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Old 7th January 2016, 01:50 AM   #2401
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
Another thing non-authenticists ought to avoid is too much reliance on the King James Bible's account for an accurate description of the events surrounding the suffering, death and burial of Jesus Christ. If John 19:40 (about the burial customs) is an accurate account, then so, presumably is John 20:12 (in which two Angels appear to Mary Magdalene). Why not?

OK, say we agree that the Biblical accounts are highly unreliable and discard them. What evidence do you have for any of the events surrounding the alleged crucifixion? What evidence do you have for the existence of Christ?

Quote:
Furthermore, we really have little idea what the burial customs really were, or how they might have been amendable in the case of a) a convicted criminal or b) the imminence of the Sabbath. If they were completed on the evening of Jesus's death, then we must ask ourselves why the women went back two days later, for example. Archaeological evidence is extremely meagre, and written instructions either date from hundreds of years before, or tens of years after, the events of the crucifixion.

OK, say we have no idea what the usual burial customs were, or what was done in the burial in question. How will you connect the cloth to this particular first century burial?
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Old 7th January 2016, 01:56 AM   #2402
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theprestige:
The radiocarbon dating is a real thorn in the authenticist side, but it is not, to them, fatal, and I think I am being fair to them if I say that they deal with it in terms of a preponderance of evidence. If nine friends tell you a car is blue, and one says it is red, it is probably fair to say that he may be mistaken. If he produces a photo of the red car, then one might still think that it has been recently resprayed, or that he simply took a photo of the wrong car. The point is not that his evidence would normally considered faulty, but that the weight of the alternative evidence is considered preponderant. In simple terms, that also applies to the the authenticists view of the Shroud. Curiously, exactly the same logic was used by the authors of the paper on the radiocarbon dating, to account for some anomalies in the results, so the general value of such reasoning should not be rejected. The non-authenticist view, of course, is that none of the nine friends is particularly reliable, being either blind, drunk, guessing, lying, or relying on another unreliable source, so that there is no good reason to question the red photo.

Lucian:
"The image on the cloth doesn't look the way one would expect a dead body lying on its back to look." Really? One the contrary, it looks exactly as one would expect a crucified body to look, if it had been carried in a state of rigor mortis from cross to tomb and its arms pulled into position for burial. You disagree? Well, of course, but disagreement is not enough, is it? Not on this forum, it doesn't. Have you any evidence? Mine is Pierre Barbet's Doctor at Calvary, Fred Zugibe's The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry and that entertaining little article I mentioned above. What's yours?

JayUtah:
Thanks for your comments, and indeed advice. There is a new article on academia.edu by a scientist whose early peer-reviewed work on X-rays and lasers quite independent of his Shroud studies surely entitles him to be called so, but who nevertheless believes in the authenticity of the Shroud. I think I shall use that as the basis for more considered Shroud discussion on a new thread, if I'm allowed.

Slowvehicle:
Risibility is a god thing, I suppose. Still...

Do I present sindonist claims without disclaimer or rejoinder? Try reading my posts.

In rejoinder to a discussion about special pleading regarding the unique circumstances of the creation of the image, you apply the same reasoning to the far from unique circumstances of the radiocarbon dating of the cloth. In the absence of any 'normal pleading' it is not 'special pleading' to suppose that a crucifixion victim might have been buried in a state of rigor mortis or on a pile of herbs and spices. Considering the large numbers of ancient cloths which have been satisfactorily dated, it is indeed 'special pleading' to suppose that one of them is incorrect without very certain evidence to support it. (Disclaimer: I personally think that the arms were painted or rubbed or imprinted in that position for artistic decorum. However, there are others who disagree, and their views are not contemptible.)

I agree with what you say about rigor mortis. I made that very point. The arms would have to be forcibly brought together to prepare such a body for burial. (Disclaimer: I personally think that the arms were painted or rubbed or imprinted in that position for artistic decorum. However, there are others who disagree, and their views are not contemptible.)

As for the bible, it cannot be used as positive evidence of inauthenticity unless it is generally accepted to be accurate (or at least this particular bit of it). The big Christian arguments against authenticity in the 19th century (and in the d'Arcis memorandum) were that as the bible was the precise word of God, then the word othonia precluded the possibility of a large sheet being the Shroud. I applaud your apparent belief in angels.

Seriously, though, the bible can be useful, but, as I said, one should avoid too much reliance on it, and one certainly shouldn't cherry pick one word from one of the four accounts of the burial of Jesus in order to discredit the Shroud. Only John, which is generally considered to have been the last assembled gospel and from a different tradition, uses the word othonia, and although, as I say, very little is known about the appropriate 'burial custom', Jewish scholars are unanimous that nobody at that time would have been wrapped in strips. The other gospels use sindonion, as I'm sure you know, which certainly does not refer to bandages. Some people consider that John knew of the rather peculiar long thin nature of the shroud, and described it as othonia precisely to distinguish it from a more sheetlike sindonion. Interestingly John is also the only evangelist to describe the raising of Lazarus, whose grave-clothes he also describes as othonia. (Disclaimer: I personally think that the cloth was made long and thin for convenient display purposes above or in front of an altar. However, there are others who disagree, and their views are not contemptible.)

