Sparrow

There are kid's craft kits to do sun prints. These use a light sensitive paper and when an object is left on top of them exposed to strong light (or even weak light over a long period of time), the profile of the object appears. Even ordinary paper exhibits these properties. If I leave my newspaper in the driveway all day, at the end of the day the side that was exposed to the sun is brownish yellow while the side contacting the concrete is still white. Fabrics act in the same way. No glass is needed whatsoever. Metal, stone, wood or other materials could be used.

leonarde

Then why did Wilson himself use such glass for his little experiment?

That's the thing: when you are hypothesizing about a bygone era and about how people of that era did things/MIGHT HAVE done things, it is encumbent upon the hypothesizer/tester (if possible) to either use technology/materials/techniques KNOWN to have existed in the given time period, or to try to reconstruct same with a somewhat scantier knowledge base.
So Thor Heyerdahl in the 1940s, trying to test a theory about travelling across the Pacific in a reed raft centuries earlier , BUILT such a raft with materials taken to be available in the posited time frame (ie many centuries ago) and achieved his purpose.

NOW, in the early 21st Century, we have not only have many many preserved examples of "high quality medieval stained glass" but we can make (and DO MAKE!) modern high quality stained glass. What was to stop Nathan Wilson (what is to stop ANYONE) from using such a glass to test his theory?
NOTHING.

Except perhaps the qualities of such glass. I haven't really found a URL with a precise breakdown on that, but as someone who has schlepped from medieval church to medieval church in Europe, seen and 'looked through' many a stained glass window, and done the same in (far newer) churches in the US, I can tell you that if what I've seen is typical, stained glass tends to distort images...... The phrase "high quality", thrown around earlier on this thread with regard to medieval stained glass doesn't, that I can see, refer primarily (if at all!) to optical resolution (ie fidelity in transmitting images). Which is why it's not used in photography today.......

But if anyone knows of a photographer who DOES use stained glass for photographic purposes, please let us know!

The body image on the Shroud, by contrast, is amazingly sharp and detailed. It is this wealth of detail, much of it only discernible via enhanced phototgraphy etc. which first led to the idea that the image was a photographic negative to begin with......THAT in 1898....

Sparrow

The guy used plain modern sheet glass because that was what was available to him most likely. BTW, "plate" glass is subtly different. What he used was similar to what was available 700 years ago; i.e. sheets of plain clear glass. For the purposes of his experiments, it's not necessary to get blown glass that has been shaped into sheets as it was 700 years ago, nor is it necessary to find a sheet of 700 year old glass. He's simply showing that one can make an image similar to the image on the shroud by putting opaque material (paint) on a sheet of glass and exposing the fabric to a strong light source. There's nothing photographic about it. It doesn't require perfect glass like a lens would. I believe it doesn't even require glass. A metal or wood pattern would work as well.

leonarde

I agree completely. But that would be the equivalent of Thor Heyerdahl using some 20th Century vessel made of metal to 'prove' that a reed raft (or rafts) could have made the voyage: it's cheating of the wildest order. Even if the image rendered had the FULL range of features of the image of the Shroud of Turin. But the image he produced does not.......

Sparrow

Leonarde, you apparently haven't read much of Wilson's site. He addresses most of your issues right there. As for the use of similar materials, he plans further experiments with actual blown glass made in the medieval method and replica linen.

As fo Mr. Heyerdahl, prior to his attempt most people would have claimed it impossible for a small but modern metal boat to have made the crossing Heyerdahl proposed. Making the voyage first in a small modern boat may have been a first step in getting the funds to do a more realistic recreation.

BTW, if you are succesful in discrediting Wilson's work, that doesn't make the shroud genuine. There are many other reason to believe it is a forgery. And as I said above, even if it is an image of a person who died in the first century, how do you know that person was Jesus?

leonarde

You're right. I haven't. But I've started reading in earnest his magazine article (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2005/002/3.22.html ) and have skimmed large segments of it. Not good. He begins by admitting he's no expert on the Shroud of Turin (and, arguably, spends the rest of the article proving it). He then goes to the oh-but-what-could-it-possibly-mean-to-be-an-expert-on-the-Shroud? tack.

Well, whatever else it is, the Shroud is a historical artifact. The primary province of archaeology. Is that his background? Nope. Perhaps it's a form of medieval art; it THAT Wilson's background? Nope. Art history? Nope. Photography (since his method employs partially a type of protophotography)?? Nope. Medieval or ancient textile specialization? Nope. Palynography (to cover the pollen controversy)? Nope. Numismatics (to cover the coins over the eyes question)? Nope. Medieval history? Nope. Is he perhaps ancient historian? Nope. (More reachingly) physicist? Nope. Chemist? Nope.

