A Conversation for The Chemical Origins of the Shroud of Turin

Turin Shroud

Post 1

johnfish

The Turin Shroud is in fact a shroud that was used symbolicly by the templars in their ceremonies. It was used to cover the broken body of Jacques de Molay, the Templar Grand Master, after his torture by the William Imbert Cheif Inquisitor of France, in 1307. All this can be found in the book The Second Messiah by C. Knight & R. Lomas.


Turin Shroud

Post 2

Dazinho

...which is where half of the article I wrote was lifted from! I wouldn't want to say definitively that that is definitely correct, but it's a strong theory. There's a second part to this article that I wrote that expounds on the theory that you mention above.


Turin Shroud

Post 3

Dazinho

...which can be found at http://www.h2g2.com/A256934


Turin Shroud

Post 4

johnfish

O.K. Point take.


Turin Shroud

Post 5

tiptopdavej

This theory completely collapses, as it is fundamentally flawed.

The image of the man in the Shroud has:

1) Rigor mortice - attested to by experts who examined it. (Molay as the theory goes was alive at the time of the shroud and subsequently executed by burning at the stake.)

2) The man of the shroud had to be dead. He was punctured between the ribs 5 and 6, with a long sharp instrument consistent with a spear. The angle of entry has been studied and is wholly consistent with the blood flow from the wound in the man's side, the amount of blood loss being due to the ventricle of the heart being punctured. The image shows wholly consistently, the collection of blood in the small of the man's back.

3) There is no blood on the Shroud, as extensive testing has shown. The image was not caused by blood or sweat. The nearest approximation to creating the stain is by intense heat. In this case the intense heat was coming from the body of a man who was clearly dead. At the time of Jesus crucifiction, it was said to have been cold. Which is why Peter, the disciple warmed himself by a fire. The body of the man whose image was on the Shroud should have been cold if not very cold.

4) There was no known method of creating or of leaving either accidentally or on purpose, the quality of the image on the Shroud. The image on the Shroud is even of sufficient quality to generate 3d images, unlike photographs which do not contain sufficient gradients for perspective.

In short, many would like to dismiss the Shroud as a fake. They would find it very comforting to turn away from the crucifiction of Christ, because they would then feel that nothing is asked or demanded of them - they have no accountability - just like Pilot washed his hands and said that he was innocent of this man's blood. That is what people did right there and then,hurling all kinds of abuse at him. The Carbon 14 testing which claimed to demonstrate that the Shroud was a fake, was itself flawed. It resulted in many believing that the Shroud was medieval. Today, scientists believe that the cloth may well be up to twice the age that was wrongly estimated with Carbon 14. The piece of cloth used in the Carbon 14 dating was inconsistent with the main body of the cloth and it appears was part of a medieval repair to the cloth after so much human handling. Without these repairs, we may well have lost this Shroud, but perhaps just as astounding is that it could come through 2000 years of turbulent human history and survive wars, fire and vandalism. The cloth is itself identified as Syrian in origin and pollen samples found in the cloth have been identified as coming only from certain species of desert plants found only around Jerusalem. It has a 3 to 1 Herringbone weave consistent with ancient weaving techniques of the Middle East and the nearest similar example is from the Quamran Caves in Israel - site of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

One further comment: There is also another cloth in existence which is known definitely to be a headcloth from the 1 Century AD. This cloth actually has the remains of blood on it. The blood type was said to be a rare AB type. It is apparent from this headcloth, that it was used by being placed over the head of a crucified man in the first century. The blood stains on this headcloth, are wholly consitent with the spiking of a barbed cap having been placed on the crucified man's head (the crown of thorns). The only known time that the 'Crown of thorns' was invented by the Roman soldiers responsible for crucifying someone, was in fact to mock Jesus, who was mocked as 'The King of the Jews'. He in fact said His kingdom was not of this world but of the next. The blood flows on this headcloth are mirrored in the blood flows of the image on the Shroud, thereby identifying forever the headcloth with the Shroud as both coming from the same crucified man. There cannot of course be several centuries gap between these 2 cloths when they both originate from the same corpse.


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