As for "Levitical injunctions about treating dead bodies", there aren't any. Try "Death & Bereavement in Judaism: Ancient Burial Practices" at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...entburial.html for a review of biblical instruction.
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Old 7th January 2016, 02:30 AM   #2403
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Originally Posted by Slowvehicle View Post
<snip for focus>...and locked into the supracaudal position...<snip for focus>
I apologize for this slip of the fingers. I meant to type "supracephalic", that is, "extended over the head", as in the posture of a body hanging from points of attachment at the wrists or hands...
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Old 7th January 2016, 02:41 AM   #2404
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I think the red car blue car analogy only mudies the water with regard to the strength of conclusions to be drawn for the carbon dating tests but also this much spoken preponderance of evidence for the other side. Lets ditch the analogy and lay out this other claim.
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Old 7th January 2016, 02:57 AM   #2405
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Hugh Farey (Yesterday 2:08):

“It is true that there is a large body of miraculist belief in the authenticity of the Shroud. The foundations for such a belief are outside the realm of Science, and cannot be discussed form a Scientific point of view. Occasionally Scientists are told that it is unscientific to reject the possibility that wholly supernatural events can occur, which is true. Science is based on the premise that the universe is rational, and there are those who do not accept that premise. However, the correct scientific response is not that the universe cannot be irrational, but that if it is, science cannot investigate it, and so leave it at that. I am not an 'irrationalist', and nor, I think, is the current Pope, who has made it quite clear that for him, God is not a magician who waves a magic wand (I mention this only because I am known as a Catholic, and often accused of recusancy in my relentless rationality, but I'm not going to discuss theology here).”

Science can say when a particular “miracle” can be explained with a scientific method, doing so the miraculous “explanation” (it is not) irrelevant. The more general question about the existence of miracles it is not a scientific issue. It is a philosophical subject. This matter is very wide and difficult to summarize here. But a general rule can be established: “Exceptional claims need exceptional evidence”. I have tried to show how some particular sindonsits’ theories that are essential to them and inevitably leads to proclamation of miraculous.
A classic example is the blood trickles on the back of the head in the Man of Turin. See here: https://shroudofturinwithoutallthehy...ng?w=768&h=411 I claim some obvious facts;

-The blood doesn’t flow in form of sinous “rivulets” on the hair.
-The blood doesn’t flows from right to left in a corpse lying on a flat surface ( nor standing up!).
-The blood doesn’t flow making "rivulets" in a head that is resting on a cloth.

My (obvious) claims are very easy to refute: show it! Garlaschelli and Borrini’s experiment was an easy way to show that the trickles of blood of the Shroud are unnatural. I have challenged many times the sindonists to show something similar with the stains of blood in the back of the head. Without answer. No complex theories, no sophisticated mathematics nor expensive devices are needed. Just a bit of realism.

Here my question, Hugh. Do you know any plausible answer to my request?

Last edited by David Mo; 7th January 2016 at 04:34 AM.
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Old 7th January 2016, 03:13 AM   #2406
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Originally Posted by Slowvehicle View Post
It does not seem to me that you are using terms, the meanings of which you understand.
Nothing strange. My wifi connexion doesn't work well and I was writing with the help of my student dictionary.

The Codex Pray afair is not pareidolia. It is a direct manipulation of language.


Originally Posted by Slowvehicle View Post
The worth of the D'arcis memo and the Clement declaration is not that a Bishop, or a Pope, settled the issue by declaring that the CIQ was not "authentic". The worth of the D'arcis memo and the Clement declaration is that, shortly after the very first reliably recorded appearance of the CIQ, it was the subject of consideration; and there is no earlier reliable record of the CIQ's existence. (The "Pray Codex" identification is a bit of pareidolia on par with the Whangers' "coins".)
I agree on that. The silence about the shroud and the claims contrary to the autenticity by d'Arcis, the pope and the Liège's comission are strong indicators of some kind of fake. But not definitive. And they are independent of the reliability of d'Arcis testimony.

Last edited by David Mo; 7th January 2016 at 04:30 AM.
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Old 7th January 2016, 03:18 AM   #2407
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
theprestige:

Thanks for your comments, and indeed advice. There is a new article on academia.edu by a scientist whose early peer-reviewed work on X-rays and lasers quite independent of his Shroud studies surely entitles him to be called so, but who nevertheless believes in the authenticity of the Shroud. I think I shall use that as the basis for more considered Shroud discussion on a new thread, if I'm allowed.
I am anxiously waiting for it!
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Old 7th January 2016, 03:25 AM   #2408
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
<snip for focus>
My Dear Mr. Farey:

This apporach dseems to embody the ethical obverse of "just asking questions".

