The Shroud of Turin is back in the news today. Does anyone else, like me, think that the way the Shroud is described in the NT doesn't seem to match this object everyone is obsessed with?
"then they took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen"
Does the shroud seem to you to be made of strips? It looks like one piece of cloth to me. Not strips.
Again, in John 20:6
Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.
More STRIPS. And a separate cloth AROUND HIS HEAD. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, about a single shroud.
How dare you disgrace the Holy shroud!?!
You Sir are part of an axis of evil; and are a threat to all that I hold dear and right. Nay a threat to all the decent hardworking folk in this great country.
I shall lead the armies of God, I and my Christian brothers shall smite you and... and...
... shit, thought I was a Republican for a second there!
Posted by: Rob Barac | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 12:53 PM
Why use biblical quotes when there is carbon dating? Why consider it to be anything other than a fraud when there is an utter dearth of evidence that it is genuine?
http://www.skepdic.com/shroud.html
Posted by: Daniel McKinley | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 03:42 PM
Daniel - the article I linked to this morning actually claims there is new evidence suggesting the shroud could be 3000 years old.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 03:51 PM
LOL - not what i was expecting as a topic as I did my rounds of my favorite blogs today! Agree with you though Cam - very dodgy stuff that shroud....
I'd say there is a chance it is the real thing - as much as 1 chance in however many tens of thousands of people died back 20 centuries ago....
Posted by: Darren Rowse | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 03:51 PM
Cameron - in the article, the single cited source apparently tosses out C14 dates altogether in favor of something called "vanillin dating." I'm hardly an expert in the field, but I think it's interesting that all of the top results for that on google are shroud-believer sites. In other words, it doesn't appear to have a huge following among scientists.
Posted by: Dan McKinley | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 04:21 PM
yeah funny bout that. :-)
Posted by: Cameron | Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 04:49 PM