Channel 4 tonight at 9

pork99

This should be interesting:

Secrets of the Dead
Documentary examining the history of the Turin Shroud, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. While carbon dating 16 years ago appeared to expose the relic as a medieval fake, more recent evidence suggests that the Shroud may indeed be 2,000 years old..

pork99

some background

http://www.csicop.org/list/listarchive/msg00097.html

Finally, the Turin shroud contradicts the account of Jesus' burial in the
Gospel of John. In the Greek New Testament, Jesus is said to have been
wrapped in othonia-strips of linen, not a whole linen sheet. (John 19:40 and
20:6-7). John also says that Jesus' body was buried in a large quantity of
aloes and myrrh: no trace of either spice has been found on the shroud.

"Defenders of the shroud typically start with their desired conclusion and
work backward to the evidence; science begins with the evidence and proceeds
forward to a conclusion," says Nickell. Together, the facts corroborate each
other in rejecting the claim that the shroud dates to the time of Jesus.

williamgrogan

It was one of the worst documentaries I have seen. They jumped from saying that the blood on both cloths was AB and that that was only 3% of the population to saying that it was obviously the same person.

When asked about the Radiocarbon dating, the "man has worked on this for 10 years" just shrugged his shoulders.

Paddy20

The world is full of those who wish too convince believers to disbelieve. The poor lost souls are wasting their time, and in some cases their lives.

P. :ninja:

williamgrogan

The world is full of those who wish too convince believers to disbelieve

I would have thought it is the exact opposite, there are far more believers than those trying to convince them that they are being fooled.

pork99

It was a very partial & misleading documentary

I wonder was it made to appeal to the market for "The Passion of the Christ"?

Just from a brief trawl of material on the web I found stuff that was never mentioned in the program. For example one researcher who found that the blood on the Turin shroud was red pigment, never mentioned, Jesus was never depicted wearing a beard until about the 6th century I think - all the earliest depictions show him clean-shaven - and the figure on the shroud's proportions are more in keeping with those of a figure in a medieaval painting than those of a real person. The list could probably go on.

Good documentary if you left your brain at the door