Shroud of Turin—real or fake, and why?
- Thread starter ResidentAlien
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Or a third option as posthuman described in his post #98 above (https://christianchat.com/threads/shroud-of-turin—real-or-fake-and-why.200221/post-4607880).
This is the missing link that everyone has apparently overlooked. It wouldn't require the greatest forger in the world but only someone skilled in this technique.
This is the missing link that everyone has apparently overlooked. It wouldn't require the greatest forger in the world but only someone skilled in this technique.
No, I read that post and it was a very poor attempt. The first thing the forensic analysis looked for was some kind of dye or pigment, they would have certainly determined if this were a kind of photographic paper. In other words how did they recreate the image without leaving a trace of these photographic chemicals. You can't claim that you have recreated the shroud unless you can do that.
Besides this ignores many other aspects of the Shroud.
1. The blood type on the shroud matches the blood on the head covering which has an excellent historical record and is considered to be authentic. You have a 1/10 chance of doing that and this was done before anyone knew about blood types.
2. It uses human blood, not pig blood or chicken blood which a typical forger would have done.
3. The wounds on the back match the historical object used by the Romans in scourging. That would have been a wonderfully detailed flourish for a forger.
4. The weave of the cloth matches the weave from the time of Christ, another wonderful touch.
5. The cloth matches that of the Jews and the flax apparently was local to Jerusalem, another wonderful touch.
6. They found pollen from 40 different plant species native to Jerusalem that would be giving off pollen during the spring. The only way to do that would have been for the forger to have done the forgery in Jerusalem at the same time of year as Jesus was crucified and to have sprinkled the cloth with flowers as was done at that time. Again, done hundreds of years before they knew we could identify different pollen and use it forensically to identify the region.
7. The wounds from the crown of thorns on the head do not match the paintings of the time, instead of a woven crown it looks like they just took a thorn bush and stuffed it on his head. This seems much more logical for soldiers who are mocking him, but is a fantastic thing for a forger to do because it flies in the face of what all those simpletons they were planning on fooling would expect.
8. The wound on his hands is different from what the paintings portray but again was anatomically correct and accurate for what the Romans did.
9. Traces of Limestone were found on the cloth that can be matched with the same place that Jesus tomb was located. Limestone can be identified by trace elements which act like a fingerprint. Therefore whoever made this "forgery" not only did it at the same time of year that Jesus was crucified, in the same place Jesus was crucified, with the same instruments and cloth that He was crucified in and with, but they also placed this "forgery" in a tomb there as well.
10. But to me the really hard thing to explain is the one thing that is completely contrary to the account in the Bible. What they normally do is cut a strip from the cloth down the length of the cloth and then use that strip to tie the cloth to the body. That strip was sewn back onto the Shroud. There is no reason for a forger to do that, there is no practice where you go in after a person has died and take the burial shroud off and sew that strip back on. Not only so but it was done so expertly that it wasn't all that apparent until they examined this very closely. It looks like a labor of love by someone who wanted to make sure that nothing was lost.
Besides this ignores many other aspects of the Shroud.
1. The blood type on the shroud matches the blood on the head covering which has an excellent historical record and is considered to be authentic. You have a 1/10 chance of doing that and this was done before anyone knew about blood types.
2. It uses human blood, not pig blood or chicken blood which a typical forger would have done.
3. The wounds on the back match the historical object used by the Romans in scourging. That would have been a wonderfully detailed flourish for a forger.
4. The weave of the cloth matches the weave from the time of Christ, another wonderful touch.
5. The cloth matches that of the Jews and the flax apparently was local to Jerusalem, another wonderful touch.
6. They found pollen from 40 different plant species native to Jerusalem that would be giving off pollen during the spring. The only way to do that would have been for the forger to have done the forgery in Jerusalem at the same time of year as Jesus was crucified and to have sprinkled the cloth with flowers as was done at that time. Again, done hundreds of years before they knew we could identify different pollen and use it forensically to identify the region.
7. The wounds from the crown of thorns on the head do not match the paintings of the time, instead of a woven crown it looks like they just took a thorn bush and stuffed it on his head. This seems much more logical for soldiers who are mocking him, but is a fantastic thing for a forger to do because it flies in the face of what all those simpletons they were planning on fooling would expect.
