Hi everyone,
The following articles may be of interest, on the topic of the Shroud of Turin:
Smithsonian Channel: How to Fake the Shroud of Turin
Without the use of pigment or paintbrushes, could the Turin Shroud have been faked? Luigi Garlaschelli thinks he has the answer - and will re-create the Catholic relic to prove it’s a medieval fake.
The Bloodstains On The Shroud Of Turin Are Probably Fake, Say Forensic Experts by Dan Vergano (Buzz Feed News, July 14, 2018)
The bloodstain pattern investigation reported on Tuesday by the Journal of Forensic Sciences is the first such analysis of the cloth, looking at its purported blood splatters and their alignment to each other in a kind of crime scene analysis. The researchers concluded that the linen appears patched with bloodstains from a standing model, not a crucified man or facedown corpse, adding to evidence that the shroud is a medieval fraud.
“This is the kind of forensic work done all the time in police investigations,” Matteo Borrini, a forensic scientist at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, told BuzzFeed News. “Even a crucified or hanging person should leave a distinct blood pattern on the cloth, which would be fascinating information to have.”
Borrini conducted the analysis with chemist Luigi Garlaschelli of the University of Pavia in Italy, using real and synthetic blood samples on cloth to test the orientation of stains on the better-defined left side of the cloth (they also compared the two liquids to see if they flowed the same way). They hoped to answer a debate over whether the crucifixion depicted on the cloth was T-shaped, Y-shaped, or some other manner of ancient Roman execution.
Instead, they found that the bloodstains are inconsistent with any one pose, suggesting that a standing model was used to imprint the patterns at different angles for the hands, chest, and back. If it were a death shroud of a bleeding, executed person, hung on a cross, or pulled down from one for burial, Borrini said, “the bloodstains shouldn’t be so inconsistent.”
The Shroud of Turin: Burial cloth of Jesus or cheap fake? by John L. Ateo and Rachel C. (Silly Beliefs, 2009)
And of course, as I’ve already mentioned, there are evidently serious anatomical problems with the image — “Jesus’ face, body, arms, and fingers were unnaturally thin and elongated, one forearm was longer than the other, and his right hand is too long. The man is improbably tall, between 5’ 11½” and 6’ 2" tall. Jews who lived in the 1st century were much shorter than this." (As someone has commented, if Jesus was really this tall he would have really stood out and there would have been no need for Judas to point him out to the Romans). “The head is disproportionately small for the body, the face unnaturally narrow and the forehead foreshortened, and ears lost. The front and back images, in particular of the head, do not match up precisely, and the back image is longer than the front. The back of the head is wider than the front of the head. The hair is hanging straight down, as if the man was sitting.”…
The Turin Shroud is a fake… and it’s one of 40: Historian claims linen cloths were produced 1,300 years after crucifixion by Matt Kalman (Daily Mail, 10 June 2012)
Not only is the Turin Shroud probably a medieval fake but it is just one of an astonishing 40 so-called burial cloths of Jesus, according to an eminent church historian.
Antonio Lombatti said the false shrouds circulated in the Middle Ages, but most of them were later destroyed.
He said the Turin Shroud itself – showing an image of a bearded man and venerated for centuries as Christ’s burial cloth – appears to have originated in Turkey some 1,300 years after the Crucifixion.
Is the Shroud of Turin Real or Fake? by Wayne Jackson (Christian Courier):
As mentioned above, the Shroud is one piece of cloth that allegedly contains the entire imprint of the body of Christ “from face to feet.” Though the New Testament synoptic writers mention the linen cloth (Greek sindon) in which the Lord’s body was bound (Matthew 27:59; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53), it is also significant that other “cloths” (othonion, diminutive, plural) were used to wrap the body as well (Luke 24:12; John 19:40; 20:5-7). And Christ’s head was separately covered with a small cloth (soudarion) according to John 20:7, which was somewhat comparable to a handkerchief (cf. Acts 19:12).
Here is an interesting question: If the large Shroud covered Jesus’ face, why would there be a need for a smaller cloth on top of that?
Turin Shroud: “Blood” Still Fake by Joe Nickell (Center for Inquiry, July 28, 2017):
Again and again, Fanti and other do-or-die shroudologists have relied on questionable shroud samples. These are being passed around among devotees, but Archbishop of Turin Cesare Nosiglia insists they cannot be authenticated as having come from the Turin cloth. (Allegedly they are snippings left over from earlier tests, and they only turn up in the possession of shroud believers.) …
Actual shroud “blood” samples have been shown, by internationally known forensic serologists (blood experts), to fail all of the microscopical, chemical, biological, and instrumental tests for blood—not surprisingly, since the stains were suspiciously still red and artistically “picturelike.” One expert found traces of apparent paint, and famed microanalyst Walter C. McCrone (1996) identified the “blood” as red ocher and vermilion pigments in a collagen tempera medium.
Shroud of Turin (Wikipedia):
Radiocarbon dating
…Some proponents for the authenticity of the shroud have attempted to discount the radiocarbon dating result by claiming that the sample may represent a medieval “invisible” repair fragment rather than the image-bearing cloth.[8][9][16][13][80][81][82][83] However, all of the hypotheses used to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted,[10][11][12] including the medieval repair hypothesis,[13][14] the bio-contamination hypothesis[16] and the carbon monoxide hypothesis.[11]
Vibrational spectroscopy
In 2013, Giulio Fanti performed new dating studies on fragments obtained from the shroud. He performed three different tests including ATR–FTIR and Raman spectroscopy(absorption of light of different colors). The date range from these tests date the shroud between 300 BC and 400 AD.[84][85][86] These studies have been publicly disregarded by Cesare Nosiglia, archbishop of Turin and custodian of the shroud. Archbishop Nosiglia stated that “as it is not possible to be certain that the analysed material was taken from the fabric of the shroud no serious value can be recognized to the results of such experiments”.[87][88]
In the light of the above evidence, I think it’s time for Shroud backers to admit that theirs is a lost cause.
See 