
1 comment:
Looking carefully at the shroud, it appears that one of the hands is distinctly wonky and apparently slightly disjointed at the wrist. Of course a believer would claim that as evidence for the person having been crucified. "Just what you would expect", one can hear them saying!
But what fewer people know is that in Medieval France, murderers had their hand cut off before being hanged. So, much as I would like the shroud to be genuine, I'm more inclined to believe it is a brilliant fake, produced most likely in the 1100s or 1200s, by purchasing the body of an executed murderer, reattaching the hand, and painting the body with some contemporary form of paint stripper.
Now it is well known that when rags soaked in paint stripper are packed tight then a reaction occurs which heats them, sometimes enough to scorch them, or even start a disastrous fire! So if the body was wrapped in a shroud and then further layers of cloth, in several layers like a Swiss roll, the paint stripper substance would have done its work and left slight marks on the inner shroud.
Cheers
John R Ramsden (jrq@gmx.com)
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