New Research Regarding the Shroud of Turin

[Andrew]

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/wo ... rio-33948/

What do those here think about the new findings that have come to light? Why would such details as have been found on the Shroud possibly be included were it a Middle Age forgery? I'm open-minded about the whole thing, and as I imagine Vatican Insider could have certain biases, I'd like to see something from the other point of view as well.

[hjalti]

Here's the article.

This is silly. The shroud was carbon dated to the period in which it appeared (medieval times), when people were forging a lot of relics and an artist apparently admitted forging it. These guys are just desperately trying to show that this fake relic is the real thing.

[The Crow]

This thing has been hailed as authentic for years when are they going to give up?

[labarum]

Here's the article.

This is silly. The shroud was carbon dated to the period in which it appeared (medieval times), when people were forging a lot of relics and an artist apparently admitted forging it. These guys are just desperately trying to show that this fake relic is the real thing.

Let me preface my comments by stating that I believe this has about as much chance of being the burial shroud of Jesus as I have of winning the 50 yard dash in the Olympics. In a TV program I saw it stated the sample was taken from an area that had been repaired after the shroud was slightly damaged in a fire and this tainted the sample. I don't know if that is true or not - nor do I particularly care - but I think they should just take these guys who want this retested, ask them to pick a spot on the shroud, and go do it. If it still is a medieval date, then it still is a real curiosity as to how it was done (there are some very odd properties to the image) and we can do more invasive testing to see what sorts of technology was used to pull it off.

[Andrew]

I would like to see the Vatican allow a sample that could not possibly be a patch job to be tested. I do wonder, though, why a Medieval artist would add such details as the nails being driven in twice or a dislocated shoulder?

[Andrew]

an artist apparently admitted forging it.

Do you have a source for this? I didn't find one by Googling. And if it was forged in the Middle Ages, which seems to be the common consensus, the forger must have been one wrinkly, ancient guy.

[ficino]

The claim that the forger confessed was made in 1390 in a report by bishop Pierre d'Arcis to antipope Clement VII. See notes 22 and 23 in the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin

This is a very long article. On balance, it appears as though the radiocarbon dating is solid and that challenges to it proceed from questionable assumptions. It is also urged by some that the proportions of the body are off. But what do I know?

[semiopen]

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/wo ... rio-33948/

What do those here think about the new findings that have come to light? Why would such details as have been found on the Shroud possibly be included were it a Middle Age forgery? I'm open-minded about the whole thing, and as I imagine Vatican Insider could have certain biases, I'd like to see something from the other point of view as well.

I've noticed that claiming to be open-minded seems to often be a euphemism for bat shit crazy.

Perhaps that's a little harsh, but one would think a guy with an open-mind would know how to google - you couldn't find Hijalti's wiki when you googled Shroud of Turin?

The Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin is also devilishly difficult to find. The dating is most probably fine, the so-called patch seems like an urban legend.

The literalist crazies (as opposed to the open-minded crazies) have sort of monopolized normal google searches. Shroud of Turin Fake is a decent search argument.

http://skepdic.com/shroud.html has an interesting discussion.

One interesting topic is the alleged existence of AB blood on both the Shroud and the Shmata (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shmata) of Oviedo - Sudarium_of_Oviedo. We actually don't see any intelligent discussion of this - the "scientists" can figure out what kind of blood it is but they can't get any DNA. AB also has a great chance of not existing in Palestine during the Yoshke years. Anyway, my personal (and original) theory is that forensic cops perform the blood typing and (the police not being a group known for intelligence) somehow do a test that shows a false positive for AB blood.

It is not easy to debate a well prepared Shroud slut, but I think we are not in any danger here as the link you give seems even more ridiculous than usual on this topic.