well the eastern gate thread became just to much for me, and this topic always interested me. I had thought in the past the shroud was interesting although i was never convinced as to the origin of it. While watching a show about the shroud the other day reminded me of some questions I have about the shroud and thought I would ask here and see if I get any input. #1 The shroud was carbon dated and determined to be dated around 1350. This date has been disputed by some saying there could have been carbon added during the fire where the shroud was stored in 1532. If this is possible it should be easily proovable now since ther shroud was stored in the San Giovanni Renaissance cathedral in which there was another fire in April 1997. Why not allow another carbon dating of the shroud since this fire to see if the dates are skewed as compared to the last result. #2 This cloth is approximately 14 feet in length and 3.5 feet wide. according to historians the burial procedures of the jews at the time of Jesus did not wrap the bodies of the dead. The dead was "bound" with thin strips of cloth at the hands, knees and around the head closing the jaw. Why would they completely wrap the body of Jesus when that was not burial practice of the time. #3 if this was a wrapping covering the whole body of Jesus why is there a gap between the "head" images? Wouldnt the front image of the head be joined with the back image of the head with sort of a distorted transition between the two images? There are other questions and points to be made on either side of the debate, but for now I will wait and see if there is any interest in the topic.
The shroud did never covered Jesus body, if that answers your question. I also saw a TV show speaking about it Some people think Da Vinci did it, the tissu was coloured with the sun light passing thru a lense which burned really precisely the tissu. The church found it quite useful to provide an evidence of Jesus's existence to the believer masses. Do you think it would serve church interests to reveal that believer mass that they have been cheated for so long time (I'm just talking about the shroud right, not about the rest of the story...)
It is quite true that the shroud is what we call a forgery artifact...for the radiocarbon dating is pretty acurate.... In the Renaissance, many people created objects that were supposedly used by Jesus...it was not to create a reason to say he existed more, we found out, that the people who so loved him wanted a piece of his life...and the people who could make a quick buck off of it did. Although the shroud is not a true part of the archaeological record of the first century AD...we cannot ignore it and other faux artifacts' from the Renaissance's value...for they still let us see how Christianity operated at that time period and we can also see how people imagined such Biblical artifacts to look... any artifact is a good artifact in mine (and more importantly professional archaeologist's ) eyes...as long as they are correctly identified for what they truly are.
If it's a forgery, an artistic genius created it...would have been someone like DaVinci. "forgery artifact"...I've never hear that before but it makes sense as a term to describe something like this...fake but with its own intrinsic artistic value.
::shrug:: perhaps...you'd be surprised how good some of the forgeries really are. I attended a lecture through the Archaeological Institute of America and one of the men was a Biblical archaeologist and the accuracy of some of this stuff could blow your mind...like something that was supposed to be the tomb of James, Jesus's brother...and the actual metal was dated to the correct era...but it was the inscription that was made later...and so they only figured it out when the inscription was dated....so I don't think it really had to be someone like DaVinci...you have to think about how many amazing craftsmen there were back then...
You're right...after going to Rome and seeing the works of art and architecture I'd studied in school, the quality of what was there became less amazing to me than the quantity. But the Shroud, if it is indeed a fake, is truly extraordinary even in the context of its period.
I'm not convinced either way...done a lot of reading on the shroud in the past but it all seems inconclusive to me at this point in time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110401838_2.html That's an article on scientific research of "miracles," and a part on the shroud is about halfway down the page (it's the 2nd page).
