BeachCast.TV: Bible Exploration, Apologetics and Church History with Dr. Chase A. Thompson:

Today's Bible reading for January 2 is in Genesis 2, Ezra 2, Matthew 2 and Acts 2. These include some incredibly significant passages! Matthew 2 details the visit of the Wise Men/Magi with Jesus when He was extremely young, as well as Herod's attempts to snuff out His life by killing all male Bethlehem children who were 2 years of age and younger. In response to the threats against them, Joseph leads Mary and Jesus into exile in Egypt, where they stay for no more than 2 years. (We know this because Herod died around 4 B.C. and Jesus was likely born sometime between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C., so it is possible that Jesus and His family only sojourned in Egypt for a few weeks/months. To understand how it was that Jesus was born 4-6 B.C., scroll down to the bottom)

The Genesis 2 passage is a detailed description of the creation of man and woman, and God's first verbal interactions with them, which comes in the form of a command - they may eat from ANY tree in the Garden of Eden EXCEPT the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Interestingly, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was NOT the only named tree in the Garden of Eden - there was also the Tree of Life, which Adam and Eve could freely partake of.)

"In the beginning, "the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." The sexual arena stands to the fore, of course; yet there is a symbol-laden depth to the pronouncement. It is a way of saying that there was no guilt; there was nothing to be ashamed of. This happy innocence meant openness, utter candor. There was nothing to hide, whether from God or from each other. How different after the Fall. The man and the woman hide from God, and blame others. The candor has gone, the innocence has dissipated, the openness has closed. These are the immediate effects of the first sin."

D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word., vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 25.

Ezra two is one of the more difficult reads in the Bible - especially out-loud! because it is an extremely long list of names, and many of them are hard to pronounce. I'm going to enjoy reading that passage on today's podcast.

Acts chapter 2 sees the disciples of Jesus - men and women - gathered together in prayer, and seeking to be clothed with power from on high. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes on them in a powerful and obvious way, and they speak in other languages, or tongues, and proclaim the good news of Jesus to thousands of Jewish people and foreigners. 3,000 of those respond to the message, and the church is birthed on the Day of Pentecost. This is our featured passage of the day.

"Rich were the blessings of this day if all of us were filled with the Holy Ghost. The consequences of this sacred filling of the soul it would be impossible to overestimate. Life, comfort, light, purity, power, peace; and many other precious blessings are inseparable from the Spirit's benign presence. As sacred oil, he anoints the head of the believer, sets him apart to the priesthood of saints, and gives him grace to execute his office aright. As the only truly purifying water he cleanses us from the power of sin and sanctifies us unto holiness, working in us to will and to do of the Lord's good pleasure. As the light, he manifested to us at first our lost estate, and now he reveals the Lord Jesus to us and in us, and guides us in the way of righteousness. Enlightened by his pure celestial ray, we are no more darkness but light in the Lord. As fire, he both purges us from dross, and sets our consecrated nature on a blaze. He is the sacrificial flame by which we are enabled to offer our whole souls as a living sacrifice unto God. As heavenly dew, he removes our barrenness and fertilizes our lives. O that he would drop from above upon us at this early hour! Such morning dew would be a sweet commencement for the day. As the dove, with wings of peaceful love he broods over his Church and over the souls of believers, and as a Comforter he dispels the cares and doubts which mar the peace of his beloved. He descends upon the chosen as upon the Lord in Jordan, and bears witness to their sonship by working in them a filial spirit by which they cry Abba, Father." Source: C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).

What was Pentecost?

Pentecost is the Greek name of a Hebrew festival (Shavuot) that was instituted by God all the way back in the book of Exodus. The focus of the Feast of Weeks, also known as the Feast of the Harvest, was to celebrate God's provision of wheat, and other early harvested food-crops, to His people. Deuteronomy 16 gives some details:

9 "You are to count seven weeks, counting the weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10 You are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God with a freewill offering that you give in proportion to how the Lord your God has blessed you. 11 Rejoice before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to have his name dwell—you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite within your city gates, as well as the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow among you. 12 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt; carefully follow these statutes.

Pentecost/Shavuout usually occurs sometime between May and June of our current calendar year, and is still celebrated by many Jewish people. They celebrate the holiday by reading the book of Ruth (much of which took place at harvest time) and enjoying a feast with various dairy based treats.

P.S. Time is a funny thing, and dating is a funny thing. We are in the year 2020 according to most Western calendars, but the Western (Gregorian) calendar isn't the only one that is in use. The Chinese calendar is much older than the Western, and we are in year 4716 according to their reckoning, moving to 4717 on January 25, 2020. According to the Hebrew calendar, we are in year 5780, and according to the Islamic calendar, we are in the year 1441. Confusing, right?! The Gregorian or Western calendar is came into use in the 16th century and is based on an understanding that reckoned year 1 as the time that Jesus was born.

Interestingly, and obviously when you think about it - our understanding of year 1 would not have been held by the inhabitants of the Roman Empire living at the time - the vast majority of which would have no idea who Jesus of Bethlehem would be, or understand the concepts of A.D., B.C., or C.E. and B.C.E. Instead, year 1 to them would have been the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Paullus or 754 AUC in Rome. The A.D. and B.C. system that designated A.D. 1 did not come into being until 525 A.D. when it was put forward by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus, and it appears that he miscalculated the time of the birth of Jesus by a few years, so that Jesus was actually Himself born in the B.C. period. Strange, I know! Exiguus' system was not widely used until the 800s A.D., so that up until the ninth century, the vast majority of Western people did not date things the way we currently do.

To further clarify, A.D. stands for a Latin Phrase, "Anno Domini" which means "in the year of the Lord**" 1 A.D. was thought to be the year that Jesus was born. B.C. means 'Before Christ,' and time is measured in years distant from the birth of Christ. For instance, an event that took place 100 years before the time considered to be the birth of Jesus would be reckoned as 100 B.C. and an event that took place 100 years after the time considered to be the birth of Jesus would be reckoned as 100 A.D. There is no year 0 in this scheme. Much more information here in the Wikipedia article.

** A.D. has never stood for 'After Death,' despite the commonly held misconception.

JANUARY 1 readings in Robert Murray M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan: Today's Scriptures are Genesis 1, Ezra 1, Matthew 1 and Acts 1. Here is how the show is going to go, at least at first. Each day, we will start out reading a chapter from one of the day's selections. Then we will ask and answer a question about that passage, and throw in some biblical encouragement also. After that - you can be done with the episode...but for those who want to LISTEN to the entire selection for the day, the other three chapters will be read after the first one. There is no practical spiritual difference between hearing the Word of God and reading the Word of God. Both are equally profitable, so it is not at all 'cheating' to listen to the Word rather than read it - provided your mind doesn't wander. Consider Romans 10:17

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

All about Ezra (from Theopedia)

Nehemiah 8:1-6 "When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people gathered together at the square in front of the Water Gate. They asked the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had given Israel. 2 On the first day of the seventh month, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding. 3 While he was facing the square in front of the Water Gate, he read out of it from daybreak until noon before the men, the women, and those who could understand. All the people listened attentively to the book of the law....vs 6 6 Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and with their hands uplifted all the people said, "Amen, Amen!" Then they knelt low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground."

