Shroud Of Turin Is A Medieval Easter Prop

[stromboli]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/10/25/historian-shroud-turin-is-actually-medieval-easter-prop/?intcmp=latestnews

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

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

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

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

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

In Freeman's view, the Shroud of Turin was not a forgery intended to deceive but a prop used during the Easter "Quem quaeritis? ("Whom do you seek?") ceremony, and he points to the 1988 radiocarbon-dating of the shroud that dated it to the 14th century as further proof.

AN OPPOSING VIEW:
http://www.newser.com/story/182181/study-shroud-of-turin-created-by-huge-earthquake.html

NEWSER) â€" It's been a long-running debate: Is the Shroud of Turin a fake? A new entrant in the "no" category emerges from the pages of the journal Meccanica, where Italian researchers suggest that an 8.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked Jerusalem in 33AD both formed the image and distorted the results of radiocarbon dating that was done on the shroud in 1988, which indicated it was just 728 years old. The Telegraph reports that scientists have previously floated neutron radiation as the way the shroud, said to be the burial cloth of Jesus, came to purportedly bear his image; similarly, Heritage Daily reports neutron radiation has been suggested as interfering with the dating of the shroud. But no legitimate source of such radiation had been identified.

But Professor Alberto Carpinteri's research into piezonuclear fission reactions has led him to believe the earthquake would have produced high-frequency pressure waves in the Earth's crust that would have caused those neutrons to be emitted; the particles then "induced the image formation on the Shroud's linen fibers" by interacting with the nitrogen atoms in the fabric, explains Carpinteri. Further, he says the radiation would have raised the shroud's level of carbon-14 isotopes, giving it an artificially youthful age when carbon-14 dating was done on it. But skeptics abound, reports LiveScience. Asks one, why is "the material here ... affected, but other archaeological and geological material in the ground is not?" Click for more on the Turin Shroud, including a story on Hitler's obsession with it.

Well, color me biased, but I'm more inclined to accept the first explanation.

[josephpalazzo]

"the earthquake would have produced high-frequency pressure waves in the Earth's crust that would have caused those neutrons to be emitted"

Hmmm... fucking moron, that would have been true for every neutron on this planet  in that region. So that one would see it in other stuff.
BTW, on Professor Alberto Carpinteri: "In 2013 INRiM was set in temporary receivership and Carpinteri dismissed after the resignation of two-thirds of the board of directors in objection of Carpinteri's support in the purported theory of piezonuclear fission.^"
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Carpinteri , he is basically a quack, not the kind of source you would trust.

EDIT

[josephpalazzo]

Further research on piezonuclear fission and Carpinteri:

(1) The only "published articles" on this theory are in a journal for which Carpinteri is on the editorial board.

(2) No other team of physicists ever reproduced what Carpinteri has claimed in said "published articles".

[AllPurposeAtheist]

STOP PERSECUTING THEM DAMMIT!    For all we know it was Mitt Romney before he came back to earth from the mothership.. 

[kilodelta]

Who are we to dispute their reverence of a bloody rag? But, they should really be worshipping the First Swaddling Cloth which I could sell to them for a modest fee. Not only does it have the remnants of the holy afterbirth, it also contains the most spiritual hymen blood ever to have been shed.

[Atheon]

It was proven conclusively to be a fake in 1988. End of story.

[SGOS]

A theatrical prop that is close to becoming a saint.  Why to go, Christians.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Just think, some day Judy Garland's ruby slippers will be holy relics and some schmo preacher will convince millions that Jesus died on the cross wearing them..

[stromboli]

(Stromboli puts "high frequency pressure waves" in his book of potential excuses for not catching fish)

[AllPurposeAtheist]

(Stromboli puts "high frequency pressure waves" in his book of potential excuses for not catching fish)

Don't forget to wear the holy ruby slippers when you write it..

[stromboli]

Don't forget to wear the holy ruby slippers when you write it..

Lol. This is so funny because it shows how far the "legitimate sources" that defend the holiness of the shroud will go to insist it is the real deal. These people and Creationists are in a dead heat for the Holy Grail of Herp Derp.

[josephpalazzo]

Lol. This is so funny because it shows how far the "legitimate sources" that defend the holiness of the shroud will go to insist it is the real deal. These people and Creationists are in a dead heat for the Holy Grail of Herp Derp.

That went way beyond creationism and the Shroud of Turin. Carpinteri was a director of the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Turin. Two-thirds of the board of directors of INRiM resigned in order to object to Carpinteri's piezonuclear fission quack theory. Not to mention OPERA, another Italian team which completely went fiasco on FLT neutrinos 3 years ago, and you can see that physics is not doing too well in Italy. Galileo must be turning over in his grave.

[stromboli]

That went way beyond creationism and the Shroud of Turin. Carpinteri was a director of the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Turin. Two-thirds of the board of directors of INRiM resigned in order to object to Carpinteri's piezonuclear fission quack theory. Not to mention OPERA, another Italian team which completely went fiasco on FLT neutrinos 3 years ago, and you can see that physics is not doing too well in Italy. Galileo must be turning over in his grave.

Don't forget Marco Polo brought noodles back from China and they renamed it pasta. Sort of a pattern there.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't forget Marco Polo brought noodles back from China and they renamed it pasta. Sort of a pattern there.

OMG! I had pasta for supper. This is freaking spooky!

[AllPurposeAtheist]

We should make a movie about the quest for the holy ruby slippers..  Click the heels 3 times for a free toaster..