All of that is true, but you can't simply ignore the evidence that it may be the shroud that covered Jesus. And as per usual, when it comes to Christian artifacts, people seem to demand a much higher standard of evidence than most every other person or event in history. If someone said it was the shroud that covered the body of Hitler, most would accept the evidence as sufficient enough to believe it was the shroud that covered Hitler's body. There are a few distinctions within the shroud that point to Jesus. Are you aware of them?
The statement that it is impossible that it is a hoax is not a supportable statement. The "shroud" has been protected against the kind of intrusive study that would be needed to be certain of its age. The bible has been studied to death a million times over, and it is still only approximately correct, when it isnt completely wrong.
It COULD have been. I dont know of proof it is not. Curious on this point... why would the romans treat him as special, after giving him the most disgraceful death they could think of? Their custom was to leave a body hanging there as an advertisement, until it disintegrated. We need to think probabilities here, possibly disproof, not talk "impossible" to forge, or proof of authenticity. Neither of those is possible. Probabilities... Which seems more likely, that J Smith really found gold books, or that he made up a story? Which seems more likely, that Jesus came back to life, there was an earthquake and zombie-saints going about, or, that after a space of time, people like Paul concocted a story a) for self aggrandizement and b) as a play to salvage a victory our of the death of a leader? As for your suggestion of some hypocritical standards of proof, if xtians didnt make a big deal of it, nobody would pay attention. When someone faked a Hitler diary, it was subjected to very careful scrutiny, and, shown to be a forgery. Art museums have an interesting time with forgeries. Some are very hard to detect. The work that goes into it is proportionate to the value. Xtiamns value this piece of cloth because of its supposed status. So get us a good C14 date on it, and it its really 2k years old, then it will gain some respect. I think you want to be careful with listening to evidence you want to believe. i can probably find a youtube that will make bigfoot sound like a sure thing.
The was no technology available that would've allowed for someone to create an image that, when photographed, appeared as a negative, all the light areas dark, all the dark areas light.
It's not because you don't believe that I say this. It's just apparent in your comments. You haven't looked into this much. It was dated using radiometric dating.
http://www.answering-christianity.com/abdul-rahman_klimaszewski/shroud_of_turin.htm http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.c...ted-thinking-from-shroud-of-turin-proponents/ lots of clear evidence
I could study the bible 16 hours a day from now on and it will still only be approximately correct when it isnt flat out wrong. Regarding C14- How many times, when, and what result(s) did they get?
Nor do I. But "may" is not the same as "is". May implies other possible alternatives. I am open to the possibility of Jesus being God... but I will not convert to Christianity based upon a maybe. But Hitler was not sealed in a tomb which he miraculously disappeared from, ascending to Heaven and only leaving behind a shroud with his image on it. I do not dispute that Jesus was a real man. But only a man... for him to be a God is IMO 100% impossible to empirically prove. This is why I say my faith began where my reason ended. Ask me to prove the existence of God and I will tell you that I cannot as it is an exercise in futility to prove the existence of a theological intangible. No, but as I do not dispute that Jesus was a real man it matters little. But I stand behind my assertion that the shroud does nothing to prove the resurrection.
We have hundreds of photo's of Adolf Hitler- we know exactly what he looked like. Not only that but we have thousands of contemporary documents which confirm that Hitler did exist- heck we have recordings of his voice, and I suspect that there are still few people alive who actually met Hitler in person. If this was an image of Hitler it would be easy to compare it against our evidence of what HItler looked like. We have no photographs of Jesus, we don't know how tall he was, he don't know if he had a mole on his right cheek, or whether he had a scrubby mustache like Hitler. I think the Shroud of Turin is fascinating, but the best that will ever be able to be proven, other than a miraculous visit by Christ himself asking for his shroud back, is to be able to establish that the shroud could have been made during Jesus's lifetime and in the area that he lived.
but no one is claiming hitler had supernatural powers, and that said shroud is 'evidence' of same. remember the old adage 'extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence'.
