Second of all, if you believed it were a real ancient shroud, you would have to explain how the image on it was produced. Corpses don't leave images on shrouds, and even if it were true that everyone in ancient Israel were wrapped in a linen shroud when they died, people certainly didn't paint those shrouds.
Well, they have haven’t they? I think you need to put yourself in the shoes of a believing Christian/catholic. There is really no need for them to try and explain scientifically what is explained miraculously. From the miraculous POV the act of resurrection itself may have created the image and since man cannot replicate that process, it’s impossible to explain it scientifically. But what we do know is that certain energetic particles applied to certain mediums do leave traces and can leave negative images. So even science helps to lend credence to their theory of a miracle
So if it is an ancient piece of cloth and there isn’t a scientific explanation yet that adequately explains how the image could be produced and since you cannot prove that a God does or doesn’t exist…a believing Christian can easily rely on faith that it is what it is purported to be.
So it’s up to you to prove them wrong, not up to them to prove that they are right.
The shroud isn’t really for the unbeliever, it’s for the believer…as a reinforcement of their faith.
I have not heard about this office in the church, but I'm sure they know who is paying their bills. When a petroleum company pays for a study about the sustainability of fossil fuels, one should probably consider who's paying the bill when evaluating the conclusion.
Surely this is jest. I like the sentiment, but I don't find many Christians doing much questioning. At least not modern 21 century Christians. Old School Catholics or Jesuits used to be a bit more open to science. Even Evangelicals were more open to questioning and even allowed abortions. It was only in recent decades it seems religion took a more 'old testament, brimstone, fundamentalist' bent.
The Church officially takes no position on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. I suppose the authorities have no reason to make an official declaration either way. The Church has suffered embarrassment before trying to prove doctrine with science, or disprove science. Galileo comes to mind.
The "dedicated office for investigating miracles," now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and before that the more familiar Inquisition, investigates claims of miracles. It accepts relatively few, between 2% and 10% depending on the time period and the type of alleged miracle. I don't know if that implies that "charlatans are not tolerated in the Church," though. The Church has tolerated quite a few charlatans over its long history, and quite a few frauds and people who bought or extorted their way to bishop, cardinal, and pope.
While you got it right that Catholic doctrine does not encourage or require unquestioning belief in everything, it does require faithful Catholics to believe what the Church tells them is true. Historically asking too many questions would land a curious person in trouble. These days the Church does not have the worldly power it once did to enforce its rules.
So the burden solely lays at the feet of the unbelievers. They are the ones that have the burden of proof, because until they can truly prove that it’s not what it purports to be, the mystery of it convicts them in their unbelief.
The only entity that would lose something by the "shroud" being recognized for what it is is the Savoy noble family who used it in their story of legitimacy, for all that's worth, and perhaps the church in Turin that houses it. It doesn't matter all that much to believers or non-believers otherwise.
For believers, the miracle of the Resurrection is attested in myriad other ways, and a real relic of it would at best be a beautiful holy reminder. For non-believers like myself, the resurrection is beleieved to have never happened through much more convincing arguments, so the shroud can't be anything but a fake. How and from what time exactly is an interesting curiosity, like the Voynich Manuscript, but it is not some grand mystery. It would be literally impossible to scientifically ascertain it was Jesus Christ's shroud, a Holy relic of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, so even if it had turned out that it was not a 14th century forgery but a genuine 1st century shroud, it still wouldn't have constituted proof (or even very convincing evidence) of Christianity.
Sure, you would want that, but what does the science actually say at this point? Recent news stories are claiming that the shroud cloth may date back to the 1st century. That calls the earlier dating tests of the shroud cloth into question that might have proved scientifically that it was a forgery. Apparently science also hasn’t adequately explained how the image was created either. So all science really seems to say is “we don’t have any clear answers yet”. So has science actually proven that it’s fake? It starts with that assumption of course because miracles cannot exist, but evidence of an obvious forgery is thin. That is why you will get a disconnect between believers and the non-believers. The believer doesn’t start with the premise that a miracle cannot exist so in lieu of other obvious forgery evidence, their faith in the existence of miracles creates the possibility.
I am interested in the controversy around the mystery more than the object itself. I personally believe it’s a forgery—not because I don’t necessarily believe in miraculous things (I am a Christian) but because I am familiar enough with the shenanigans of the church throughout the centuries to know that creating a relic is a means to an end towards increasing the power of the church. I find the emotional reaction to it of some non-believers more interesting than those folks who believe it’s real. That fiery motivation behind the desire to disprove the validity is fascinating. Why do they have that desire to prove a forgery of something that even the Catholic Church doesn’t take an opinion about?
Those recent news stories are based on a bogus study in a no-name journal written by people who invented the method they are applying to the "shroud". It is equivalent to citing a blogpost. The real science was done in the 80s, using a well-established method that is still the gold standard for dating organic material today, C14 dating, and showed what the historical record also shows: the cloth is coming from sometime in the 14th century.
So the evidence for a forgery is: extremely well-established science says it was made around the 14th century. The earliest sources we have on it, also from the 14th century, are a Bishop calling it an obvious fake, to which a Pope acquiesces. It only starts being considered a real relic almost two centuries later, after an up-and-coming noble family makes it their claim to fame and a political object.
