I’ve been criticised, over the years, for assiduously pointing out the mistakes (and occasional deceptions), of authenticist popularists, but rarely if ever reviewing the podcasts and videos of those who think the Shroud is medieval. There are several reasons for that.
Firstly, those who pontificate about authenticity are nearly always either proclaimed, or self-proclaimed, experts. They often say they’ve been interested in the Shroud for years, and pretend to some acquaintance with the disciplines involved. Sadly, be they priest, doctor or scientist, this very rarely turns out to be true, but they nevertheless attract a following on the basis of their alleged authority rather than anything they actually say. This not only deserves to be challenged, but really ought to be, to try to ensure that anything like a balanced presentation of the arguments for and against authenticity is available for people who want to make up their own minds.
Secondly, those who pontificate that the Shroud is a fake are mostly at the very fringe of certifiable pseudo-science, with a minimal following and arguments so ludicrous that only the equally certifiable could possibly concur with them – and against such adamantine credulity reasoned argument can make little headway.
But just to redress a little balance, I present the last three presentations of my non-authenticist “friends”… Enjoy!
29 June, posted by “Mawath 2 Ahdawam.”
“Shroud of Turin: A weak attempt to corrupt the true identity of YAHAWASHI”
This appears to have originated from a “Black Hebrew” community, who believe that the only true descendents of the tribes of Israel are African Americans, and that Jesus, whom they call Yahawashi, was black. The standard Western European version of Jesus is in fact an image of Cesare Borgia and propagated by a corrupt version of Christianity called Esau.
Mawath quotes from the Book of Revelations 1:13-15:
“…and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. “
Later he also quotes from Daniel 7:9:
“the hair of his head was white like wool.”
From this, Mawath supposes that Jesus’s hair was white and woolly, his eyes anything but blue, and his skin, assuming his feet to be typical, a brown “bronze” colour.
There follows a clip from Michael Jackson’s video “Billie Jean,” showing him apparently dematerialising in a flash of radiation, and a picture of Jesus glowing white as he appears to Mary Magdalen. I think the point it is that if the Shroud was clearly a photographic representation of the risen Christ, then “certain knowledge” would render “faith” unnecessary, and God wants us to have “faith,” which is a grace, rather than “knowledge,” which is merely an animal property.
24 June, posted by “Bridled Growth.“
“Let’s Discuss the Shroud of Turin Deception.”
“My problem with the Shroud of Turin is that it does not line up with what the Bible says…”
And here we go (All from the NKJV):
1) John 20:6-7: “He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head” So Jesus was wrapped in two cloths, not one.
2) John 11:44: “The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” So it was a custom of the Jews to use at least two cloths, one wrapped around the face.
3) John 20:7: “not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” When you eat at a restaurant, you may leave your napkin either screwed up and placed on the plate or folded neatly and placed beside it. The first means you have finished and left, but the second means that you have not finished and are coming back shortly. The separate face-cloth is a sign that Jesus isn’t finished with life on earth just yet.
Next – Jesus was black, and black people have broad noses with well developed nares, unlike what we see on the Shroud. How do we know? “The reason we know that Jesus is black is because the ancient Egyptians were black,” says our narrator. Paul was mistaken for an Egyptian, and he was from the tribe of Benjamin, and Benjamin was a brother of Judah, and Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, so Jesus could have been mistaken for an Egyptian. Revelations 1 says Jesus’s feet were like “burnt brass” – i.e. black, and what’s more, “the apostles of Jesus were called niggers. Not niger; nigger.” I think this is pushing Acts 13:1 further than it will justifiably go. It reads: “Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler, and Saul.” We don’t know why this Simeon was called Niger, but it seems that the epithet was used to distinguish him from the other people mentioned, not that they were all the same.
Bridled Growth then wanders off into a jungle of quotes and extracts regarding Armageddon and captivity, emerging five minutes later with, “This is why I say Jesus was black,” but for the life of me I can’t follow his logic.
10 June, posted by “DaveJMirror.“
“Shroud of Turin, HOAX HOAX HOAX Period 2015 reupload.”
“OK; in this video I want to go ahead and show you without a doubt that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax. It’s just a joke. It’s a complete cartoon.”
Fine. What evidence do you adduce?
“Each number is associated with a colour; and that’s associated with a feeling.” Ri-i-ight…
“The combination of number and the words they use trigger your mind to construct a false reality in your head.” Ah.. “They.” The favourite name behind all the best conspiracies.
There follow some clips from a documentary about the Shroud, with some curious repeats and subtitling. Whenever a number is mentioned in the voiceover, the sentence is repeated several times, and a subtitle scrolls across the bottom of the screen.
1. Voiceover: “this 14-foot length of cloth is a very clever medieval forgery.”
Subtitle: “14 foot or 77 or 5 MANMADE.”
2 Voiceover: “Since the 1400s, the Shroud has been taken out of its silver box many times.”
Subtitle: “1400s 77 or 5 MANMADE.”
3. Voiceover: “The Shroud first appeared in Europe in 1355.”
Subtitle: “1355 or 14 or 55 and or 77 MANMADE.”
Next, a picture of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, who wears a distinctive horned headdress, is merged with the negative Shroud image, to show how the horns on her headdress coincide with the water stain above the Shroud’s face. Dave J explains that the headdress was called Uranus, which is “above” Saturn – in the sky, presumably – and Saturn, of course, is the same as Satan or Lucifer. From there, the explanation becomes increasingly incoherent, accompanied by various images, ‘Chronos castrating Uranus’ by Giorgio Vasari, and a sketch of an Egyptian tomb-painting showing ‘Seti I worshiping Osiris, Isis and Horus.’ This group is identified with ‘modern goverment,’ among other things, who are subject to an unidentified woman. A tarot card of the hanging man is dropped in, and then a photo of a man (James Tague) standing at the place where President Kennedy was shot.
“You can see that this Mason who is pretending to be a witness to the JFK hoax…” Ah… Need we go on? Not really. Now we have a picture of the British Order of the Garter with a little Fleur de Lys at the bottom, a photo of an Acacia tree, the Masonic diagram relating various values of Kether, Binah, Chokmha and so on; the Shroud again, and the information that the numeral 3 bloodstain is a clue to its Masonic origin.
By now we just have a mishmash of numerology and pseudo-masonic myth. The Shroud carries an image of a woman (“Look at those womanly hips”), here is a swastika, a pentagon, and gibberish:
“… The hand closed here with the four, four fingers and a single thumb that’s your forty-one or your fourteen. Double seven. Going into your five.”
Our eyes are beginning to bleed.
“Now you can see for a fact it’s a hoax.”