Shroud of Turin - Summary of Evidence for its Authenticity

[DBowling]

This thread has gone a bit quiet, so can I move on to the second video referenced in Kurieou's opening post?

OK... I'll jump back in...

Video 2 asks whether it can be shown that the cloth wrapped a human body. It spends some time on the fact that there is blood on the Shroud. This is not usually disputed. It does not, of course, prove the age or authenticity of the Shroud.

I'd say the strongest evidence that the cloth wrapped a human body is the image itself which shows the front and back of a crucified human body.
The bood also confirms the presence of a real body.

The video moves on to demonstrate the 3-D effect famously found on the old X-Ray analysing machine, the VP-8 image analyser, but which can easily be found and recreated on any modern image software such as ImageJ. The effect can easily be produced by anybody sketching what they think might be left on a cloth if it were to drape a blood-drenched body, or even by any full-face, front-lit, black-background photograph.

I'm not sure this is an accurate statement. My understanding is that no one to date has been able to replicate the 3-D negative image that we see on the Shroud... much less 'easily'.
If someone has finally been able to pull this off, I'd be interested in the link.

However, ironically, it clearly demonstrates that the Shroud could not have been wrapped around a dead body, as it suffers from very little of the distortion expected were that to have been the case.

But I think you would acknowledge there is 'some distortion' that is consistent with things like an external cloth strap wrapped around the neck area.
To the best of my knowledge no one really knows how the image was formed on the cloth, and no one has been able to replicate the image.
So until the basic question of 'how the image was formed' is answered, I'm not sure we can say whether or not the distortion we see meets the level of 'expected'.

[hughfarey]

I'd say the strongest evidence that the cloth wrapped a human body is the image itself which shows the front and back of a crucified human body.

The image is the problem. It looks like a body as seen from a distance, or like a photograph. It does not look like any kind of contact image, as you get if you wrap something up. This is widely acknowledged even by pro-authenticity shroud scientists, who envisage a very lightly draped cloth or one miraculously held horizontal.

The blood also confirms the presence of a real body.

I think the blood probably came from a real body, but it certainly doesn't prove there was a body wrapped in the Shroud. Indeed, so inconsistent is the blood with what is expected that there is extensive discussion, and little agreement, even among authenticists, about whether the body was washed or not before being laid to rest, and exactly what sort of blood is represented by the stains.

My understanding is that no one to date has been able to replicate the 3-D negative image that we see on the Shroud... much less 'easily'. If someone has finally been able to pull this off, I'd be interested in the link.

If I can find to how to post images, I'll happily show you some of mine. It is, honestly, very easy to do.

I think you would acknowledge there is 'some distortion' that is consistent with things like an external cloth strap wrapped around the neck area.

Drop a sheet over a football. Look at the wrinkles and folds. Notice how much of the football is in contact with the cloth. If the football is wet, what area of moisture is transferred to the cloth? Now “wrap” the cloth around the football? What kind of “image” results when you unwrap it? Would you even be able to identify it as a football? Questions like this are serious posers to anybody looking for a “naturally-formed” image, and are as much the subject of on-going discussion to authenticists as is the method of creating the image artificially.

To the best of my knowledge no one really knows how the image was formed on the cloth, and no one has been able to replicate the image.

Absolutely true, but this is no more or less an argument for authenticity than it is for medieval manufacture.

[DBowling]

I'd say the strongest evidence that the cloth wrapped a human body is the image itself which shows the front and back of a crucified human body.

The image is the problem. It looks like a body as seen from a distance, or like a photograph. It does not look like any kind of contact image, as you get if you wrap something up. This is widely acknowledged even by pro-authenticity shroud scientists, who envisage a very lightly draped cloth or one miraculously held horizontal.

Your experience is different from mine on this then.
What I've consistently seen is the shroud wrapped around a body with external straps straps of cloth (or single strap of cloth wound around the body) holding the shroud to the body.
Which explains the position of the the arms and shoulders which indicate some external force is pulling them inward.

All the creation of 3-D models of the body that I've seen assume the shroud is wrapped around a physical face and body.
I personally do not believe the Shroud image is a 'contact image' anyway.

The blood also confirms the presence of a real body.

I think the blood probably came from a real body, but it certainly doesn't prove there was a body wrapped in the Shroud.

Do you agree that the blood was deposited on the Shroud before the image of the body was formed?

My understanding is that no one to date has been able to replicate the 3-D negative image that we see on the Shroud... much less 'easily'. If someone has finally been able to pull this off, I'd be interested in the link.

If I can find to how to post images, I'll happily show you some of mine. It is, honestly, very easy to do.

The best attempt I've seen is the one by Luigi Garlaschelli, and upon examination it is a far cry from the real deal. I would be interested to see what you've come up with.

I think you would acknowledge there is 'some distortion' that is consistent with things like an external cloth strap wrapped around the neck area.

Drop a sheet over a football. Look at the wrinkles and folds. Notice how much of the football is in contact with the cloth. If the football is wet, what area of moisture is transferred to the cloth? Now “wrap” the cloth around the football? What kind of “image” results when you unwrap it? Would you even be able to identify it as a football? Questions like this are serious posers to anybody looking for a “naturally-formed” image, and are as much the subject of on-going discussion to authenticists as is the method of creating the image artificially.

