Knights Templar hid the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican

[emad]

From Times Online
April 5, 2009
Richard Owen, Rome

Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said today in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years.

The Knights Templar, an order which was suppressed and disbanded for alleged heresy, took care of the linen cloth, which bears the image of a man with a beard, long hair and the wounds of crucifixion, according to Vatican researchers.

The Shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral, has long been revered as the shroud in which Jesus was buried, although the image only appeared clearly in 1898 when a photographer developed a negative.

Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican Secret Archives, said the Shroud had disappeared in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and did not surface again until the middle of the fourteenth century. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Dr Frale said its fate in those years had always puzzled historians.

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6040521.ece

[emad]

1. Always reckoned it's Templar grand master Jacques de Molay

whose image has been daubed on this the ultimate TheoCon fake.

[Nihil]

34. I'm with you on this (FWIW)

The resemblance between the image on the shroud and the known (proven)
images of de Molay is pretty close.

In addition, the torture of de Molay was a historical fact and took place
in the appropriate time period for the carbon dating (assuming people are
happy with that bit of course).

Finally, it would be totally in keeping with the OP update from the
Vatican as the Templars would have definitely venerated a "relic" of
their martyred Grand Master (whether or not they "enhanced" it or
"touched it up" when it started to get a little bit tatty).

[jobycom]

2. And another Dan Brown novel begins.

[rosesaylavee]

3. But hasn't the shroud of turin been exposed as a fake...

a masterful one at that but made in the late renaissance?

[provis99]

9. Its a fake, but not from the renaissance

Actually, the time period it was traced to helps the conspiracy nuts: it was dated to the very late 1200s-very early 1300s. Jacques de Molay, the last commander of the Knights Templar, was executed in 1314, so conspiracy nuts think the Shroud of Turin was actually of Jacques de Molay.

You'd figure that one could just look at the fact that the figure has a beard, and recognize it couldn't be from Roman times, since the fashion at Jesus's period was for clean-shaven faces. In all likelihood, if Jesus existed, he probably didn't have a beard. The fashion around 1300 was for men to wear beards, so it is obvious on that fact alone that it more likely was a medieval forgery.

[zeemike]

11. I hate to tell you this but Jesus was not a Roman

He was a Jew.
So why would you think he would adopt Roman fashion?
It is this kind of evidence that is just plain silly.

[emad]

30. A Roman soldier called Panthera allegedly raped Mary and she conceived.

Something in the Koran about it I think.

His so called divinity was more because of who his MOTHER was rather than some putative deity masquarading as a human father.

[Bear down under]

16. Jesus was a rabbi

And the custom of the time was that rabbis wore beards -- or more preciesly, did not shave -- in accordance with the injuctions of the Book of Leviticus (chapter XIX) interpreted as forbidding shaving. So it is most likely that Jesus was bearded.

[Why Syzygy]

17. And doesn't one of the gospels

mention that the Roman soldiers pulled on his beard? Or was that Hollywood?

edit: OT
Isaiah 50: 6

I gave My back to those who strike Me, And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.

[Meshuga]

29. Isaiah 50:6 is not about Jesus

Just because it is put in the context of Jesus it does not make it so.

But even if it was about Jesus, you can't use it to prove that a historical Jesus had a beard.

[TechBear_Seattle]

25. It was also a requirement for rabbis to be married

If Jesus did not follow the requirements for being a rabbi (and would the Gospels have misplaced a whole wife?) why should he have followed mere customs?

[olegramps]

35. The did: Her name was Mary Magdalene

The Gospels as silent about the marriage of every disciple except Peter. However, Paul does say they were married. The fact that it is not mentioned in the Gospels that Jesus was NOT married is more significant since EVERY Jew had the duty to be married. This is the first commandment of Scripture. They argument from silence is more compelling that Jesus was married.

[zeemike]

13. The only evidence for that is the carbon dating

And that is being disputed as you will see if you google the shroud dating.
There is far more evidence that it is older than the carbon dating and many questions about the way it was dated.