"BABYLON had overthrown Judah, and now in its turn it was vanquished by Cyrus: this was greatly for the good of the Jews, for the Persian king became their friend and patron, according to ancient prophecies. Thus the Lord's purposes were fulfilled. When his time is come, all things work together to accomplish his designs...These vessels were the lawful spoil of Cyrus when he captured the city of Babylon and its temples: a generous spirit prompted him to restore them to their ancient use. God knows how to provide for his own temple; Cyrus restored the vessels, but the Lord's hand was in the matter." Source: C. H. Spurgeon, The Interpreter: Spurgeon's Devotional Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1964), 456.

A note on the new direction of the Bible Mystery Podcast. For 2020, we are now the Bible Reading Podcast - focused on daily encouragement from God's Word with devotional thoughts from spiritual giants, question and answer + more!

Episode 4: Busting Shroud Myths, Part 2:

In one statement, John Walsh (His book The Shroud) observed: "The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and instructive relic of Jesus Christ in existence ... or it is one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever, products of the human mind and hand on record. It is one or the other; there is no middle ground."

I did a recent - July, 2019 - survey of Baptist Pastors on The Shroud of Turin. Of those that responded to the poll - only 3.5 percent believed that the Shroud was the genuine burial cloth of Jesus. Half of them were agnostic - it was an interesting historical artifact that could not be verified, and just slightly under half 41 percent - believed the Shroud to be a forgery. I did a much larger poll in The Astonishing Legends facebook group - a group of people that are quite open and interested in paranormal things. In that survey, 132 out of 350 - 38 percent - believed the Shroud to be a hoax, which is very similar to the Baptist pastor's percentage. However, there were more true believers in the paranormal group, with 37 out of 350 - 11 percent - believing that the Shroud was the genuine burial cloth of Jesus. Shroud agnostics - believing the Shroud to be interesting, but unverifiable - represented 181 out of 350 respondents, just over half at 52 percent. Therefore, based on my informal surveys of a little over 400 people - roughly half of those respondents are just like me - uncertain about the Shroud. Over the next few episodes of this podcast, we are going to cover the history of the Shroud of Turin, and the most modern research and findings. Maybe by the time we are done, we'll all still be Shroud agnostics, but maybe - just maybe - we will together unearth enough information to change our minds and develop a clearer and more definitive view of one of the most controversial and noteworthy artifacts of church history.

Today, we are continuing to bust some myths about the Shroud. Next episode we will present 10-25 arguments in favor of the authenticity of the Shroud, some arguments against it, and likely conclude this series.

1. Myth: The Shroud has always been owned by the Catholic Church, and they have officially endorsed it. In fact, it appears that the Catholic Church did not have official possession of The Shroud until 1983 when the royal House of Savoy conveyed ownership of The Shroud to The Holy See. If you remember your AP Modern European History, you might remember that the Savoys began as a small ruling family in the Alps northwest of Italy proper, and grew to become the dominant royal family in Italy, reigning over the country from 1861-1946, and also briefly ruled Spain in the 1800s. Although the Catholic church does not have an official position on The Shroud, several Popes and other church officials have commented favorably about it, including:

   Cardinal Ratzenberger/Pope Benedict, who called The Shroud, "A truly mysterious image, which no human artistry was capable of producing. In some inexplicable way, it appeared imprinted upon cloth and claimed to show the true face of Christ, the crucified and risen Lord"." (This was said when Ratzenberger was a Cardinal, and was not said officially/Ex Cathedra, so it was not considered an official endorsement of the whole church.

   Pius 11, 1936, "These are not pictures of the Blessed Virgin, it is true, but pictures that remind us of her as no other can. Since they are pictures of her Divine Son, and so, we can truly say, the most moving, loveliest, dearest ones that we can imagine." What a strange quote - am I wrong that it seems to be suggesting that pictures of Mary, mother of Jesus, would be more remarkable than pictures of Jesus, the son of God? When any theology places more attention, emphasis and weight on Mary than they do on Jesus, this is where I have a massive difference with them. Source of quote "The Shroud, a Guide" by Gino Morreto. (I note here that I can't find this quote by Pius 11 elsewhere)

2. Pope John Paul II

"Since it is not a matter of faith, the church has no specific competence to pronounce on these questions," the late Pope John Paul II said in 1998. ALSO: "The Holy Shroud is the most splendid relic of the Passion and Resurrection [of Our Lord Jesus Christ]. We become what we contemplate... Why don't we contemplate the Icon of Icons: The Holy Face of Jesus!" Instead of icons made by man, let us venerate the greatest icon of all: The Holy Face of Jesus!" and also, "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin ... The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age."

Most recently, Pope Francis commented on The Shroud during his first Easter address:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I join all of you gathered before the Holy Shroud, and I thank the Lord for offering us this opportunity, thanks also to new devices. We do not merely "look" if we are looking at it, it is not a simple look, but it is a form of veneration, a look of prayer and also it is a way of letting him look at us. This face has eyes that are closed, it is the face of one who is dead, and yet mysteriously he is watching us, and in silence he speaks to us.

How is this possible? How is it that the faithful, like you, pause before this icon of a man scourged and crucified? It is because the Man of the Shroud invites us to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth.

This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our heart and moves us to climb the hill of Calvary, to look upon the wood of the Cross, and to immerse ourselves in the eloquent silence of love.

Let us therefore allow ourselves to be reached by this look, which is directed not to our eyes but to our heart. In silence, let us listen to what he has to say to us from beyond death itself. By means of the Holy Shroud, the unique and supreme Word of God comes to us: Love made man, incarnate in our history; the merciful love of God who has taken upon himself all the evil of the world to free us from its power.

This disfigured face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life which does not respect their dignity, by war and violence which afflict the weakest… And yet, at the same time, the face in the Shroud conveys a great peace; this tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty. It is as if it let a restrained but powerful energy within it shine through, as if to say: have faith, do not lose hope; the power of the love of God, the power of the Risen One overcomes all things.

So, looking upon the Man of the Shroud, I make my own the prayer which Saint Francis of Assisi prayed before the Crucifix: Most High, glorious God, enlighten the shadows of my heart, and grant me a right faith, a certain hope and perfect charity, sense and understanding, Lord, so that I may accomplish your holy and true command.

Amen.

One Catholic commentator on St. Francis' speech above noted, ""The shroud draws [people] to the tormented face and body of Jesus and, at the same time, directs [people] toward the face of every suffering and unjustly persecuted person." This is condemning/damming the Shroud with faint praise and reinforces that Pope Francis really does think (wrongly) that the Shroud is just another fake icon."

I agree with that commentator - reading between the lines of St. Francis' pronunciation, speech, it is quite clear that he is either a Shroud Agnostic, or possibly even thinks it is a forgery.

So - it would seem that, in the Catholic church, the opinions on the authenticity of The Shroud are quite varied. It appears that more Catholic leaders consider The Shroud authentic than do leaders of other major religious groups, but the fact that The Vatican has stopped short of pronouncing the Turin Shroud should possibly give us pause. Do they have reason to suspect it is inauthentic - unreleased reasons? Possibly.

I'll say this - I don't understand religious veneration of objects. That seems completely contra to the clear teachings of the Old and New Testaments. Some branches of Christianity do this, but I think they are missing it. If The Shroud is authentic, then it is fascinating and wonderful, but not at all worthy of a single drop of religious devotion. If it is inauthentic, then it is less so. Either way, it is a fascinating artifact.

