Ladies and gentlemen,
I’ve been watching some recent Shroud videos on YouTube. Many are of pastors talking to their own, or other’s congregations, and are well-meaning but poorly focussed, and others are discussion blogs, in which notable Shroud presenters are interviewed by the hosts, mostly with the object of fortifying their, and their audiences’, convictions that the Shroud is authentic. In almost every case, it doesn’t take five minutes before they commit some sindonological solecism that instantly marks them out as a fraud. Now I know you don’t want to appear a fraud, even if none of your audience sees through you, so I’ve compiled a list of red flags, any of which, as soon as I hear them, confirms to me that the presenter is a mountebank. The question is, are you one of them? Luckily for you, most of your audience either isn’t listening, or doesn’t care, and nearly all mostly only want their pre-convictions bolstered, not challenged, and you will be lulled into a false sense of authority by their gratitude. However, if you want to make headway into less certain waters, where people want to be given information they can check for themselves, you would do well to have your laptops open and your fingers on the Ctrl-F keys so you can reassure yourselves that you haven’t made any of the crass faux pas listed below. This especially applies to all you presenters at St Louis next month. The list of speakers is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen collected in one place, so don’t spoil your credibility, and by extension the credibility of the entire conference, for want of a horse-shoe nail. Are you ready? Let’s begin. In alphabetical order…
AB +
Most of you won’t have kept up with the research on the identification of ancient blood, so I’ll let the AB pass, but “positive”? Somebody in the ignorant past seems to have misread “tested positive for blood type AB” for “tested as blood type AB positive,” which doesn’t mean the same thing. No doubt he just didn’t know the difference, but whatever he wrote was influential, and the error spread. It has generally been corrected nowadays, but I see that at least one of you is still propagating it, so cut it out. Nobody has even researched the Rhesus factors of Shroud blood, let alone determined them.
ATHEISTS
Reference to atheists has almost no relevance to the study of the Shroud and is nearly always simply a term of hate-speech towards anybody who thinks the Shroud may not be authentic. Don’t use it that way; it’s probably best not to use it all. By far the largest – or certainly the most vociferous – group of people who think the Shroud can’t be genuine are fundamentalist Christians, who don’t think the Shroud fits the gospel descriptions of Jesus’s burial or Isaiah’s description of the ‘man of sorrows.’ And most of the current scholars of the Shroud, the ones who have studied its science and its history and think it medieval, are Catholics.1
BAYESIAN
Bayesian statistics are a well founded method of calculating the probabilities of future events from data derived from previous ones. At no point are guesses or estimations part of these calculations, so if you have ‘supposed’ the probability of there being blood on the Shroud at 95%, or the probability that there is pollen from Palestine at 80% or any other such estimate, then throw your whole paper in the bin. It’s not mathematics, it’s blarney. If you are a statistician you know that very well, and if you’re not, then you’ve no business to be meddling with it. Who, after all, are you trying to fool? Making up nonsense that purports to show that the Shroud is 99.9% probably real sounds much more like someone trying to convince himself rather than anybody else.
CONGRUENCE
As in “points of congruence.” Unless you can physically show some, don’t use this phrase, which was introduced into Shroud studies by Alan Whanger, and has been used to compare the Shroud with coins, artwork, and more recently the sudarium. According to Whanger he had “tabulated and documented for anyone who cares to look, 211 points of congruence between the computer enhanced image over the right eye of the Shroud and the Pontius Pilate coin of Filas.” Well, I’ve cared to look – I was even in an interview with Whanger once – but no such tabulation has ever been published. Even worse is to make up stories that “you only need [pick-a-number] points of congruence to establish identity in a court of law,” which is nonsense, especially if you can’t in fact demonstrate any at all. Really, you all know this very well, so if you’re going to use ‘points of congruence’ you’d better be able to show them.
CUBIT
Now I know you know what a cubit is in theory, but in practice? Have you seen the Roman period cubits in the British Museum? Or measured the length of the various walls of Herod’s palace – built, presumably, to a ‘cubit’ measure? Then you’ll know that cubits are too short for the Shroud to be two cubits wide, and you’ll know that, since the side-strip has been cut and rejoined, it was once even wider than it is now. For years the Shroud was given the convenient fiction of being 14’4″ long and 3’7″ wide (an 8:2 ratio), but that was never true. Since 1998 its width has been variously assessed as between 111cm and 114cm (3’8″ – 3’9″), which, if it were four times longer, would make its length between 444cm and 456cm (14’8″ – 15’0″), but it isn’t that long, being something between 435cm and 443cm (14’3″ – 14’6″).
EXPERT
Whatever you do, don’t call yourself an expert, don’t let your host call you an expert, and don’t pretend you have spent x years studying the Shroud… even if you have! It shouldn’t, but the very word gives you away, as it is invariably accompanied by one of more of the other ‘phoney-signifiers’ you can find on this page. Barrie Schwortz probably knew more about the technical details of the Shroud than any of you, but he was at some pains to declare, often, that he was not a scientist. John Heller, when introduced as a blood specialist, declared that it was “the last thing in the world that I am.” Both these people were, by any standards, experts in their field, but, being experts, they knew their limitations. Do you?
FACT
Nearly ten years ago, John Jackson published a carefully tabulated list of 76 characteristics about the Shroud, in a document which has been widely used as a standard reference by some presenters, consisting of a random collection of observations, opinions, speculations, guesses and errors; and the urge to come up with something similar of their own has overwhelmed successive presenters ever since. To be fair, Jackson did not use the word ‘fact’ egregiously, and, with first hand knowledge of the Shroud, his list was as honest as he could make it, but others have not been as knowledgeable or as scrupulous, and the urge to make lists of ‘facts’ which are no such thing seems to be increasing. Otangelo Grasso publishes lists of his ideas at academia.edu on an almost weekly basis, and Justin Robinson’s latest four-part YouTube series for Bible Interact contains about 20 slides prominently labelled ‘Fact,’ and a list of 23 statements under the heading ‘Consider the Evidence,’ which are wholly indefensible. Honestly, you’d be best not to try doing the same. None of you seem to know what a fact is, let alone whether any of the dogmatic statements you make about the Shroud actually is one.
