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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject: Shroud mystery 'refuses to go away' |
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Last Updated: Friday, 21 March 2008, 15:27 GMT
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Shroud mystery 'refuses to go away'
By Rageh Omaar
The Shroud of Turin, BBC Two
The Shroud Center of Colorado depicts a burial configuration
There are very few Christian relics as important and as controversial as the Shroud of Turin.
This linen cloth, measuring about 4.4m by 1.1m (14.4x3.6 feet) holds the concealed image of a man bearing all the signs of crucifixion.
Scientific tests have proved that there are blood stains around the marks consistent with a crown of thorns and a puncture from a lance to the side.
In a new documentary, we have been given intimate access that no other broadcaster has had before.
Until the 1980s, millions of Christians around the world believed the Shroud to be the burial cloth of Christ.
Put simply, it meant that for millions of people the Shroud was, in effect, a Polaroid of Jesus' death - a snapshot of the defining moment in Christianity. It put the Shroud in a league of its own in the realm of the most important Christian relics.
SHROUD |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:51 am Post subject: |
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i betcha it is Christ ...
*shrugs* |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:07 am Post subject: |
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IGTG:
Congrats: another major contribution to dialogue on this forum. We appreciate your valiant efforts and feel quite strongly that you deserve some respite from your tireless efforts to illuminate the masses. So please consider an extended vacation--one or two months would be nice and suffice for now. Get your bearings back and all that.
OP:
The Shroud of Turin is fascinating, especially for those raised in the Roman Catholic tradition and despite what all the cynics and atheists on this board think. I was under the impression, however, that the most recent analysis of the cloth had the scientists involved doubting its authenticity, i.e. as that of Christ. What have you heard, separate from your weblink, of course? |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
IGTG:
Congrats: another major contribution to dialogue on this forum. We appreciate your valiant efforts and feel quite strongly that you deserve some respite from your tireless efforts to illuminate the masses. So please consider an extended vacation--one or two months would be nice and suffice for now. Get your bearings back and all that.
OP:
The Shroud of Turin is fascinating, especially for those raised in the Roman Catholic tradition and despite what all the cynics and atheists on this board think. I was under the impression, however, that the most recent analysis of the cloth had the scientists involved doubting its authenticity, i.e. as that of Christ. What have you heard, separate from your weblink, of course? |
Steve, I don't know exactly about the shroud except that we know its ancient. Can we prove it's Jesus. Anyway, personally, Jesus or saints, in my opinion, are beyond forms. Sometimes, we want those forms like the shroud. I do respect the saints of the Catholic Church, though I do extend respect to other faiths like Buddhism and "peaceful faiths". Anyway, I believe the idea that "The Kingdom is within, it is not in wood or stone", but people who love Jesus like symbols to embrace Jesus in a certain loving way that they relate to.
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/
This site says that people thought the shroud was medieval, but they changed their mind when further tests were done and it was shown that it is about 2,000 years old which would place it to the time of Jesus or Yeshua. Frankly, I think those who had the chance to be face to face with Jesus were very likely to be next to such a luminous personage.
Of course, it all depends on your faith and views on Christ. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:11 am Post subject: |
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| Here's what has always interested me about the Shroud. If faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen", why do Christians give a damn whether the Shroud is authentic or not? If faith is their guiding principle, who cares what the evidence says? |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:12 am Post subject: |
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An excellent and historically in-depth retracing of the Shroud of Turin's journey along with extensive interviews with leading forensic, textile, biochemical, physics, and sacred relics experts on three contients is included.
It was a documentary on BBC2 but cannot be accessed directly outside of the UK.
However, you can see it all on--where else?--YouTube.
Enter a search as "Shroud Turin 1 Rageh Omaar" Altogether there are six segments (Part 4 is choppy and slow at first) of about 11 minutes each.
Whether you're Catholic, or Christian in general, a believer in Jesus as man only, or an agnostic, this is a fascinating, articulate look at the greatest of all Christian relics told scientifically and meticulously. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:25 am Post subject: |
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MM2:
Don't be so dismissive. Have you bothered to watch the BBC documentary? If not, you can't offer an informed enough opinon on the matter, although I realize your atheistic outlook compels you to ignore it.
And one thing is conclusive: no expert in any field has been able to explain how the images were made, if indeed they bear out to be a forgery. But that's also not the main point of the film.
Watch it. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
An excellent and historically in-depth retracing of the Shroud of Turin's journey along with extensive interviews with leading forensic, textile, biochemical, physics, and sacred relics experts on three contients is included.
It was a documentary on BBC2 but cannot be accessed directly outside of the UK.
However, you can see it all on--where else?--YouTube.
Enter a search as "Shroud Turin 1 Rageh Omaar" Altogether there are six segments (Part 4 is choppy and slow at first) of about 11 minutes each.
Whether you're Catholic, or Christian in general, a believer in Jesus as man only, or an agnostic, this is a fascinating, articulate look at the greatest of all Christian relics told scientifically and meticulously. |
I will watch it. It looks interesting. However, I still don't see why it is germane. Everything I know about Christian theology says it is silly, even sinful, to "test one's faith" by seeking out confirmation or disconfirmation of it. So my question stands: why do Christians care? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
An excellent and historically in-depth retracing of the Shroud of Turin's journey along with extensive interviews with leading forensic, textile, biochemical, physics, and sacred relics experts on three contients is included.
It was a documentary on BBC2 but cannot be accessed directly outside of the UK.
However, you can see it all on--where else?--YouTube.
Enter a search as "Shroud Turin 1 Rageh Omaar" Altogether there are six segments (Part 4 is choppy and slow at first) of about 11 minutes each.