Don't get me wrong. Sometimes energetic, precocious amateurs, even youngish ones with a streak of dilettantism, can make slight, less frequently significant, contributions to field X or Y. But that most reasonably happens, CAN happen, when the amateur in question makes an in-depth prolonged study of the FULL dimensions of the subject under perusal (Wilson admits to only becoming intrigued by the Shroud in 2000). And when the amateur has as much scepticism towards his own assumptions and efforts as he does towards the thing he is trying to debunk.

And trying to debunk the authenticity of the Shroud is (was from the beginning) his aim. To be sure, his PRIMARY goal seems to be to help launch a literary career. And I wish him good fortune.

But despite the light, airy prose (he may turn out to be a marvelous writer ) one can sense another impetus, this a religious motivation: he seeks to "crudely demonstrate that such an image could easily be produced in a matter of weeks by wicked men with no scruples, a little imagination, and a little more skill." It doesn't take a great effort on the part of the reader to discern the religious zealotry in the background, religious zealotry of a particular subtype:Back to Sparrow:Fine. When he does use medieval technology, knowledge and materials to get a (posited) result, then I'll take him seriously. Not before.

That is NOT what Thor Heyerdahl did. He used no 'modern boat' and if he had no one would have taken him seriously. What 'funds' does Wilson need to purchase a largish piece of medieval glass or to have produced same? He's a Fellow at a college or university. The cost SHOULD be a pittance.

Cheers!

Sparrow

Leonarde, you still miss the points in several ways. Wilson disavows 'lying for Jesus'. He believes that the shroud is a fake, but not because of his experiment. Maybe for the same reasons Pope Clement VII thought it a fake. All he has done is show that an image can be made on linen cloth with the technology available to people alive at the time the shroud first appeared. There's no need to attack Wilson for his lack of credentials in you list of scholarly areas. Instead let's let teams of credentialed scholars at the cloth to get to the bottom of it. Of course, if the Church knows it's a fake and won't stand up to such scrutiny, they would never go along with an investigation. Exactly the path they have chosen.

You assume the shroud to be genuine when you
- don't know where it was from the time of Jesus' death until 1355 CE
- have no idea how to verify that the image is of Jesus and not some other person
- ignore all the evidence, including that of the Catholic Church itself, that says it is not genuine

When the three samples were taken for carbon dating, extreme care was taken to avoid those areas known to be patched. Now Rogers claims maybe they weren't careful enough and IF the samples came from a patched area, then the other parts of the shroud MIGHT be much older. Fine, let's test again, being more careful to avoid patches and repairs. Pollen and blood do not sway me in the slightest since the storage of the shroud was quite sloppy until recently.

leonarde

I know but that's a PREJUDICE in doing a Shroud-related experiment. A prejudice that, if possible, he should compensate for (and that OTHER PEOPLE will have to take into account in evaluating his experiment(s)).

Furthermore he's just WRONG about the significance of the Pope's statement. If Pope Pius (or any pope, or any PERSON FOR THAT MATTER) truly believes that relic X is genuine, in what sense is it "lying" to say so???? Answer: it isn't! But Wilson has this priggish sense of moral indignation primarily because his religious background tells him that relics, icons and the like are inherently shady ....."Faith", to certain groups, has to be blind, deaf, and dumb, and things which appeal to the senses are repugnant, Papist 'heresies', though they probably feel that the word itself (heresy) is too....medieval.....
And from such sentiments historically the Iconoclasm movement sprang up.....and lesser, more low-keyed iconoclastic movements have sprung up since......

No! That is precisely what he has NOT done and what I have been kvetching about for the last 2 or 3 posts!!! Let him use glass and dyes available at that time (14th to 16th Centuries ) and then we'll talk! Until then it is all opinion and (retrograde) extrapolation based on using 20th Century materials.

What are you TALKING ABOUT?!? The Shroud of Turin is the most studied artifact in human history! Those very specialists I listed (archaeologists, textile experts, art experts etc. plus medical examiners and anatomists) have completed and published in scholarly journals dozens, if not hundreds, of studies on various aspects of the Shroud. The largest listing of same is here:
http://www.shroud.com/papers.htm

I've been keeping up as best I can on such studies since 1998 when I began looking for Shroud-related material on the internet......

And it is to those peer-reviewed studies that I must compare the works of the Nathan Wilsons and the Joe Nickells. The latter suffer from that comparison......

leonarde

Here, if you scroll halfway down the page, you can see a 1940s effort at reproducing the (facial) image of the Shroud:
http://sindone.torino.chiesacattolica.it/en/museo.htm

leonarde

A list of more studies done on the Shroud of Turin:
http://www.shroudofturin.com/Refsmain1.html

And more:
http://www.shroudofturin.com/ReadingMain1.html