FLAGRUM
I can’t really blame you for this; I used to get it wrong too. The word flagrum does not appear in the bible. It just sounds more vicious than its diminutive flagellum, which is the word used by the evangelists, albeit in its Greek form, φραγέλλιον. Either way, if you must mention it, don’t pretend that the scourge marks on the Shroud match the dumb-bell shapes on any known archaeological find, or that the picture you’re using to illustrate the kind of weapon that was used is either of an actual archaeological artefact or modelled on an archaeological artefact. It isn’t. The reconstruction was based on the Shroud, so it’s hardly surprising its lead tips match the marks on it.2
HIROSHIMA
The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 emitted a flash of electromagnetic radiation that was so bright that it bleached paint. If there was something, or someone, blocking the light, their shadow prevented the paint from being bleached, leaving the original paint as it was. Any resemblance to the Shroud, which is quite obviously almost exactly the opposite, is entirely fanciful.
LEPTON
A couple of minor errors, which won’t damage your credibility much unless you aim to focus on these subjects, but you might as well get them right. This one refers to the alleged coins over the eyes of the Shroud image, which are prutah, small coins each worth two leptons, which were small Greek coins. You can call them dileptons, if you like, but just leptons, without qualification, demonstrates that you haven’t really researched the subject. Similarly….
MEDULLA
I think Ray Rogers started this, and it has been corrected since, but if you’ve used it, it will weaken your case, as it has weakened his. Contrary to his ideas, flax fibres do not grow like bamboo, there are no ‘growth nodes,’ and the hollow tube down the middle is the lumen, not the medulla. Heller and Adler didn’t get this wrong, which suggests that Rogers didn’t read their paper. Pontificating on the properties of flax fibres without knowing what you’re talking about is not confidence-inspiring.
NASA
Now what have you said about NASA? Does it appear in your presentation, and if so, in what context? Do you say NASA used VP-8 Image Analysers to make contour maps of the moon? If so, delete that passage and reflect on what you’ll say instead. Not only is it completely untrue, it exposes details about you that badly undermine your credibility as any kind of sindonologist. It suggests that you don’t know how a VP-8 analyser works, it suggests that you’ve never bothered to find out, it suggests that you don’t read much about the Shroud any more, and it suggests that you don’t really care about facts at all. That’s OK, perhaps, in a proselytising sermon about the meaning of the Shroud in a church, but if you persist online, or at St Louis, you will lose all credibility.3
PATCH
If you’ve used the word in connection with the radiocarbon corner, you’ve really not kept up with Shroud studies and have no right to be presenting at all. I bet you’ve also said that it was the Poor Clare nuns of Chambéry who ‘patched’ the radiocarbon corner after the 1532 fire. You have, haven’t you? I can see you looking embarrassed. Where did you get that idea from? It certainly wasn’t from Joe Marino and Sue Benford, the originators of the ‘patch’ hypothesis, as you’ll know if you’ve read their paper or followed the subsequent discussion. But of course you haven’t, have you?
PEER
As in ‘peer-review.’ Are you for it or against it? More importantly, do you use it as an argumentum ad auctoritatem? In your presentation, do you add weight to the credibility of STuRP findings by mentioning that they were published in ‘peer reviewed’ journals? It’s OK if you do, but you must remember that not one of STuRP’s peer-reviewed papers claim that the Shroud is 2000 years old. Most of them include a wish that the Shroud be radiocarbon dated as soon as practicable. On the other hand, other peer-reviewed papers in even more prestigious journals do state positively that the Shroud is medieval. To claim that peer-review is some kind of guarantee of truth when you want it to be, but not when you don’t want it to be is very dishonest, so don’t do it.
PROTOCOL
If you’ve got the word ‘Protocol’ in your presentation, there’s a strong probability that it is part of the phrase ‘Turin Protocol.’ Well, this may surprise you, but check it out. There never was a ‘Turin Protocol,’ so don’t waste your breath pretending that it was ‘violated.’ You can’t violate something which doesn’t exist. There was a conference in Turin in 1986, and various criteria were discussed, and a sort of ‘statement of intent’ issued, after which some of the criteria were eventually adopted, and some rejected. There was a protocol for the radiocarbon tests, and it was infringed, which you might like to go into, but the moment you invoke the ‘Turin Protocol,’ you lose credibility.
QUAD
Let’s face it; you don’t know what this means, do you? Yes, I know you know it refers to ‘four’ of something, but what? Have you used it in the phrase ‘Quad Mosaic Images’? And have you illustrated your talk with a picture of one small corner of one of the four images available on shroud.com, rather than a picture of the whole image, or better still, pictures of all the images? And are you claiming that because the radiocarbon corner looks green in the image, that proves the corner is different from the rest of the cloth? Well, stop it; delete it; it makes you look ignorant, discredits your presentation and by extension, as I mentioned above, the whole conference. For a start the different colours are mostly artefacts of the lighting (hence the bright blue band across Jesus’s face), for a second they only encapsulate surface reflexivity, not the chemical composition of anything, and for a third, most importantly, the greener the image, the older the radiocarbon date, meaning that any visible contamination makes the Shroud look older, not younger, than it really is. That’s not what you want, so best not to mention it at all.