[skepticscott]

15. And the report of the Bishop d'Arcis?

You've read that, of course? No, of course not, or your statement that there was no other evidence would be a blatant lie rather than just a display of willful ignorance.

[zeemike]

19. So what does it prove?

Shroud of Turin FAQ
Home : Top Questions : Previous Questions


Comment on Wikipedia Text: the Pierre d'Arcis memorandum (14th century)

. . . in referece to the wikipedia text, the Pierre d'Arcis memorandum (14th century) what was being written at the time challenges the memorandum. Pierre's peers doubted his veracity and questioned his motives. It was all about money. Pierre was the bishop of Troyes. The Shroud was being exhibited at nearby Lirey; and it was to that town that pilgrims with bags of coins were flocking.

Scientific data, proves without any doubt, that the shroud does not contain any paint pigments in sufficient quantities to form an image, makes the entire claim moot.

[skepticscott]

20. It was indeed about the money

and the people displaying the Shroud had far more reason to lie about its provenance from the very beginning. And whatever d'Arcis' peers believed, Pope Clement apparently had no reason to doubt his veracity or his motives. And the most telling quote comes from d'Arcis report on his predecessor's (Bishop Henri) investigation into the shroud:

Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artists who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed."

If it was, as you and all of the other Shroud fundies claim, impossible and inconceivable that the Shroud could have been created by any known artistic techniques of the 14th century, why would he tell such a ridiculous lie about its provenance? The fact that he would propose such a thing at all means that, even if he had no direct evidence that it was true in this particular case, it was entirely reasonable and believable to his audience.


Scientific data, proves without any doubt, that the shroud does not contain any paint pigments in sufficient quantities to form an image, makes the entire claim moot.

Do you just pull this nonsense out of your ass? Images very similar to the Shroud have been produced by techniques that were known and perfectly possible at the time. Very dilute pigment loads, comparable to those on the Shroud itself, produce clearly visible images.

[zeemike]

23. So now I am a Shroud Fundie.

How convenient that is to dismiss any opposite view with such a sweeping label.
So if the shroud was painted with a dilute pigment what caused the oxidation of the fibers and what happened to that pigment?
Did they have a pigment that oxidized the fibers and then disappeared?
Give me a link to the evidence of pigment on the fibers as found by the latest investigation please.

[skepticscott]

33. Hey, I'm a stickler for accuracy

And the pigment is still there, for anyone who cares to look with the proper tool. And it's still on the tapings that were taken from the image areas more than 30 years ago, for anyone that can open their eyes. As far as links, see below.

[Ian David]

4. Pope John Paul had declared the shroud a hoax. And he was infallible, as you know. n/t

[rrneck]

5. Well, there's a load off my mind.

Faith that requires proof ain't faith. As a holy relic it is interesting. As a historical document it can be illuminating. As a path to the practice of faith it is useful. As a proof of the divinity, or even the existence, of Christ it means nothing.

damn typos

[hobbit709]

6. the sack of Constantinople in 1204

Ah yes, good Christians slaughtering other good Christians in the name of Jesus.

[Occam Bandage]

10. That part was more done in the name of lulz.

[El Supremo]

7. But who painted it?

[zeemike]

12. But a more important question is

Why did they paint in a negative image?
Hundreds of years before photography was even thought of.
And by the way there is no paint on the shroud, that they know for a fact.

[skepticscott]

14. Pretty much all wrong

The image on the Shroud is NOT a negative...it's a dark image on a light background. Is a printed page a "negative image"?

Even if it were a negative, what idiot ever thought that people couldn't understand or wouldn't use negative images before photography? Cave painters tens of thousands of years ago created them.

Everything you see in the image on the Shroud is paint. There is red ochre pigment everywhere in the image areas and nowhere else, and there is vermillion pigment in the "blood" areas of the image and nowhere else. Both pigments are in a tempera base.

Next time, try reading something other than Shroudie propaganda.

