Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Yet another opinion about the Shroud of Turin

This historian claims that it was a prop used in an Easter pageant about 700 years ago.

FWIW, the only eye witness evidence of how Jesus was buried comes straight from the Bible and it contradicts what's seen on the shroud. If the shroud is authentic then the Bible is in error and all of Christianity falls.


Historian: Shroud of Turin is actually a medieval Easter prop

By Arden Dier
Published October 25, 2014
Newser

This Saturday, August 12, 2000 file photo shows the Holy Shroud, a 14 foot-long linen revered by some as the burial cloth of Jesus, displayed at the Cathedral of Turin, Italy. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

You can add one more name to the list of those claiming the Shroud of Turin dates only to medieval times. According to British historian Charles Freeman, Jesus' supposed burial cloth�believed by many to show his image after crucifixion�is a 14th-century prop that was likely used during an Easter-morning re-enactment of the resurrection.

Freeman says his analysis of historical texts and illustrations has found no mention of the cloth before its first documented appearance in France in 1355, the Guardian reports.

"Astonishingly, few researchers appear to have grasped that the shroud looked very different in the 16th and 17th centuries from the object we see today," Freeman writes in History Today.

There, he examines "early depictions and descriptions of the Shroud that illustrate features now lost." Among them, Antonio Tempesta's 1613 engraving of the cloth and writings on it: a description by a Benedictine monk in 1449, another by Pope Sixtus in 1474, and an entry in the Travel Journal of Antonio de Beatis, which records a 1517 viewing.

They depict or reference a shroud in which blood and scourge marks are prominent. In Freeman's view, this syncs with a "change in iconography": The depictions of Christ's burial from the 1100s and 1200s are largely free of blood; the emphasis on a bloodied Christ came into play in the 14th century.

In Freeman's view, the Shroud of Turin was not a forgery intended to deceive but a prop used during the Easter "Quem quaeritis? ("Whom do you seek?") ceremony, and he points to the 1988 radiocarbon-dating of the shroud that dated it to the 14th century as further proof. (A February study, however, asserted the image on the shroud was created by an earthquake in AD33.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Historian: Shroud of Turin a Medieval Prop

I'd sure hate for my 'religion' to teeter on one little thing.

I'm still confused. I thought carbon dating put the age of the shroud at 480 years or so....

Dog years, which as we know is God backwards.

Oh. Thank you for that clarification.Its one of the best explanations Ive run into yet regarding religion.

Its the truth of the Bible. If it's wrong, then Christianity is nothing. If it's right, then all of mankind is under it's authority, whether you want to be or not. If it's right, then you can't dodge it by saying you don't believe it.

Christianity does "teeter" on the resurrection of Christ -- it is one thing, but hardly "one little thing." If it's true, then he was "God in the flesh" and it's easy to believe. If it's not true, then "we are of all men most miserable" (1 Corinthians 15:19). Christians have been willing to teeter on that for 2000 years, and the Shroud of Turin has nothing to do with that belief. The Shroud cannot be proven to be the burial cloth of Jesus, and it is not even "little" evidence. It is actually no evidence at all.

So far as I know, no scientist inside or outside the church claims to have proven that the Shroud is the actual burial cloth of Jesus. Though millions of non-scientists believe it is, if they are wrong (and they probably are) they are only mistaken about a historical artifact. They are just as much believers in Christ as believers who lived before the Shroud came to light and as believers who reject the view that the Shroud of Turin once wrapped the body of Jesus. If it is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus, it does not prove the resurrection of Christ really happened. The Shroud is not even a piece of evidence to go along with other evidence. There is a body of evidence which supports the resurrection, but it is in the nature of legal/historical evidence and not empirical evidence. Thus the evidence supporting the resurrection does not prove the resurrection.

Anyone wondering about the importance of the resurrection should read 1 Corinthians 15, the whole chapter.

Steve.

What is most interesting about the cloth is there is not even a consensus on how the image on it was made. That's what causes the interest. If it could be shown that it was painted on, or stained with coffee, there would be no interest in it at all, and Christianity is not threatened by the Shroud, whether it's an obvious forgery or an unobvious forgery.

Steve.

You are off a couple hundred years. In 1988 it was carbon dates to an age of 689 years +/- 16 years.

It was dated to 1260-1365 with a 95% confidence interval.
The 68% CI places it between 1273 and 1288.

Carbon dating puts the fabric at about 1350-1400AD. Now unless Christ was crucified and buried by the Anglo-Saxons in this time period, the shroud is a fake, a good fake, but a fake.