QUANTUM
Also ‘Hologram,’ ‘Quark,’ ‘Event Horizon,’ ‘Biophotonics,’ and other ‘sciency sounding’ words about which you know practically nothing. Don’t go there. You may succeed in bamboozling some of your audience who know even less than you, but in the unlikely event that there are any particle physicists present, you will expose yourself as a snake-oil salesman in your first three sentences. (What’s that? You say you are a particle physicist? Stop it. If you had any idea what you were talking about you wouldn’t apply it to the Shroud.)
STURP
Ah! The Gold Standard of scientific enquiry. A shorthand way of saying that Science has proved the Shroud is authentic. Top Scientists, Dozens of Peer Reviewed Papers, Thousands of Photographs, Thousands of Hours… This deserves a post all of its own, so I’ll just say this here: are you sure what you’ve said about STuRP is true?
TEETH
Before you say anything about teeth, especially if you want to couple your observations to X-Rays, consider carefully whether you think the teeth you see are indicated by dark patches on the Shroud or light patches outlined by dark areas. A normal X-Ray photo is a film which goes dark where X-Rays hit it, but stays light where they are blocked. If the image on the Shroud is a ‘normal’ X-Ray photo, the unblocked areas should go dark, while the teeth, blocking the X-Rays, should be the ordinary colour of the linen. Is that what you think you see? If not, then don’t pretend the Shroud image resembles any X-Ray photo, especially any dental photo, you have ever seen.
TEMPLARS
Speculate, by all means, but remember that a) there were no Templars at the Siege of Constantinople in 1204, and b) that no family connection has been found between senior Templar Geoffroi de Charney and Lord of Lirey Geoffroi de Charny, so don’t pretend there must have been.
VINLAND
Sometimes mentioned in an attempt to discredit Walter McCrone, who declared the Vinland Map a forgery in 1972. For 50 years it was the subject of intense scrutiny (far more than the alleged ‘most studied artefact of all time’) before being comprehensively demonstrated to be a forgery in about 2015, completely vindicating McCrone’s conclusion of 40 years earlier. If you’re still using this, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Take it out.
WATTS
What have you written about Watts? That you would need trillions of Watts of UV light to make the image on the Shroud, and that’s more energy than a Super Bowl Stadium uses? Or something similar? Do you in fact know what a Watt is? Or how much energy was calculated to be necessary? A few of you do, but most of you haven’t a clue. If you don’t know, don’t use it; it sounds impressive to the ignorant, but won’t fool anybody who knows what a Watt actually is.4
1325
I’ve seen this recently. It’s the average of 1260 and 1390, which are the ends of the range of dates within which the Shroud was radiocarbon dated to a 95% statistical certainty. However, such are the vagaries of the dendrochronologically derived calibration chart that in fact the year 1325, even though it’s slap in the middle of the dates, is outside the 95% probability range. Don’t pretend you know anything about it, because you don’t; if you must quote the radiocarbon findings, use the wording in the Nature paper, and don’t fiddle with maths you don’t understand.
PROOF
I’ve left these last two topics to the end, as they are probably the most important. Firstly, however certain you may be of your opinion, you can be pretty sure that others are not. So don’t pretend that something is ‘proved,’ or the ‘only possible’ explanation, or even ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ to anybody except yourself. You may think that, but lots of people don’t, and there is little more damaging to your reputation than insisting you have established something beyond reasonable doubt to people who disagree.
LIAR
And finally you will definitely weaken your argument if you suggest that anybody who disagrees with you is either lying or stupid or insane or evil. They may be wrong – some may actually be lying, stupid, insane or evil – but without any evidence other than the fact that they hold a different opinion from you, your accusation will do nothing but reflect on your own honesty, intelligence, sanity or Christianity. Some of your colleagues will go along with you, but if you want to be taken seriously by a wider community, you won’t go down that road. Judge people’s evidence, not their hearts and minds.
Are there any I’ve missed? Do feel free to suggest others, and I’ll slot them into their proper place….
=====================================
In response to some comments below, some references…
1). The leading Medievalist scholars are currently myself and Andrea Nicolotti, both Catholics. One half of the Garlaschelli/Borrini team, whose paper on the Shroud’s BPA patterns was published in the Journal of Forensic Science, is Catholic. Paul Damon and Douglas Donahue, first authors of the famous Radiocarbon paper, were Catholics. All the members of the 1973 Italian Commission, many of whom decided that the Shroud was medieval, were Catholics. All the senior members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, including any who were involved with and studied the radiocarbon results, were Catholics. Famously, Ulysses Chevalier and Herbert Thurston were Catholics. As were Bishop Henri de Poitiers, Bishop Pierre d’Arcis and Pope Clement VII, but I concede that they’re not exactly current!
2). Teddi Pappas (below) points out that the verb ‘mastigoo’ is also used in the bible. So it is, but it is a verb, not a noun. John’s Gospel says that Jesus made a ‘flagellum’ to cleanse the temple with, and was subsequently ’emastigosen’ by Pilate. As the other evangelists make quite clear, Jesus was ’emastigosen’ with a ‘flagellum.’
3). NASA launched the Landsat program in the early 1970s, and acquired thousands of images of the earth. It subsequently sponsored independent institutions, mostly universities, to work on projects using the data, and some of them used the VP-8 Analyser to do what Adobe Photoshop calls ‘posterisation,’ which is the grouping of similarly coloured areas into simplified patches. Thus areas of, e.g., ‘woodland,’ ‘fields,’ ‘wetland’ and ‘urban’ could be more easily distinguished and quantified. NASA never used the VP-8, and the institutions it sponsored did not use the Analyser’s ‘3D’ facility.
