The Shroud of Turin’s Authenticity Exposed – The Shroud of Turin: Jesus’s face or a clever fake?
Pale Blue Thoughts
1:03
But there is one Miracle which stands alone in the sea of Miracles there is only one such Relic available in the entire world that itself is a miracle isn’t it and that is the story of the Shroud of Turin.
Yes, the Shroud of Turin stands out among all miraculous objects.
1:20
Just another religious lie to fool the believers.Hello I’m Anand and you’re watching Pale Blue Thoughts the channel which tries to promote scientific temper by debunking pseudoscience.
OK, let’s analyze your scientific arguments.
2:32
When the miracle happens the negative of the photograph essentially reverses the tones and colors dark areas become light and light areas become dark. This reversal in the tones can make the faint image on the Shroud more distinct and visible making certain features like eyes nose and mouth more recognizable.
I’d disagree it’s a “miracle”. The image simply has a photonegative effect. Though he agrees with this phenomenon, he fails to explain this. How would a medieval forger even know about photonegativity and why would he depict it in this way when only those hundreds of years later would recognize it?
2:55
The earliest known historical records of the Shroud of Turin date back to the 14th century it’s believed that the Shroud was in possession of a French Knight named Geffrey de Charny who exhibited it in France.
Yes, it’s mentioned in the D’Arcis memo.
4:47
Catholic Church of course saw this as a huge money-making scheme.
Baseless assertion. How much money has the Catholic church made with the Shroud?
4:52
They have not made an official statement declaring that the Shroud of Turin is an authentic relic.
Correct, the Catholic church has no position on the Shroud.
5:19
while leaving its authenticity open to the Believers and as Believers go they will believe anything without evidence.
Another baseless assertion, which qualifies as an ad hominem attack.
5:48
Specific testing methods in 1977 three scientists and over 30 other experts in various fields form the Shroud of Turin research project. They took several samples from the surface of Shroud using adhesive tapes. Walter McCrone a leading expert in authentication of historical documents and works of art examined the tapes using various scientific techniques they discovered that the image wasn’t made by any paint instead they found traces of pigments like red ocher and vermilion in certain areas indicating that it might have been imprinted.
Interesting he just bypasses the STURP team findings, who are the ones who actually had hands-on experiments with the Shroud for 5 straight days. Whereas McCrone, who was not even on the STURP team, only had access to 32 sticky tape samples.
The technique that McCrone used was polarized light microscopy and is considered an antiquated technique. Even he admitted it “has been largely lost during the past three decades.”
McCrone never stated the Shroud was entirely produced by paint. What he has stated was “I think it was a fake but I cannot prove it as a scientist.”
6:28
McCrone reported that no actual blood was present in the samples taken.
How could he definitively state this if all he had was tape samples? Plus, he only made his assessment through polarized light microscopy, not through any chemical testing, which both Adler and Heller did.
6:30
The STURP committee also pointed out several mistakes in the proportionality of the body.
They didn’t point out “mistakes”, they simply recognized the disportionality of the body image. Rather than evidence for it being a fake, it’s actually evidence for the authenticity. The disportionate features is evidence of the project technique involved in the image creation. Just because a map is drawn with Greenland being too large, it does not show the map is a fake. Instead, it reveals the projection technique used in the map creation.
6:36
And the way people were crucified in those times they found that the length of the arms and the size of the head appear somewhat distorted or disproportionate compared to typical human anatomy in a typical crucification the body would undergo.
The longer length of the right arm was because his shoulder was dislocated.
The way the man on the Shroud is crucified is actually evidence for its authenticity. Practically all art depictions of crucifixions show the nails in the palms. However, the Shroud shows the nails in the wrists. It was only until the Turin Shroud was studied that we now understand it was phyically impossible for a nail through the palm to hold up a crucified person.
6:50
Certain physical changes due to rigus and decomposition however the body image on the Shroud appears relatively unaltered lacking signs of expected physical changes that would occur after death by crucifixion.
Correct, there is no decomposition of the body on the Shroud.
7:06
The positioning of the wounds depicted on the Shroud doesn’t entirely match historical crucification methods for example the placement of the names on the wrist rather than on the palms is inconsistent with typical Roman crucifixion practices.
There is no historical evidence of how nails went through the hand area. There is only artifact evidence of nails going through the feet. The only evidence of how nails went through the hand is art depictions. If it was a painting, why would the forger deviate from art tradition?
7:35
The Herring bone weave in which the cloth has been made did not exist during Jesus’s time.
Incorrect. See the Wikipedia article – Herringbone (cloth)
7:48
Plant material found on the Shroud doesn’t match the flora that would have been present in the region of Jerusalem during Jesus’s time instead it corresponds more closely to the flora of Europe during the medieval period.
What plant material is he referring to? If he’s talking about pollen evidence from Max Frei, Frei found congruity with the pollen found on the Shroud with the pollen found in the Shroud’s known history, which included travelling through eastern Europe.
8:02
Finally they decided to do radiocarbon dating on the cloth in 1988 that would indicate when the flax plant from which the linen was obtained lived. Three independent tests were conducted at three separate universities. The results all indicated that the cloth dated back to the Middle Ages somewhere between 1260 and 1390 AD. That was a huge red flag because it corresponded to the time when the shroud first surfaced. Tt suggests that the Shroud could have been created during that period and not during the time of Jesus who supposed to have lived.
It would take a long time to go over the 1988 C-14 dating. I’ve covered this in depth and summarized my arguments at Defending Christianity.
9:42
It’s been demonstrated without a doubt that medieval techniques such as painting or imprinting could have been used to create the image on the cloth so the scientific evidence points more towards the Shroud being a medieval creation rather than an authentic Relic from Jesus’s time.
What’s interesting is that nobody has been able to recreate the body image and blood stains using medieval techniques (or even modern techniques). If it’s beeen demonstrated without a doubt, shouldn’t this be easily done?
10:14
And barrier regardless of scientific conclusions that is human nature to believe things without evidence it is the easier route and it is something that we have accumulated as part of evolution.
What does evolution have to do with anything?
As for scientific conclusions, the scientific evidence is overwhelming for its authenticity rather than being a fake. Really the only scientific evidence brought up to argue it’s a fake is the 1988 C-14 dating, and this has been refuted. As for scientific evidence, see my collection of evidence at Defending Christianity.
https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1139831#p1139831