It does. I point out there is no evidence that Jesus, or any other Jewish man around his time, had hair like that shown in the Turin Shroud, while the depiction of the man on the Turin Shroud has hair like a medieval Jewish stereotype. That’s what I have said, and that’s why your statement is a misrepresentation.
My case is based strictly on the evidence we have. That evidence corroborates other lines of evidence indicating that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval forgery. In contrast you haven’t provided any evidence for Jesus having long hair, a ponytail, a long beard, and sidelocks. Until you do, you have no case.
That’s called moving the goalpost, or setting an impossibly high standard of proof.
My goalpost was quite modest, BUT you decided to move it to a point of an impossibly high standard of proof, and even when I demonstrated that it was by no means impossible or even improbable for some jews to have long hair (the old testament does admire long-haired individuals such as Samson or Absolom), that was simply not enough for you.
No it isn’t. Moving the goalposts is when I make an argument, then you disprove it, then I change my original argument to something you haven’t disproved yet. In this case you made a claim, a very specific claim requiring a high standard of evidence, and I am pointing out you haven’t provided any evidence for it.
No. I already agreed that it is possible for Jesus to have had long hair, a ponytail, a long beard, and sidelocks, but that there is no positive evidence in favor of it, and there is positive evidence against it. This means the case against it is strong, while the case for it has no evidence at all.
As I have already pointed out, “not impossible” isn’t evidence. Additionally, you are pointing to people who lived 1,000-700 years before Christ (!), while ignoring all the evidence for people who lived much closer to him.
Quite the contrary in fact. You seem to forget that the super forger is super😀.
You guys who believe in the super forger hypothesis you are obliged to assume that the super forger had an extraordinary knowledge of the Jewish world in the first century AD. So, if it were true that no Jewish at the time of Jesus could have had long hair, the super forger would have known it and would not have forged an image of a man with such attributes.
There is no evidence that the forger needed to be “super” in any way. The obvious blunder they committed in making their “Jesus” look like a contemporary medieval Jewish stereotype, is clear evidence that they had little to no knowledge of Jewish life in the first century.
Regarding Hair issue during Jesus’ time. Quote from Kenneth Stevenson and Gary Habermas (Verdict on the Shroud; pub. 1981):
“One of the more curious features of the image is a long streak of hair which falls from the head to the shoulder blade on the dorsal image. This streak looks much like an unbound pigtail. Ian Wilson, the British historian, was the first to call attention to this detail. He calls it the most strikingly Jewish feature on the shroud. The German scholar Gressman and the French scholar Daniel-Rops have shown that it was a common fashion for Jewish men in Jesus’ time to wear their hair caught at the back of the neck in pigtail form. Orthodox Jewish rabbis and scholars confirm this.”
Apart from the hair which you find to be a mark of inauthenticity there are many other marks of authenticity on the shroud, some of which I have mentioned already.
One such mark if scourgemarks on the body of the person. There are hundreds of them, and each one matches exactly a roman flagrum.
The “German scholar Gressman” died in 1927, and the “French scholar Daniel-Rops” died in 1965. These are woefully outdated sources, neither of whom had any qualifications in the relevant fields. Why do Sevenson and Habermas have to reach so far back to these two random sources?
The appeal to unnamed “orthodox Jewish rabbis and scholars” is worthless without properly referenced citations and evidence; certainly “orthodox Jewish rabbis” are not remotely the best source for conclusions on this matter.
This doesn’t address any of the very clear archaeological evidence we have for the way Jewish men typically wore their hair in the first century, or any of the modern scholarship which overwhelmingly agrees Jesus would most likely have worn his hair like this.
Unsurprisingly the article only quotes people who believe the shroud is genuine, without addressing why other people don’t believe this is evidence of a man who was scourged and then wrapped in the shroud, and who don’t believe there are any genuine bloodstains on the shroud.
@Jonathan_Burke. Just because men “typically” wore their hair a certain way does not render the Shroud a forgery as you so boldly proclaim @ 263. I do not know if the Shroud is a forgery or not, but just because men “typically” wore their hair a certain way does not mean it renders the image a fake. There are many possible reasons why Jesus may have had longer hair “typically” worn at that time and it also possible the image is a fake. I do not think there is enough evidence either way.
Also, I emailed Gary Habermas and invited him here if he has the time to comment on this forum
Habermas believes the “shroud” is real? Interesting.
Which is not the claim being made. It is just a further piece of evidence.
Would you agree that the fact that Jewish men typically did NOT wear their hair in this fashion makes it difficult to claim that the hairstyle of the figure on the “shroud” is evidence of its authenticity, which is the original claim that was made?
Jesus wasn’t an ordinary judean citizen. He didn’t pursue fame or fortune, nor the acceptance of the societal norms of his time. We know from Josephus that John the baptist worn a long hair, ant the bible tells us that Jesus and J.B. were relatives. It was J.B. who baptised Jesus at the start of his ministry. If Jesus didn’t already have long hair at this point, his public commitment to being a prophet and a healer would’ve meant that he had, from this point forward, a legitimate reason not to cut his hair any longer. It was a sign of one’s having taken a vow.
He was just another poor innocent man that was killed for his beliefs and expressing those beliefs. He spoke truth to power and was killed for doing so. We all should be thankful that we live in a nation where we have freedom of expression.
You are not addressing my argument. Here it is yet again.
It is possible for Jesus to have had long hair, a ponytail, a long beard, and sidelocks
However, there is no positive evidence in favor of it.
There is positive evidence against it.
This means the case against it is strong, while the case for it has no evidence at all. Until you can change this, you have no case.
You’re not even addressing all the evidence which is claimed. Remember this is the claim.
Jesus had long hair.
Jesus wore his hair in a ponytail.
Jesus had sidelocks.
There is no evidence for any of these claims, and no one has even tried to present any. We know that sidelocks didn’t even start to be worn by Jewish men until centuries after Jesus. So what we have on the Shroud of Turin is an image which looks like a typical medieval Jewish stereotype. Why would this be the case, if the Shroud is a first century artifact? No one has answered this.
All of this is more handwaving and claims without evidence.
You’re a long way from showing any causal connection between the shroud image, and a medieval stereotype.
A quick look at the related wiki article shows that
“a fully bearded Jesus with long hair emerged around 300 AD”
One probable source for this depiction of Jesus was the
Which according to church tradition was “an icon not made by hands”, what is meant by this is that unlike all human artefacts, this image had no boundaries, it just sort of-- fades away at the edges, which is one more extraordinary property of the shroud.
BTW I haven’t seen any actual examples of the shadowshroud technique in use ever, and especially not during medieval times. If this was really the way the shroud was made, we would’ve seen other examples or at least descriptions of the use of this technique.
