"Jesus Box" Exposed As Fake

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Who is debating? Have any dating tests shown the Shroud to be older?

You're right, no one is debating, scientific community agrees that the 1988 results were wrong and trying to date shroud with C14 is a nonsense, like i said it request that artifact is in a closed-system since emplacement and this is hardly met by the shroud.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Is the assertion that the tests are thrown off by other factors based on any evidence, or just wishful thinking? It's the latter

Evidence?

I repeat Bioplastic coating, fire, inherently instability of C14 dating when it comes to linen and opened systems (Egypt, remember?)

You may yell "Bull****!" but this is hardly an evidence, there are a lot of papers which shows that Fire and Bioplastic coating wreak the C14 dating.
And the egypt samples failure is there for you to look at.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
C14 tests done on the Shroud have taken into account the conditions that can throw off dating and have confirmed the dates c. 1200-1400 CE.

Bioplastic coating was present on the Shroud and the C14 cleaning protocol didn't take care of it and neither of isotope exchange.
Studies proved that 1300 years perfectly matches the quantity of Biocoating present on the shroud.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous.

And you said this? or maybe it was skeptic.org? or McCrone Research Institute
i'm sorry but you've to give me a paper or something, because Garza-Valdes was pretty convincing and with arguments more sound than your "Bull****.".

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

http://www.mcri.org/Shroud.html

Ah, the McCrone Research Institute website... a very unbiased source
As i said scientific community rejected McCrone conclusions long time ago (why do you think all tests were conducted by the so-called "McCrone Research Institute" and never peer-reviewed by someone else?, the best part of the link was "The Electron Optics Group at McCrone Associates [...] fully confirmed Dr. McCrone's results", Now that's a third-party review... )
BTW McCrone was the same guy who declared false the Vinland Map just to be debunked years later when science community discovered it was original... (a bit like Frei but since he supports your theory, now he's a new Einstein ) (He even placed a page on his website where he still confirms that Vinland Map is false , that guy is incredible...)

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
It certainly does not! LOOK at it! Does that honestly look like a photorealistic image to you? Why is the hair perfectly straight down the side of the face? Jesus would have been lying down, so the hair should be back. Why is the image not distorted to account for the shroud wrapping around Jesus?

I already answered this one.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Clearly? BS again. There is a bright sploch over the wrist area.

And what was that splotch? a watch?

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The objection that nobody knew about the wrists at the time is pure conjecture as well. Maybe a lot of artists didn't know, but maybe some did.

Yes maybe, and unfortunately we lost all their paintings... what a strange coincidence...

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
You seem to sidestip the bishop's letter and the artist's confession. How do you explain it? Why do you refuse to accept the testimony of the bishop, other than because it isn't convenient?

Simply because it's not interesting:
At that age there were a lot of false religious cult objects and the letter is referring to one of them, your connection with the shroud is based on the C14 dating but, as i said, it is completely wrong so there's no connection between the letter and the shroud.
In fact there are several proofs that shroud was seen before the 1355, such as the Hungarian Pray manuscript dated 1192.

Anyway someone could make you notice that there's no proof that the letter is authentic since all other documents related to the Bishop tells a different story. but i'm not an history expert so i'll pass over it.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
BS, it has never been confirmed. Cite scientific sources.

It was confirmed, and i cited sources.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The only DNA evidence came from tape that supposedly lifted the samples from the Shroud. Contamination and/or outright forgery is what happened.

Contamination with AB type blood containing degradated DNA? yes, very likely

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Frei was a glory-hog with little concern for the truth, that was the point

Exactly as McCrone i could add...

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The pollen was tested from a tape sample, like the blood, not from the Shroud itself. The pollen that was on the tape was collected near one end, the end that did NOT collect from the Shroud. The tape sample was a fraud.