4). I have often remarked that the energy required to make the marks of the Shroud as proposed by Paolo di Lazzaro is about the same as is needed to boil a kettle.
https://news.yale.edu/2021/09/01/analysis-unlocks-secret-vinland-map-its-fake
I’ll try to keep commenting, but there are only so many hours in a day.
About the Vinland map, I’m afraid I’m not as good as digging for sources as you are (and I haven’t access to scholarly journals behind paywalls). Could you please direct me to some reference?
Hi Teddi,
I’m not sure we’re communicating very well on this. I simply disagree with your assertion that there is ‘a mountain’ of evidence that the Shroud of Turin is anything other than medieval. Profoundly. Like yourself, I have read all there is to read, and I think there really isn’t any evidence at all for authenticity. Sure, lots of people have treated it as if it was, and lots of people have treated it as if it wasn’t, but that’s not evidence at all either way. The same goes for the Crown of Thorns, the various Tunics, Veronicas, and all the Nails, bits of Cross, phials of Blood and skulls of John the Baptist. That’s not to say that all these other relics are false – who knows? – but the fact that they are venerated as if they were authentic does not in itself authenticate them.
So, you think you’re right; I think I’m right. We disagree. I’m quite happy with that. We both share the ‘mountain of evidence’ but come to different conclusions from it. And that’s fine by me.
What is less fine is for you first to instruct me on Catholicism, and then to suggest that ‘undermining’ people’s faith in the Shroud’s authenticity is somehow ‘an attack on a miracle,’ and some kind of ‘blasphemy.’ You see, to me the Shroud is not a miracle, nor was it caused by one, and I don’t want anyone to think it is, or was. Nor, I think, does ‘the Catholic Church.’ The reason for this is that when, after further investigation, the Shroud is so conclusively shown to be medieval that everyone accepts it as such, the credibility of anyone who had previously demanded acceptance that it was authentic would be seriously undermined in turn.
So what is my game? Firstly, I really, really want the Shroud to be properly investigated by scholars of medieval church and art history. It has been largely ignored until recently, one reason being the opprobrium heaped on them by people like yourself, calling them blasphemers and damning them to hell. Even atheists aren’t keen on that kind of abuse. I believe my work has helped some people see that the Shroud is a worthwhile topic for mainstream medieval studies, one which will, eventually, become easier to understand. A couple of recent books, not necessarily influenced by me personally but following a trend, have encouraged me to think that this attitude is worthwhile. Secondly, I want to encourage everybody interested in the Shroud, and especially people who try to disseminate knowledge about it, to ensure that their ‘knowledge’ is accurate and true. Those who preach the Shroud using falsehoods undermine their own position, weaken their argument, and, when the falsehoods are exposed, destroy their credibility – even if the Shroud is in fact authentic.
You end by saying that the Shroud can bring non-believers to Christ, and bring comfort to believers, and I believe it may, whether it is authentic or not, but if it does either of those things on the basis of false information, then that’s very wrong on the part of those who propagate that information.
The post you are commenting on, and the subsequent one, do not say anything about whether the Shroud is authentic or not. They are both generous attempts (on my part, a medievalist!) to help authenticist presenters at least to put their case across honestly and truthfully. And that’s “how a Catholic justifies in his mind that this will be okay with God.”
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi, Patrick,
To my “…the continuous attack on a miracle is a great and ongoing blasphemy against God,” you said: “You are going too far Mrs. Pappas.”
No, I am not, Patrick. It is what it is.
Best regards,
Teddi
Thanks, Gerardo, some good points as always.
– Thank you. I’ve added a bit to clarify that.
– If a presenter is mentioning the approximate medieval date in passing, then I’ll grant you 1325. If he’s discussing the competence of the radiocarbon statisticians, then 1325 clearly and definitively shows that he doesn’t know enough about it for his views to be taken seriously.
– The general tenor of most of the individual scientists’, archaeologist’s and art historian’s report is that there is little to suggest that the Shroud is authentic. Holding the door open for better information was a perfectly sensible thing to do, as was not making conclusive remarks based on negative findings, but I think a significant number of the team accepted, privately or publicly, that the Shroud was probably not authentic.
– “I agree that calling someone a liar, stupid, insane or evil doesn’t make good for your case. Just like calling him a fraud, a mountebank, or one who has no idea what he’s talking about. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Oh, but I do. You missed the clause, “without any evidence other than the fact that they hold a different opinion from you.” I didn’t call Brian Donley Worrell a mountebank because he had a different opinion from me, but because he claimed, forcefully, that conclusions published in peer-reviewed journals are facts, and that one would be a flat out liar to deny them, ignoring the ‘fact’ that at least three such conclusions declare the Shroud to be medieval. The same applies to every other of my more personal characterisations of people. I, on the other hand, have been called a liar several times on YouTube recently, but in spite of my continued plea for anyone to point out where I have lied, no one ever does. They just don’t like my opinions.
– The whole story of the Vinland map and where the blank parchment came from is now well researched and well publicised.
Please keep commenting: it keeps me on my toes!
Hugh
“…the continuous attack on a miracle is a great and ongoing blasphemy against God.”
You are going too far Mrs. Pappas.
Hi, Hugh,
There is–there really is–a mountain of evidence that should make it very clear that the Shroud of Turin is, indeed, what it purports to be: the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Way before STURP or any of the prior forensic and/or scientific examinations of it (let’s not forget Vignon, Barbet, etc.), there have been many people throughout history who have understood EXACTLY what It is. So, when people first learn about the Shroud, they get excited about it! And, well, THEY SHOULD!!! Honestly, I think that there is something weird about anyone who DOESN’T get excited about it. Many call the Holy Shroud the Fifth Gospel, but I believe It to be the First!
As the expression goes, “The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.” The ULTIMATE proof of the Gospel narratives about Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection are contained in the Holy Shroud. My God, there is such beauty in that. There is such a GIFT in that. There is a MIRACLE in that. And, Our Savior’s BLOOD is ON That.
