Jack the Bodiless

leonarde:

Let's assume our forger is working in the Middle East. He may be a clever, scientifically-literate (for the era) Muslim, setting out to fool the infidel.

He gets a Syrian shroud: likely to be woven in the same way as those of a thousand years earlier, and (unknown to the forger) with the same pollen grains in it.

If it happens to have been produced in the same geographical area as the Sudarium (possibly an area where the forging of religious artifacts was a local industry: quite likely in the Middle-East), it is quite likely that two random people from that region would have the same blood group. Populations didn't move about much in those days.

As for the historical details: why assume that modern historians have better historical information than anything available then? Especially if our guy is a Muslim: they were famous for retaining information from classical times. It's reasonable to assume he could know, and fake, anything that doesn't require modern instruments to either produce or detect.

The "snuff shroud": Grab a Christian slave, crucify him. Allahu Akhbar!

Oxidation and decay: microbes eating the residue, now dead and gone, not planned by the forger.

leonarde

Datherton,
Thanks for your input! Probably what I wrote about the role of the archaeologist isn't very
controversial. Yet according to Koy, depending on
which of his posts you read in this thread:
1)Meacham has no business commenting at all on
forensic matters.
2)Meacham is merely repeating what Bucklin and
other forensic experts claim elsewhere(!)
.
Well what else is new? An archaeologist is supposed to collect and interpret data from a wide range of sources (if possible) to determine the age, authenticity, and purpose of any artifacts being examined. Koy's objection is, in effect, that Meacham is merely doing his job as an archaeologist studying the Shroud.

"A priori" and "bias": in research of all types there is an attempt, in most instances, to, at least, put aside biases to the best of one's abilities. Most scientists, most of the time, do
this to a great extent. If we had to rely on Hindu
and Buddhist believers to investigate the authenticity of the Shroud, we could be in a world
of hurt: there are not a lot of Hindus in Italy
(a lot of the non-STURP research has been done by
Italians: they are on the spot and have the connections). We'll have to do the best we can with the biased scientists we have.

Koy, no doubt, thinks he is unbiased. I hate to
judge anyone based on one thread but it seems to
me that HIS a priori assumptions are:

1)all talk of god(s) is based on wishful thinking,
superstition, and/or deception.
2)any data which indicate otherwise are therefore
either manufactured and/or misinterpreted.

Back to bias: aware of objections that Catholics
in particular and Christians in general might too
easily buy into authenticity I mentioned (page 3)
that the official photographer of STURP (and the
man who runs the big Shroud website), Barrie Schwortz, is Jewish yet believes in authenticity. This brought a chorus of jeers from the "participants": jeers with, what seemed to me, anti-Semitic overtones (see middle third of page 3 ). THAT , to me is not a way
to argue.

Let me do a partial repost from a chronology I gave on page 3: That is just about 100 years ago now.
To me our Koy is another Berthelot. I was hoping
that I might find a Delage or two in the house.

Cheers!

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

leonarde

Jack,
You are a creative thinker: I like that. Still
there are problems: there is no evidence of any
of this.
1)Islam today doesn't, and as far as I know, never did believe in visual depictions of religious figures (remember Jesus is a prophet
to the Muslims)so depicting Jesus even in a Shroud
would be against their religion (that's why you
never see depictions of Muhammed in Islamic countries, or for that matter anywhere).
2)I know there is some variation in blood types but AB negative would be, grosso modo, as rare in
the Middle East as in Europe (though I should look
into it when I have the time).
3)posted by Jack: The oxidation
and decay have nothing to do with microbes. This
is just speculation, but the most probable cause
of the oxidation and decay is a coronal discharge
of some sort or another type of radiant energy.
4)In all probability the same type of cloth was NOT made 1000 years later, even in Syria: textile
manufacture, like everything, changes over time.
5)Posted by Jack: That's just it though: our modern
instruments, technology, and science to this day
cannot make a Shroud with the full range of features of the Shroud. 1000 years ago? The chances are....zilch.

