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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reconsidering the Shroud,
By
This review is from: The Shroud and the Controversy (Hardcover)
In 1988 the Western world held its collective breath as the Shroud of Turin was subjected to carbon-14 dating tests, supposedly to once and for all determine if it was a fake. When the announcement was made that the Shroud had been dated to the mid-fourteenth century A.D., many of us assumed that it was settled: the story was over. Science had rendered its verdict and only "faith" could lead people to believe otherwise.
The authors of "The Shroud and the Controversy" wrote their book two years later, in 1990, declaring that in fact the jury is still out on the subject. We discover that there is much more to the story. The problem is that what was being reported was that the Shroud was dated with 95 percent accuracy to between 1260 and 1390, and many reports added that it was obviously a forgery, when according to the authors, "nothing could be further from the truth." They stress that "carbon-14 is not nor should be the acid test of the Shroud's possible authenticity." They are not questioning the overall validity of C-14 as a test for age, but that cloth is notoriously difficult to date because of the potential for all sorts of contaminants. Cloth of known date was dated in preparation for the Shroud carbon dating and in some of the tests the dating was off by several hundred years. What could contribute to error in dating the Shroud? Dr. Garza-Valdes has popularized the hypothesis that the Shroud has a "bioplastic" covering that comes from mold and fungus. This covering is visible only microscopically and is not removed by normal cleaning methods. He sent a cloth of known origin for C-14 testing to one of the laboratories that dated the Shroud, and they were off by 600 years. He then went to Turin where he was allowed to look at the cloth with a microscope, and he said that the same bioplastic covering was on the Shroud. The site selection from the Shroud itself may have been part of the problem. The samples were all taken from the bottom of the Shroud, only a few centimeters from a repair site due to the 1532 fire. The test sample may have been an added strip of cloth and not part of the original Shroud. Regarding the test methodology itself, a true scientific double blind study was never conducted. Though there were dummy samples, the labs knew which samples were which. There was no publication or peer review of the method and the results before the results were proclaimed to the public. Finally, there was an earlier dating than the 1988 one. At that time (1982) the Shroud was dated to the first century, but that date was not well received by scientists because it was done secretly and it was not done with normal scientific protocols (but then neither was the 1988 dating). Carbon-14 dating aside, then, there are other reasons for dating the Shroud to the first century. First, both eyes appear to have coins on them. No detail is visible until image enhancement is utilized, and then some, but not all, of the researchers claim they can see the letters U,C,A,I on what looks to be a lepton of Pontius Pilate, which would have been minted between A.D. 29 and 32. These would represent a misspelling of Tiberias as the correct spelling would have been U,K,A,I. Seven more actual leptons of Pontius Pilate have been found that have the same misspelling. In fairness this evidence is controversial because not everyone agrees on what can be seen: some see random shapes and noise. A more solid piece of evidence that places the Shroud at least earlier than the 14th century is the fact that it clearly shows that the nails were driven through the wrists. We know now that this is where the Romans did in fact place them, and that nails placed through the palms could not support the weight of the body and would tear through. However this was not known in medieval times; because there is no Greek word for "wrist", the word for "hand" was used to indicate the whole area of the hand and wrist. Medieval artists always depict the nails in the hands of the crucified Jesus, not in his wrists. In fact, there are some fake shrouds from the Middle Ages: though apparently copies of the Turin Shroud, every one of them moves the nails to the palms. One Shroud researcher, William Meacham, is confident enough to conclude that this "puts the Shroud in the years of crucifixion - a date from 150 B.C. to A.D. 350." So what about the bold claims that the Shroud is obviously a forgery? One of the authors, Kenneth Stevenson, was part of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). In contrast to the 1988 carbon dating debacle, the work of STURP was "heavily documented, independently confirmed, (and) peer reviewed". According to the authors, "the single most significant conclusion of STURP was that the Shroud image cannot possibly be a painting" or even "the work of a human hand." The painting theory is "a dead issue." What can we say about the image? It turns out that subjecting a photograph of the Shroud to a VP-8 image analyzer reveals that the image is three-dimensional. What shows up is cloth to body distance: the closer the cloth was to the body, the darker the image, and the further away, the fainter the image. So although the cloth touched only high points in the body such as the forehead, the nose, and the chin, other areas are also shown, such as the eyesockets, the throat, and the ribcage. This means that whatever created this image had to jump across space. It is now believed that the image on the Shroud was caused by a radiation burn from more than one kind of radiation. The problem is, you don't get radiation from a dead body. About the only thing known for sure is that nobody has been able to duplicate the image. But even if this is a first century artifact, are there any indications that it might be Jesus? Although it is clear that the man in the Shroud was crucified, and that he was dead (rigor mortis is evident), the key is to look for the things both Jesus and the man in the Shroud have in common that were not normal crucifixion practices. First, the Shroud shows that something was pressed down on the man's skull that caused bleeding: Jesus' crown of thorns comes immediately to mind. Second, it was unusual practice that a crucifixion victim was first almost beaten to death, and yet this is just what happened to both Jesus and the man in the Shroud. Well over one hundred scourge marks have been identified on the Shroud, by what can be identified as a Roman flagrum. Third, Jesus was pierced in the chest, rather than having his legs broken, which would have been normal practice in order to hasten death. The Shroud also shows no sign of broken legs, and a chest wound shows a watery serum, indicating that in all likelihood a spear went through the pericardium. Fourth, generally a crucifixion victim was thrown into a common pit, but both Jesus and the man in the Shroud were given careful, though hasty, burials. Fifth and most interestingly, the Gospels tell us that Jesus was resurrected without any bodily corruption having taken place. The Shroud also shows absolutely no decomposition stains, not even microscopic ones. What this means is that the body could not have been in contact with the Shroud for more than a couple of days, or such signs of decomposition would most certainly have been evident. So where does this leave us today? In a 1981 book, Verdict on the Shroud, the authors shared a high confidence that the Shroud was in fact that of Jesus. In the newer book, in light of the 1988 carbon-14 dating, Ken Stevenson remains just as convinced, but Gary Habermas has some doubts: he gives himself a confidence rating of around seventy percent. We cannot wave away the carbon-14 results but it is good to be aware of the problems and limitations of its application in this particular case. Habermas reminds us, having written on the resurrection of Jesus in other books, that the Shroud could be a good witness to the resurrection but even so, it is the weakest epistemically. We cannot say for sure that the man in the Shroud is Jesus, despite what the probabilities are. The best evidences are found in the pages of the New Testament. One does not have to grant their inspiration to utilize them as historical documents. Conservative and liberal scholars alike agree that there are several undisputed facts regarding the life and death of Jesus: his death by crucifixion, the discovery of his empty tomb, his disciples' belief that he rose and appeared to them, and their changed lives from defeated inaction to bold proclaimers of the resurrection, even unto their own deaths. Habermas argues that the best explanation for these undisputed facts is that God rose Jesus from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is already on solid historical ground, and the evidence of the Shroud may add something if it is real, but takes away nothing if it turns out to be something else.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Keeping The Controversy Alive,
By Patrick Doherty (Birmingham, Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Shroud and the Controversy (Hardcover)
The authors make a clear attempt to keep the controversy about the shroud alive after the damage done by the news of the carbon-14 dating which made the burial cloth appear to be a clever 14th-century forgery. In achieving that goal the book is probably a success since Stevenson and Habermas manage to cast doubt on the credibility of the radioactive measurement process. The book also contains some new material and much old evidence to support the authenticity of the shroud. Anyway you wish to view it, the mystery of the shroud is an intriguing story.
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