And, with regard to the Holy Shroud, there are just endless things to know. It takes a long time to really start to know the evidence on a deeper level. But, should people stay quiet about a Truth just because they might not be able to perfectly convey everything with perfection? No. The “gospel” or “good news” about the Holy Shroud needs to be shared with as many people as possible–it is a Great Commission.
Catching someone in a mistake about a piece of evidence doesn’t mean that the body of evidence which they present is false. That would be fallacious thinking.
Tell me this, Hugh, since you have said many times that you are a Catholic. Is it okay to you in principle for someone to knowingly, and with pre-meditation, go on a multi-decade effort to passionately “split hairs” with what everyone says about the Holy Shroud in order to undermine peoples’ confidence in the Truth which is contained within It?
Even you and Dan cannot honestly deny that there is, at least, a 1% chance chance that the Holy Shroud is genuine and that the body images were formed through the Resurrection. To have as your “Passion Project” (that’s, oddly, the polar opposite of Jesus’) the continuous attack on a miracle is a great and ongoing blasphemy against God. Please tell us how a Catholic justifies in his mind that this will be okay with God?
What thinking Christian would take even a 1% chance of doing this?
And, you are, indeed, a thinker, Hugh. I’ll give you that in spades. You are, also, a tremendous researcher and advocate. But, you are putting your God-given talents to use in denying a Gift of God which can bring non-believers to Christ for their salvation and which can bring a deep comfort to the Believers.
So, what game are you playing at with all of this?
In earnest,
Teddi
About the Vinland Map — ok, so somebody took an old sheet of parchment and drew a fake map on it. What I am puzzled about, is how did he get a BLANK sheet (I understand parchment was scarce and expensive, to the point that they often scraped and reused it) and how did he KNOW it was medieval before having it carbon tested?
Well you built an impressive list of items about PAST Shroud research. I hope that in St. Louis they’re going to present NEW research.
I’d make just a few remarks:
– Of course the evangelists used neither “flagrum” nor “flagellum”, for they didn’t write in Latin.
– “1325±65” is just another way to say “1260-1390”, and if one wants to quote a single number for brevity and simplicity, 1325 is indeed the correct midpoint of that range and thus arguably the “best” number (if you think another number would be better I’d like to hear your argument). If you want to say that’s inaccurate because 1325 isn’t a possible date, then you can’t say 1260-1390 either because not ALL of that interval is possible. You suggested to “use the wording in the Nature paper”, guess what they wrote? AD 1260-1390. That’s also what they wrote on that famous blackboard if I remember correctly. Do you want to claim that they too didn’t understand the maths?
– I seriously doubt that “many” members of the 1973 commission “decided that the Shroud is medieval”. As for the members who tested samples for blood, I’ve already shown you elsewhere that your claim that they excluded the presence of blood was false (originated from an incorrect translation from Italian AND from conveniently ignoring another paragraph of their report where they say quite the opposite).
– I agree that calling someone a liar, stupid, insane or evil doesn’t make good for your case. Just like calling him a fraud, a mountebank, or one who has no idea what he’s talking about. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Good question. It depends on the circumstances. In a live interview, anybody can make an ‘oral typo,’ and get a name or a date wrong, and it would be unfair to call them a fraud on that basis. In a more formal presentation, prepared beforehand and often read from notes, to make the same mistake is less trivial – although if the presentation is a sermon about the resurrection or even the theological relevance of the Shroud we might still let it go as not strictly relevant. If the presentation is specifically about the scientific or historical facts about the Shroud, and particularly if the presenter is presented as, or claims to be, an expert, and particularly if the faux pas tends to strengthen the presenter’s case and weaken his opponent’s, then that’s fraud. It may be a simple mistake, but it’s not an honest mistake, and must be apologised for and corrected as soon as it is pointed out. Trying to argue from authority by misquoting the use of the VP-8, trying to ‘prove’ authenticity using pseudo-Bayesian statistics, trying to prove antiquity by pretending one knows something about cubits: that’s not honest, that’s fraud. It’s mostly not a deliberate attempt to mislead, but it is a culpable lack of attention to sources, and it’s not acceptable.
Hi, Hugh,
Why is it that you think that just because someone (whether they be an expert or an amateur) makes a mistake about a “fact”/piece of information that this turns them into a “fraud?” An honest mistake does not a fraudster make.
All the best,
Teddi
Hi, again, Hugh,
You mention this under the heading of “PROOF”:
“Firstly, however certain you may be of your opinion, you can be pretty sure that others are not. So don’t pretend that something is ‘proved,’ or the ‘only possible’ explanation, or even ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ to anybody except yourself. You may think that, but lots of people don’t, and there is little more damaging to your reputation than insisting you have established something beyond reasonable doubt to people who disagree.”
Well, I’m not sure that others are not of the same or similar opinion as me. And, anyway, the purpose of an advocate is to try and get others to see things the way that one sees them, yes? When a prosecutor charges a defebant with a crime and takes the case to trial, the prosecutor is first convinced that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt (the standard in the U.S. for convicting someone of a crime) before they take their case to trial. Then, it is the prosecutor who seeks to convince the jury through his/her evidence. If someone thinks that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt about something, why wouldn’t they express this to others as they put forth their evidence that supports their claim? And, well, sure, not everyone is going to agree. If they don’t agree with my, my “reputation”/”credibility” is already damaged with them for believing in something so strongly that they disagree with. After all, two perfectly opposing viewpoints cannot both be True.