New test dates Shroud of Turin to era of Christ
Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY 4:25 p.m. EDT March 30, 2013

New scientific tests on the Shroud of Turin, which went on display Saturday in a special TV appearance introduced by the Pope, dates the cloth to ancient times, challenging earlier experiments dating it only to the Middle Ages.
[...]
The burial shroud purports to show the imprint of the face and body of a bearded man. The image also purportedly shows nail wounds at the man's wrist and pinpricks around his brow, consistent with the "crown of thorns" mockingly pressed onto Christ at the time of his crucifixion.

Many experts have stood by a 1988 carbon-14 dating of scraps of the cloth carried out by labs in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona that dated it from 1260 to 1390, which, of course, would rule out its used during the time of Christ.

The new test, by scientists at the University of Padua in northern Italy, used the same fibers from the 1988 tests but disputes the findings. The new examination dates the shroud to between 300 BC and 400 AD, which would put it in the era of Christ.

It determined that the earlier results may have been skewed by contamination from fibers used to repair the cloth when it was damaged by fire in the Middle Ages, the British newspaper reported. The cloth has been kept at the cathedral since 1578.
He also said his tests also supported earlier results claiming to have found traces of dust and pollen on that shroud that could only have come from the Holy Land.

The latest findings are contained in a new Italian-language book � Il Mistero Della Sindone or The Mystery of the Shroud, by Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at Padua University, and Saverio Gaeta, a journalist.

Fanti, a Catholic, used infra-red light and spectroscopy � the measurement of radiation intensity through wavelengths -- in his test. He said the results are the outcome of 15 years of research.

The Telegraph also reports that a new app, sanctioned by the Catholic church and called "Shroud 2.0," allows anyone to use a smart phone or tablet to explore the shroud in detail.
Contributing: Associated Press

I think there will never be a place called Israel and the enemies which surround and unite against them will never try to drive them into the sea. Pure hogwash.

Likewise, the Jews will never regain their promised land and If they do they will lose it after all nations on earth don't turn against them.

You would really throw out the whole Bible if the Shroud was suddenly determined to be authentic? Is this how most Christians see it? Seems a bit drastic to me.

Rock Chuck is referring to the Christian claim that the Bible is inerrant. If an authentic shroud proved the Biblical accounts of The Crucifixion wrong, Christians would have to ask in what other ways were their perfect holy book less then perfect, and thus casting the domino of doubt.

What does the Bible say about the Shroud?

So...the 1988 tests, conducted in Oxford, Zurich, and Arizona all found the cloth to date back to between 1260 and 1390 (a 130 year window).

But a 'new' test done only at an Italian university (remember the shroud is in Italy in a Catholic cathedral) claims the cloth dates back to between 300 BC and 400 AD (a 700 year window).
And a new book written by an Italian Catholic (who also works at the university where the 'new' test was conducted) also supports the findings of the 'new' test.

Got it.

Mark 15:46 states that Jesus was wrapped in linen. "The Greek verb used means 'press in,' "pack,' 'force in.' Matthew and Luke obviously found the word somewhat unseemly and replaced it with one that means 'envelop.' But the clear implication of all three synoptics is that the material was bound tightly round the body." 1 The Shroud of Turin shows an image made by simply lying a linen shroud on top of the front of the body, over the head and down the back.


Matthew 27:59: is ambiguous. It describes Joseph wrapping the body "in a clean linen cloth." The "cloth" could have been broad linen fabric in the shape of the Shroud of Turin, or could have been in the form of narrow linen bandage(s).


Luke 24:12 says that Peter observed the "...linen clothes laid by themselves..." If Jesus had not been wrapped in linen strips, but had been enclosed by the Shroud of Turin, one would expect Luke to have written that Peter saw the "...linen cloth laid by itself..." And the NIV translation would not have mentioned "strips of linen."


John 19:40 indicates that Jesus burial was a normal one, following the Jewish traditions. Thus, Joseph of Arimethea would have washed the body. The body shown in the Shroud of Turin was not washed.


John 20:6 repeats the events recorded by Luke; he mentions that Peter saw "the linen clothes," not the linen cloth.


John 20:7 makes a point of mentioning that there was a head covering -- a napkin -- as well as the (plural) "linen clothes." This passage describes multiple clothes. It does not match the shroud of Turin which is a single panel of linen.

That seems illogical to me. If the shroud could somehow prove that Christ was resurrected, it would disprove His divinity cause the bible got the account wrong?

Seems a pretty weak and frail faith a person professes to have if it is dependent upon whether or not a piece of cloth is authentic or not...or if it is dependent upon the exact wording of a verse or two of any of the hundreds of different translations of the Bible made by men using copies of copies of copies, etc. over the millennia.

Reading your answers from the Bible is it fair to say nobody knows?