[zeemike]

18. yes it is and that fact was discovered when it was first

photographed in the late 1800s
And about the image being painted;

IMAGE FORMATION vs WORK OF AN ARTIST

No one knows for sure how the images were created. The images are scorch-like, yet not created by heat, and are a purely surface phenomenon limited to the crowns of the top fibers. The Shroud is clearly not a painting. There are no signs of penetration; the blood was on the Cloth before the image (an unlikely way for an artist to work); there is no outline (which world-renowned artist Isabel Piczek calls the horizon event of art); there are no brush strokes, no style of any period or directionality; no binders to hold paint; no evidence of paint, dye, ink, or chalk creating the images. The images show perfect photo-negativity and 3-dimensionality. It is not a Vaporgraph or natural result of vapors. A current theory suggests scorching caused by light from a miliburst of radiation at the time of the Resurrection, resulting in rapid dehydration, oxidation, and degradation of the linen, coloring it a sepia or straw yellow.

Note: some microscopic particles of paint exist on the Shroud, but these do not constitute the image. During the Middle Ages, a practice called the "sanctification of paintings" permitted about 50 artists to paint replicas of the Shroud and then lay their paintings over the Shroud to "sanctify" them. This permitted contact transfer of particles, which then migrated around the cloth with the folding and rolling of the Shroud when it was opened for exhibit and closed again afterwards.

Several Physicists, including Dr. John Jackson of the Colorado Shroud Center, point to a form of possible columnated radiation as the best explanation for how the image was formed, representing a scorch-like appearance (the scorch caused by light versus heat, as the image does not fluoresce). Dr. Thomas Phillips (nuclear physicist at Duke University and formerly with the High Energy Labs at Harvard) points to a potential miliburst of radiation (a neutron flux) that could be consistent with the moment of Resurrection. Such a miliburst may be a possible cause of the purely surface phenomenon of the scorch-like (scorch-by-light) images and a possible key to the addition of carbon-14 to the Cloth. As Dr. Phillips points out: "We never had a Resurrection to study" and more testing can be done to ascertain whether a neutron-flux occurred. S.T.U.R.P (1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project involving approx. 35 scientists directly examining the Shroud for five days) determined that the image was caused by rapid dehydration, oxidation and degradation of the linen by an unidentified process.

http://www.newgeology.us/presentation24.html

And you might also try some other links below. But i am sure you will find some way to discredit them all because you seem to have so much invested in it bieing a fake.

http://www.rense.com/general60/turin.htm
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/textevid.pdf

[skepticscott]

21. There seems to be no end to the ridiculous rationalizations

that Shroudies will come up with to avoid the simple and obvious truth. Let's just look at a few of the idiocies in what you've written:


The images are scorch-like, yet not created by heat, and are a purely surface phenomenon limited to the crowns of the top fibers.

Several Physicists, including Dr. John Jackson of the Colorado Shroud Center, point to a form of possible columnated radiation as the best explanation for how the image was formed, representing a scorch-like appearance (the scorch caused by light versus heat, as the image does not fluoresce). Dr. Thomas Phillips (nuclear physicist at Duke University and formerly with the High Energy Labs at Harvard) points to a potential miliburst of radiation (a neutron flux) that could be consistent with the moment of Resurrection. Such a miliburst may be a possible cause of the purely surface phenomenon of the scorch-like (scorch-by-light) images and a possible key to the addition of carbon-14 to the Cloth.

Visible light doesn't scorch organic materials. Period. Light is not neutron flux, and neutron flux would penetrate the entire thickness of cloth. Its effects would not be confined to the surface fibers, as they clearly are.

The Shroud is clearly not a painting. There are no signs of penetration; the blood was on the Cloth before the image (an unlikely way for an artist to work); there is no outline (which world-renowned artist Isabel Piczek calls the horizon event of art); there are no brush strokes, no style of any period or directionality;

None of these things are required for a painting. Images similar to the Shroud have been created without them.

no binders to hold paint; no evidence of paint, dye, ink, or chalk creating the images.

Hogwash. The images contain red ochre and vermillion pigments in a tempera medium, all of which have been verified by simple chemical tests.