I happen to disagree with the premise that the image on the shroud is a contact image. The deposits of blood are definitely a result of contact. But the image itself was formed some time after the blood was deposited, and by some means other than contact with the body.

To the best of my knowledge no one really knows how the image was formed on the cloth, and no one has been able to replicate the image.

Absolutely true, but this is no more or less an argument for authenticity than it is for medieval manufacture.

I disagree...
From my perspective there are three potential causes.
1. Human fabrication of the image
2. A 'natural process' produced the image
3. The image was produced as a byproduct of Resurrection.

1 and 2 are even less probable than the 'French reweaving' theory that you dismiss out of hand. And I have no problem dismissing 1 and 2 out of hand due to the many failed attempts by skeptics who have been unable to replicate or even explain how the image was formed.

That leaves #3.
Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead. Since resurrection is a miracle there is no way to explain or recreate the energies involved in the resurrection of a human body.
Based on Scripture and the testimony of the apostles and those who physically witnessed and bore testimony to the risen Jesus, I have no doubt that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead.

Therefore from my perspective it makes much more sense to believe that a miraculous historical event that I am convinced occurred in space and time is the cause of the Shroud image.
As opposed to two implausible theories that have been debunked over and over and over and over... etc... again.

[Philip]

As Christians, we should all believe that the shroud of Christ once existed. We should all believe the resurrection occurred. A tortured man/God was killed and returned to life afterward. This is a miraculous thing - that's the only word for it. Hugh argues as if the miraculous doesn't exist. But if that were true, Jesus was not resurrected, and thus our faith is as worthless as those worshipping stone statues. Also, Hugh's arguments show great improbability, especially when it comes to supposed replication of the Shroud. If it were easy and well-demonstrated, that evidence would be all over the net with the associated photos. Merely obtaining an image by some means is insufficient. At the very least, he should admit that the level of detail, microscopic evidences - particularly the correct narrow region of the pollens, would have been impossible to know about, much less fake. All this, and it just happens to be a very old cloth that has long been believed to be the burial shroud of Christ.

Really, what are the odds that a cloth with such an association just happens to be so extraordinary, has confounded so many experts? A NEGATIVE image - done by an ancient or even medieval faker? Preposterous! If it was designed to fake, then why up close does the artifact look pretty unremarkable? Only the positive image brings out the extraordinary - and that's just by looking at its more obvious attributes. If you can't replicate it today by means available to those medieval and older, that should tell us something. And I've seen nothing that remotely looks like the Shroud image. Also, there is no indication of these incredible attributes before it was finally photographed. One would think, IF fake, that the originator and collaborators would have hyped various remarkable details, to those it was meant to fool. But there is no record of such.

[abelcainsbrother]

I'd say the strongest evidence that the cloth wrapped a human body is the image itself which shows the front and back of a crucified human body.

The image is the problem. It looks like a body as seen from a distance, or like a photograph. It does not look like any kind of contact image, as you get if you wrap something up. This is widely acknowledged even by pro-authenticity shroud scientists, who envisage a very lightly draped cloth or one miraculously held horizontal.

The blood also confirms the presence of a real body.

I think the blood probably came from a real body, but it certainly doesn't prove there was a body wrapped in the Shroud. Indeed, so inconsistent is the blood with what is expected that there is extensive discussion, and little agreement, even among authenticists, about whether the body was washed or not before being laid to rest, and exactly what sort of blood is represented by the stains.

My understanding is that no one to date has been able to replicate the 3-D negative image that we see on the Shroud... much less 'easily'. If someone has finally been able to pull this off, I'd be interested in the link.

If I can find to how to post images, I'll happily show you some of mine. It is, honestly, very easy to do.

I think you would acknowledge there is 'some distortion' that is consistent with things like an external cloth strap wrapped around the neck area.

Drop a sheet over a football. Look at the wrinkles and folds. Notice how much of the football is in contact with the cloth. If the football is wet, what area of moisture is transferred to the cloth? Now “wrap” the cloth around the football? What kind of “image” results when you unwrap it? Would you even be able to identify it as a football? Questions like this are serious posers to anybody looking for a “naturally-formed” image, and are as much the subject of on-going discussion to authenticists as is the method of creating the image artificially.

To the best of my knowledge no one really knows how the image was formed on the cloth, and no one has been able to replicate the image.

Absolutely true, but this is no more or less an argument for authenticity than it is for medieval manufacture.

NEW Evidence! Shroud knows details of the crime scene.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... nfU5Ei-zcY

[abelcainsbrother]

DNA Evidence Proves Shroud Is Witness To Resurrection!
https://youtu.be/DSotRPtPArI

[hughfarey]

Your experience is different from mine on this then. What I've consistently seen is the shroud wrapped around a body with external straps straps of cloth (or single strap of cloth wound around the body) holding the shroud to the body. Which explains the position of the the arms and shoulders which indicate some external force is pulling them inward. All the creation of 3-D models of the body that I've seen assume the shroud is wrapped around a physical face and body.