So not only is the evidence of it being a fake pretty obvious, there is also no evidence whatsoever that would suggest it's not a fake. So it is quite annoying when people keep insisting otherwise.
And no, the fact that we're not sure what precise technique was used to create the image 650 years ago is not evidence of anything. I've already written multiple comments in this thread on this particular point, I won't repeat them again.
That’s circumstantial evidence, not scientific. Like I said, I think it’s a forgery, but I don’t need it to be real. The flip side of that coin is I don’t need it to be fake either…so why do non-believers care so much to argue that it is?
What drives that need? What is so important or dangerous about the object that it must be revealed as a fake to the minuscule amount of Christians out there that believe that it’s not?
Evidence is evidence. It's not proof, of course, but it's evidence that has to be evaluated, especially in establishing historicity, where experiment is impossible.
> What drives that need? What is so important or dangerous about the object that it must be revealed as a fake to the minuscule amount of Christians out there that believe that it’s not?
This "deep need" is an invention of users. Some people wondered if the object might be the real shroud of Jesus Christ, as it was claimed, or if it is a forgery. Others studied this question using the relevant scientific methods (carbon dating, studying historical sources, fiber analysis, etc) and came up with a scientific answer, with high confidence (but not certainty) it is a 14th century forgery. Literally all of the evidence studied points in that direction, with no credible evidence whatsoever suggesting otherwise.
But, some minority didn't like this answer, and keep inventing reasons why the original investigation (which many of them asked for) was wrong. When we encounter such invented reasons, many of us who care about the truth like to combat it.
So, in summary, it was Christians in the Catholic Church who asked for a scientific investigation of the nature of the Shroud of Turin. The investigation was performed, and it was deemed a forgery. But the Church and some others didn't like the answer of the investigation they themselves asked for, and are now making up facts and methods by which to "scientifically" show that it is in fact a real relic. Some people, both Christian and non-Christian alike, like to debunk pseudo-science wherever they encounter it. That's the whole of this thing.
The church does not have a position on it. You’re expanding the number of people of the religious side who really deeply care about it. And this forms my opinion of the motivation of those skeptics who feel the need to prove again or get heated when the topic arises that it’s not genuine—It feels like it’s less about debunking an object and more about debunking a church.
This is a common technique done with a mouth tube in older times, a bulb sprayer later and an air brush most recently.
I'd also say that I'm pretty sure the mysteriousness of the technique is way overblown. Sure, we don't know exactly what it was, but there are trace pigments on the cloth, and ~600 years of handling and being displayed without much protection, plus being doused in water ~500 years during a fire, will wash off pigments in ways we can't fully predict.
2. About the second point - it remains a mystery but that in no way makes the shroud itself a fake.
It still does not mean that it has anything to do with Jesus. There are plenty of things we don’t know how to make anymore.
The second point was only in reply to someone saying "but what if it was some random shroud from the 1st century unrelated to Jesus?", and I merely explained why that makes much less sense than even the miracle explanation.
Additionally, their findings contradict a very well established C14 dating technique, in an extremely well documented and thought out study, using 8 different world class laboratories, for which their only explanation is "contamination" (ignoring the fact that the sample is pristine by comparison with many artifacts routinely dated using C14).
Also, if you want to cite a study, maybe find the link to the study, not a Daily Mail article.
The article (the one that this thread is about, not the study) addresses exactly this. The author makes the point is C14 dating is widely misunderstood by non-experts who still decide it's within their expertise to find fault with the it.
> … to distort the result by 13 centuries the threads employed in the mending would have had to have been more numerous than the threads of the part to be mended
Furthermore, the samples were examined by two textile experts, and later by a lab that looked for trace fabrics that could have affected the radiocarbon dating, and they all confirmed that the sample was the original fabric.
Haha, MDPI. lol. It’s worse than low impact factor.
No, you’re making this too complicated.
It happened miraculously because god is all-powerful and can do whatever, whenever. Boom. Solved. Easy.
A miraculous shroud just seems showy.
I've also heard that fig trees had sort of a pre-fruit, so it wasn't unreasonable to expect something, but I don't know if that's actually true or not. At any rate, the symbolic interpretation is still valid. (And, having been conquered by Rome, perhaps Israel was not in a season of fruit, either, strengthening the symbolic connection.)
It seems reasonable to assume other miracles would have occurred that were not recorded, in particular considering that one of his teachings was to do good for its own sake, not to have the good be noticed by others.
[0] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2021%3A24-...
It was produced by Jesus Christ at His resurrection. He left it for us to see and ensured that its being set aside was recorded in Scripture (not with the others but rolled up in a separate place - https://biblehub.com/john/20-7.htm).
If you mean "how did Jesus create the image"? Well, I don't know, we can look at the image (as some have) and come up with some theories. My favorite one is the one that says it was in the moment that the angel rolled the stone away from the tomb Jesus briefly shone with light, imprinting on the shroud the image of His suffering. That's certainly not the only way it could have happened, of course, but I think it's a very fitting image.
The point I was making there was in response to someone saying that "even if it's a shroud, how do we know it is Jesus's shroud and not some random 1st century burial shroud", and I was explaining that random 1st century burial shrouds obviously don't have images of the dead person on them.