With atheists, I don’t think they are very credible. I think that for them to hold the beliefs that they do requires them to engage in many thinking errors. And, well, I’m confident that they think the same thing about religious people. So, if we’re being honest, we’re really not going to truly respect beliefs that are against our own (unless our own beliefs are not very well-founded.) So, let’s just put away the hypocrisy. Religious Jews don’t really respect the basic tenets of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. and find them credible with that sort of thinking (at least regarding religious matters.) Ditto for Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, etc. It’s all just a polite game that’s played to be civil so that people aren’t constantly engaged in religious wars or other sorts of wars. Politeness necessarily involves a good amount of lying/deception. And, well, that’s okay to an extent with things that don’t really matter (so as to keep the peace.) But, with things that really do matter, it’s better for people to just be candid–otherwise, peoples’ beliefs become so watered-down that they become a mockery of what the original belief was.
Best regards,
Teddi
Ah! I take your point about my wording of the Poor Clares, and have amended the original so that it says what I originally meant it to say. But I’m not simply ‘implying that someone may have claimed that the Poor Clare nuns might have done the invisible reweave/”patch.’ I’m stating that the absolute majority of popular speakers who mention it claim exactly that, and that they did it after the fire of 1532. You don’t listen to them, obviously, but I do. I agree that “it’s hard to imagine that anyone would get the two situations confused,” but they do, often, and it’s because they don’t really care about factual precision.
And they use the word ‘patch.’ I know you don’t, but then in this case my warning was not about you, but about the large majority of popular speakers who do. Very few of the St Louis speakers will read my blog, so I invite you to listen to them all, and I predict that almost every one that mentions the ‘invisible reweave hypothesis’ will claim it was executed by the Poor Clares in 1534. Unless you or Joe get to them first…
I don’t know which of Joe’s papers you may have read, even “a long, long, time ago.” But if you haven’t read the originals, then you haven’t gone back to the primary sources. For your information, here are the mentions of the patch in five papers authored by Benford and Marino at shroud.com. All but the first were written after Rogers had explored the hypothesis, and actually mention his findings in the paper. They still use the word patch;
Benford and Marino: ‘Finding the Shroud in the 21st Century,’ December 2001
1). “In August 2000, the authors presented a paper revealing information that demonstrates a ‘patch’ of material, from the 16th century was skilfully spliced into the 1st century original Shroud cloth in the C-14 sample used by the laboratories for testing.”
2). “however, the patch was not an identical match…”
3). “the possibility that the Shroud of Turin dated to the 1st century, based upon the above described patching of the C-14 sample, poses an intriguing challenge..”
4). “The patch area falls closer to the pristine area at 160 mg/cm².”
Benford and Marino: ‘Textile Evidence Supports Skewed Radiocarbon Date of Shroud of Turin,’ August 2002
5). “This paper proposed a hypothesis that a ‘patch’ of material from the 16th century…”
6). “the paper proffered an historical interpretation of why the area had been patched in the 16th century.”
7). “the paper is original presentation supporting the 16th century ‘patch’ hypothesis.”
8). “the credibility of the claim that 16th century European weavers could repair a textile with an ‘invisible’ patch.”
9). “first, the percentage of aberrant (patch) threads was selected based upon visual examination of a C-14 sample…”
10). “A comprehensive test of the ‘patch’ hypothesis was conducted by former STURP chemist Dr Ray Rogers…”
11). “According to the designated patch areas indicated in our original paper..”
12). “The Raes sample lines up directly with what, quite possibly, is predominantly 16th century patch.”
13). “More information on this mediaeval-type patch repair can be found on current websites…”
14). “The weaver cuts a patch of hidden fabric and place it over the damaged area…”
15). “there is a requisite overlap and intermixing between the newer patch material and the existing textile…”
16). “The exact ratio of patch versus original threads is not determinable by photographic analysis alone.”
17). “the possibility of an invisible patch being aptly rewoven into a linen textile…”
Benford and Marino: ‘Historical Support of a 16th Century Restoration in the Shroud C-14 Sample Area,’ August 2002
18). “the 1988 C-14 dating of the Shroud of Turin was skewed due to such an ‘invisible’ 16th century patch…”
19). “the hypothesized C-14 sample area patch.”
[20] Benford and Marino: ‘New Historical Evidence Explaining the ‘Invisible Patch’ in the 1988 C-14 Sample Area of the Turin Shroud,’ September 2005
21). “the authors deposited that the 16th century ‘invisible patch’ had skewed the 1988 Carbon-14 (C-14) sample of the Turin Shroud.”
22). “the validity of the invisible patch theory.”
23). “evidence of a mediaeval restorative patch in the C-14 sample.”
24). “the hypothesized C-14 sample-area patch”
25). “the nearly undetectable patch…”
26). “in our original paper from 2000 regarding the 16th century patch…”
27). “an ‘invisible patc of material from the 16th century…”
Benford and Marino: ‘Discrepancies in the radiocarbon dating area of the Turin Shroud,’ July-August 2008
28). “discrepancies in the two sides (proposed patch versus original cloth) of the sample”
29). “a cotton-containing patch made to resemble the original Shroud cloth…”
30). “he weaver cuts a patch of hidden fabric…”
31). “intermixing between the newer patch material and the existing textile”
32). “The exact ratio of patch versus original threads…”
As for your other points, you’re still confusing verbs and nouns in the flogging discussion, and have conveniently ignored the fact that I was deploring the use of the word ‘flagrum,’ not muddling up the various other words, both nouns and verbs, which might also be used.
Hey, ho, back to the library….
Best wishes,
Hugh
Correction: Just saw where auto-correct had incorrectly changed “Garman” to “German” for Harbottle’s first name.
Correction: Just saw where auto-correct had incorrectly changed “Garman” to “German” for Harbottle’s first name.