If genuine, it is one of the great treasures of history and should be in our finest museum. Just don't worship it - it is a linen cloth. It didn't die for you. It has no power to save you. I see no indication that it holds any special significance to God. I own a collectible card with a verified piece of a jacket that Elvis Presley sang in and wore. If I had the whole jacket - what would that avail me? Would it help me dance better? Sing better? Become more famous? Could I bring it to Graceland and get free entry for wearing it? Could I take it to surviving members of Elvis' family, and ask to become an honorary Presley? None of those things. And The Shroud would get you less far in Heaven than The Presley jacket would get you in Graceland.

What should we do if it is inauthentic? Burn it, throw it away? Of course not! I still believe it belongs in our finest museums of art (as opposed to history) If it is art - it is incredible art. Mystifying and awe-inspiring.

Whatever it is - The Vatican isn't saying for sure one way, or another. They appear to be fans, but in a mostly unofficial capacity.

1. Maybe Myth: The Shroud has been fully replicated.

   One of the major issues that has surrounded The Shroud from the beginning has been that, up until recently - even skeptics agreed that the way The Shroud was produced is unknown and thus postulating a medieval forgery was quite difficult, because nobody knew how a person could forge such an image with medieval equipment. There have been other ancient technologies that have been a mystery to modern man. Damascus steel, for instance, has not been inarguably replicated by modern blacksmiths. Roman Concrete has a kind of durability that modern concrete lacks, and scientists are only recently discovering some of the secrets to its longevity. Archimedes is said to have developed a sort of heat ray that was powerful enough to burn up boats from a significant distance away, but it is difficult for us to replicate such a ray using the technology that Archimedes would have had 200 years before the birth of Jesus. To that list, we should certainly add The Shroud, for if it is a forgery - it is an incredibly sophisticated, impressive and technologically advanced one.

   N.D. Wilson's amazing 2005 article in Christianity Today, entitled "Father Brown fakes The Shroud" is a must read for Shroud enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the only possible way to read it is to get your hands on that 2005 magazine in a library somewhere, or pay CT $30 for a digital subscription - which is what I did. 15 years ago N.D. Wilson supposedly figured out how one might fake The Shroud of Turin, and since that time, I have heard several people say or intimate that The Shroud had conclusively been proven a fraud with the 1-2 punch of #1 1988 medieval dating and #2 Wilson's reproduction.

   Wilson's method of duplicating The Shroud is ingenious. Basically, he and an artist friend painted a reverse image on a large pane of glass, and then had the sun shine through that image onto a Linen cloth over a period of several days. The sun bleached the cloth - lighter in areas of heavy paint and darker in areas of light paint. The resulting image does indeed look fairly authentic and Shroud-like to the naked eye. It does prove that it is possible, with the right equipment, to put a negative-like image like The Shroud onto a linen cloth. Here are some objections that have been raised:

   1. The cloth contains pollen from plants only found in Palestine - that would be difficult for a European forger to get. For one, he would have no idea that such a thing could potentially authenticate The Shroud. Wilson notes that the cloth could have been procured from a first century, Jewish grave, which I suppose is technically possible.

2. The figure in the Turin Shroud is pierced through his wrists, not through his hands. In recent years, it has been discovered that crucified people would have to have been pierced through their wrists (and not their hands) in order to actually be suspended from a cross. This does not at all contradict the Passion accounts in all four Gospels in the Bible, because the Greek word used for 'hands' can also include the wrist area, unlike our English, which more clearly delineates between the two. Almost the totality of medieval art depicts the nails used during the crucifixion of Jesus being located in the hands, rather than the wrists. If the Shroud were a forgery, it is remarkable in the extreme that the forger would have known to include nail holes in the wrists, rather than in the hands.

3. I am not an expert on 1300s era glass technology, but some who are have argued that the kind of large and flat pane windows that would have been needed to sun-bleach the painted image of a man onto a large linen cloth would not have been available in the early medieval period. This is a fairly strong objection that I don't believe Wilson's article - as thorough as it is - addresses fully.

4. The figure on the Shroud has real wounds and real blood. This, of course, means that it was more than merely a sun-bleached image. Wilson contends that somebody had to have been murdered in order for forgers to make The Shroud using his method. Again, such a thing is technically possible.

5. It appears to some that the figure in The Shroud has coins in its eyes - and the type of coins appear to be first century coins that would have been commonly used in Israel during the time of Christ. That a medieval forger would be able to add such a detail is fairly astonishing. Of course, as with everything surrounding The Shroud, others (and Wilson, I presume) argue that there are no coin impressions in the eyes of the Shroud-figure.

6. Finally, if The Shroud is a forgery, those who painted the image on the glass had a remarkable and accurate knowledge of both the full details of Roman crucifixion and how the body would have responded to such crucifixion. Additionally, the anonymous forgers would have had to have a strong knowledge of anatomy and wound-effects, as the wounds on The Shroud figure are consistent with what modern medical technology would expect. Wilson contends that there were many medieval people with deep and accurate knowledge of anatomy, and the only reason we don't expect the forgers to have such knowledge is because we have a sort of bias against people from the past and assume they are unsophisticated and unintelligent. Such bias is certainly real, I will readily admit, though it does seem that medical history of the last 500 years demonstrates that medieval medicine and anatomy was indeed quite primitive.

So - did Wilson definitively prove that medieval forgers could have produced The Shroud? Maybe, maybe not. Even Wilson admits, "I have not proved much. Or, I do not think that I have. Men and women who have believed in the Shroud will continue to believe. There is a fireman somewhere in Italy who risked his life to save the Shroud. I have a great deal of respect for that man. Perhaps I've given those who disbelieve more reason for noses lifted in the air, but I have not proved that the Shroud was faked. What I have done is crudely demonstrate that such an image could easily be produced in a matter of weeks by wicked men with no scruples, a little imagination, and a little more skill. The fact that it could have been faked does not mean that it was, though I believe it to have been. "

I'll say this - Wilson's supposed forgers would have had to be: remarkably intelligent, gifted with art, well supplied with very rare (if existent) glass panes, and have an astonishing - for the time - knowledge of medicine, Roman history and human anatomy. Additionally, they would have had to be in possession of a cloth from Palestine, and possibly even pollen that had come from Palestine as well.

There have been other attempts to recreate the Shroud as well. In 2009 the University of Pavia organic chemistry professor and skeptic society member Luigi Garlaschelli produced a fairly convincing (at first glance) reproduction.

He describes his attempt: "What you have now is a very fuzzy, dusty and weak image, Then for the sake of completeness I have added the bloodstains, the burns, the scorching because there was a fire in 1532."

Garlaschelli says his work disproves the claims of the shroud's strongest supporters.

"Basically the Shroud of Turin has some strange properties and characteristics that they say cannot be reproduced by human hands,"For example, the image is superficial and has no pigment, it looks so lifelike and so on, and therefore they say it cannot have been done by an artist."