I'd be interested to know the name of any shroud researcher who claims that the image was made while the shroud was closely wrapped around a body. (And by researcher, I mean someone who has made an attempt to demonstrate how it occurred, not just someone who quoted from someone else). I can think of no researcher into image formation who thinks this for a minute. Try Paul Vignon, John Jackson, Petrus Soons or Mario Latendresse, for example. If the arms and shoulders need to be held in place, then strips of cloth around the wrists are usually mentioned. There is even one school of thought that says the blood was made by contact, and then the Shroud mysteriously opened out to receive the image.

I personally do not believe the Shroud image is a 'contact image' anyway.

You don't feel that your last sentence comtradicts the previous ones? You think that the shroud was in contact with the body, but that the image does not relate to that contact? I don't understand what that means.

Do you agree that the blood was deposited on the Shroud before the image of the body was formed?

No. The evidence for that is extremely tenuous, based on an observation by Heller and Adler that was repudiated by Ray Rogers.

The best attempt I've seen is the one by Luigi Garlaschelli, and upon examination it is a far cry from the real deal. I would be interested to see what you've come up with.

Bear with me while I experiment with imgur....

I happen to disagree with the premise that the image on the shroud is a contact image. The deposits of blood are definitely a result of contact. But the image itself was formed some time after the blood was deposited, and by some means other than contact with the body.

Fair enough. See my comment above.

From my perspective there are three potential causes.
1. Human fabrication of the image
2. A 'natural process' produced the image
3. The image was produced as a byproduct of Resurrection.
1 and 2 are even less probable than the 'French reweaving' theory that you dismiss out of hand. And I have no problem dismissing 1 and 2 out of hand due to the many failed attempts by skeptics who have been unable to replicate or even explain how the image was formed.

If (3) is distinct from the other two, then I'm assuming the Resurrection, in this context, infers a miraculous event involving something wholly beyond scientific explanation. Fair enough; I agree with that. But your next statement, that 1 and 2 are improbable because they have never been replicated is not invariably held by both authenticists or non-authenticists. There are many convinced authenticists who are equally convinced of a natural explanation.

That leaves #3. Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead.

No, it doesn't. You have sneakily inserted 'miraculously', which is loaded with interpretation and connotation which is missing from scripture altogether.

Since resurrection is a miracle there is no way to explain or recreate the energies involved in the resurrection of a human body.

If the resurrection involved a process wholly beyond scientific explanation then I completely agree, but then the inclusion of any discussion of the Shroud in the God and Science forum would be wholly inappropriate. The series of videos with which Kurieou started this thread go on and on about the scientific evidence for various aspects which would all be nonsense if a miraculous interpretation is inferred. What is the point, for example, of all the attempts to try to falsify the radiocarbon dating? If the Shroud is miraculous, it could end up with any radiocarbon date God liked, and maybe he just liked 1350.

As Christians, we should all believe that the shroud of Christ once existed. We should all believe the resurrection occurred. A tortured man/God was killed and returned to life afterward. This is a miraculous thing - that's the only word for it. Hugh argues as if the miraculous doesn't exist. But if that were true, Jesus was not resurrected, and thus our faith is as worthless as those worshipping stone statues. Also, Hugh's arguments show great improbability, especially when it comes to supposed replication of the Shroud. If it were easy and well-demonstrated, that evidence would be all over the net with the associated photos. Merely obtaining an image by some means is insufficient. At the very least, he should admit that the level of detail, microscopic evidences - particularly the correct narrow region of the pollens, would have been impossible to know about, much less fake. All this, and it just happens to be a very old cloth that has long been believed to be the burial shroud of Christ.

This starts well, but I'm afraid deteriorates. The definition of a miracle is more theological than scientific, and, as I say above, if the Shroud is the result of a miracle, then there is no need, no point even, in discussing how the image was formed. Miracles deny rational explanation; that's what a miracle is. As soon as you start involving science, such as the pollen investigation, things start falling apart. Max Frei's work was deeply flawed, and fails to demonstrate the presence of exclusively Judaean pollen.

Really, what are the odds that a cloth with such an association just happens to be so extraordinary, has confounded so many experts? A NEGATIVE image - done by an ancient or even medieval faker? Preposterous! If it was designed to fake, then why up close does the artifact look pretty unremarkable? Only the positive image brings out the extraordinary - and that's just by looking at its more obvious attributes. If you can't replicate it today by means available to those medieval and older, that should tell us something. And I've seen nothing that remotely looks like the Shroud image. Also, there is no indication of these incredible attributes before it was finally photographed. One would think, IF fake, that the originator and collaborators would have hyped various remarkable details, to those it was meant to fool. But there is no record of such.

There are a lot of assumptions here that need to be taken apart. You should not assume, for example, that the medieval craftsman had to have any knowledge of negativity in order to produce the Shroud. You should not assume, for example, that by simply by describing something as preposterous or incredible that it somehow becomes so. And you should not assume, for example, that it was meant to fool anyone. It was intended to be what it is - a representation of the burial shroud of Christ.