If one is to indulge in the supposition that the anatomically impossible presentation of the representational image on the CIQ is due to the fact that the "body" was supposedly laid on a supposed bed of spices (as opposed to being "bound up" in the spices with "strips" of cloth), but that the image of the arms was produced by a "rubbing", one has supposed oneself out of the possibility that one is still referring to the "actual shroud" used to bury the body of an HJ.

"This is John Henry's typewriter" comes to mind.

Further, if one rejects, or allows contradiction with, the 'god'spiel accounts of the crucifiction (in the Koiné), one supposes oneself out of any possibility that one is defending the "actual shroud" used to "wrap" the body of the MJ.

And one must still deal with the results of the 14 dating, which is primarily considered "wrong" by those who already assume that the CIQ must be "authentic" (and therefore must be ~2000 years old).

One may "hope" that the CIQ is "authentic"; one may "suppose" one's way around the evidence, and make ad hoc rationalizations (and indulge in special pleading) to shore up one's assumed consequent, to one's heart's content. Such an act of devotion does not change the facts.

Ah, well.

BTW, I do apologize for slipping back into the seminarian's habit of using "levitical" (with a small "l") as a shorthand way to refer to all of the "law". I will, in the future, be more precise.

Through it all,

I remain faithfully yours &ct.
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Old 7th January 2016, 03:39 AM   #2409
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
Risibility is a god thing, I suppose.

Is that what Jefferson meant when he said that "ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions"?
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Old 7th January 2016, 04:27 AM   #2410
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
theprestige:
The radiocarbon dating is a real thorn in the authenticist side, but it is not, to them, fatal, and I think I am being fair to them if I say that they deal with it in terms of a preponderance of evidence. If nine friends tell you a car is blue...
The comparison is not fair. If a reputed doctor tells you have got a pneumonia and nine medicine men say that some bad spirit has thrown to you evil eye it will be advisable to accept the doctor's diagnostic. I am afraid you include in the opposite opinions to the 14C dating some sorcerer's apprentices and no true doctor.

This is a common problem of the aprioristical "neither-nor".

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Old 7th January 2016, 05:29 AM   #2411
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Originally Posted by David Mo View Post
. The more general question about the existence of miracles it is not a scientific issue. It is a philosophical subject.
I disagree. If sceince (physics, chemistry, medicine) can't provide an answer to the "miracle," then psychology almost certainly will. I have been to the Cappella della Sacra Sindone in Turin, I have witnessed believers weeping as they knelt in prayer in front of the empty display cabinet that used to contain the dirty tea towel. Not the tea towel itself, but an empty space. All of the miracles suggested for the various anomalies of the tea towel are borne of that pitiful desperation for the CIQ to be real.
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:28 AM   #2412
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Originally Posted by Filippo Lippi View Post
I disagree. If sceince (physics, chemistry, medicine) can't provide an answer to the "miracle," then psychology almost certainly will. I have been to the Cappella della Sacra Sindone in Turin, I have witnessed believers weeping as they knelt in prayer in front of the empty display cabinet that used to contain the dirty tea towel. Not the tea towel itself, but an empty space. All of the miracles suggested for the various anomalies of the tea towel are borne of that pitiful desperation for the CIQ to be real.
Certo, fra Filippo. Science can explain some believers' behaviours, physical processes, historical antecedents, etc. of particular cases of alleged miracles. But problems such as definition, identification or possibility of miracles in general terms are not scientific. The very category of "miracle" is not scientific but theological or philosophical.

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Old 7th January 2016, 08:30 AM   #2413
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
theprestige:
The radiocarbon dating is a real thorn in the authenticist side, but it is not, to them, fatal, and I think I am being fair to them if I say that they deal with it in terms of a preponderance of evidence. If nine friends tell you a car is blue, and one says it is red, it is probably fair to say that he may be mistaken.
Two problems here:

1) The analogy is false. It is not about people's testimonies. There is objective evidence for one side.

2) The alleged preponderance of evidence is imaginary. In fact, the authenticy side has no evidence at all.

Quote:
"The image on the cloth doesn't look the way one would expect a dead body lying on its back to look." Really? One the contrary, it looks exactly as one would expect a crucified body to look, if it had been carried in a state of rigor mortis from cross to tomb and its arms pulled into position for burial.
Does rigor mortis make the arms unnaturally long?

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Old 7th January 2016, 08:31 AM   #2414
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Blood/What difference does it make?

Originally Posted by Monza View Post
Good morning, Jabba. Welcome back.

Would you please give us a brief explanation of how blood relates to determining age? I don't understand how the shroud can be dated based on the presence or lack of blood. I thank you in advance.
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:37 AM   #2415
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?
No, No, NO!!! You still don't understand how the burden of proof works. It doesn't matter a whit what McCrone said. The default position is not "authentic until proven otherwise". The default position is "there is no reason to consider authenticity until some evidence shows up indicating authenticity." When you assert that blood is evidence of authenticity, you need to show how it is POSITIVE evidence of authenticity.
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:40 AM   #2416
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?
All that would show is that McCrone was wrong about there being blood on the cloth. That would do nothing to show that the cloth was the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, or was the right age to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:43 AM   #2417
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Blood

- Though Hugh Farey disagrees with my ultimate conclusion, he does a much better job of presenting my case than do I. He gives a lot of my answers that I have simply been too slow to give. Hopefully, my one-step-at-a-time will eventually pay off.

