Perennis

As some readers may be aware, the Shroud of Turin has been an interest of mine for many years. This morning I received a fascinating link from my bishop, Lewis Keizer of the Home Temple regarding new information on the Shroud. Dr. Keizer has been a Shroud scholar for many years and this new information vindicates his previous theories on the Shroud.

There have been several problems facing those who feel that the Shroud is an authentic relic from the time of Jesus. First has been the infamous 1988 radiocarbon dating, which showed an apparent date for the Shroud of between 1260 and 1390 CE, making it a medieval forgery. A number of researchers have cast doubt on the dating procedure. In one of my earlier posts linked below, Raymond Rogers of Los Alamos labs gave convincing evidence that the samples that were submitted to radiocarbon testing were actually part of the medieval patches which were used to repair the cloth after a fire damaged it. Other tests, such as the absence of vanillin in the cloth, show its age to be much greater.

The second problem is a gap in the apparent history of the Shroud between the sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the Shroud’s sudden appearance in Turin in the middle of the 14th century. Before the Crusades, there is legendary record of a cloth containing an image of Jesus which was traced to the city of Edessa, where it was brought to King Apgar by a mysterious disciple of Jesus after Jesus’ death. The cloth was eventually brought to Constantinople by the Emperor, but connecting it with the Shroud and its appearance in Europe was conjectural.

But according to the new article linked below, researchers in the Vatican Secret Archives uncovered such a connection in the testimony compiled at the heresy trials of the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were present at the sack of Constantinople, where the Edessa cloth disappeared. When the Shroud appeared in Turin, it was in connection with the DeCharney family – Geoffrey DeCharney having been the second in command of the Knights Templar. Some historians speculated that the Kights Templar had made off with the Edessa cloth, and that it became a secret relic in their possession, possibly used in their initiations.

The newly released testimony of a young French recruit of the Templars is that he was brought to a secret room during his initiation into the order in 1287, and shown a long linen cloth with the figure of a man impressed on it. He was instructed to venerate this relic. This gives strong support for the Templar connection and strengthens the historical chain of evidence linking the Shroud back to Constantinople, to Edessa, and finally Palestine.

Links:

News Item:

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

My previous posts on the Shroud

http://pathstoknowledge.com/2006/07/27/shroud-of-turin-dating-error/

http://pathstoknowledge.com/2006/07/27/second-image-on-the-shroud/

Bishop Keizer’s presentation on the Shroud

http://www.wisdomseminars.org/Sh/Presentation_Files/index.html

Bishop Keizer’s links:

www.hometemple.org

www.wisdomseminars.org

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“Two scientists from the University of Padua, Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, report in the journal’s April edition the discovery of a heretofore-undetected reverse image on the shroud. They say the smaller, fainter image on the back of the cloth depicts just the face and hands. And it’s a superficial image, adhering only to the outermost fibers, just like the image on the front. “It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features,” Fanti writes.”

- full article at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/012/32.56.html

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Fri Jan 28, 9:36 AM ET

Science – Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – The Shroud of Turin, which some Christians believe is Jesus Christ’s burial cloth, may not be the fake scientific tests have concluded because they analyzed a patch put on it, according to a U.S. scientist.

Raymond N. Rogers of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico published a paper this week arguing that new dating tests showed the 1988 tests were from a cloth patch probably sewn on after a fire damaged the Shroud in 1532.

The linen Shroud measuring 4.4 by 1.2 meters (14.5 by 3.9 feet) bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man believers say was Christ.

One of Christianity’s most disputed relics, it is locked away at Turin Cathedral in Italy and rarely exhibited. It was last on display in 2000 and may not be shown again until 2025.

Radiocarbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390. Sceptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.

But Rogers, writing in the scientific review Thermochimica Acta, wrote: “The dye found on the radiocarbon sample was not used in Europe before about 1291.”

“The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud,” he wrote in the article on the Internet (www.sciencedirect.com).

Rogers said one dating test, which measures the gradual disappearance of the compound vanillin in linen, found it was present in the patch analyzed in 1988 but not on the main body of the Shroud.

He said linens found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to the time of Christ, also show no vanillin. He estimated the Shroud could be anywhere from 1,300 to 3,000 years old.

Scientists are at a loss to explain how the image was made and most agree it could not have been painted or printed.

The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud, which is believed to have been brought to Europe from the Middle East during the Crusades in the mid-14th century, is authentic.

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