Where and when he was born, how old when he died, where and when he died, what he looked like.... The bible says there was a world wide flood and that the various languages derive from the tower of babel. The bible is a good source, just not of facts. Its never more than approximately right, when its not completely false.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FRU92fJO_g It's a long video but I found it to be pretty interesting. The short version of it the people who conducted the original carbon dating and tests on it realize that the piece that they analyzed wasn't a part of the original shroud. I never payed any kind of mind to do anything regarding the shroud and this is the first time I've actually looked into it but like I said, I thought it was very interesting. Even if this could be proven to be 2000 years old it doesn't prove who it belonged to. The most intriguing thing about all this though is how the image got on their to begin with.
not part of the original... ok, tho there's probably opinions on that too. When someone gets an actual C14 date, and some actual chemical analysis of relevant portions of this piece of cloth, then there would be something to discuss. So far it seems like discussing flying saucers.
Still refusing to watch any of the videos? It has been C14 dated. The results were a crushing blow to the claims the shroud belonged to Jesus. But then… Watch the videos! It's fun stuff.
Im not "refusing", I just dont see it as wroth my while. When someone has done C14 tests sufficient to determine the age within a range of probabilities that makes further testing or controversy moot, and chemical testing sufficient to say what is really present, then it will be of interest. Meanwhile, I dont think its fun, I think its tiresome. There are countless articles and vids about flying saucers, zero hard evidence. I think that is boring and tiresome too.
Actually the 1988 c14 tests were invalidated and if anyone here had taken the time to actually research this thoroughly they would have seen this. Agnostic Chemist Ray Rogers, senior fellow at the prestigious Los Alamos labs did a chemical analysis on the area that was taken for c14 testing in 1988 and found many things to finally make him admit that he was wrong about the c14 tests. First off the corner that was tested in 1988 was chemically different then any other area of the shroud. That in and of itself makes the test invalid, but Rogers didn't stop there. He found madder dye in the c14 tested corner and didn't find madder dye anywhere else on the shroud. Madder dye was a middle age dye used by expert French invisible reweavers and could even fool the eye of textile experts. The clincher here is when Rogers found an end to end cotton splice in the corner area which he didn't find in any other area of the shroud. Cotton had been rewoven into that area as part of an expert reweaving job. The corner area tested positive for vanillin while every other area of the shroud tested negative , making all the other areas of the shroud much much older then the newer rewoven corner. In fact Rogers dated the rest of the shroud to be between 1300 and 3000 years old. His work was published in the Italian peer reviewed chemical journal thermochimica acta in 2005. Almost all honest shroud research hers who have done their homework know that the 1988 c14 tests have been invalidated by Rogers work. Remember that Rogers was an agnostic and stated on video that he doesn't believe in miracles and the supernatural. Most atheists usually steer very far away from researching the shroud fully because of the amount of evidences that point towards its authenticity . Here is Rogers peer reviewed paper http://www.shroud.it/ROGERS-3.PDF
Taikoo, if your co paring the shroud to flying saucers then you really haven't done research on it have you. I have (to the tune of 5 years worth), and there is much evidence that point to it being much older then the now invalidated 1988 c14 tests as I have shown from Rogers peer reviewed work. If you had done your homework on how archeologists date relics you would have known that there are clear problems with c14 dating cloths. Then you would have known about the clear connection between the shroud of turin and the mandylion that date it historically to the early 500's and from the legend of Abgar all the way back to the time of Jesus. After this you would have studied the almost perfect congruent matches between the shroud and the Christ pantocrator of 528 ad. Then you would known that the blood stains on the head image are of the shroud is a perfect congruent match with the sudarium of Oviedo and that the history of the sudarium is indisputable to at least the 7th century. This is just a tiny nugget of the evidences that point towards authenticity. Once you come to this conclusion you then have to actually study the image itself and you will know that this is the only image of its kind on a burial cloth, that it matches the gospel accounts of the passion and crucifixion to the letter. After this you have to explain to us how an image like this with 3d spatial information encoded along with xray information encoded (among many other things) could be on that image since there were no xray machines or vp8 image analyzers in those days lol. Highly enhances photos of the shroud show that you can see the gum and teeth , right femur, hand bones, wrist bones and jaw of the individual . This is xray information. 21st century science can't even replicate this image and you will expect us to believe someone from the 1st or later century could create this image. That's a joke. The most reasonable explanation then becomes the resurrection .