Hugh,
- I've asked you about the blood claim before, but can't remember your objections. Could you tell me again?
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:43 AM   #2418
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Quote:
Certo, fra Filippo. Science can explain some believers' behaviours, physical processes, historical antecedents, etc. of particular cases of alleged miracles. But problems such as definition, identification or possibility of miracles in general terms are not scientific. The very category of "miracle" is not scientific but theological or philosophical.
I see "theological" as a synonym for "fantastical"
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Last edited by Filippo Lippi; 7th January 2016 at 08:44 AM. Reason: The conversation moved on, so added the quote
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:48 AM   #2419
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
- Though Hugh Farey disagrees with my ultimate conclusion, he does a much better job of presenting my case than do I. He gives a lot of my answers that I have simply been too slow to give. Hopefully, my one-step-at-a-time will eventually pay off.

Hugh,
- I've asked you about the blood claim before, but can't remember your objections. Could you tell me again?
Two days ago you claimed to have "lots of evidence," where is it?
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Old 7th January 2016, 08:50 AM   #2420
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?
My Dear Mr. Savage:

Good Morning!

I must remind you, again, that Dr. McCrone's work with the surface chemicals of the CIQ is independent of the 14C testing; that is, even if you were able to prove that Dr. McCrone was wrong, and that the "blood" on the CIQ was actual human blood (pace the wrong color, the anti-physics behavior, and the lack of [for instance] potassium), you would still have "blood" on a piece of linen that has been dated by three independent laboratories to the mid-thirteenth century C.E.

Let me say that again: Even if the "blood" on the CIQ were conclusively demonstrated to be human blood, that has no bearing at all on the 14C date. As has been pointed out to you, multiple times by multiple posters, human blood is available wherever (and whenever) there are humans.

...and don't presume to continue to ignore my post abut the H&A paper...

Through it all, I remain

Patiently yours &ct.

ETA: FYI, and to forestall search engine complaints:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...4#post10675254

You are, of course, most welcome.
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Old 7th January 2016, 09:01 AM   #2421
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?
No, No, NO, NO!, NO! If you proved that McCrone was hard to get along with, back-sassed his mother, made Baby Jesus cry, and was the second shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas 1963, that's not evidence that the CIQ is 2000 years old.

That is not going to change even if you repeat it another hundred times.
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Old 7th January 2016, 09:03 AM   #2422
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?
Forget trying to discredit people, just present the best evidence you have that the Turin Shroud (or CIQ if you prefer) is indeed the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

Remember: Casting some scintilla of doubt on the carbon dating evidence doesn't do this because it would just remove some evidence for a specific age.

Remember also: Suggesting that there may be indications that the cloth has come into contact with blood wouldn't do this because blood has always been around and the cloth could have come into contact with blood at any point in time.

Of course so far you haven't even provided any reliable evidence that the image is made using blood so the whole point is moot.
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Old 7th January 2016, 09:22 AM   #2423
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Old 7th January 2016, 09:42 AM   #2424
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
You're frankly admitting wanting to pursue a particular line of investigation not because it has a single whit to do with the authenticity of the shroud, but because you think it will discredit your critics. When you reveal your approach is to discredit skepticism rather than to determine the truth, you give people very valid reasons not to take you seriously. What does that say about your Effective Debate™ now?

Quote:
One step at a time. Would you agree?
I agree one step at a time is the proper way to examine evidence. When you dumped your Marino and Prior Gish gallop into the forum (for the umpteenth time) you insisted it had to be taken as a consilient body of evidence in favor of authenticity. Because of your misunderstanding of how consilience worked, your critics insisted you take that evidence one step at a time. You tried and failed to do that. Clearly you don't agree with a stepwise approach, because you're back to hawking evidence on quantity rather than quality.

Now you're just co-opting the sage advice of a methodical approach to justify your blatant foot-dragging. You praise Mr Farey for the success in his approach, but you neglect to introspect why he succeeds where you fail. He succeeds where you fail because he responds to his critics and doesn't just run around in circles trying to make other people appear foolish.
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Old 7th January 2016, 09:43 AM   #2425
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
The radiocarbon dating is a real thorn in the authenticist side, but it is not, to them, fatal, and I think I am being fair to them if I say that they deal with it in terms of a preponderance of evidence. If nine friends tell you a car is blue, and one says it is red, it is probably fair to say that he may be mistaken. If he produces a photo of the red car, then one might still think that it has been recently resprayed, or that he simply took a photo of the wrong car. The point is not that his evidence would normally considered faulty, but that the weight of the alternative evidence is considered preponderant. In simple terms, that also applies to the the authenticists view of the Shroud. Curiously, exactly the same logic was used by the authors of the paper on the radiocarbon dating, to account for some anomalies in the results, so the general value of such reasoning should not be rejected. The non-authenticist view, of course, is that none of the nine friends is particularly reliable, being either blind, drunk, guessing, lying, or relying on another unreliable source, so that there is no good reason to question the red photo