"The procedure is very simple. The artist took this sheet and put it over one of his assistants," "His good idea was to wrap the sheet over the person underneath because he didn't want to obtain an image that was too obviously a painting or a drawing, so with this procedure you get a strange image, Time did the rest,"

As you might imagine, there are several people who disagree that Garlaschelli has produced a convincing replica. Dr. Thibault Heimburger has written an extensive and scientific rebuttal of Garlaschelli's method, essentially arguing that it does not really duplicate all of the elements of the Shroud, but is only a superficial likeness. His paper, linked in the shownotes, concludes:

L.G. concluded: "We have also shown that pigments containing traces of acidic compounds can be artificially aged after the rubbing step (…) in such a way that, when the pigment is washed away, an image is obtained having the expected characteristics as the Shroud of Turin. In particular the image is pseudo negative, is fuzzy with half-tones, resides on the top-most fibers of the cloth, has some 3D embedded properties and does not fluoresce". I think to the contrary that the image has none of these characteristics (except negativity and nonfluorescence). L.G. used a sophisticated method and a new interesting hypothesis, and he got the best Shroud-like image today. It is interesting to notice that even so, the properties of his image remain in fact very far from the fundamental properties of the Shroud image. 9 For the moment, the Shroud image remains unfakeable.

Source: https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/thibault-lg.pdf

Shroud blogger Stephen Jones has also debunked the replication of Garlaschelli: http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2018/08/my-critique-of-borrini-m-garlaschelli-l.html

3. The complex herringbone twill pattern of the Shroud was not possible in the first century.

Some Shroud skeptics have speculated that the particular pattern of sewing used on the Shroud is too complex and advanced have been created in the first century.

In the Summer of 2000, archaeologists James Tabor and Shimon Gibson stumbled upon a freshly robbed first century grave outside of Jerusalem. Amazingly, the grave still had bodies in it, and one of them was encased in a somewhat intact first century shroud - the first shroud of that era that has been recovered in or around Jerusalem. Tabor writes of this discovery in a way that is very dismissive of the Turin Shroud:

Although 1st century cloth has been found at Masada and in caves in the Judean Desert, nothing of this sort had ever been found in Jerusalem. Apparently that niche, sealed with a blocking stone, had a geological fissure that kept water from seeping in and rotting the material.

The tomb had any number of interesting features. DNA studies were done on all the individuals represented in the tomb—the first time, so far as we know, that this had even been done in an ancient Jerusalem tomb of this period. Textile analysis was done on the cloth—it turned out to be a mixture of linen and wool, not woven together but layered with a separate head piece. It had a distinctive 1st century weave—in contrast to the Shroud of Turin.

News articles from major sites like BBC and CNN concluded that this was yet more evidence that the Shroud was a fake. From the CNN article:

"And in addition, the weave of the shroud raises fresh doubts about the Shroud of Turin, which many people believe was used to wrap the body of Jesus.

According to researchers involved in the excavation and subsequent testing, the recently discovered shroud lends more credible evidence that the Shroud of Turin does not date to Roman times when Jesus died but from a later period." SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/16/mideast.ancient.shroud/index.html

However, it should be noted that none of the researchers actually engaged in much textile research, nor were they textile experts. They were simply taking the design and weave of one 1st century burial cloth and concluding that all other 1st century burial cloths from that area would have a similar weave-pattern. That seems plausible at first, but it turns out that it is not true.

Hamburg textile expert Mechthild Flury-Lemberg is a recognized art historian and expert on the restoration of ancient textiles. She was able to examine and work on restoration/repair of the Shroud in 2001/2002 and published a book on it. She concludes on chapter of that book by saying:

"The seam that connects the 8 cm wide strip to the larger segment is not a simple one. The type of seam construction chosen clearly displays the intention to make the seam disappear on the face of the cloth as much as possible. This is another reason to believe that the Shroud was planned and produced by professionals. The sewing has been done from the reverse of the fabric and the stitches have been executed with great care and are barely noticeable on the face of the Shroud. The seam appears flat on the face and raised like a roll on the reverse of the fabric . Examples of this same kind of seam are again to be found among the textile fragments of Masada, already mentioned above. To conclude this chapter it can be said that the linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which speak against its origin as a high quality product of the textile workers of the first century A.D." SOURCE: Sindon by Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, pages 59-60, December 2001.

John Tyerer, a chartered textile technologist, "It would be reasonable to conclude the linen textiles with 'Z' twist yarns and woven 3/1 reversing twill similar to the Turin Shroud could have been produced in the first century Syria or Palestine." (Source: The Shroud and The Controversy by Gary Habermas and Kenneth E. Stevenson, pg. 69)

4. The Shroud was myth-busted by John Calvin, among many others, who show us that The Scripture demands TWO burial cloths (one for the head, one for the body) and not ONE.

The Sudarium of Oviedo, long believed to be the "napkin" that was wrapped around Our Lord's head after His crucifixion and death, has been shown to have 120 "points of coincidence" with the Shroud, including the same AB blood type.

Researchers assert, "The only possible conclusion is that the Oviedo sudarium covered the same face as the Turin Shroud."

John Calvin: 4 Arguments against The Shroud:

1. THERE ARE MULTIPLE 'SHROUDS' THAT CLAIM TO BE GENUINE. It is now time to treat of the "sudary," about which relic they have displayed their folly even more than in the affair of the holy coat; for besides the sudary of Veronica, which is shown in the Church of St Peter at Rome, it is the boast of several towns that they each possess one, as for instance Carcassone, Nice, Aix-la-Chapelle, Tréves, Besançon, without reckoning the fragments to be seen in various places.Now, I ask whether those persons were not bereft of their senses who could take long pilgrimages, at much expense and fatigue, in order to see sheets, of the reality of which there were no reasons to believe, but many to doubt; for whoever admitted the reality of one of these sudaries shown in so many places, must have considered the rest as wicked impostures set up to deceive the public by the pretence that they were each the real sheet in which Christ's body had been wrapped.

Answer: That counterfeits exist does not at all prove that there is no genuine article. Rather, a counterfeit shroud (or three) can be a fairly convincing proof that - at least at one time - there was a significant genuine shroud.

2. THE BIBLE DOES NOT RECORD A CLOTH WITH AN IMPRESSION ON IT. St John, in his Gospel, relates even how St Peter, having entered the sepulchre, saw the linen clothes lying on one side, and the napkin that was about his head on the other; but he does not say that there was a miraculous impression of our Lord's figure upon these clothes, and it is not to be imagined that he would have omitted to mention such a work of God if there had been any thing of this kind.

Answer: John 21:25 25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were written one by one, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written. This is a clear argument from silence. That doesn't mean it carries now weight - it does indeed carry some weight...but not enough to actually disprove the veracity of the Shroud. It should be pointed out that the miracle of the Shroud IF it happened and IF it was noticed by the ladies or the disciples would NOT have been all that significant in comparison to the resurrection of Jesus or the appearance of angels at the tomb. One can quite easily answer this argument from silence with another plausible argument from silence, and it is one I've not heard before. Consider how short, relatively speaking, each of the Gospels are - the Longest is Luke, checking in at just under 20000 words. In total, all four Gospels are approximately 65,000 words - not very lengthy. This is about the size of a shortish paper-back novel. Given the relative brevity of these accounts, I find it remarkable that ALL FOUR Gospels mention the grave clothes of Jesus. Why? It would seem there would be little reason to record any details about the grave clothes unless...possibly...something remarkable happened to them. Now - is that argument enough to convince a skeptic? Of course not - because it is a very, very weak argument! So is Calvin's argument here that the Gospels would have mentioned it if something miraculous happened with the grave-wrapping of Jesus.

