Koyaanisqatsi

Take a look at your own referenced website under Isabel Piczek to see what I'm talking about.

Do you read your own material?

I didn't. I said that if the body hadn't been cleaned then the shroud would be covered in blood (if fresh) and the face would be almost unrecognizable due to the amount of blood that would have been streaming down Jesus' face from the "30...arterial...spike wounds" Meacham alleges is evident on the shroud.

Please pay attention. This constant reiteration is growing tiresome.

He did a profoundly remarkable and arguably unheard of thing in burying Jesus if Jesus were "just a man" as you claim Joseph thought!

He risked his life by going to petition Pilate for the body; paid out a tremendous sum of some kind to gain possession of the body; spent considerable political favor most likely as well; and risked the anger (and retribution) of the Sanhedrin who allegedly conspired with their mortal enemies to murder a completely innocent man!

Joseph would have had to have been a wealthy Jew of some standing (and is according to some of the gospel versions) in order to pull anything like that off and he risked all of that, including, quite possibly and highly likely his own life, just to bury the body of a man who was officially murdered by the Roman Empire through crucifixion, reserved for the most serious political criminals?

And to bury this man in his own private tomb in his own private garden! For not other reason than Joseph was just a nice guy and Jesus was an excellent teacher?

That is, without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary things any man ever did for another man--a dead one at that--just so he could be buried in his own private tomb instead of the usual mass grave reserved for crucified victims.

Because it was. If Joseph didn't consider Jesus to be anything more than "just a man," then he would have risked everything he had including his own life in order to petition for the body of a convicted and crucified seditionist against Rome, placing himself in tremendous personal jeopardy for no discernable reason and insuring that he would be on Pilate's "watch" list at the very least.

From a Roman standpoint, that would be the equivalent of asking Eugene McCarthy if you could have Ethel and Julian Rosenberg's bodies to bury in your family plot.

Actually, to be more precise, that would be like personally petitioning Lenin if you could have Tolstoy's body to bury in your family plot, just because you liked the guy's books.

Joseph was neither. He's not even mentioned until the end of the myth as a contrivance, in mine and certain scholar's opinions.

Not in the slightest! They're tossed into mass graves after left to rot on the cross as an example and deterrant! That's precisely why the crucifixion sight is usually on the way into town, but far away, making Joseph's distance to travel to Pilate all the more suspect.

ONLY FROM THE GOSPEL ACCOUNTS WHICH JOSEPH DID NOT READ AND WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT SINCE THEY WEREN'T CREATED UNTIL DECADES LATER.

If you are asking me to accept that Joseph thought of Jesus as "just a man," then all of it is off, not just that one element! Joseph would have considered Jesus a criminal.

Don't forget, that no such tradition of releasing prisoners on Jewish holy days ever took place and Pilate was a murderous, sadistic dictator.

The gospel accounts of Pilate being some sort of benign, indifferent ruler who acquiesced to the crowd is preposterous and false.

If Joseph considered Jesus as "just a man" then he would have considered him a seditionist against Rome who may or may not have been in collusion with the Sanhedrin. Regardless, to risk everything to bury a man in your own garden while leaving the other two to rot on the cross is a ludicrous assumption and simply does not follow either logic or the biblical accounts.

So which is it? Jesus was the Son of God and Joseph believed it, thereby risking everything in order to bury his Messiah, or Jesus was just a man and Joseph, for no reason whatsoever, decides to risk everything (including his own life) just to make sure this guy (out of hundreds if not thousands) gets burried in his own tomb, just because Joseph, what, is in love with the guy? Is so magnanimous toward just this one guy and no others? What?

Your assumptions are not just illogical, but patently ridiculous.

What pressure? HE WAS PILATE! He wielded the entire Roman Empire and the army to murder thousands! Just prior to the alleged trial, he had slain some 70,000 Jews.

Try desperately to remain logically consistent just once.

Then it is absurd that they would do anything at all to risk their standing, their lives and their livelihood, both against the Romans and the Sandhedrin.

Are you saying that Pilate was afraid of a mob, but Joseph and Nicodemus weren't? All because they just had to bury this man?

Then you have completely removed all plausibility from even the existence of Joseph of Arimathea, let alone any alleged actions he performed on behalf of a Roman crucified seditionist.

Who, by the way, didn't do jack shit to save him or help him or help Joseph, oddly enough.

Now, why was that? For fear they might suffer the same fate? Yet, Joseph, who is not even mentioned until this contrivance has no fear at all, simply because he's just that good a man he can't stand to see another man go unburried. To hell with the hundreds of thousands of others--or even the other two next to Jesus--Jesus, who was "just a man" is the only one worthy of risking everything for just to make sure he's burried alone, in private.

Ridiculous and obviously clouded by your backpeddling and indoctrinated worship mechanisms.