8. The wound on his hands is different from what the paintings portray but again was anatomically correct and accurate for what the Romans did.
9. Traces of Limestone were found on the cloth that can be matched with the same place that Jesus tomb was located. Limestone can be identified by trace elements which act like a fingerprint. Therefore whoever made this "forgery" not only did it at the same time of year that Jesus was crucified, in the same place Jesus was crucified, with the same instruments and cloth that He was crucified in and with, but they also placed this "forgery" in a tomb there as well.
10. But to me the really hard thing to explain is the one thing that is completely contrary to the account in the Bible. What they normally do is cut a strip from the cloth down the length of the cloth and then use that strip to tie the cloth to the body. That strip was sewn back onto the Shroud. There is no reason for a forger to do that, there is no practice where you go in after a person has died and take the burial shroud off and sew that strip back on. Not only so but it was done so expertly that it wasn't all that apparent until they examined this very closely. It looks like a labor of love by someone who wanted to make sure that nothing was lost.
if you read the linked article, what Mssr. Allen was able to produce had zero trace of pigment, was a negative image with 3D information, was not destroyed with water or chemical wash, etc -- it met every criteria that had previously defied any attempt at explaining how this object could be created by a human.
obviously blood could be added to the canvas before or after using the camera-obscura technique to create the image.
traces of herbs and minerals are not *proof* that anything originated at any given time or place. the plantlife traces that were identified were common both to europe & the Levant, and the limestone traces were not a 'fingerprint' of an exact locale but 'similar' to those found in Israel -- but also 'similar' to those found in Italy.
while it doesn't prove that the Turin shroud is a forgery, it does prove that it is possible for the the shroud to be a human-origin artwork passed off as a relic, moreover, that it is possible to have done this using techniques and materials know in the late 13th / early 14th century.
it would have had to be a genius - but there are always very cunning and clever men.
obviously blood could be added to the canvas before or after using the camera-obscura technique to create the image.
traces of herbs and minerals are not *proof* that anything originated at any given time or place. the plantlife traces that were identified were common both to europe & the Levant, and the limestone traces were not a 'fingerprint' of an exact locale but 'similar' to those found in Israel -- but also 'similar' to those found in Italy.
while it doesn't prove that the Turin shroud is a forgery, it does prove that it is possible for the the shroud to be a human-origin artwork passed off as a relic, moreover, that it is possible to have done this using techniques and materials know in the late 13th / early 14th century.
it would have had to be a genius - but there are always very cunning and clever men.
-
1
- Show all
what makes you think that *if* it was human-produced, the artist received no money and wasn't around to see it passed off as real?
because no one has produced a receipt or his bank accounts? ((guffaw!))
dude. pretend you're a corrupt Catholic abbot in 1355 and you want to find someone to produce the best fake-relic ever, so you & your diocese can become incredibly wealthy & powerful. you think you're gonna leave a paper trail?
because no one has produced a receipt or his bank accounts? ((guffaw!))
dude. pretend you're a corrupt Catholic abbot in 1355 and you want to find someone to produce the best fake-relic ever, so you & your diocese can become incredibly wealthy & powerful. you think you're gonna leave a paper trail?
Which brings up another key point, initially some tried to do this with a sheet hanging up in front of Sunlight with the shadow of a person. But then a wonderful study based on Nasa imaging was done which showed that 3d information is encoded in the image so you have to wrap a 3d sculpture that would be the light source to get this and you are getting an image in every direction both front and back.
This in turn resulted in the very strange image of Jesus on the Shroud (Some had theorized that Jesus had a strange disease) but when they did this study they determined "the true face of Jesus" which was a very typical middle eastern face.
However, this gives an entirely new problem to those claiming it is a forgery. For about the first two hundred years after the crucifixion you get a wide variety of artwork concerning Jesus and then around 200 years afterward you begin to see this strange face which from that point on seems to be the face that all artists use. It is bizarre that this strange face would automatically become the default image 200 years after the crucifixion and then 1,000 years later it shows up on the Shroud? It seems like artists for over 1,000 years (before the Shroud existed?) were using the face on the Shroud as the Face of Jesus. Especially since we know that this would not be the face that anyone who had actually seen Jesus would have seen.