3. THE CLOTHES WERE GUARDED AND LEFT IN THE GRAVE. Another point to be observed is, that the evangelists do not mention that either of the disciples or the faithful women who came to the sepulchre had removed the clothes in question, but, on the contrary, their account seems to imply that they were left there. Now, the sepulchre was guarded by soldiers, and consequently the clothes were in their power. Is it possible that they would have permitted the disciples to take them away as relics, since these very men had been bribed by the Pharisees to perjure themselves by saying that the disciples had stolen the body of our Lord ?

This one is not terribly difficult to answer. None of the gospels record the detail of removing the clothing, which could be because they did indeed remove it, but did not notice an image imprinted on it. It is highly unlikely they would have left cloth behind in the grave for reasons both sentimental and practical. As well, it should be noted that the Gospels do not record the presence of a guard at the tomb AFTER the resurrection of Jesus.

4. THE SHROUD IS ONE CLOTH AND THE BIBLE CLEARLY SHOWS THAT TWO CLOTHS SERVED TO BURY JESUS.

I shall conclude with a convincing proof of the audacity of the Papists. Wherever the holy sudary is exhibited, they show a large sheet with the full-length likeness of a human body on it. Now, St John's Gospel, chapter nine teenth, says that Christ was buried according to the manner of the Jews ; and what was their custom ? This may be known by their present custom on such occasions, as well as from their books, which describe the ancient ceremony of interment, which was to wrap the body in a sheet, to the shoulders, and to cover the head with a separate cloth. This is precisely how the evangelist described it, saying, that St Peter saw on one side the clothes with which the body had been wrapped, and on the other the napkin from about his head. In short, either St John is a liar, or all those who boast of possessing the holy sudary are convicted of falsehood and deceit. * *

This is probably Calvin's most well known argument contra the Shroud and the one that I hear most well-educated Protestants make when I bring up the Shroud to them That the Bible suggests a plurality of gravecloths, but the Shroud is only one cloth. On the surface, this might seem like a pretty compelling claim against the Shroud, but it is not quite as open and shut as Calvin would have us believe.

The most relevant passage in the Bible to this discussion is John 20: 6 Then, following him, Simon Peter came also. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. 7 The wrapping that had been on His head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded up in a separate place by itself.

Pretty clear, right - according to John's Gospel, there were not ONE but TWO burial cloths that wrapped Jesus. One, mentioned in vs 6 (Greek: ὀθόνια (othonia)/PLURAL) and the other in verse 7 - a cloth wrapped around Jesus' head. (Greek: σουδάριον Soudarion)

Here's the thing, though - Many Shroud researchers, including Kenneth Stevenson, Gary Habermas, Ian Wilson, Barrie Schwortz and others contend that the Shroud shows evidence that there was a head cloth wrapped around the Shroud figure's neck and head - most likely to hold the jaw in place.

It would appear that the Sudarion was not a very significant part of the grave cloths that wrapped Jesus, as Matthew, Mark and Luke do not mention it in particular. Consider:

Mark 15:46 46 After he bought some fine linen, he took Him down and wrapped Him in the linen. Then he placed Him in a tomb cut out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.

Luke 23:53 and 24:12 52 He approached Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. 53 Taking it down, he wrapped it in fine linen and placed it in a tomb cut into the rock, where no one had ever been placed...12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths. So he went home, amazed at what had happened.

And Matthew 27: 59 So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, 60 and placed it in his new tomb, which he had cut into the rock. He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb.

So, the three synoptic gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke - don't mention the head-wrapping, or the sudarion, but John does. Could this indicate that the sudarion was a smaller garment - one that would not have left much of an imprint on the Shroud? Possibly. But, again, I emphasize - The Shroud seems to allow for the existence of a head-scarf type wrapping, as well as ones around the wrists and feet. Rather than the Biblical account disproving The Shroud, it actually seems to describe it quite well.

5. THE ABUNDANCE OF FAKE RELICS PUT FORWARD BY MEDIEVAL CATHOLICS PROVES THE SHROUD IS ALSO FAKE. St Honoratus has a body at Arles, and another at the island of Lerins, near Antibes.St Giles has a body at Toulouse, and a second in a town bearing his name in Languedoc.I could quote an infinite number of similar cases. I think that the exhibitors of these relics should at least have made some arrangement amongst themselves the better to conceal their barefaced impostures. Something of this sort was managed between the canons of Trêves and those of Liége about St Lambert's head. They compounded, for a sum of money, not to show publicly the head in their possession, in order to avoid the natural surprise of the public at the same relic being seen in two different towns situated so near to each other. But, as I have already remarked at the commencement of this treatise, the inventors of these frauds never imagined anyone could be found bold enough to speak out and expose their deceptions.

This is really more of a subset of argument #1, and it is a fairly strong argument. However, it must be said that not every statement made by a dishonest person is a lie, and it is perfectly possible that not every relic claimed by the medieval Catholic church was fake. Most likely were. Were they ALL fake? I'm not convinced they were.

So - Hopefully you've enjoyed this little bit of busting myths.

You can probably tell that I want the Shroud to be the real thing. There's several reasons for this, but none of them are apologetics-related. In other words, I don't want the Shroud to be the real burial cloth of Jesus because I think that would help prove the Bible to be reliable, or Jesus to be the resurrected Son of God. No article could prove such a thing. I do, however, want the Shroud to be real and genuine in the same sort of way that I want there to be a real Loch Ness Monster, or an extant Holy Grail somewhere out there. The world is a more interesting place with a legit Nessie swimming around in the cold waters of Scotland, and it is a more interesting place with real, tangible artifacts from the time of Jesus. Does that bias me? Possibly it does, and I don't want to enter this discussion biased. It does make me consider the claims of debunkers with a greater skepticism, however, and that might not be a bad thing.

I love John Calvin and am quite persuaded by his soteriological leanings in the realm of theology. That said, I believe his debunking of The Shroud is somewhat ham-handed, especially his contention that it is easily proved false by John 20 argument that the Bible says there were two different kinds of grave-clothes. I believe that there were indeed two different kinds of graveclothes used on Jesus - the Bible is explicit about this - there was a linen cloth that the body of Jesus was wrapped in, and a head covering (of some sort) that went along with it. That said, the Shroud appears to show evidence of there being a head scarf or head wrapping of some sort, and even if it didn't, one could easily see how the Shroud figure could have been wrapped in more than one cloth. I have little patience for people who believe the extraordinary simply because somebody told them it was so - gullibility is delightful in children, but unbecoming and unsophisticated in adults. I also have little patience for those who claim to debunk complex objects and possibilities with overly-simplistic and reductionist arguments. It is definitely possible - even plausible - that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval forgery, but the fact that John 20:7 mentions a sudarion that was on the head of Jesus does not necessarily debunk the authenticity of The Shroud in any sore of logical, philosophical or archaeological way.

Ok - that was a long episode. ONE more Shroud episode coming up - a summation of sorts. I hope to have 20-25 reasons to believe the Shroud could be authentic as well as a number of reasons to NOT believe in the authenticity of The Shroud. Thanks for being patient, and thanks for listening. Please leave a positive review if you are so inclined.

Jessica Spitz, writing recently for NBCNews.com, basically asserts that science has proven - again and again - that The Shroud of Turin is conclusively a fake. The centerpiece of her argument is the carbon dating of The Shroud. She writes:

Forensic scientists have once again concluded that the Shroud of Turin, supposedly the burial cloth Jesus was wrapped in after his crucifixion, was artificially created.