Hugh, I don't think your analogy reflects the situation relative to the carbon dating. Let me try to improve it. "Red guy" actually used a calibrated Greitag colorimeter to measure the color. He measured it at 9 different locations on the car. Independently, 2 other persons measured the color in the same locations as the first guy. Each of these 3 understand the science of color. They take their color data, still independently to the color space chart and each of them find the data is in the red part or the chart.

For me, hard science trumps history or at least places a very high burden on it. An example would be the many changes anthropologists had to make to their understanding of early human migration patterns in light of data obtained by gene sequencing.

In the above situation, I don't care how many persons you marshal saying it's blue.


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Old 7th January 2016, 09:47 AM   #2426
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Originally Posted by The Don View Post
Remember also: Suggesting that there may be indications that the cloth has come into contact with blood wouldn't do this because blood has always been around and the cloth could have come into contact with blood at any point in time.

Possibly some of the painters who Jabba claims held their paintings against the cloth had grazed their knuckles.
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Old 7th January 2016, 10:27 AM   #2427
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
If nine friends tell you a car is blue, and one says it is red, it is probably fair to say that he may be mistaken.
As others have pointed out, this analogy is rather thin. The authenticists we've seen here don't understand that preponderance is not a numerical scoreboard where each tidbit of evidence has equal weight. They don't understand that preponderance has to involve affirmative evidence, not just erosion of faith in some other claim.

Others have proposed abandoning this analogy. Let's fix it instead.

If the one friend tells you the car is red, but does so on the basis of a measured spectroscopic examination of the light it reflects, this is strong evidence.

Quote:
The non-authenticist view, of course, is that none of the nine friends is particularly reliable, being either blind, drunk, guessing, lying, or relying on another unreliable source, so that there is no good reason to question the red photo.
No, I would say this is largely a straw man version of the critical approach, but at least you're on the right track in saying the quality of testimony and its factual basis matter. If the nine friends tell you it's blue -- but do so by such lines of inference as blue being the popular color for that model, or blue is a nice color, or their cousin claims he saw the car and it's blue -- then this is much weaker evidence. It's not really evidence at all; it's pure inference.

Quote:
If he produces a photo of the red car, then one might still think that it has been recently resprayed, or that he simply took a photo of the wrong car.
One might, but then this glosses over what really happens among sindonists. They might speculate the car was red when tested, but was blue when observed by others. But if the identity of the car is unquestioned, and excavating the paint layers shows no blue, then the speculation is not supported by evidence. If the sindonists then speculate the blue layer was stripped away, in defiance of common practice, then you begin to see the pattern of desperation.

Quote:
Curiously, exactly the same logic was used by the authors of the paper on the radiocarbon dating, to account for some anomalies in the results, so the general value of such reasoning should not be rejected.
But applying the "general value" glosses over important differences. Yes, speculation always occurs in error analysis. But there is a difference between attributing error to known possible causes (whether or not they were proven to have actually arisen in some study), and increasingly desperate speculation (with little precedent and no evidence) clearly intended to prop up the desired predetermined belief. It is important to be able to imagine many various ways in which observations might arise, but recalcitrance does not generate useful hypotheses.

Quote:
There is a new article on academia.edu by a scientist whose early peer-reviewed work on X-rays and lasers quite independent of his Shroud studies surely entitles him to be called so, but who nevertheless believes in the authenticity of the Shroud.
I haven't seen it, so I won't comment on it specifically. However, you bring up a point that's very common in fringe argumentation and which we discussed in this thread many weeks ago.

The question is what constitutes science. Indeed someone who has formal training and education in the sciences and who has demonstrably contributed to the field has the right to be called a scientist. But fringe claimants and skeptics often differ on the relationship between that and conclusions drawn ostensibly in other areas.

Succinctly, fringe claimants sometimes say that science is whatever a scientist produces. Jabba has employed that maxim here, although not to great effect. He presented opinions rendered by a person with legitimate scientific credentials, but in a field unrelated to his expertise and without any demonstrated factual basis. "Dr. Smith is an accomplished physicist, and he believes the Shroud is authentic," is a persuasive argument among the fringe, but isn't sicence.

Succinctly then in contrast, skeptics say that science is what is produced by adherence to the scientific method, irrespective of who produces it. (This is tantamount to defining "scientist" as anyone who draws his conclusions according to scientific methodology, but it is certainly not a rejection of formal education, experience, and judgment on the part of professionals.) Apparatus such as peer review helps ensure proper application of the method.