The images show perfect photo-negativity and 3-dimensionality.

More hogwash. The hair and beard do not show negativity. Why?

It is not a Vaporgraph or natural result of vapors. A current theory suggests scorching caused by light from a miliburst of radiation at the time of the Resurrection, resulting in rapid dehydration, oxidation, and degradation of the linen, coloring it a sepia or straw yellow.

See above. Radiation would have penetrated the entire cloth and not just affected the surface. Even if it didn't, it would have affected the surface AGAINST the body.

Note: some microscopic particles of paint exist on the Shroud, but these do not constitute the image. During the Middle Ages, a practice called the "sanctification of paintings" permitted about 50 artists to paint replicas of the Shroud and then lay their paintings over the Shroud to "sanctify" them. This permitted contact transfer of particles, which then migrated around the cloth with the folding and rolling of the Shroud when it was opened for exhibit and closed again afterwards.

Even if there were a record of this (which I doubt), let's look at how idiotic a theory this is. There are only two types of pigment anywhere on the Shroud. For this theory to be true, every one of the 50 artists who "sanctified" their paintings would have had to have used only those two pigments and no others. Further, their paintings would have used a medium to hold the pigments to their own substrate, which would have prevented pigment particles from transferring by simple contact. Add to that the fact that every overlay of a painting onto the Shroud would have had to be in the exact same place in order to explain why there are NO pigment particles outside of the image areas. The fact that there are no pigment particles outside of the image areas also puts the lie to the notion that folding and rolling of the Shroud moved pigment particles around.

And you right, there are ways to discredit them all. Not because it matters to me which version is true, but because they are utter bullshit, propagated by irrational religious fundamentalists who simply HAVE to have miracles. Stop cutting and pasting fundie propaganda and read some science.

[zeemike]

22. Links please to your conclusions.

And BTW I did not write that but cut and pasted from the link I provided.
So if you want to accuse someone of being an idiot contact the author.
And I suppose that you feel any scientist that does not believe it a fake is not a scientist at all...that is telling and not in the realm of scientific principles.

[El Supremo]

27. I see that my joke passed over your heads.

SOS Hillary Clinton asked "Who painted it?" upon viewing the Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City last week. But it was a reproduction.

[zeemike]

28. Yep right over the top.

Never saw it coming.

[skepticscott]

32. Ah, the demand for links

the last refuge of the clueless. Sorry to disappoint you, but most of that came from those book thingies. You've heard of them, right? Or is all of your knowledge derived from Google and Wikipedia? Read Judgement Day for the Turin Shroud (it'll be in one of those library thingies) and get back to me.

And who's the bigger idiot, the one who writes nonsense in the first place, or the one who parrots it blindly, without an ounce of understanding?

I accuse any scientist who ignores simple and indisputable evidence, or who tries to explain it away with demonstrable baloney, of being unscientific, yes. Any problem with that?

[stopbush]

31. Excellent post!

Don't expect a point-by-point rebuttal. The Shroudies prefer their - ahem - whole cloth explanations.

[dmallind]

8. Neat trick since it wasn't made for another couple hundred years. NT

[JerseygirlCT]

24. Oooh, a 21st century feud between the Knights Templar and Rome would be fun! nt

[ironbark]

26. Then there was the Templers (not to be confused with the Templars)

Who sat in a colony at the base of Mt Carmel waiting for the second coming.
Red roofs of Templer colony, Haifa-

?v=0


They even kept a white horse and a pair of slippers for the messiah.

Then there is the top of Mt Carmel-
http://www.negroschronicle.com/images/oct_19_08/The%20Shrine%20of%20the%20Bab,%20with%20its%20terraced%20gardens%20on%20the%20slopes%20of%20Mount%20Carmel,%20a%20place%20of%20Pilgrimage%20for%20the%20Bahai%E2%80%99%20is%20of%20the%20world.%20Haifa,%20Islarel..jpg



And the claim that ‘He’ has been and gone…like a ‘Thief in the night’.

;-)