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The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

michaelshermer.substack.com

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Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#91

Post by InsideOutSanta »

d_theorist wrote: post #68
codingdave wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea, but that seems completely orthogonal to what technique was used.

It’s extremely relevant to the question, which is what the negative nature of the image has to tell us about the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses (miraculous hypothesis vs fraud hypothesis). In my view, it is a big problem for the fraud hypothesis because you have to explain why and how it was done. At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown, and when there are no other examples of n…

They inverted the colors because they were creating a painting of an impression of a face on a piece of cloth.

If you put a piece of cloth on your face, the parts of the face that touch the cloth are the ones where color would be transferred from your face to the cloth, and which are therefore darker. The parts of the face that are more recessed, like the areas around the eyeballs, would not touch the cloth, and so less or no color would be transferred from the face to the cloth in those areas.

In other words, the part of the face that would receive more shadow in a normal image (and would be darker) would receive less pigment in the painting (and would be lighter).

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#92

Post by tristramb »

d_theorist wrote: post #41
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the 14th century were no dumber than people living today, and painters like Duccio di Buoninsegna had a great understanding of shadows, and were capable of drawing amazing portraits. They were absolutely capable of painting a negative of a portrait.

Of course they weren’t dumb, but having a great understanding of shadows is a far cry from being capable of creating a photo negative. They didn’t even have the concept of a photo negative. How would they even have thought to achieve such a thing? And for what purpose? And, by the way, the image on the shroud is not made of paint, so contemporary proficiency with painting techniques hardly seems relevant.

It could be survivorship bias. All the fake shrouds with botched images were recognised as fakes and thrown out long ago. Only this one which happens to look vaguely realistic has been kept.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#93

Post by tasty_freeze »

appguy wrote: post #20

Something that amazes me about The Shroud of Turin is that if it was created in the 14th century, how did they create a photographic negative 400 years before the first known photographic negative was created in 1826 by Nicephore Niepce. It’s the most studied artifact in history and still no one knows how The Shroud was created.

If I had to choose between (a) an artist who decided to invert the light/dark palette to achieve a dramatic effect or (b) it actually wrapped God and the moment of His death it left pigment on the cloth, I'm going with (a) every time.

If you want to get Bayesian on it, the base rate of confirmed art forgeries and religious artifact forgeries is non-trivial, but the base rate of confirmed creators of the universe manifesting has human form is zero.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#94

Post by agarren »

briffid wrote: post #63
stryan wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 14th century radio carbon dating is still by far the most accepted dating. Even the wikipedia article you linked describes the Pray-cosex as not being definitive. IMO a plausible theory here is that imagery of Jesus's death with those "distinctive features" was already popular at the time and both artifacts are representative of that imagery.

The best explanation to what the codex depicts, is the shroud. Which could be a copy of an older shroud e.g., but the C14 dating has its flaws (burnt material etc.).

The Pray codex is listed under “fringe theories” in the Wikipedia Shroud entry. That certainly make it wrong, but it does make it a little more suspect than the c14 dating criticism. The c14 contamination arguments seem more than adequately addressed in the entire last 3rd of the article.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#95

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

mock-possum wrote: post #24
therealpresence wrote: post #13

[flagged]

poe’s law hitting me really hard here

It's especially amusing that the post originally describing that observation (Poe's Law) was on a Christian forum talking about how they couldn't tell the difference between trolls and... ahem passionate posters.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#96

Post by jl6 »

svieira wrote: post #87
tsimionescu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, the thing is not a shroud, it's essentially a 14th century painting, created as one of a myriad fake relics for money and fame. Second of all, if you believed it were a real ancient shroud, you would have to explain how the image on it was produced. Corpses don't leave images on shrouds, and even if it were true that everyone in ancient Israel were wrapped in a linen shroud when they died, people certai…

> you would have to explain how the image on it was produced It was produced by Jesus Christ at His resurrection. He left it for us to see and ensured that its being set aside was recorded in Scripture (not with the others but rolled up in a separate place - https://biblehub.com/john/20-7.htm ). If you mean "how did Jesus create the image"? Well, I don't know, we can look at the image (as some have) and come up with…

He smartly ensured that the shroud was exactly consistent with a forgery so that He could sort those with true faith from those whose belief depends on earthly evidence.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#97

Post by [deleted] »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #37
graemep wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are being sarcastic, but nonetheless worth pointing out that almost all miracles attributed to Jesus have some point and/or symbolic importance (e.g. to relive suffering, as an illustration of who he was, etc.). A miraculous shroud just seems showy.

The symbolic importance of striking barren a fig tree that had the audacity to not be bearing fruit out of season.

[deleted]

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#98

Post by recursive »

patrickmay wrote: post #71
kcplate wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second of all, if you believed it were a real ancient shroud, you would have to explain how the image on it was produced. Corpses don't leave images on shrouds Well, they have haven’t they? I think you need to put yourself in the shoes of a believing Christian/catholic. There is really no need for them to try and explain scientifically what is explained miraculously. From the miraculous POV the act of resurrection…

You've got the burden of proof backwards there. It is absolutely up to those who claim the shroud is that of Jesus to prove it.

The nature of faith rejects the validity of such burdens of proof.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#99

Post by briffid »

agarren wrote: post #94
briffid wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best explanation to what the codex depicts, is the shroud. Which could be a copy of an older shroud e.g., but the C14 dating has its flaws (burnt material etc.).

The Pray codex is listed under “fringe theories” in the Wikipedia Shroud entry. That certainly make it wrong, but it does make it a little more suspect than the c14 dating criticism. The c14 contamination arguments seem more than adequately addressed in the entire last 3rd of the article.

Yes, the wikipedia article makes an argumentation error. Even if the Pray Codex doesn't show the shroud, it contains a very unique depiction of a nude Jesus. So the painter of the codex with high probability have seen the exact same picture as what is on the Shroud now. This doesn't prove that the shroud is earlier than the Pray codex, but this is something an unbiased scientist have to try to answer. I find it very annoying that all these very scientific-looking articles never try to explain how the hell is it possible that the Pray codex contains a depiction of the dead Jesus in a way, of which the first known depiction is from a century later in a photonegative form. Not to mention the other ridiculous arguments, that the shroud is one from the enormous amount of medieval forgeries. Where are all the other photonegative shrouds and pictures. I personally don't think that a supernatural creator omniscient etc god would create a photo of his resurrecting son, but I am really annoyed by all that bad science around the shroud. Ok, the C14 is real, because they told so (yeah, science never tries to find contradicting evidence, never challenges previous knowledge or belief...) but then you could still use Occam's razor to find simple explanations for like the Pray Codex depiction. At least please try to explain, why the drawing there is so different to all other drawings of Jesus in that era.

Re: The Shroud of Turin: History and Legends

#100

Post by briffid »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #91
d_theorist wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s extremely relevant to the question, which is what the negative nature of the image has to tell us about the relative probabilities of the two hypotheses (miraculous hypothesis vs fraud hypothesis). In my view, it is a big problem for the fraud hypothesis because you have to explain why and how it was done. At a time when the idea of a photo negative was entirely unknown, and when there are no other examples of n…

They inverted the colors because they were creating a painting of an impression of a face on a piece of cloth. If you put a piece of cloth on your face, the parts of the face that touch the cloth are the ones where color would be transferred from your face to the cloth, and which are therefore darker. The parts of the face that are more recessed, like the areas around the eyeballs, would not touch the cloth, and so l…

A face impression would be very distorted when moving from a 3D face to a 2D sheet. So it is not an impression.
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