Expert judgment does come into play, of course. But it is overplayed in fringe argumentation. The law looks at various factors to weigh whether an expert's judgment should be considered probative: basis in fact and sound method, actual investigation, consensus in the field, etc. Absent these, opinions rendered even by an expert may not constitute probative expert judgment.

Quote:
I think I shall use that as the basis for more considered Shroud discussion on a new thread, if I'm allowed.
Nothing technically prevents you from starting a new thread, although it is considered a mild breach of the rules. The worst that could happen is that the moderators will merge it back into this one. As you've seen, there has been an attempt to engage the moderators to express the desire to keep Jabba's advocacy here and move a less contentious discussion elsewhere.

Quote:
Seriously, though, the bible can be useful, but, as I said, one should avoid too much reliance on it, and one certainly shouldn't cherry pick one word from one of the four accounts of the burial of Jesus in order to discredit the Shroud.
But your detailed analysis nothwithstanding, there would be no controversy but for the Bible. The cloth is purported to be an artifact from a story in it. Discovered or contrived, the relationship between it and the cloth is obvious and inescapable. All I can really do is endorse your admonition not to cherry-pick the accounts, but that boils down to the perennial exegetical problem in all of Christian theology -- cherry-picking the Bible is pretty much all that ever happens.
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:08 AM   #2428
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During a debate on this subject with a fundamentalist in our office once, I took a sheet of A3 paper, wrapped it round a co-worker's face (with his permission) and, with a marker pen, outlined the major facial features - hair line, chin, ears, mouth, eyes ...

Laid out flat is was, of course, comical, rather like how a Mercator projection of a 3-D world looks very odd at the extremities when put into 2-D.

Is it the suggestion that the shroud was stretched tight across Jesus's face (with him in a coffin perhaps), receiving the image as in a photograph? Because if it was wrapped around his head and the image received by touch it would look silly.

(No doubt this point has been made many times, but so have all the rest )
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:27 AM   #2429
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
Lucian:
"The image on the cloth doesn't look the way one would expect a dead body lying on its back to look." Really? One the contrary, it looks exactly as one would expect a crucified body to look, if it had been carried in a state of rigor mortis from cross to tomb and its arms pulled into position for burial. You disagree? Well, of course, but disagreement is not enough, is it? Not on this forum, it doesn't. Have you any evidence? Mine is Pierre Barbet's Doctor at Calvary, Fred Zugibe's The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry and that entertaining little article I mentioned above. What's yours?
Oh, hey, fun! If you avoid using the quote or multi-quote function, it's easier to take one sentence out of context and misrepresent what someone said! Neat.

I mentioned rigor mortis (well, cadaveric spasm) as an explanation given by authenticists in a desperate bid to explain anomalies in the image. I also mentioned pillows and mattresses. You seem to agree that the image doesn't match what one would expect of a dead body lying flat on its back. Rigor mortis, mattresses, beds of spices, etc. are attempts to explain why this is so. It's possible that the body of a crucified person may have undergone cadaveric spasm or rigor mortis, but do we know that it actually happened in this case?
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:38 AM   #2430
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Originally Posted by Slowvehicle View Post
If one is to indulge in the supposition that the anatomically impossible presentation of the representational image on the CIQ is due to the fact that the "body" was supposedly laid on a supposed bed of spices (as opposed to being "bound up" in the spices with "strips" of cloth), but that the image of the arms was produced by a "rubbing", one has supposed oneself out of the possibility that one is still referring to the "actual shroud" used to bury the body of an HJ.
Eh? No. you have confused my statement of the authenticist position (that a man in rigor mortis had his hands brought together for burial, whereupon an image was created by contact, vapours, radiation or a miracle) with my disclaimer (I think there was no body at all and the shape of the image depended entirely on the whim of the craftsman who painted, rubbed or imprinted it).

Originally Posted by Slowvehicle View Post
"This is John Henry's typewriter" comes to mind.
I'm not familiar with John Henry's typewriter, and it doesn't appear on Googling. What is it?

Originally Posted by MRC_Hans View Post
Does rigor mortis make the arms unnaturally long?
No, unless perhaps they were dislocated at the shoulders in the effort to fold them back across the body. But are they unnaturally long? What measurements have you made to ascertain this?


Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
I've asked you about the blood claim before, but can't remember your objections. Could you tell me again?
Sorry, Jabba, you'll have to be a bit more precise. For what it's worth, I think the blood trickles may very well be blood, trickled on over the image with a pipette. As numerous commenters here have pointed out, whether it is blood or not does not affect the date. Before very long, if not already, its DNA may be readable, which would be very interesting. I'd put money on a full pair of XY chromosomes though.