P.S.: And, you’re implying that someone may have claimed that the Poor Clare nuns might have done the invisible reweave/”patch,” yet I’ve not ever heard anyone claim this, have you? The skill involved for a first-class invisible reweave would be from someone highly trained to do this that, almost certainly, has a career doing this. The quality of the patch-job by the Poor Clare nuns over the burn marks are indicative of very basic, carefully performed sewing (that even I can do), but nothing more. So, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would get the two situations confused.
Hi, Hugh,
You stated this under the section “Patch”:
“If you’ve used the word in connection with the radiocarbon corner, you’ve really not kept up with Shroud studies and have no right to be presenting at all. I bet you’ve also said it was the Poore Clare nuns of Chambery who ‘patched’ the Shroud after the 1532 fire. You have, haven’t you? I can see you looking embarrassed. Where did you get that idea from? It certainly wasn’t from Joe Marino and Sue Benford, the originator of the ‘patch’ hypothesis[.]”
Hugh, this sure did seem to be your implying that it was NOT the Poor Clare nuns that did the patching of the burn holes on the Shroud from the 1532 fire. But, okay, I’ll accept your clarification. But, it seems like you’re creating a “straw man argument” here, because I’ve never heard anyone claim that the radiocarbon corner had been “patched”—I’ve consistently heard the term “invisible reweave.” (And, yes, I’ve certainly read a number of Joe’s and Sue’s papers on this issue—it’s been probably 5 years ago that I read the last one, but I’m quite familiar with what their assertions have been.) So, it is highly doubtful to me that anyone is using this term. I checked with Joe last night to see if he and Sue ever used the term “patch” regarding their hypothesis. Here’s what he said:
“One of the 3 independent textile experts who looked at a photo used the term patch and we used it early on because of that—that was when we thought it could have been a full 16th “patch” right next to the 1st century cloth. When Rogers found the splice we stopped using the term “patch.”
So, this explains why I’ve never heard Joe or seen any of his writings refer to the term “patch”—because he and Sue abandoned that term a long, long time ago.
And, regarding NASA and the VP-8, since NASA developed and managed the Landsat program (with the “sat” part of “Landsat” standing for “satellite”) and this is involving satellites in space giving us data about Earth. And, since NASA’s own website mentions it, I don’t think you can fairly create a chasm between NASA and the VP-8 just because the data extracted was being used to make decisions about our environment and resources here on Earth. After all, NASA’s not just about space but a connection between Earth and Space and everything in between.
With regard to Jesus’ pre-crucifixion scourging, Matthew 20:19, Mark 10:34 and Luke 18:33 use the word “μαστιγω.” HOWEVER, in Mark 15:15, Mark uses the word “φραγελλιον” with regard to Jesus’ pre-crucifixion scourging. This is of high interest, because you have the same writer referencing the same thing using two different words—hence, they CAN be interchangeable, although this does not mean that they cannot, by some, be used to reference two different things.
As I mentioned before, John uses the term flagellum/φραγελλιον for what Jesus used to drive the animals out of the temple. BUT, it is interesting to note that John 2:15 specifies that this is made “of cords”—which heavily implies that some flagella might be made of something other than cords or only cords.
Best regards,
Teddi
Hi, Fin,
This Vinland Map controversy is quite interesting–especially since it has many parallels to the Shroud of Turin and many of the same “players” were involved in analyzing both–McCrone, Anna Teetsov, German Harbottle, the journal “Nature,” a paper by the American Chemical Society (who adored McCrone.) There are issues of contamination, radiocarbon dating, particle analysis, and assumptions . . . There are fine points like with the anatase and whether it was synthetic or not (in some places it’s described as too round by McCrone and Teetsov, but then they say it’s rhombic–so, which is it and how does that make it then compelling that it’s synthetic anatase?) and when it was widely commercially available. (But, does wide commercial availability preclude someone’s figuring out how to make and use ink that has this in it on their own? No, it doesn’t. It was, interesting, also, to see how the anatase could have come about accidentally. I’m not so sure that McCrone was “completely vindicated” in that his conclusion might have been right, but his method for arriving at it might not have been as conclusive.
To me, the most convincing evidence are some of the indicia of forgery (not the scientific evidence per se) such as how it is claimed that there are aspects of the map that are based not on a medieval map that it’s supposed to have copied (from what I recall) but of the much later engraving of that medieval copy–and that mistakes in the engraved later copy are replicated on the Vinland Map. To me, that’s more of a “smoking gun.”
Yet, we really do have a lot of surface claims and what is presented in all of these pieces of information lack a lot of the details that would come out with a good cross-examination. So, in reality, I would say that the Vinland Map controversy is far less settled than the controversy over the Holy Shroud. If nothing else, aspects of Shroud evidence have been gone over with a fine-toothed comb through discussions with many, many skeptics over the course of many years–there’s a far bigger pool of people involved in examining and scrutinizing Shroud evidence (and far more available details about it) than with the Vinland Map. So, there’s that . . .
But, my favorite part regarding the Vinland Map controversy is that it’s the medievalists who appear to most likely be wrong. (Just sayin’ . . . 😉😁)
Best regards,
Teddi
https://youtu.be/_gBv0TLoTbI?si=hf8JTUcRWRxW-Mf9
https://www.nature.com/articles/418574a.epdf?sharing_token=xyRT_YUvVD0-tAj6sh9fqdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NiVC1U0wOKFdhxEx1KFZCITdnBvB12N_50uOKlAMrcsgN19DElVUfniZUTL7446y3Q5DzXLnwH9o-fhGP2n-9yaLWFerNhF2oCAIY9TIxGW991OlIUnHlYQiqWUAWXQu7ahBDIOjHMYm9ESc7yDaMP8Ooy6yPj_CH3saRwRQYOSA%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.mentalfloss.com
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/vinland-map-hoax-controversy-history#inline-text-14
Oh dear, dear, dear. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. They may be simple, little, innocent-sounding words, but they are snares for the unwary. The word ‘patch’ for instance. There were patches over the burn holes, sewn on by the Poor Clares in 1532-4, but I was speaking of the “Patch Hypothesis” which is about the radiocarbon corner, not the burn hole patches. What’s this? “And, Joe Marino has never (at least not to my recollection) spoken of a “patch” but an invisible reweave.” Have you not done any research on this at all? He speaks of nothing else!