Your version accounts for the pollen but probably
little else.
Cheers!

spin

Bye leonarde. It's clear that despite the fact that you won't look into the Greek, you have a priori commitments which preclude a rational approach to the subject. Your post which contains the following is simply irrelevant. You haven't dealt with the bands in Jn20:7 or the separate head covering. They both simply negate your rag. As you have nothing to say on the matter, there is no point in continuing to talk to you about it. You abandoned the ring without the contest.

------------------------------------------
Spin's claims that a certain koine Greek word in
the Gospel of John in and of itself excluded the
Shroud of Turin reminded me of the end of an
eventually multi-sided e-mail discussion of the
Shroud's history particularly as it relates to
1)the coin(s) over the eye(s) controversy and
2)the use of certain Greek, French and Syriac(?)
words to characterize:
1)the Gospel of John funereal cloth.
2)the Mandylion (in Constaninople until 1204).
3)the Shroud itself.

Datheron

Leonade,

Thanks for your two replies. I, however, will not try to get into the discussion myself; not being a scholar of the shroud and its history, I will no doubt hinder more than help. Plus, your main quarrel is with Koy, and I see you already have your hands full as it is. I just wanted to comment, and per your request, try to clarify Koy's point (which I agree with, in light of the evidence presented). Any problems with Koy's argument will, of course, need to be taken up with him.

leonarde

Spin,
If you had read all my posts from the beginning
you would know that I don't think of this as a
"ring" (boxing, wrestling or otherwise). I look
at this thread, and this forum as a chance to
share ideas, thoughts, interpretations. If you think that a particular Greek word or phrase
completely rules out authenticity despite the mountain of OTHER evidence that points in the other direction, then so be it. But you will be,
in all likelihood, in a party of one: OTHER skeptics will be against authenticity for OTHER
reasons, all of varying degrees of validity. Guscin, whom I cited in that link, has two degrees
in classical languages and he believes in authenticity, though he didn't get into the particulars in the exchange that I presented. The
linguistic question is NOT the central one in the
Shroud controversy and has long since (for a few
decades) been superceded by other data. Cheers!

leonarde

Datheron,
Thanks for your assistance. I'm grateful.
Cheers!

leonarde

I'm not very good in math (to put it mildly!) and
so don't have much reliance on probability or
other math-based takes on the S of Turin or other
such controversies. Yet I came across a paper by
Fanti and Marinelli, two Italians from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Padua. The paper is called "Results
of a probabilistic model applied to the research
carried out on the Turin Shroud". The format cannot be copied so I provide the URL:
<a href="http://www.shroud.com/fanti3en.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.shroud.com/fanti3en.pdf</a>

Interesting for math types.

leonarde

Another interesting paper, treating of the use of
the VP-8 Image Analyzer on the Shroud, is written
by one Schumacher and is available here:
<a href="http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/schumchr.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/schumchr.pdf</a>

Cheers!

leonarde

I mentioned a number of times in a number of connections on this thread that the Sudarium of
Oviedo and the Shroud of Turin blood stains
coincide to a remarkable degree (highly indicative
of their having been on the same person). I also
mentioned that they were typed to the same type
of blood (AB negative).
I knew that AB blood was the rarest general designation for blood but had never looked up the
figures for it when the rh factor (pos. or negative)was factored in. Until today.
From the American Association of Blood Banks
a rundown on the incidence of blood types (in the
US of course):
The approximate distribution of blood types in the US population is as follows.
Distribution may be different for specific racial and ethnic groups:

O Rh-positive 38 percent

O Rh-negative 7 percent

A Rh-positive 34 percent

A Rh-negative 6 percent

B Rh-positive 9 percent

B Rh-negative 2 percent


AB Rh-positive 3 percent

AB Rh-negative 1 percent


The above is from:
<a href="http://www.aabb.org/All_About_Blood/FAQs/aabb_faqs.htm" target="_blank">http://www.aabb.org/All_About_Blood/FAQs/aabb_faqs.htm</a>

Don't know exactly whether Blood type AB negative
is SO rare in the Middle East.....
Cheers!

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>