The Shroud, which is kept in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, has long been a subject of controversy within the Catholic community. Believers say its stains are the blood of Jesus, while others have questioned whether the stains are even blood at all.

The new research is in line with numerous previous studies that have concluded that the Shroud is not authentic. Earlier carbon dating work has determined that it dates to 1260 to 1390; Jesus is generally believed to have died in the year 33. And a blue ribbon panel called the Turin Commission concluded in 1979 that stains on the garment are likely pigments, not blood, while textiles experts and art historians have suggested that the materials and images are not from the right era. SOURCE

Reading the article, it sounds very, very definitive. Science has CERTAINLY concluded in many ways that The Shroud is a fake, and this new study just adds more evidence. So - let's take a look at some of these definite proofs and consider whether or not they can convince us that The Shroud is a forgery. Spitz summarizes how this particular 2018 scientific inquiry 'proved' the Shroud of Turin false in this way:

In the most recent study, forensic scientists used blood pattern analysis to investigate the arm and body position necessary to yield the pattern seen on the Shroud. Using a living volunteer and a mannequin to model several positions, researchers determined that the patterns were consistent with multiple poses, which contradicts with the theory that Jesus was buried in the cloth lying down.

In other words, reading between the lines, the researchers concluded that the blood splatter pattern on The Shroud conclusively could NOT have come from a victim that was lying still, but one that was moved about some. Think about it for a moment. Does the fact that the figure on The Shroud shows evidence of being moved AFTER being wrapped in the burial cloth indicate that The Shroud itself must be a forgery? I'm not sure how one could come to that conclusion - especially considering the Biblical testimony that the followers of Jesus took steps to prepare the body of Jesus for permanent burial. As well, we see clear evidence in Matthew that the body of Jesus was wrapped in linen AND THEN MOVED into the tomb. Surely such a thing could account for "multiple poses." Consider:

So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, 60 and placed it in his new tomb, which he had cut into the rock. He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were seated there, facing the tomb. (Matthew 27:59-61)

So - does the fact that the Shroud Figure had "multiple poses" conclusively prove that The Shroud is a fake? Of course not - Scripture is clear the body of Jesus was moved, which could certainly account for those multiple poses. But don't take my word for it.

Victor Weedn, chairman of forensic sciences as George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said in an interview that while the experimental approach seemed to make sense, he was "skeptical of this analysis," saying there was no reason to believe that the body could not have been moved while being transported.

"We're not dealing with things we really know about," Weedn said. "We just don't know if this cloth was laid on someone who just laid there or was wrapped around the body or moved some before being put in a particular place."

Weedn is an Ivy League professor with a Juris doctorate and a Medical doctorate - a brilliant man. I think we can consider this particular scientific study conclusively debunked.

As a side note, I believe these passages about the burial of Jesus and the preparation of His body in particular are quite interesting relative to the resurrection of Jesus, and I've written about it fairly extensively in my book on the resurrection Easter: Fact or Fiction. We often assume the ancient followers of Jesus were quite gullible and not at all sophisticated - that they would have glibly accepted the idea of a person coming back to life because they would not have understood it to be scientifically impossible. However, biblical evidence clearly contradicts this - the disciples of Jesus DID NOT expect Him to return. They hid out and mourned. An expensive linen cloth was used to wrap the body of Jesus - strange behavior if one expected him to return in a few short days - why waste the cloth? The female followers of Jesus DID NOT expect Him to rise from the dead - they came to prepare His body for permanent entombment. Even Mary Magdalene, upon seeing the open tomb of Jesus did not assume resurrection, but asked where His lifeless body had been moved to. The followers of Jesus did not expect the resurrection, despite Jesus' claims that He would return from the dead.

Probably the biggest single evidence against the authenticity of The Shroud - at least in most people's mind - is the results of the 1988 radiocarbon dating, which concluded that the fabric was from the 1300s, give or take 200 years. If that conclusion was accurate, then The Shroud would very obviously be a medieval forgery of some sort. I believe that the number of congruences between the figure in The Shroud and the biblical account of the passion, suffering and crucifixion of Jesus are too numerous for one to assume that the figure in The Shroud is anyone but Jesus, and thus - if the cloth is from the 1300s, then The Shroud is an intentional forgery meant to mislead. The trouble is, that there is much debate - scientific, theological, and philosophical - about that carbon dating figure. In one of the groups mentioned above, we can see the two polarizing opinions that people have adopted based on this carbon dating:

N.S: "No one has been able to replicate how it was made, which is fascinating. And one of the fiber samples taken for carbon dating turns out to have been a repaired section so that accounts toward the dating inconsistencies. I've always been interested in the Shroud and it's physical characteristics.

On the other hand, A.M. wrote: I feel like the "carbon dating was from a repaired section" thing has been taken as gospel (no pun intended) without looking at the evidence against that theory; among them the fact that the weaving is not typical of judaean fabrics of the early first century CE, and that several experts including a textile restoration specialist have said that the section from which the sample is taken is microscopically indistinguishable from the rest of the cloth, which is simply not possibly if the repair were undertaken in the time to which the sample dates. There have been many, MANY attempts to prove the 14th century origin date wrong, and all of them have been failures or have been ginned up with test results that were not able to be duplicated and independently verified.

A survey of headlines on major websites shows a similar pattern: Confident and contradictory claims that appear to be irrefutable. For instance:

Life Site News: Scientists debunk theory that Shroud of Turin is medieval 'hoax'

NBC News:

Forensic research (once again) suggests the Shroud of Turin is fake.

BBC News: Turin Shroud Older than Thought.

Independent.Co.Uk: 628-year-old fake news: Scientists prove Turin Shroud not genuine (again)

USA Today: New Test Dates Shroud of Turin to Era of Christ.

Reuters: New Forensic Tests Suggest Shroud of Turin is a Fake.

History.com: Shroud of Turin Isn't Jesus' Burial Cloth, Claims Forensic Study

Phys.org - Study of Data from 1988 Shroud of Turin testing suggests mistakes.

Dozens - or more - studies have sought to undermine the 1988 C14 tests. Some have been quite convincing...other, a bit less so. For instance, from a Churchmilitant.com article:

"A theory surfaced in 2014 that the earthquake when Our Lord died on the Cross might have impacted the Shroud's radiocarbon results.

Radiocarbon dating is based on measuring radioactive decay, the process by which atoms lose neutrons. The group of scientists in Italy made the case that the tremors on Good Friday possibly caused emissions of neutrons from the earth's crust, impacting atoms in the Shroud's fibers. If atoms in the Shroud were affected by neutron emissions, this would massively skew the results of radiocarbon dating." Source

Are you confused yet? I sure am. I think it is obvious that scientific consensus isn't 100 percent behind the hoax or genuine side of The Shroud debate. So - what's the story on that C-14 dating that conclusively and supposedly proved The Shroud was faked?

Here's what happened: (FROM WIKIPEDIA SO AS TO BE NEUTRAL)

On April 17, 1988, ten years after the S.T.U.R.P. project had been initiated, British Museum scientific director Michael Tite published in Nature[31] the "final" protocol:

• the laboratories at Oxford, Zürich, and Tucson would perform the test;
• they would each receive one sample weighing 40 mg., sampled from a single portion of weave;
• the laboratories would each receive two control samples, clearly distinguishable from the shroud sample;

samples would be delivered to the laboratories' representatives in Turin;

each test would be filmed;

• there would be no comparison of results (nor communication) between laboratories until the results be certified as definitive, univocal, and complete;

Samples were taken on April 21, 1988, in the Cathedral by Franco Testore, an expert on weaves and fabrics, and by Giovanni Riggi di Numana. Testore performed the weighting operations while Riggi made the actual cut. Also present were Cardinal Ballestrero, four priests, archdiocese spokesperson Luigi Gonella, photographers, a camera operator, Michael Tite of the British Museum, and the labs' representatives.