For the rest, why flounder about trying to find objections to things you don’t object to? NASA did not use the VP-8, as you have actually shown in your examples; the Vinland Map has been firmly established as a fake and nobody now thinks anything else; lumen and medulla are certainly not interchangeable words in the context of flax fibres; yes, they’re hollow but not in the same way as bamboo is hollow, mastigoo is a verb not a noun… enough already.
And for goodness sake, don’t just bat this ball back without checking again. And again. I think of you as probably the most conscientious of all the authenticists, but if your barrage of comments are truly representative, the bar is pretty low.
Teddi Papas, the wikipedia article that you cite re the Vinland map, is in fact a vindication of McCrone’s analysis, showing that it was confirmed by several different techniques. The ‘minuscule quantities of titanium’ claim from one group was refuted when it was shown that their analysis was a thousand times too small. McCrone’s ‘error’ was nothing to do with the presence or absence of titanium.
Why does this website keep claiming that I have already said that to each comment?
Teddi Papas, the wikipedia article that you cite re the Vinland map, is in fact a vindication of McCrone’s analysis, showing that it was confirmed by several different techniques. The ‘minuscule quantities of titanium’ claim from one group was refuted when it was shown that their analysis was a thousand times too small. McCrone’s ‘error’ was nothing to do with the presence or absence of titanium.
Sadly, the Vinland map IS accepted as a fake, even by Yale University. The smoking gun is the chemical analysis of the ink showed anatase (titanium dioxide) which wasn’t synthesised until the 20th C. It is found throughout the lines on the map, as edging simulating the fading of natural gall ink. It is correct that C14 dating gives a medieval date, the implication being that the forger somehow got hold of a very old parchment. A joke by a scholar?
Hi, Hugh,
As Jesus cleansed the temple from the money changers, He used a φραγέλλιον per John’s Gospel. But, what was used on Jesus as part of His pre-crucifixion beating was a mastigo per John. Two different things.
Best regards,
Teddi
Hi, Hugh,
You mention this: “And most of the current scholars of the Shroud, the ones who have studied its science and its history and think it medieval, are Catholics.”
By “most” I’m assuming you have to mean over 50%. I’m quite confident that you cannot substantiate this claim of yours. That just does not even pass “the smell test.” Just taking the pulse of what I come across, it’s a bunch of atheists, agnostics, anti-theists and some Protestants (who tend to be anti-relic”) who seem most likely to fit this description.
Best regards,
Teddi
And, a flagrum is a scourge. And, a scourge was used on Jesus. I’m going from memory here, but I seem to recall that there is a different term used in John’s gospel than the synoptics. And, the British Museum does have a scourge from antiquity, although the leather had disintegrated. They, however, put the metal balls in an arrangement that makes sense. So, it is not that there is not one that exists. But, yes, you are right that what is commonly shown in Shroud literature has been reverse engineered to fit the markings on the body images on the Shroud. So, I do, indeed, take your point on that, and this is why I don’t use such examples.
And, well, another quick remark–the whole “lumen versus medulla” debate is much ado about nothing. Either term is applicable–I remember confirming that awhile back. And, flax fibers are, indeed, hollow like bamboo, so what’s your point about this?
Oh, and another thing, who other than the Poor Clare nuns put the patches on the Shroud after the Fire of 1532? They even wrote about it. And, Joe Marino has never (at least not to my recollection) spoken of a “patch” but an invisible reweave. Those are two entirely different sorts of things.
For those wanting some additional information on the infamous Vinland Map situation, here’s a launching pad for quick information that can spur additional research if one wants to learn more about it. But, specifically, it refers to mistakes that McCrone made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland_Map
Also, another quickie–regarding the Vinland map and McCrone. You and I have discussed this before. It’s not a settled matter that the Vinland Map is a fake. I’m going from memory here, but I recall reading in an article that the radiocarbon dating results went against McCrone’s findings . . . I’m reasonably sure that you and I were discussing this here on your website, and we had an interesting discussion about it.
Cheers,
Teddi
One can find some additional information, here regarding NASA and the VP-8:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search?q=vp-8&page=%7B%22from%22:0,%22size%22:25%7D
Hi, Hugh,
A quick comment for now. Regarding the VP-8, in my recent paper on rigor mortis and cadaveric spasm, when I gave some important highlights concerning the Shroud, I mentioned the VP-8 Image Analyzer. I agree with you that there has been some confusion and incorrect information on what the situation is concerning it and whether or not it has been used by NASA and in what way. I wanted to get to the bottom of it and figure out what the situation is, and I did. You, correctly, mention that the moon reference is wrong, but you didn’t mention the full story which is impressive, because NASA did, in fact, use the VP-8. Here’s what I wrote in my paper, and this is what the real story is:
“Among its more common uses, the VP-8 Image Analyzer had been used since 1972 in the Landsat program to instantaneously process images from satellites for the remote acquisition of spectral information about Earth from space. These Landsat satellite missions have been developed and managed through NASA and the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey Program.”
Best regards,
Teddi
Weeeellll, trillions of Watts is fine, since energy is actually measured in Joules and Watts is Joules/second. So, a laser emitting 1 Joule of energy for a trillionth of a second represents a trillion Watts, but very little energy.