[DBowling]

I personally do not believe the Shroud image is a 'contact image' anyway.

You don't feel that your last sentence comtradicts the previous ones? You think that the shroud was in contact with the body, but that the image does not relate to that contact? I don't understand what that means.

My understanding is that the blood deposits on the Shroud are definitely a function of the transfer of physical material between the wrapped body and the cloth itself.
However, whatever caused the image of the body only affected the very surface of the cloth which indicates that the image is not the result of pigment or the transfer of fluids where the body came into contact with the cloth.

I guess a more precise statement would be...
I do not believe the image is the result of the transfer of physical substances between the body and the cloth due to physical contact between the body and the cloth.

Do you agree that the blood was deposited on the Shroud before the image of the body was formed?

No. The evidence for that is extremely tenuous, based on an observation by Heller and Adler that was repudiated by Ray Rogers.

Quoting Ray Rogers
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers2.pdf
"Image color does not appear under the blood stains when they are removed with a proteolytic enzyme[16]. Whatever process produced the image color must have occurred after the blood flowed onto the cloth, and the image-producing process did not destroy the blood. "

From my perspective there are three potential causes.
1. Human fabrication of the image
2. A 'natural process' produced the image
3. The image was produced as a byproduct of Resurrection.
1 and 2 are even less probable than the 'French reweaving' theory that you dismiss out of hand. And I have no problem dismissing 1 and 2 out of hand due to the many failed attempts by skeptics who have been unable to replicate or even explain how the image was formed.

If (3) is distinct from the other two, then I'm assuming the Resurrection, in this context, infers a miraculous event involving something wholly beyond scientific explanation. Fair enough; I agree with that. But your next statement, that 1 and 2 are improbable because they have never been replicated is not invariably held by both authenticists or non-authenticists. There are many convinced authenticists who are equally convinced of a natural explanation.

They may be convinced of a 'natural' explanation, but to date there is no real evidence to support that conviction.

That leaves #3. Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead.

No, it doesn't. You have sneakily inserted 'miraculously', which is loaded with interpretation and connotation which is missing from scripture altogether.

I don't know how you can make that assertion!
Every time a person is resurrected from the dead in Scripture, it is clearly and unambiguously presented as a miraculous act that demonstrates the supernatural power of God.

Since resurrection is a miracle there is no way to explain or recreate the energies involved in the resurrection of a human body.

If the resurrection involved a process wholly beyond scientific explanation then I completely agree, but then the inclusion of any discussion of the Shroud in the God and Science forum would be wholly inappropriate.

I disagree...
Scientific analysis can tell us many things about the Shroud.
- Science can tell us how old the cloth that makes up the Shroud is... using a variety of methods.
- Science can tell us where the Shroud has physically been due to pollen on the Shroud
- Science can tell us that there is human blood on the Shroud
- Science can tell us about the physical trauma that was experienced by the body that was wrapped in the Shroud.
- Science can tell us that pigments were not used to create the image on the Shroud
- Science can tell us that the image was not made by any known 'natural' process
- etc

Science may not be able to tell us how the image on the Shroud was created, but it can (and has) told us much about the Shroud itself.

The series of videos with which Kurieou started this thread go on and on about the scientific evidence for various aspects which would all be nonsense if a miraculous interpretation is inferred. What is the point, for example, of all the attempts to try to falsify the radiocarbon dating?

I do not doubt the accuracy of the radiocarbon dates for the material that was tested.
However, there is evidence that indicates the sample cloth that was tested did not represent the Shroud itself but came from the location of a medieval repair.
I can only speak for myself here, but I would have no problem accepting radiocarbon date results from cloth that is truly representative of the Shroud itself.

[hughfarey]

My understanding is that the blood deposits on the Shroud are definitely a function of the transfer of physical material between the wrapped body and the cloth itself.

They could be, yes.

I do not believe the image is the result of the transfer of physical substances between the body and the cloth due to physical contact between the body and the cloth.

Fair enough - but presumably the transfer of some kind of energy, or is the miraculous appearance of the image unrelated to physical constraints of any kind? If the transfer of some kind of energy, then the energy emanating from different parts of the body all in contact with the cloth seems to have different effects. The energy from the sides of the legs, for example, produced no image at all, while the energy from the front and back of the legs produced an image. I find this difficult to explain scientifically, although if the image was miraculous, then no energy at all need be adduced.

Quoting Ray Rogers: "Image color does not appear under the blood stains when they are removed with a proteolytic enzyme. Whatever process produced the image color must have occurred after the blood flowed onto the cloth, and the image-producing process did not destroy the blood."

Looks good, doesn't it? But here, in 2002, he is merely quoting Alan Adler - actually slightly extrapolating. What Adler said in "The Nature of the Body Images on the Shroud of Turin" was: "the image fibers are very brittle and show “corroded” surfaces", while "The protease [having dissolved all the protein] revealed smooth, non-corroded fiber surfaces indicating that the blood images went onto the cloth before the image forming process and protected the underlying cloth." The evidence for the "blood first, image later" hypothesis lies entirely in the relative corrodedness of the fibres. However, two years later, in 2004 Rogers decided that the fibres themselves played no part in the image formation, attributing it entirely to a Maillard reaction between bodily emanations and a layer of "carbohydrate impurities" (see https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers7.pdf). Thus Rogers 'repudiates' (my word) Alan Adler.

Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead.

No, it doesn't. You have sneakily inserted 'miraculously', which is loaded with interpretation and connotation which is missing from scripture altogether.

I don't know how you can make that assertion!
Every time a person is resurrected from the dead in Scripture, it is clearly and unambiguously presented as a miraculous act that demonstrates the supernatural power of God.

Really? There are four resurrections in the new testament. Lazarus, Talitha, the son of the widow at Nain, and Christ's own. In each case the dead person simply gets up and carries on, as if they had just been sleeping - indeed, in the case of Talitha Jesus says she really was just sleeping. Clearly waking these people up was astonishing and demonstrated the power of God, but the descriptions are extremely low key, and do not to my mind deny an explanation within a scientific rationale. As I say, a lot depends on how one defines a miracle.

If the resurrection involved a process wholly beyond scientific explanation then I completely agree, but then the inclusion of any discussion of the Shroud in the God and Science forum would be wholly inappropriate.

I disagree...
Scientific analysis can tell us many things about the Shroud.
- Science can tell us how old the cloth that makes up the Shroud is... using a variety of methods.
- Science can tell us where the Shroud has physically been due to pollen on the Shroud
- Science can tell us that there is human blood on the Shroud
- Science can tell us about the physical trauma that was experienced by the body that was wrapped in the Shroud.
- Science can tell us that pigments were not used to create the image on the Shroud
- Science can tell us that the image was not made by any known 'natural' process.

If the image is beyond scientific explanation, then this is incorrect. All we can tell if it is a miracle is what the miracle-worker placed there, not "how it was done". The apparent age of the shroud, the chemical constituents of the blood, the details of the trauma - if the Shroud was miraculous Jesus could have caused all these to happen without actually being in the tomb at all. And the last one "Science can tell us that the image was not made by any known 'natural' process" is merely a description of the beginning of an investigation, not even a declaration that no 'natural process' is possible.

Science may not be able to tell us how the image on the Shroud was created, but it can (and has) told us much about the Shroud itself.

Yes, I agree with that.

I do not doubt the accuracy of the radiocarbon dates for the material that was tested. However, there is evidence that indicates the sample cloth that was tested did not represent the Shroud itself but came from the location of a medieval repair.

We've sort of covered this in considering Part One, so I won't go back to it until I get my 'invisible mend' back from Chicago.

[abelcainsbrother]

Your experience is different from mine on this then. What I've consistently seen is the shroud wrapped around a body with external straps straps of cloth (or single strap of cloth wound around the body) holding the shroud to the body. Which explains the position of the the arms and shoulders which indicate some external force is pulling them inward. All the creation of 3-D models of the body that I've seen assume the shroud is wrapped around a physical face and body.

I'd be interested to know the name of any shroud researcher who claims that the image was made while the shroud was closely wrapped around a body. (And by researcher, I mean someone who has made an attempt to demonstrate how it occurred, not just someone who quoted from someone else). I can think of no researcher into image formation who thinks this for a minute. Try Paul Vignon, John Jackson, Petrus Soons or Mario Latendresse, for example. If the arms and shoulders need to be held in place, then strips of cloth around the wrists are usually mentioned. There is even one school of thought that says the blood was made by contact, and then the Shroud mysteriously opened out to receive the image.

I personally do not believe the Shroud image is a 'contact image' anyway.

You don't feel that your last sentence comtradicts the previous ones? You think that the shroud was in contact with the body, but that the image does not relate to that contact? I don't understand what that means.

Do you agree that the blood was deposited on the Shroud before the image of the body was formed?

No. The evidence for that is extremely tenuous, based on an observation by Heller and Adler that was repudiated by Ray Rogers.

The best attempt I've seen is the one by Luigi Garlaschelli, and upon examination it is a far cry from the real deal. I would be interested to see what you've come up with.

Bear with me while I experiment with imgur....

I happen to disagree with the premise that the image on the shroud is a contact image. The deposits of blood are definitely a result of contact. But the image itself was formed some time after the blood was deposited, and by some means other than contact with the body.

Fair enough. See my comment above.

From my perspective there are three potential causes.
1. Human fabrication of the image
2. A 'natural process' produced the image
3. The image was produced as a byproduct of Resurrection.
1 and 2 are even less probable than the 'French reweaving' theory that you dismiss out of hand. And I have no problem dismissing 1 and 2 out of hand due to the many failed attempts by skeptics who have been unable to replicate or even explain how the image was formed.

If (3) is distinct from the other two, then I'm assuming the Resurrection, in this context, infers a miraculous event involving something wholly beyond scientific explanation. Fair enough; I agree with that. But your next statement, that 1 and 2 are improbable because they have never been replicated is not invariably held by both authenticists or non-authenticists. There are many convinced authenticists who are equally convinced of a natural explanation.