Originally Posted by GlennB View Post
During a debate on this subject with a fundamentalist in our office once, I took a sheet of A3 paper, wrapped it round a co-worker's face (with his permission) and, with a marker pen, outlined the major facial features - hair line, chin, ears, mouth, eyes...
Yes. No authenticist thinks that the Shroud image was made like that, nor ever has, although it is a common presupposition among non-authenticists that they do. Similarly, no non-authenticists have ever thought that Leonardo da Vinci painted the image displayed in Lirey in 1350, although it is a common presupposition among authenticists that they do. It is time both sides took a less contemptuous position towards their opponents, I think.
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:44 AM   #2431
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
Monza,
- Good.
- Somewhere back in time, I started trying to present that explanation. I don't think I got very far. Hopefully, I won't have to track that down.
- For one thing, showing that the stains really were blood would pretty much discredit McCrone -- who has been a major witness for the inauthentic side.
- One step at a time. Would you agree?

Jabba,

Yes, one step at a time. You keep jumping around which is why I asked my question. You brought up the topic of determining the age of the shroud. You said that you would do this by starting with the blood. So I asked how does the presence of blood help to determine the age of the shroud. Discrediting McCrone doesn't help to put a date to the shroud.

There should be nothing to track down. Since you decided to start with the blood you must know why you decided to start here.

I'll ask again. How does the presence of blood help to determine the age of the shroud?

Thank you.
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:48 AM   #2432
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
[...]

Sorry, Jabba, you'll have to be a bit more precise. For what it's worth, I think the blood trickles may very well be blood, trickled on over the image with a pipette. As numerous commenters here have pointed out, whether it is blood or not does not affect the date. Before very long, if not already, its DNA may be readable, which would be very interesting. I'd put money on a full pair of XY chromosomes though.
Jabba thinks that the purported blood has already been typed, and points to a Mideast origin (which even if true proves nothing about authenticity).
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:49 AM   #2433
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
No, unless perhaps they were dislocated at the shoulders in the effort to fold them back across the body. But are they unnaturally long? What measurements have you made to ascertain this?
The upper arms are parallel. With the upper arms parallel, there is no way, on an average human body, that the hands could be in the position shown. Note that the upper arms are visible on both side images, indicating that they were supposed to be parallel with the thorax also.

All of this not possible in the real world.

Hans
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Old 7th January 2016, 11:52 AM   #2434
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Originally Posted by GlennB View Post
During a debate on this subject with a fundamentalist in our office once, I took a sheet of A3 paper, wrapped it round a co-worker's face (with his permission) and, with a marker pen, outlined the major facial features - hair line, chin, ears, mouth, eyes ...

Laid out flat is was, of course, comical, rather like how a Mercator projection of a 3-D world looks very odd at the extremities when put into 2-D.

Is it the suggestion that the shroud was stretched tight across Jesus's face (with him in a coffin perhaps), receiving the image as in a photograph? Because if it was wrapped around his head and the image received by touch it would look silly.

(No doubt this point has been made many times, but so have all the rest )
Hug Farey has proffered the explanation that the image was created without touching the body.

If you want to know how that would work, the answer is basically, "It would be a miracle." Is there any evidence for it? Yes, because if you tried to wrap a sheet around a body, it wouldn't look anything like that, which means it wouldn't be the burial cloth of Jesus.
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Old 7th January 2016, 12:02 PM   #2435
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Originally Posted by Monza View Post
Jabba,

Yes, one step at a time. You keep jumping around which is why I asked my question. You brought up the topic of determining the age of the shroud. You said that you would do this by starting with the blood. So I asked how does the presence of blood help to determine the age of the shroud. Discrediting McCrone doesn't help to put a date to the shroud.

There should be nothing to track down. Since you decided to start with the blood you must know why you decided to start here.

I'll ask again. How does the presence of blood help to determine the age of the shroud?
Even more general: how is the presence of blood evidence for it being the burial cloth of Jesus?

In my response above, I actually conceded for the sake of argument that there was blood on the shroud. Hence, in that approach, I would be conceding that McCrone's assertion that there is no blood on the shroud is wrong. Fine. Let's say that's true for the sake of argument.

Of course, it doesn't address the question of whether there is also paint on the shroud. There could be blood and paint. But Jabba will say that it means that McCrone is not credible in his claims of paint. Which is not actually justified, but ok, let's accept that. Hell, let's make it even easier: let's assume there is only blood on the shroud and that there is NO paint. You can't grant Jabba's premises (I think this is what he talks about with his "intermediate conclusions") any more than that.

Now, how does that lead to the conclusion that the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus?

Of course, we've had this discussion. It was supposed to be a designated responder (I don't remember who did that, but there was), with the discussion of "if we grant your intermediate conclusions are true, how does that lead to the conclusion of authenticity." It went no where. Because even if you grant that there is blood on the shroud, no paint, and McCrone is full of it, it doesn't constitute evidence for it being the burial cloth of Jesus.
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Old 7th January 2016, 12:13 PM   #2436
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Originally Posted by pgwenthold View Post
Even more general: how is the presence of blood evidence for it being the burial cloth of Jesus?

Jabba wants to be allowed to say that anything that isn't actually incompatible with authenticity is evidence for it.