We're not talking about doing something bold or brave to save the guy from death! We're talking about risking EVERYTHING just to make sure a dead stranger gets a proper burial in Joseph's own garden tomb.

Absurd.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, why don't we use the standard of the Church. "Miraculous." You tell me. What's a "miraculous" amount of blood and water from a dead man?

Twist in the wind little straw man...

4) The desperation of your untenable position.

I choose 4.

What a shock.

I didn't have to "mine" very deeply and the "merits" are entirely contingent upon the logical consistencies/inconsistencies of his reportage.

So, in other words, it seems that I have deconstructed your "evidence" and demonstrated it to be logically inconsistent and therefore discredited.

Who spends the majority of his paper discussing forensics...

That and fifty cents gets you a cup of coffee.

I just have and discovered right out of the gate serious logical inconsistencies, demonstrating that the source, no matter how many years he's studied, is not reliable.

Arguments from authority carry absolutely no weight. It is the quality of the evidence that matters, not either the quantity or the amount of people that agree.

Try again.

Cheers!

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

leonarde

Posted by Koyaanisqatsi: No. This is just wrong. I have a copy of "The NIV/
Living Parallel Bible" in front of me. It has the
NIV (New International Version)in the left column
and the "Living Bible" version in the right one.
From the Living Bible: Luke 24 verses 44 to 46:
The NIV translation renders "noon" as "the sixth
hour" and "three o'clock" as the "nineth hour".
This is undoubtedly a more literal translation.
So Jesus was ALIVE on the cross of about 3 hours
and dead on it for 2 or 3 at the most. He was NOT
on the cross for 9 hours.
Cheers!

Koyaanisqatsi

I don't agree with the NIV and never will, but fine. The translations I've read talk about Jesus being in his ninth hour on the cross, which means to me that he's been hanging there for nine hours, but who gives a shit? We'll take your interpretation. Jesus was bleeding out of 34 arterial wounds for three hours and dead for another two on the cross before Joseph arrived.

That would mean he died of blood loss in just three hours, so he bled and bled hard (which makes sense considering how many arterial holes he had in him), which in turn would mean that he no longer had any blood in him. We know this according to your source, since "All authorities agree that this wound was inflicted after death, judging from the small quantity of blood issued."

Yet, GJohn and Origen tell us that his side is pierced and the "miraculous outpouring" of "copious amounts of blood and water" (according to Meacham) occurs, fulfilling prophecy that his side would be pierced (though where this prophecy is found is still beyond me).

So, fine. "All authorities" agree a small quantity of blood issued and you claim this is a "miracle" and equivalent to "copious amounts," again, who gives a shit?

THE POINT IS: There would be no fresh blood absorbed into anything!

If the body wasn't washed prior to the shroud being layed delicately but loosely upon the body then:
<ol type="A">[*] there would be no blood absorption at all, since linen doesn't absorb dried anything, let alone blood[*] the image would be almost unrecognizable due to the massive amount of blood streams that would have poured down his face, neck, and body from the head wounds, especially considering your contention that he bled so profusely and so quickly as to result in death after only three hours![/list=a]

No matter how you slice it, it don't add up.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

leonarde

Posted by Koy: Well when you are an archaeologist who is investigating a linen cloth with the image of
a crucifixed man and the $64,000 question is:
Is it genuine or a man-made forgery then the
forensic details (many only visible via photography and other technical means)are perhaps
THE way to discern the genuine article from the
forgery.
Cheers!

Koyaanisqatsi

Not when the title of your paper is: The Authentication of the Turin Shroud:
An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology and the author is not a forensic pathologist!

Cheers!

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

leonarde

But if you are interested in the Shroud's forensic
details being discussed by a forensics man there
is this link by the forensics member of STURP
<a href="http://www.shroud.com/bucklin.htm" target="_blank">http://www.shroud.com/bucklin.htm</a>

Koyaanisqatsi

Yes, from the same website.

I'll check into it and dice it up the same way I've diced up Meacham and Piczek.

Always enjoyable to demonstrate what it means to provide qualitative evidence, not quantitative evidence.

And I'm discouraged right from the git go. Here's the opening three paragraphs. I've emphasized all of the dubious parts:

So, am I right in assuming this guy wasn't part of any actual forensics team that actually looked at the shroud and is now going to be "performing" an "autopsy replica" based on the image, i.e., the photographs?

Can't wait...

(edited for addendum - Koy)

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

ShottleBop

Maybe in a company-supported canteen (at least, I'd have to look long and hard in SoCal to find a cup of coffee for fifty cents). Making wild, inaccurate generalizations like that can really damage your credibility!

Koyaanisqatsi

Move to Manhattan, my friend! The best cups of Joe you ever tasted for fifty cents a shot on just about every street corner you see!