That leaves #3. Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead.

No, it doesn't. You have sneakily inserted 'miraculously', which is loaded with interpretation and connotation which is missing from scripture altogether.

Since resurrection is a miracle there is no way to explain or recreate the energies involved in the resurrection of a human body.

If the resurrection involved a process wholly beyond scientific explanation then I completely agree, but then the inclusion of any discussion of the Shroud in the God and Science forum would be wholly inappropriate. The series of videos with which Kurieou started this thread go on and on about the scientific evidence for various aspects which would all be nonsense if a miraculous interpretation is inferred. What is the point, for example, of all the attempts to try to falsify the radiocarbon dating? If the Shroud is miraculous, it could end up with any radiocarbon date God liked, and maybe he just liked 1350.

As Christians, we should all believe that the shroud of Christ once existed. We should all believe the resurrection occurred. A tortured man/God was killed and returned to life afterward. This is a miraculous thing - that's the only word for it. Hugh argues as if the miraculous doesn't exist. But if that were true, Jesus was not resurrected, and thus our faith is as worthless as those worshipping stone statues. Also, Hugh's arguments show great improbability, especially when it comes to supposed replication of the Shroud. If it were easy and well-demonstrated, that evidence would be all over the net with the associated photos. Merely obtaining an image by some means is insufficient. At the very least, he should admit that the level of detail, microscopic evidences - particularly the correct narrow region of the pollens, would have been impossible to know about, much less fake. All this, and it just happens to be a very old cloth that has long been believed to be the burial shroud of Christ.

This starts well, but I'm afraid deteriorates. The definition of a miracle is more theological than scientific, and, as I say above, if the Shroud is the result of a miracle, then there is no need, no point even, in discussing how the image was formed. Miracles deny rational explanation; that's what a miracle is. As soon as you start involving science, such as the pollen investigation, things start falling apart. Max Frei's work was deeply flawed, and fails to demonstrate the presence of exclusively Judaean pollen.

Really, what are the odds that a cloth with such an association just happens to be so extraordinary, has confounded so many experts? A NEGATIVE image - done by an ancient or even medieval faker? Preposterous! If it was designed to fake, then why up close does the artifact look pretty unremarkable? Only the positive image brings out the extraordinary - and that's just by looking at its more obvious attributes. If you can't replicate it today by means available to those medieval and older, that should tell us something. And I've seen nothing that remotely looks like the Shroud image. Also, there is no indication of these incredible attributes before it was finally photographed. One would think, IF fake, that the originator and collaborators would have hyped various remarkable details, to those it was meant to fool. But there is no record of such.

There are a lot of assumptions here that need to be taken apart. You should not assume, for example, that the medieval craftsman had to have any knowledge of negativity in order to produce the Shroud. You should not assume, for example, that by simply by describing something as preposterous or incredible that it somehow becomes so. And you should not assume, for example, that it was meant to fool anyone. It was intended to be what it is - a representation of the burial shroud of Christ.

There have been many other burial linens observed inwhich a body was wrapped like in the time of Jesus and no image was produced like the one on the shroud of Turin so I don't understand why it matters to you whether or not the body was touching it.The evidence seems to suggest that at the moment the image was produced the body was raised at the same time to produce the image on the shroud,only on one of the threads out of two hundred that make up the threads of the shroud was colored also.We are talking just the very top surface layer only one one hunredths of a millimeter in depth that makes up the image.This is miracle territory already even if you go with a 14 century dating,it could not have been done by any man at that time. The image shows presice precision with a lazer where only one thread out of two hundred were colored to produce the image.Body fluids seep into the fabric as does paint,etc but this is not the case on the shroud of Turin that makes up the image.You also are throwing out forensic science that is used to solve crimes just because miracles are outside of science. How can you go through evidence if you ignore it? Oh,yeah, science does not do proof instead they assume,speculate and make it up as they go along.The radio carbon dating would be thrown out in a court of law.

[Kurieuo]

Some pagan psychopath made itby killing a man, wounding him in similar areas to Christ and overlaying the cloth and pressing down a little. Ergo medieval artistry. They were quite sadistic back then.

[Philip]

Hugh: If the resurrection involved a process wholly beyond scientific explanation then I completely agree, but then the inclusion of any discussion of the Shroud in the God and Science forum would be wholly inappropriate. The series of videos with which Kurieou started this thread go on and on about the scientific evidence for various aspects which would all be nonsense if a miraculous interpretation is inferred. What is the point, for example, of all the attempts to try to falsify the radiocarbon dating? If the Shroud is miraculous, it could end up with any radiocarbon date God liked, and maybe he just liked 1350.

What nonsense! It is the scientific analysis that makes many realize that the Shroud shows miraculous things - by eliminating the reasonably explainable. God can and does use normal things miraculously. It's not an either/or. If authentic, the shroud's actual date of creation has nothing to do with what came later - a miracle from within it. And if this is the shroud of the resurrected Shroud, the very fact that it has been preserved into the scientific era may well be because God wants it to be a powerful evidence connected to the resurrection. That He would do something miraculous with the otherwise unremarkable is what we see throughout Scripture.