As a precautionary measure, a piece twice as big as the one required by the protocol was cut from the Shroud; it measured 81 mm × 21 mm (3.19 in × 0.83 in). An outer strip showing coloured filaments of uncertain origin was discarded.[37] The remaining sample, measuring 81 mm × 16 mm (3.19 in × 0.63 in) and weighing 300 mg, was first divided in two equal parts, one of which was preserved in a sealed container, in the custody of the Vatican, in case of future need. The other half was cut into three segments, and packaged for the labs in a separate room by Tite and the archbishop. The lab representatives were not present at this packaging process, in accordance with the protocol.

The labs were also each given three control samples.

In a well-attended press conference on October 13, Cardinal Ballestrero announced the official results, i.e. that radio-carbon testing dated the shroud to a date of 1260-1390 AD, with 95% confidence. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

So - that's that, right? 95 percent confidence by three different labs that The Shroud was from the 12-1300s. End of story. The radiocarbon dating slammed the door on The Shroud's authenticity for many, many people. One of the foremost Shroud researchers and proponents, who was himself a member of the original STURP team of scientists who studied the Turin Shroud in the late 1970s, is a man named Barrie Schwortz. He runs Shroud.com, which is probably the most visited site devoted to the TS on the internet. In commenting on the results of the dating, Schortz describes the reaction by Shroud devotees:

"As soon as the dating results were leaked to the press, the world of the Shroud came to a complete and sudden halt. Many researchers took this as the final word and disengaged completely. The years of hard work by the STURP team and the many papers they published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature was immediately disregarded and ultimately, forgotten. These were indeed the bleak years of Shroud research." (SOURCE)

Except, there were objections raised about the radiocarbon testing almost from the beginning. Actually, to be fair, there were objections raised YEARS before the testing actually took place. Professor William Meacham is an archaeologist who writes articles with titles like, "High-throughput field phenotyping using hyperspectral reflectance and partial least squares regression (PLSR) reveals genetic modifications to photosynthetic capacity" and "Determination of the original firing temperature of ceramics from Non Nok Tha and Phimai, Thailand" Before The Shroud was carbon-dated, Meacham cautioned against letting the results be the end-all determinant of the authenticity or lack thereof of Shroud. In 1986, he wrote:

"In recent discussions on the possible authenticity of the Turin Shroud, the question of the value of C-14 dating persistently recurs. Virtually all researchers agree that the test should be performed; sufficiently small samples can now be measured so that the appearance of the relic is not altered. Several C-14 dating proposals are now under consideration by the Archbishop of Turin.

In contrast to these positive developments, however, there appears to be an unhealthy consensus approaching the level of dogma among both scientific and lay commentators, that C-14 dating will "settle the issue once and for all time." This attitude sharply contradicts the general perspective of field archaeologists and geologists, who view possible contamination as a very serious problem in interpreting the results of radiocarbon measurement. In this paper I shall examine the issue of the reliability of C-14 testing to produce an "absolute date" on the linen sheet known as the Holy Shroud of Turin and believed by some to be the gravecloth of Christ...Reviewing recent Shroud literature of all persuasions, I find little awareness of the limitations of the C-14 method, an urge to "date first and ask questions later," and a general disregard for the close collaboration between field and laboratory personnel which is the ideal in archaeometric projects. Regarding the Shroud, consultations should take place among archeologists, historians, conservationists, cellulose chemists and of course radiocarbon scientists in order to formulate a specific C-14 sampling and dating procedure. As I shall endeavor to demonstrate below, the radiocarbon measurement of the Shroud is a complex issue, and the inclusion of all relevant expertise is highly important."

Later, Dr. Meacham concludes his long and excellent paper on this issue, "My own tentative proposal for dating the Shroud is that at least five samples be taken: 1) a single thread from the middle of the cloth, between dorsal and ventral images; 2) a small piece cut just in from the edge next to the site of Raes' piece I; 3) a piece of the charred cloth; 4) a piece cut from the side strip next to the site of Raes' 11; 5) a piece of the backing cloth sewn on in 1534. The principal samples would be 1 and 2, with 3 possibly confirmatory; 4 would hopefully clarify the question of an added side strip: 5 would be a control for modern contamination. All samples would be subjected to elaborate pretreatment, SEM screening and testing (microchemical, mass spectrometry, micro-Raman) for impurities or intrusive substances such as higher order hydrocarbons, inorganic and organic carbonates. Samples 2-5 would be measured by both gas proportional and accelerator counting. Samples of a least 3sq. cm each would be required for intensive pretreatment (likely to sacrifice a portion of the sample), measurement of fractions, and controls for micro-testing. A total of 12 sq. cm. or so of the relic itself would thus be required. Selvage edges would be avoided, as in the British Museum inter-comparison experiment (Burleigh et al 1985:3). In view of the myriad contamination possibilities, at least two fractions of each sample should be measured, by each counting method, if possible.

In the end, with luck, we would have at least two or three radiocarbon ages in good agreement and possibly, quite possibly, indicative of the true calendrical age of the Shroud linen. That is all we would be justified in claiming.

The existence of significant indeterminant errors can never be excluded from any age determination. No method is immune from giving grossly incorrect datings when there are non-apparent problems with the samples originating in the field. The results illustrated [in this paper] show that this situation occurs frequently. Regardless of the C-14 result, evidence from other sources would of course remain of considerable importance in the overall evaluation of the age and origin of the relic.

A C-14 age later than the first century would not of course constitute scientific proof of the inauthenticity of the Shroud, since radiocarbon dating is a based on a number of unverifiable assumptions -- the most important in this context being that the carbon extracted from the sample is indeed identical with the carbon absorbed from the environment when the sample was alive. But of course C-14 measurement does usually provide a reliable indication of true calendrical age." SOURCE (CLICK HERE)

Over the years, many have raised objections to the method and conclusions of the test, which most certainly did not follow the protocols that Professor Meacham called for. The main objections raised included the possibility of contamination of the sample (due to more than one fire that The Shroud was exposed to - as well as the touch of hundreds/thousands of medieval hand), as well as the location of the sample being near the edge of the garment - an area some have thought to be part of a medieval repair.

Think of it like this: Have you heard of the Ship of Theseus? It's one of the more fascinating thought experiments and it has been around for thousands of years, at least since 500 years before the time of Jesus. So - who was Theseus? He was the possibly mythical founding king of Athens. The thought experiment goes like this: Let's say Theseus had a great battle ship that he won some big battles in. Over the years, the ship has to be repaired some planks are damaged, the mast is broken, rot sets in, etc. After a few decades, due to the nature of wood, fabric and rope (and the corrosive effect of salty winds and oceans) - all of the original parts of Theseus' ship has been replaced. Not all at once, of course - but over the years, bit by bit. The philosophical question is this: Is it still Theseus' ship despite the fact that there is not a single original part left?? The second part of the thought experiment is to consider another hypothetical. What if Theseus kept in a storehouse EVERY single part of his boat that was replaced. Further still, what if somebody was able to restore and repair every single former part of the ship, and then completely rebuilt it - using the original parts and to the exact specifications of the original. Which of the two boats is more the original ship of Theseus??