If Chewbacca lives on Endor, that goes in his pro-authenticity pan.
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Old 7th January 2016, 12:30 PM   #2437
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Originally Posted by hugh farey View Post
theprestige:
The radiocarbon dating is a real thorn in the authenticist side, but it is not, to them, fatal, and I think I am being fair to them if I say that they deal with it in terms of a preponderance of evidence.
I don't think you're being fair to your friends at all. Or, if you are being fair, then you fairly portray your friends as very bad thinkers on this issue.

The preponderance of evidence for the shroud--the documented provenance, the historical attestation, and the forensic examination--all point to the shroud being a medieval artifact.

For the past four years we have seen Jabba struggle here to provide any evidence for authenticity, let alone a preponderance. Throughout his struggle, Jabba's result has been consistent: There is no evidence for authenticity. Every citation he has provided has been debunked. Every line of reasoning he has attempted has either been properly dismissed as irrelevant to the claim, or properly rejected as fallacious, or both.

Go back through this thread and its predecessors, and you will see the utter, abject failure of the "preponderance of authentic evidence" (PAE) argument. Either Jabba is an abysmal advocate for this argument, or the argument itself is a failure.

Is your friend a better advocate of the PAE argument? Can he actually show real evidence? If so, would he be willing to come here (perhaps to your new thread) and show that evidence so that the claim of preponderance can actually be weighed?

If he cannot or will not do these things, then I would say that as his friend you owe it to him to call his judgement into question, and encourage him to rethink his position on the shroud.

Quote:
If nine friends tell you a car is blue, and one says it is red, it is probably fair to say that he may be mistaken. If he produces a photo of the red car, then one might still think that it has been recently resprayed, or that he simply took a photo of the wrong car. The point is not that his evidence would normally considered faulty, but that the weight of the alternative evidence is considered preponderant.
You're comparing a preponderance of claims to a preponderance of evidence, as if they should be given equal weight. This is not the case. Claims without evidence weigh nothing. Evidence always carries the weight in any claim.

In your example, there is no alternative evidence, just an alternative claim.

Quote:
In simple terms, that also applies to the the authenticists view of the Shroud.
We have seen Jabba belabor the authenticists view of the shroud. In simple terms, it consists of asserting evidence where none exists, and traducing (failed) attacks on contradicting evidence into evidence for authenticity.

Quote:
Curiously, exactly the same logic was used by the authors of the paper on the radiocarbon dating, to account for some anomalies in the results, so the general value of such reasoning should not be rejected.
The general value of being guided by the preponderance of evidence was never in question. The question has always been, what is the value of rejecting the preponderance of evidence?

Can you cite the paper in question, and quote here an example of "exactly the same logic" that you find in that paper? I am very curious to see what you mean by this.

Resolving anomalous evidence in favor of the preponderance of evidence is a very different kind of reasoning than resolving the preponderance of evidence in favor of contradictory and un-evidenced claims.

Quote:
The non-authenticist view, of course, is that none of the nine friends is particularly reliable, being either blind, drunk, guessing, lying, or relying on another unreliable source, so that there is no good reason to question the red photo.
The non-authenticist view is that none of the nine friends has provided any evidence to support their claim, and that therefore the preponderance of evidence is against them.

Now, maybe in the case of the car, the nine friends might be able to credibly establish that they were eyewitnesses to a blue car at such-and-such a time and place, adding weight to their claim. I don't know.

In the case of the shroud, we have no eyewitnesses. We have historical accounts, but they all date to a clearly non-authentic time period. We have forensic examination, including carbon dating, that dates to a clearly non-authentic time period.

There is no need for non-authenticists to impeach any claimants for authenticity. The simple fact that they bring no evidence is enough to dismiss their claims in favor of the preponderance of evidence.
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Old 7th January 2016, 12:36 PM   #2438
pgwenthold
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Originally Posted by theprestige View Post
I

In the case of the shroud, we have no eyewitnesses. We have historical accounts, but they all date to a clearly non-authentic time period. We have forensic examination, including carbon dating, that dates to a clearly non-authentic time period.

There is no need for non-authenticists to impeach any claimants for authenticity. The simple fact that they bring no evidence is enough to dismiss their claims in favor of the preponderance of evidence.
Hey, how can you forget the "undocumented history" that is the evidence for authenticity?
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Old 7th January 2016, 12:45 PM   #2439
Nonpareil
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Originally Posted by Jabba View Post
- Though Hugh Farey disagrees with my ultimate conclusion, he does a much better job of presenting my case than do I. He gives a lot of my answers that I have simply been too slow to give. Hopefully, my one-step-at-a-time will eventually pay off.
Perhaps. It all depends on whether or not you have any actual evidence that the Shroud is two thousand years old.
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Old 7th January 2016, 12:46 PM   #2440
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Originally Posted by pgwenthold View Post
Hey, how can you forget the "undocumented history" that is the evidence for authenticity?
I forget nothing. If Hugh wishes to contradict me by bringing evidence for authenticity, he is welcome to do so. Indeed, that's all we've been asking of authenticists since the beginning.

But it seems harsh to ask Hugh to bring evidence he doesn't believe in, to support of a claim he's not making.
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