Posts Tagged ‘orthodox’
Part 2 of the Prologue to the 2009 BBC Special: New Evidence – Shroud of turin
–Description continued from part 1–
It wasnt until 1978 that scientists from the STRP successfully lobbied the Catholic Church to begin examining the relic.
STRP member Joseph Accetta recalls: The biggest problem has always been access to the cloth itself.
The Church took a relatively enlightened view of the shroud. They have a lot of folks who believe it is the shroud of Christ and dont want anyone meddling with it.
But if they didnt have anyone looking at it, theyd never know the truth.
For five days the shroud was subjected to a variety of non-destructive tests, including the lifting of microscopic fibres.
On areas where the figure appeared to have bled, the scientists found the chemical signature of blood.
Using special UV photography they also detected serum stains, which are typically found around dried blood clots.
STRP photographer, Barrie Schwortz and his colleagues were impressed.
He says: No medieval artist could have anticipated the invention of ultra violet photography and decided to hide a serum stain for us to discover 700 years later.
But we still didnt know if this was the shroud of Jesus Christ.
Determining the shrouds age would prove whether it really had been used to wrap the body of Christ.
But it was ten years before the STRP persuaded the Catholic Church to allow the cloth to be carbon dated as this required a sample from the shroud to be burned.
A small section was cut from the corner and divided between laboratories at Oxford University, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
The institutions worked in isolation, and each concluded the shroud didnt hail from Biblical times. Carbon dating suggested it was from between 1260 and 1390.
The explosive news again made headlines, but many enthusiasts refused to believe the relic was fake and made wild claims about why the result was wrong.
Among them were amateur scientists, Sue Benford and Joe Marino, from Ohio. They suspected the 1988 sample was from a damaged area of the linen shroud which had been repaired with 16th century cotton, therefore skewing the results. When their theory reached Ray Rogers he was furious.
He said: Id read these things by people from the lunatic fringe explaining why the date was wrong. I was irritated and determined to prove Sue and Joe wrong.
Ray had stored microscopic shroud fibres from the original 1978 probe. Luckily they were lifted from the same area as the carbon dating sample.
After examining the fibres expecting them to consist entirely of linen, Ray was dumbfounded. Cotton was present too. He says: The cotton fibres were fairly heavily coated with dye, suggesting they were changed to match the linen during a repair.
I concluded that area of the shroud was manipulated by someone with great skill.
Sue and Joe were right. The worst possible sample for carbon dating was taken.
It consisted of different materials than were used in the shroud itself, so the age we produced was inaccurate.
In 2002 bugs were found in the relics display case and it was cleaned with a strong insecticide. The introduction of modern carbon atoms to the cloth means future samples cant be relied upon for dating.
However, the mystery may still be solved.
While cleaning, the Catholic church also removed small pieces of charred, uncontaminated cloth. If released to the scientific community, these fragments could be conclusively dated to prove whether the shroud was real or fake.
Ray did not have access to the closely-guarded samples. But in the film before his death, to be seen in The Turin Shroud: New Evidence at 8pm on Sunday on Discovery, he was convinced of the shrouds authenticity.
Close to death, he said: I came very close to proving the shroud was used to bury the historic Jesus.
Duration : 0:1:24
Jewish Dating Site Makes Television News
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Duration : 0:2:18