This in turn resulted in the very strange image of Jesus on the Shroud (Some had theorized that Jesus had a strange disease) but when they did this study they determined "the true face of Jesus" which was a very typical middle eastern face.
However, this gives an entirely new problem to those claiming it is a forgery. For about the first two hundred years after the crucifixion you get a wide variety of artwork concerning Jesus and then around 200 years afterward you begin to see this strange face which from that point on seems to be the face that all artists use. It is bizarre that this strange face would automatically become the default image 200 years after the crucifixion and then 1,000 years later it shows up on the Shroud? It seems like artists for over 1,000 years (before the Shroud existed?) were using the face on the Shroud as the Face of Jesus. Especially since we know that this would not be the face that anyone who had actually seen Jesus would have seen.
it's clear that you haven't read the article i linked, and that you don't know very much about art history.
here's a painting of Jesus from ~ 200's AD
it's the second-oldest known image of Christ. there is only one known picoral representation of Jesus before the 200's ((not 'all kinds' like you say -- which, pretty sure you just pulled that completely out of the air)). here it is, here's your 'all-kinds before 200 years after Jesus,' which in reality is exactly 1:
the shroud first appeared in history in the 1350's.
well let's see if a typical European was ever portrayed as Jesus in the thousand years before that, eh?
o wow, that one's from the 500's AD.
huh.
i guess you have no idea what you're talking about, @ZNP
Either you didn't read what I said or you didn't understand. This is my point, the artists appear to be using the Shroud as the Face of Jesus.
If it were the other way around and the forger was using these paintings as the model then it doesn't make sense because in reality the Shroud is using a 3d image that looks like a typical Mid Eastern man and the strange image is a result of distortion from a Shroud being wrapped on the face encoding 3d information.
If it were the other way around and the forger was using these paintings as the model then it doesn't make sense because in reality the Shroud is using a 3d image that looks like a typical Mid Eastern man and the strange image is a result of distortion from a Shroud being wrapped on the face encoding 3d information.
the shroud was recorded to be in the hands of a certain knight in 1354. that is the earliest known reference to it.
it was first displayed publicly in 1389, and was at that time decried as a forgery. the pope at the time, Clement IV, did not attest to its authenticity but sanctioned it for display as a 'representation of the true shroud'
it was damaged by fire & water ((to put out the fire)) in 1532.
at the time of the fire it was thought to have faded from exposure to light, and after being damaged further by the fire, various steps were taken to maintain its preservation.
previous to being moved to Turin it was displayed often. once it was in Turin ((moved there in 1578)) it has only been displayed sparingly.
it was first displayed publicly in 1389, and was at that time decried as a forgery. the pope at the time, Clement IV, did not attest to its authenticity but sanctioned it for display as a 'representation of the true shroud'
it was damaged by fire & water ((to put out the fire)) in 1532.
at the time of the fire it was thought to have faded from exposure to light, and after being damaged further by the fire, various steps were taken to maintain its preservation.
previous to being moved to Turin it was displayed often. once it was in Turin ((moved there in 1578)) it has only been displayed sparingly.
The point is that using NASA imaging software to figure out of 3d information was encoded in the image they were able to work backwards to get the image of the face that made the image on the Shroud.
Now the image on the Shroud can be seen in all sorts of artwork concerning Jesus, but the face that made that image is not.
I think NOVA did a special on this called "The Face of Jesus".
So if you think this is a forgery then the forger created a wonderful sculpture of Jesus based on a brilliant technique (for that day), and this sculpture was also a light source for the photographic image, so think of a lightbulb as the scupture, a light bulb with the scourge marks, wounds, hair, nose, etc. This person is a world class genius for the 1300s. Not only are they excellent at photography, they have also invented a light bulb and electricity.
Now the image on the Shroud can be seen in all sorts of artwork concerning Jesus, but the face that made that image is not.
I think NOVA did a special on this called "The Face of Jesus".
So if you think this is a forgery then the forger created a wonderful sculpture of Jesus based on a brilliant technique (for that day), and this sculpture was also a light source for the photographic image, so think of a lightbulb as the scupture, a light bulb with the scourge marks, wounds, hair, nose, etc. This person is a world class genius for the 1300s. Not only are they excellent at photography, they have also invented a light bulb and electricity.