Tag: Radiocarbon dating

I posted in 2009 a blog that the man who was wrapped in the Shroud of Turin was found to be suffering from Leprosy  and on this ground was dismissed  as one not belonging to Jesus Christ.

Now there is another controversy raging on this subject.

History.

1.A cloth with Bloodstains and body image was found  and it was belived to be the cloth that was used to wrap the body of Jesus christ before he was resurrected.

2.It was Carbon Dated by three scientists ,independent of each other.

3.It was proved to belong to belong to the 13th century.

4.It  was later analysed for DNA and found that it was used to wrap the body of a man  afflicted with leprosy.

The present controversy is,

1.The Shroud of Turin, historically speaking surfaced in the 13th century AD.

Earlier  it was in Byzantine Empire.

It was called the Edessa Cloth and was in Constantinople for three hundred years, which then puts it date around 100 AD.

Now ,it the Shroud was forged, the Forger had to use advanced technologies not known to Man then, either in the 13th century or in the 10th Century.

To explain, the image was found to be impressions on the Cloth and did not contain any brush strokes.

If it is a Forgery the forger would have had to have the Blood stains first and draw the image later;this is not possible without  advanced technology which was not available till the later part of the 19th century.

2.The depiction of Crucifixion in the 13th century shows Crucifixion  as having been done with the palms being nailed, while the fact is that the wrists were nailed.

Crucifying by the palm would not have supported the body weight.

So, this is anachronism if the Shroud had been prepared in the 13th century.

3.Carbon dating could have been incorrect because of the Bacteria that grow on the Cloth, which might affect the Date.

External Links:

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Scholar Raymond Rogers, who was a director of the Shroud of Turin Research Project, ^[53] argued in the scientific journal Thermochimica Acta that: “The fact that vanillin cannot be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen, and other very old linens indicate that the shroud is quite old. A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggest the shroud is between 1300- and 3000-years old. Even allowing for errors in the measurements and assumptions about storage conditions, the cloth is unlikely to be as young as 840 years”.^[42]

It has however been stated that Roger’s vanillin-dating process is untested, and the validity thereof is suspect. The deterioration of vanillin is heavily influenced by the temperature of its environment – heat strips away vanillin rapidly – and the shroud has been subjected to temperatures high enough to melt silver and scorch the cloth.^[54] Rogers’ analysis is also questioned by skeptics such as Joe Nickell, himself a non-scientist, who reasons that the conclusions of the author, Raymond Rogers, result from “starting with the desired conclusion and working backward to the evidence”.^[55]

The sample was contaminated

In 1993 Dr. Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes discovered the presence of polyhydroxyalkanoate (mcl-PHA)-producing bacteria Leobacillus rubrus on Shroud’s fabric and confirmed their presence on three Egyptian mummies.^[56] According to Garza-Valdes, “the scientists that carried out the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin in 1988, were not aware of the presence of this unsuspected contaminant (natural plastic coating)”. Garza-Valdes outlines further, that while studying thin sections from the Shroud fibers it was found that “more than 60% of the fibers’ area is bioplastic“.^[56]Pictorial evidence dating from c. 1690 and 1842^[57] indicates that the corner used for the dating and several similar evenly spaced areas along one edge of the cloth were handled each time the cloth was displayed, the traditional method being for it to be held suspended by a row of five bishops. Wilson and others contend that repeated handling of this kind greatly increased the likelihood of contamination by bacteria and bacterial residue compared to the newly discovered archaeological specimens for which carbon-14 dating was developed. Bacteria and associated residue (bacteria by-products and dead bacteria) carry additional carbon-14 that would skew the radiocarbon date toward the present.

In 1994, J. A. Christen applied a strong statistical test to the radiocarbon data and concludes that the given age for the shroud is, from a statistical point of view, correct.^[81]

However critics claim to have identified statistical errors in the conclusions published in Nature:^[35] including: the actual standard deviation for the Tucson study was 17 years, not 31, as published; the chi-square distribution value is 8.6 rather than 6.4, and the relative significance level (which measures the reliability of the results) is close to 1% – rather than the published 5%, which is the minimum acceptable threshold.^{[82][83][84][85]} None of these errors would however produce an altered dating supportive of a 1st Century manufacture.

In 2008 the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Christopher Ramsey, told the BBC that “With the radiocarbon measurements and with all of the other evidence which we have about the Shroud, there does seem to be a conflict in the interpretation of the different evidence”.^[86] Ramsey has stressed that he would be surprised if the 1988 tests were shown to be far off, let alone “a thousand years wrong”, but said that he would keep an open mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin#The_dating_contradicts_other_evidence

Related articles

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Crucifixion of Jesus Christ^(as)

With the arms outstretched, the wrists were nailed to the cross. It has been shown that the ligaments and bones of the wrist can support the weight of the body but the palms cannot.^[8,11,16,17] The nail in the wrist might pass between the bony elements and thereby produce no fractures, the likelihood of painful periosteal injury, i.e. injury to the outer layers of bones, which are rich in nerves and hence very sensitive to pain, wound seem great.^[7,8,16] (see image below).

http://www.reviewofreligions.org/6136/jesus-christ-did-not-die-on-the-cross-a-cardiologists-perspective/

• The Bible Christ Shroud Of Turin, Myths (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
• http://ramanisblog.in/2009/12/19/shroud-of-turin-not-jesus-tomb-discovery-suggests/