Well, that's not the Bible mystery we are here to solve today, but it does serve as an oblique introduction to one of the major issues with testing The Shroud. - What if The Ship of Theseus - or a similar ship - was somehow in service for hundreds of years - dating back to an indeterminate time. Perhaps some modern scientists would want to radiocarbon date the ship to test how old it was. That test would only be accurate if one took a sample from an original plank on the ship. If the ship was originally built in 1525, but then repaired in multiple places in 1875, and the sample taken for the carbon test was from a repaired plank, then one could quickly see how the c14 test would fail to ascertain the real age of the ship, right? Well, that is exactly what many claim has happened with the 1988 radiocarbon dating of The Shroud. Many claim that the sample tested was either from a section subject to some unknown medieval era repairs, or it was tainted by a medieval fire, or medieval hands, etc. This is why professor Meacham argued in 1986 that radiocarbon dating should not be the only way that the date of The Shroud was determined.

A 2000 study by Joseph Marino and his wife Sue Benford found interesting results based on x-ray analysis of the TS sample sites. They found what they believe to be a seam in the sampled area of the fabric which is indicative of a repair made much later than when the cloth was originally made. The seam they found is diagonal and runs through the entire strip of the piece of fabric that was divided into three parts and sent to three different labs. Marino and Benford indicate that the variance of roughly 200 years found in the c14 dating of Arizona, Zurich and Oxford seems to correspond to the location of this diagonal seam, which caused the researchers to theorize that the repair was skewing the results of the dating test, and causing the three results to fall outside of the bounds of date agreement that statistical analysis would expect for three tests of the same exact cloth. Interestingly, after my first episode on the T.S., Mr Marino contacted me and sent some very helpful research my way.

Raymond Rogers was a chemist and thermal analysis expert who served for nearly 40 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was a high ranking military analyst as well, and wrote and edited numerous scientific journal articles. Rogers was the head of chemical analysis for the original STURP team that studied The Shroud. After the 1988 c14 testing, Rogers was initially convinced for years by the results of the test, but began to reconsider those results after reviewing the paper mentioned previously by Joe Marino and Sue Benford. Rogers reexamined some fiber samples from the Turin Shroud in order to debunk the debunkers. He was surprised to find clear microscopic evidence that a cotton patch had been skillfully weaved into the original linen of the tested part of the Turin Shroud. Rogers also noted that x-ray fluorescent photography done of The Shroud demonstrated that the part of the cloth where the sample was taken glowed a different color than the rest of the cloth, which would likely be an indicator that different fabric was contained in the tested sample. In 2005, shortly before his death from cancer, Rogers wrote a scientific paper on The Shroud for the chemistry journal Thermochimica Acta that contained a detailed chemical analysis of The Shroud fibers, (with pictures) and a discussion of the likely contamination of the sampled section of the cloth. The paper concludes:

"If the shroud had been produced between a.d. 1260 and 1390, as indicated by the radiocarbon analyses, lignin should be easy to detect. A linen produced in a.d. 1260 would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978. The Raes threads, the Holland cloth, and all other medieval linens gave the test for vanillin wherever lignin could be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than the radiocarbon laboratories reported...Because the shroud and other very old linens do not give the vanillin test, the cloth must be quite old. It is thus very unlikely that the linen was produced during medieval times...The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud. Because the storage conditions through the centuries are unknown, a more accurate age determination will require new radiocarbon analyses with several fully characterized and carefully prepared samples" SOURCE

More recently, Summer of 2019, a peer reviewed academic journal called Archaeometry, produced by The University of Oxford, published a very interesting article that called into question the results of the c14 dating of The Shroud. If you aren't familiar, Archaeometry "is an international research journal covering the application of the physical and biological sciences to archaeology and the history of art. The topics covered include dating methods, artifact studies, mathematical methods, remote sensing techniques, conservation science, environmental reconstruction, biological anthropology and archaeological theory."

An international team of researchers led by French researcher Tristan Casabianca obtained the raw results from the original 1988 radiocarbon testing and did some significant statistical analysis of those results, and also looked for other possible issues.

In a recent interview with the French magazine L'Homme Nouveau (The New Man), Casabianca summarized the findings of his team's study:

"In 1989, the results of the shroud dating were published in the prestigious journal Nature: between 1260 and 1390 with 95% certainty. But for thirty years, researchers have asked the laboratories for raw data. These have always refused to provide them. In 2017, I submitted a legal request to the British Museum, which supervised the laboratories. Thus, I had access to hundreds of unpublished pages, which include these raw data. With my team, we conducted their analysis. Our statistical analysis shows that the 1988 carbon 14 dating was unreliable: the tested samples are obviously heterogeneous, [showing many different dates], and there is no guarantee that all these samples, taken from one end of the sheet, are representative of the whole fabric. It is therefore impossible to conclude that the shroud of Turin dates from the Middle Ages."

The paper itself is incredibly complex, and very heavy on a type of statistical analysis that is well over my head in most places. I've read and reread portions of that paper, though, and I feel like I understand it well enough to note that it raises some very troubling concerns about the results of the 1988 dating. Some of those concerns include:

1. Significant contamination of various pieces of the very small Shroud samples sent to each laboratory. The paper notes:

" Despite the close visual inspection of the TS by textile experts and the loss of weight of approximately 25% after the cutting (FOIA 2017, 162), Oxford found and removed several textile fibres of different colours, including one identified by a textile laboratory to be cotton, 'possibly of Egyptian origin and quite old' (Anonymous 1988; FOIA 2017, 104). Oxford mentions that in one subsample there may have been 'glass', perhaps sodium Radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud 7 © 2019 University of Oxford, Archaeometry ••, •• (2019) ••–•• chloride crystals (Wilson 1995, 18; FOIA 2017, 103). In the original draft, Arizona indicated that 'a red thread and three blue threads' were removed from one of their subsamples (Turin Shroud Archive). In 2010, Arizona recognized that they had kept one piece of an undated TS subsample. On this subsample, the authors identified foreign material invisible to the naked eye, including a blue substance described as 'apparently wax' (Freer-Waters and Jull 2010, 1522) and some cotton fibres. Zürich may have found an assortment of debris (Marinelli 2012, 26)."

2. Significant statistical differences between the raw dates obtained by the three labs that each tested a similar sample of the Turin Shroud. Recall that a very small piece of the TS was cut off and sent to three different labs. One in Arizona, one in Zurich and one in Oxford. Supposedly all three labs returned the same results for the dating of the TS, but according to Casabianca's statistical survey of the raw results, that claim is not true. He shows that there was significant statistical variance between the results obtained by the three labs, especially the Arizona lab. Now, I'm going to read a part of the paper where Casabianca's team makes this claim, but I do not claim to fully understand what's going on here:

The analysis of the Arizona counts showed further interesting aspects. The eight counts of the Arizona data were categorized into four groups (A1 and A2, A3 and A4, A5 and A6, and A7 and A8) because they were executed on the same day using the same standards. The non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test (Table 5; see also Table S10 for the assumptions) shows highly statistically significant differences even if we consider the eight counts both separately and gathered (p-values