Whether you're Catholic, or Christian in general, a believer in Jesus as man only, or an agnostic, this is a fascinating, articulate look at the greatest of all Christian relics told scientifically and meticulously. |
I will watch it. It looks interesting. However, I still don't see why it is germane. Everything I know about Christian theology says it is silly, even sinful, to "test one's faith" by seeking out confirmation or disconfirmation of it. So my question stands: why do Christians care? |
Novelty.
I don't think its sinful to take a little antiquarian interest. Its not as if the relic itself is being worshipped. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
MM2:
Don't be so dismissive. Have you bothered to watch the BBC documentary? If not, you can't offer an informed enough opinon on the matter, although I realize your atheistic outlook compels you to ignore it.
And one thing is conclusive: no expert in any field has been able to explain how the images were made, if indeed they bear out to be a forgery. But that's also not the main point of the film.
Watch it. |
I will get around to it. But what I might find compelling might not be what you find compelling. So let me pose this: what are the three top (or more if you so wish) compelling points you found in the documentary? Can you summarize them? Let's deal with those.
Surely as an academic you don't simply tell people "well i find x full of good argument so that's my argument". Surely as a professor you're used to summarizing the excellent points made by your references and then directing those interested to the primary research material if they feel your summary is not accurate.
Regarding how the image was made, well, paint:
| Quote: |
Longtime Shroud of Turin devotee Ray Rogers, a retired research chemist, now admits there is the equivalent of a watercolor paint on the alleged burial cloth of Jesus. By tortuous logic and selective evidence, however, he uses the coloration to claim the �shroud� image was not the work of a medieval artist (Rogers 2004, 2005). Rogers follows many other shroud defenders in attempting to discredit the medieval date given by radiocarbon testing (Nickell 1998, 150�151). |
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/shroud.html
Nickell himself has demonstrated many times a known technique that produces an image quite like the shroud.
| Quote: |
| Both the apparent "photographic negative" and crude "embedded 3-D information" properties of the Shroud of Turin can easily be explained by simply understanding how the artist created it. Although a direct painting on linen using red ochre pigment in a tempera binder17 cannot be absolutely ruled out as an hypothesis for the Shroud's creation, it is much more likely that the Shroud was constructed using a rubbing technique on a bas-relief model.18 Joe Nickell was the first person to suggest this method of producing the Shroud. He observed that contact imprints from bodies are invariably grossly distorted, and hypotheses involving a vapor or radiation would cause the image to penetrate the cloth, unlike the superficial Shroud image that is observed. After experimenting with various techniques, the Shroud artist prepared a suitable mixture of pigments and tempera binder, molded a wet linen sheet over the bas-relief he had constructed, and used a dauber (also termed a pounce or tamper) to apply the mixture to the surface of the linen. |
http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/as/schafersman.html |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| stillnotking wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
An excellent and historically in-depth retracing of the Shroud of Turin's journey along with extensive interviews with leading forensic, textile, biochemical, physics, and sacred relics experts on three contients is included.
It was a documentary on BBC2 but cannot be accessed directly outside of the UK.
However, you can see it all on--where else?--YouTube.
Enter a search as "Shroud Turin 1 Rageh Omaar" Altogether there are six segments (Part 4 is choppy and slow at first) of about 11 minutes each.
Whether you're Catholic, or Christian in general, a believer in Jesus as man only, or an agnostic, this is a fascinating, articulate look at the greatest of all Christian relics told scientifically and meticulously. |
I will watch it. It looks interesting. However, I still don't see why it is germane. Everything I know about Christian theology says it is silly, even sinful, to "test one's faith" by seeking out confirmation or disconfirmation of it. So my question stands: why do Christians care? |
Novelty.
I don't think its sinful to take a little antiquarian interest. Its not as if the relic itself is being worshipped. |
I don't think the interest of most Christians in the Shroud can be characterized as "antiquarian". Antiquarians are a rare breed outside of academia. Seems to me, though of course I could be wrong, that the issue is whether or not the image of Jesus on the shroud was created by supernatural agency during his resurrection.
Which, again, leads me to ask: if they are absolutely sure that Jesus rose from the dead, why do they care whether the Shroud is "real" or not? It would be like somebody showing me a plaster cast of a baby footprint and telling me it was Gandhi's. I wouldn't care, because I know Gandhi was a real human being and I know he was once a baby, so the existence or nonexistence of such a cast wouldn't influence my worldview at all.
On the other hand, if the Shroud of Turin conclusively could be proven to have been transformed by supernatural agency around 30 AD, I'd have some serious reevaluating to do. But of course, Christians don't think this way, because they have the certainty of unassailable faith.
Right? |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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stillnotking wondered:
| Quote: |
| I will watch it. It looks interesting. However, I still don't see why it is germane. Everything I know about Christian theology says it is silly, even sinful, to "test one's faith" by seeking out confirmation or disconfirmation of it. So my question stands: why do Christians care? |
You pose a fair question. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe" in response to Thomas, who walked with the Lord.
In Faith, a Christian strives to be abiding but our human frailty, especially in this age of growing faithlessness among so many, gives reassurance. It also serves as a reminder of Jesus' presence in this world and a symbol of the world before the Resurrection (read John:14-16).
Christ deliberately left behind his garments of death for this purpose. |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Christ deliberately left behind his garments of death for this purpose. |
Then it's a bit of a lame parlour trick on his part.
It is pointless as those that don't believe in a Jesus as the son of God aren't going to be convinced by a piece of cloth. If you prove the age of the cloth and that it was made by a human body, then that's all you have 'a 2000year old piece of cloth' not proof of Jesus. If people lack faith then Jesus needs to ante up. Stop ruining my toast or sending mum to appear on office block windows. He should have burnt his name on the moon with his lazer eyes or something more impressive. What a silly thing to leave behind.
Anyway I'll watch it over the weekend with my cynical atheist goggles firmly strapped on. |
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