Even more absurd is Hugh's assertion that the medieval faker simply got enormously lucky, that he was able to produce what we cannot. That he just happened to find some way to gather the correct pollens to spread across the Shroud. I just think Hugh has a problem with the supernatural when it comes to God. Yes, there is healthy skepticism, but he seems to discount anything that might be evidence of the miraculous. But anti-supernaturalism is not in sync with believing the many miracles recorded in Scripture. Does that mean this is how God always works - course not. The miraculous is uncommon/atypical.

[DBowling]

I do not believe the image is the result of the transfer of physical substances between the body and the cloth due to physical contact between the body and the cloth.

Fair enough - but presumably the transfer of some kind of energy, or is the miraculous appearance of the image unrelated to physical constraints of any kind?

My speculation/guess would that the image was caused by some sort of energy release that occurred as a result of the resurrection.
I cannot speak to the nature, scope, or direction of any hypothetical energy release, because again resurrection is not a process that we can replicate.

Quoting Ray Rogers: "Image color does not appear under the blood stains when they are removed with a proteolytic enzyme. Whatever process produced the image color must have occurred after the blood flowed onto the cloth, and the image-producing process did not destroy the blood."

Looks good, doesn't it? But here, in 2002, he is merely quoting Alan Adler - actually slightly extrapolating. What Adler said in "The Nature of the Body Images on the Shroud of Turin" was: "the image fibers are very brittle and show “corroded” surfaces", while "The protease [having dissolved all the protein] revealed smooth, non-corroded fiber surfaces indicating that the blood images went onto the cloth before the image forming process and protected the underlying cloth." The evidence for the "blood first, image later" hypothesis lies entirely in the relative corrodedness of the fibres. However, two years later, in 2004 Rogers decided that the fibres themselves played no part in the image formation, attributing it entirely to a Maillard reaction between bodily emanations and a layer of "carbohydrate impurities" (see https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers7.pdf). Thus Rogers 'repudiates' (my word) Alan Adler.

I think you are misrepresenting what Ray Rogers is saying in both 2002 and 2004.
In both papers Ray supports the assertion that the blood was deposited on the cloth before the image was formed.
And in both papers Ray proposes his Maillard reaction theory.
In neither paper does Ray repudiate Alan Adler's premise that the blood was deposited before the image.

There is nothing in either paper to indicate that Ray thought his Mallard reaction theory was inconsistent with Adler's observation that the blood was deposited on the cloth before the image was formed.

Scripture clearly tells us that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from the dead.

No, it doesn't. You have sneakily inserted 'miraculously', which is loaded with interpretation and connotation which is missing from scripture altogether.

I don't know how you can make that assertion!
Every time a person is resurrected from the dead in Scripture, it is clearly and unambiguously presented as a miraculous act that demonstrates the supernatural power of God.

Really? There are four resurrections in the new testament. Lazarus, Talitha, the son of the widow at Nain, and Christ's own. In each case the dead person simply gets up and carries on, as if they had just been sleeping

I believe there is a significant difference between the three other resurrections you mention and the resurrection of Jesus.
I do believe all four of the resurrections involved bringing a dead physical body back to life.

In three of the cases you mention, a dead mortal body was brought back to life, but it was still a mortal body after the body was resurrected. There was no fundamental change in the nature of the body after resurrection.
However in the case of Jesus, there was a change in the fundamental nature of the physical body. The body that died was a 'perishable' mortal body. But Jesus' resurrection changed his physical body into a "non-perishable' immortal body that was fundamentally different from the body that died.

If the resurrection involved a process wholly beyond scientific explanation then I completely agree, but then the inclusion of any discussion of the Shroud in the God and Science forum would be wholly inappropriate.

I disagree...
Scientific analysis can tell us many things about the Shroud.
- Science can tell us how old the cloth that makes up the Shroud is... using a variety of methods.
- Science can tell us where the Shroud has physically been due to pollen on the Shroud
- Science can tell us that there is human blood on the Shroud
- Science can tell us about the physical trauma that was experienced by the body that was wrapped in the Shroud.
- Science can tell us that pigments were not used to create the image on the Shroud
- Science can tell us that the image was not made by any known 'natural' process.

If the image is beyond scientific explanation, then this is incorrect.

Again I disagree...
Not understanding how the image itself was formed does nothing to invalidate other things that we can determine about the Shroud through scientific processes.
Your logic just doesn't follow.

Science may not be able to tell us how the image on the Shroud was created, but it can (and has) told us much about the Shroud itself.

Yes, I agree with that.

That looks like a good way to wrap this post up.

[hughfarey]

Some pagan psychopath made it by killing a man, wounding him in similar areas to Christ and overlaying the cloth and pressing down a little. Ergo medieval artistry. They were quite sadistic back then.

That has been suggested, but I don't think it works. Whatever the physics and chemistry of the image (which could conceivably derive from a dead man) the shape of the image cannot be achieved by overlaying and pressing, whether in the 1st or the 14th Century.

It is the scientific analysis that makes many realize that the Shroud shows miraculous things - by eliminating the reasonably explainable.

