The shroud of Turin
- Grounds of faith
- or maybe even Did Jesus have a ponytail?
Negative image of the shroud
I like Kierkegaard as much as the next person. Basically I agree that faith at the root is an absurd phenomenon, we believe in spite of a world that mocks and laughs at faith. That´s the way it´s always been, and I´m not going to complain about it. It´s in fact one of the clear promises of the Bible, if one of the more unpleasant. Don´t say it didn´t warn you!
I consider it blasphemy to claim empirical evidence creates or sustains faith, that´s something that´s the unique prerogative of the Holy Spirit. With that said, I would like to take you on a little journey to the mundane and worldly. I guess mostly because I sometimes feel very “harmless” in delivering this or that week´s spiritual essay, as in “to each man a faith of his own”. Because the points I put up here are available to public scrutiny, it´s possible to determine them as correct or incorrect. If it´s bullshit, then it´s at least in theory ascertainable bullshit. But if it´s not, I think it´s intellectually dishonest to just ignore it.
I guess most people have heard about the shroud in Turin, maybe even seen the eerie face in some magazine article from the recent Olympics. Allegedly, it is the face of Christ, exhibiting bleeding from the skull (as from a crown of thorns), from the back (as from flailing), from the side (as from a spear piercing the heart) and from the root of the hands as well as the feet (as from nail wounds).
During my time in catholic Spain I always cringed a bit at the religious bric-a-brac you find in churches there. A tooth of St John here, a pelvis from St Augustine there. Sure. Until I saw a quite morbid medieval painting with some saint having his limbs sawed off post-mortem and sent off as relics to churches. So at least some of them have to be real, I guess...
The Catholics, God bless them!, don´t mind mixing science and religion. For instance, miracles in the Catholic church are carefully scrutinized and documented by scholars. Seems far better than the other variety: “A friend of my sister was at a Bible camp were they healed a blind man!” - “If you say so...” The shroud has actually spawned it´s own scientifical field, sindonology. Forensic teams have examined the shroud of Turin, as well as another legendary item, the sudarium of Oviedo in Spain, which is believed to be the wrapping for the head, referred to in the gospel of John. The sudarium in Oviedo shows signs of death by asfyxiation, consistent with crucifixion. Interestingly (and at the risk of starting a Christian fashion trend) the corpse had a pony tail! But back to the shroud in Turin, what does it actually show? The very detailed outline of a man whose characteristics match those of Jesus, and is also quite similar to the arche type of early Christian icons. How this outline in the textile has come into existence is unknown, however it was not painted. There was definitely a real body which caused it, but the mechanism of representation is not known. Biological residue gives the corpse´s blood type, but also shows no sign of decomposure, meaning the wrapping was in contact with the body but for a short while. It was a dead body exhibiting rigor mortis. Analysis of pollen residue matches the alleged history of the ramblings of the shroud, from Palestine, through Edessa and Istamboul in Turkey, France and then Turin, Italy. The sudarium in Oviedo is better traced and further back, and a similar pollen analysis has corrobated the history of that shroud.
4% of all human beings have the blood type AB, which is found on both the shroud in Turin and Oviedo. The chance of that being a fluke coincidence is 0.16 %. That means it takes 99.84 % rational assumption and 0.16 % faith to believe the two stem from the same body. Far from demanding a knight of faith, a mere squire can believe that. Admittedly, that body needn´t be that of Jesus, but I´d say it´s the rational assumption given the evidence, both place and time checks out, as well as medical data corresponding to the Gospel account. And the fact that there are historical accounts of the shroud being in existence from 325 AD should be worth something.
In the year of 1988 it seemed the shroud was suddenly “killed” as an object of historical importance, when a carbon dating indicated it was vowen in medieval time. Various imaginative explanations to this were put forward, but in the public eye, it was a done deal it was all hoax. Until just last year, when it was shown that the fabric had been mended in the medieval period, and in fact the sample that was age-tested was one of the “new” pieces. A bit clumsy they didn´t discover it the first time around, but there you go. The debate rages on...
So what gives if the shrouds in Turin and Oviedo are legit? It shows that the detailed account of the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospels is correct, and undeniably strengthens the New Testament as an historical source. It shows that the garments which Jesus were buried in did not see his physical decomposure. Forensic experts suggests they could not have been removed from his body without visible signs of tampering. Does that prove a resurrection? Of course not, but it provides us with a mystery that science has not been able to solve. Beyond this point, we´re in the realm of faith. Basically in the same position the populace of Jerusalem were in, they had seen Jesus crucified, laid in a grave sealed with a stone. And now the grave was empty, those who murdered Jesus said his disciples stole the body, his disciples that he was resurrected. They gladly suffered death for that belief.
Naturally people disagree with these points I´ve put forward. I willingly provide a link to the Sceptic Site where they have a piece on the shroud. Some of what I´ve written here is to be read in the the Danish book Mirakler. Møder mellem Himmel og Jord, by Niels Christian Hvidt, a Catholic theologian. Another site you can look into, you can judge for yourselves which of the two sites is the more serious. I found it great fun and fascinating reading about this whole subject, so put down your copy of “The Da Vinci Code“ for a couple of minutes and get the real thing!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home