Could Shroud of Turin only have been made by today's science?
The Turin Shroud is the most famous relic in the world. Millions believe that it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ bearing his crucified and bloodied image. The cloth is kept at Turin in Italy. The cloth is an enigma. Many say it is a miracle.
In brief
It is said that a burst of radiation put the image of Jesus on the cloth as he
rose again.
But why then is the image so superficial? Radiation would have burnt deeper into
the linen fibres. The image sits on top of the herringbone weave.
And there is no proof that radiation can make such an image.
Where are the duplicates of the Shroud made with radiation? Shroud believers are
totally unscientific because you cannot go about saying radiation did it without
proving it is possible.
The nonsense about radiation is pure pseudo-science and encourages sceptics to
mistrust shroud science.
The Turin Shroud is the most famous relic in the world. Millions believe that it
is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ bearing his crucified and bloodied image.
The cloth is kept at Turin in Italy. The cloth is an enigma. Many say it is a
miracle. Carbon dating shows that the cloth does not go back to the time of
Jesus. That has not stopped the fanatics from trying to show that it does.
There are controls put on who exactly gets near the Shroud to examine it. Being
a scientist hellbent on making it seem like a miracle or authentic or being a
scientist whose scepticism is without real credibility seem to be the
qualifications for access as is having enough fame in the first place.
The believers claim that radiation or lasers produced the image and this was
miraculous because only modern technology can make anything like the shroud.
Some say it was made by “a short and intense burst of VUV directional
radiation”. So where are the shrouds they have made for us with lasers and
radiation? Where are the reproductions? They are cashing in on the fact that it
is hard to tell exactly how the image was done when it is centuries old and was
treated so badly for much of its history. And if the radiation that made the
shroud was a miracle then how can we know that it really was directional or
short? Maybe the radiation was all over the place and had to be miraculously
organised to affect the cloth. Maybe the radiation emanated for weeks and the
impression of a short burst is miraculous. The bias of the believer is evident.
Italian scientists at the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and
Sustainable Economic Development said in 2011 that the image on the cloth could
have been made by a flash of ultraviolet light. Today, we can make images like
that with ultraviolet light. But before the 1900's, that was absolutely
impossible. Following attempts to make a similar image using ultraviolet
technology the researchers concluded, "The results show a short and intense
burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce
many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin."
DO NOT READ TOO MUCH INTO THIS KIND OF STUFF. THEY ARE ONLY SHOWING THAT THE
SHROUD IMAGE COULD HAVE BEEN MADE BY SOME MODERN TECHNOLOGY NOT THAT IT WAS.
THEY DON'T CLAIM TO KNOW HOW IT WAS MADE. THE SHROUD IS NOT THE ONLY THING THAT
COULD HAVE BEEN MADE BY MODERN SCIENCE.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO OBSERVE THAT THEY CONCLUDED THAT THEY CAN REPRODUCE MANY BUT
NOT ALL OF THE STRANGE PROPERTIES OF THE IMAGE.
Believers in Jesus were delighted with this research. Yet the same believers
rejected many other attempts to make a shroud image. Those who used materials
available in the middle ages produced good images but allegedly they did not
manage to reproduce all the strange characteristics. And the believers dismissed
their research for that reason!
Professor Paolo Di Lazzaro stated, “When one talks about a flash of light being
able to colour a piece of linen in the same way as the shroud, discussion
inevitably touches on things such as miracles. But as scientists, we were
concerned only with verifiable scientific processes. We hope our results can
open up a philosophical and theological debate.”
The research found that because the man's hair hung down and his buttocks were
not flattened that he was suspended in mid-air when the image was imprinted. The
cloth was also suspended below and above him but not touching and this allowed
the image to be projected from the body. The image is of a man floating.
The claim that the body must have hovered in the cloth and then projected the
image is an interesting one. It means science cannot accept the cloth as
real for science is definite that bodies cannot do that and it cannot test the
theory. Individual scientists accept it as individuals but not as science.
The Bible says the cloths were found folded in the tomb
so not only did Jesus make them float anti-gravity style around him but folded
them as well! Very plausible scenario!
The hovering thing is taken by believers to be evidence that Jesus rose.
But it follows that if it looks like that is how it was made it does not follow
that it was. And there is no evidence that the image depicts a man who had
returned to life. It apparently depicts a hovering corpse.
You have scientists who say that Jesus turned into a spiritual body that was able to pass through the cloth. Nobody agrees on the alleged miracle that took place when the image was made. They don't know if the miracle was the hovering. They don't know if the miracle was that the image on the cloth appeared as if it hovered though the body touched it. God would find it easier to use Jesus' corpse and body fluids to arrange an art work on the cloth than to go to all the trouble of getting him to float in mid-air and get the cloth to float and then cause radiation to burn an image. Was the miracle that we have this amazing cloth but Jesus in fact is dead and never rose? God could make the image without Jesus being near the cloth.
The hovering is evidence on scientific and religious grounds that the cloth is fake. Science says it can't be how it looks. Religion says that it hovers and forgets that this turns the cloth not into a relic but a magical art work. We are left thinking it might have had nothing to do with a body.
The cloth even if evidence of a miracle is not evidence of what the miracle
actually was or was like or how it was done. Why would God make an image
of Jesus that does not verify the resurrection? Is he trying to tell us that
Jesus never rose? Is he trying to tell us that even if miracles happen
they are useless as teaching mechanisms or as revelations?
Errors in the research include the notion that just because they can make what
they describe as good images like the shroud image that the shroud image was
made the same way. Since today's science did not exist when the image was made
they conclude that the image was made supernaturally by a force that transcends
science.
Their reproduction of the image does not involve a corpse. They managed to make
something like the color of the image but that's all. Skeptics have done a
better job with reproductions of the Shroud. Unlike the researchers, they have
made images of a dead body that closely replicate the shroud. The researcher's
reproduction is not as good and convincing as they say.