Many people do indeed think that the "reasonably explainable" has been eliminated. I think they have given up too soon.

God can and does use normal things miraculously. It's not an either/or. If authentic, the shroud's actual date of creation has nothing to do with what came later - a miracle from within it. And if this is the shroud of the resurrected Shroud, the very fact that it has been preserved into the scientific era may well be because God wants it to be a powerful evidence connected to the resurrection. That He would do something miraculous with the otherwise unremarkable is what we see throughout Scripture.

Possibly. I just disagree.

Even more absurd is Hugh's assertion that the medieval faker simply got enormously lucky, that he was able to produce what we cannot.

I don't think he was able to produce what we cannot. I think he did something fairly simple, and sooner or later we'll find out what it was.

That he just happened to find some way to gather the correct pollens to spread across the Shroud.

I don't think there are any "correct pollens" spread across the Shroud.

I just think Hugh has a problem with the supernatural when it comes to God. Yes, there is healthy skepticism, but he seems to discount anything that might be evidence of the miraculous. But anti-supernaturalism is not in sync with believing the many miracles recorded in Scripture. Does that mean this is how God always works - course not. The miraculous is uncommon/atypical.

Now there you do alight on a major difference between our respective understandings of the workings of God. I think he always works rationally.

My speculation/guess would that the image was caused by some sort of energy release that occurred as a result of the resurrection. I cannot speak to the nature, scope, or direction of any hypothetical energy release, because again resurrection is not a process that we can replicate.

If that means that the process was intrinsically non-replicable by virtue of its supernatural nature, then no sort of energy release is necessary.

I think you are misrepresenting what Ray Rogers is saying in both 2002 and 2004. In both papers Ray supports the assertion that the blood was deposited on the cloth before the image was formed. And in both papers Ray proposes his Maillard reaction theory. In neither paper does Ray repudiate Alan Adler's premise that the blood was deposited before the image. There is nothing in either paper to indicate that Ray thought his Mallard reaction theory was inconsistent with Adler's observation that the blood was deposited on the cloth before the image was formed.

That's quite true (and I hadn't realised how much of his 2004 paper was included in his 2002 one), but he does not appear to realise that his impurity layer hypothesis is incompatible with the corroded cellulose hypothesis. The passage below is a masterpiece of confusion:
"9) The image color resides only on the surface of the fibers:
Heller and Adler found that the image fibers could be decolorized with diimide, a powerful reducing agent. Reduction left colorless cellulose fibers. They concluded that the color was a result of conjugated double bonds, agreeing with the spectrometry of Gilbert and Gilbert. At high optical magnifications, up to 1000X, no coatings could be resolved on the surfaces of image fibers; however, the surfaces appeared to be "corroded." Heller and Adler also reported that "ghosts" of color were stripped off of fibers by the adhesive of sampling tapes when they were pulled out of the adhesive and that the insides of the fibers were colorless. I have confirmed this observation (figure 5). The color is only on the surface of the image fibers. Another important observation was that the "ghosts" had the same chemical composition as expected from dehydrated carbohydrates. The STURP observation that the surfaces of image fibers appeared to be "corroded" suggests that a very thin coating of carbohydrate had been significantly dehydrated on the outer surfaces of the fibers. Dehydration causes shrinkage; therefore, any coating of carbohydrate impurities would "craze" during dehydration. Such a crazed coating would be easy to pull off with adhesive, explaining the easy removal of tapes from image areas. In the context of a discussion on radiation, these observations prove that only radiation-induced reactions that color the surfaces of fibers without coloring the cellulose can be considered." Had they been around to comment, Heller and Adler would have denied all this.

I believe there is a significant difference between the three other resurrections you mention and the resurrection of Jesus. I do believe all four of the resurrections involved bringing a dead physical body back to life. In three of the cases you mention, a dead mortal body was brought back to life, but it was still a mortal body after the body was resurrected. There was no fundamental change in the nature of the body after resurrection. However in the case of Jesus, there was a change in the fundamental nature of the physical body. The body that died was a 'perishable' mortal body. But Jesus' resurrection changed his physical body into a "non-perishable' immortal body that was fundamentally different from the body that died.

There is a change of emphasis here from your "Every time a person is resurrected from the dead in Scripture, it is clearly and unambiguously presented as a miraculous act that demonstrates the supernatural power of God," but I take your point, although Luke 24:39-43 seems at pains to point out that the resurrected Christ was not so different from the previous one.

Not understanding how the image itself was formed does nothing to invalidate other things that we can determine about the Shroud through scientific processes. Your logic just doesn't follow.

The apparent age of the shroud, the chemical constituents of the blood, the details of the trauma - if the Shroud was miraculous Jesus could have caused all these to happen without actually being in the tomb at all. We can measure what's there, sure, but we cannot trace any of it back to a natural or supernatural 'cause'.

[bippy123]

Intake it Hugh that you've given up refuting that the French reweave couldn't be detected by the naked eye from either side of the cloth ? Dirs that mean you concede that it can't be detected by the naked eye just as without a trace said ?