The only thing false is your quote.
It seems that pollen was present all over the tape:

[...]
Far less justifiable, however,
is Nickell's allegation, in the same Skeptical Inquirer article, that virtually the only
pollens on the Frei sticky tapes were on their 'lead' edge, and came from the gloves
which Frei had to wear while working with the STURP team in 1978. Quite aside
from the fact that Frei worked without gloves when he obtained his first samples in
1973, all those who have had the privilege of actually studying the tapes under the
microscope, including myself, can attest that the pollens are to be seen on the main
part of the tapes, and in plenty.

To whom i've to believe? to Nickell who saw the tape just in photos or to a member of STURP who effectively worked on it?

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
You still have to explain why the Shroud is real when we know for a fact that tens of thousands of items were being shuffled around Europe at the same time the Shroud emerged that were frauds, at the height of an hysteria for relics. Seems a little coincidental for the Shroud to have turned up then, yes?

I think i explained it well, reread my previous post

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Also, if the Shroud was an image of Jesus, why no mention of the image in Scripture? Surely one of the several people who went into the tomb would have noticed the shroud there with the image! And why is there no mention of the Shroud until the 1300s? Where was it? You'd think it would have emerged much earlier. Where was it found? By who?

I already said that i don't know if it's an image of Jesus, read below

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
So if it wasn't a miraculous occurence, what else could it be? This is a rather contrary position to your other arguments.

No, absolutely, the only thing i said in my post is what science has proved: that Shroud is NOT a medieval painting.
Science can't prove that it wrapped Christ body intead of another cruxified by romans and so neither i can.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
There is no question that Mithraism evolved from its roots, but to assert that it changed to adhere to Christianity rather than vice-versa is conjecture.

i missed the point when Jesus armed in fullest panoply swoops down upon his enemies, scattering and slaughtering them or where Jesus slays a bull but since you said that Christianity copied Mithraism i've to reread the whole thing...

Seriously, since Mithraism is, i repeat, a mystery religion, it's obvious that it absorbs every other religion it meet.
Christianity, on the other hand, can't be considered a mystery religion and doesn't need to merge with others (not that it didn't, only not so consistently)

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The Resurrection isn't new at all, as it can be seen in the legend of Osiris, among others

where i talked about resurrection?

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Thankfully, in that regard, the Christ myth didn't feel the need for a wooden phallus.

No?!? awh i chose the wrong religion!!!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Boris:

The standard keeps shifting, so I have to keep asking the same question.

BS. I've stated the standards consistently, they have not been met.

Well then the Gospels count. Written by contemporaries of Christ, though not while the events happened. Your blade is too dull.

Not they don't count, because we don't know who wrote them. The attributions on them were not in the earliest manuscripts, which means they were added later. Nothing within the Gospels gives the slightest indication at who the authors are.

They are not documentary, as they are not contemporary with Jesus's life, the first one having been written about 40 years after the supposed events (if the events described therein happened c. 30 CE).

Really. BAM as it stands, without evidence.

:shock: Are you kidding me? THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR THE MASSACRE. Show it! Provide some historical evidence for the massacre Herod ordered! It's YOUR job to prove the positive. The Bible is NOT corroborated by history here, so it is the BAM.

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/herod.html

So why is Josephus silent about the massacre?

Well, I suppose the Gnostics get along just fine with orthodox Christians. Why should we believe what they say about Paul, over his own testimony, when the Gnostics try very hard to destroy Christianity?

Destroy Christianity? They had a different view of it, for certain:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/gnostic.htm

We should consider what they say carefully. If someone came to you positing a dramatically different philosophy, but others gave information that he was a liar, wouldn't you consider it?

Nice work if you can get it, and if you can get it, won't you tell me how?

We've been here before as well:

"The next thing we are told about Saul in Acts is that he was 'harrying the Church; he entered house after house, seizing men and women, and sending them to prison' (Acts 8:3). We are not told at this point by what authority or on whose orders he was carrying out this persecution. It was clearly not a matter of merely individual action on his part, for sending people to prison can only be done by some kind of official. Saul must have been acting on behalf of some authority, and who this authority was can be gleaned from later incidents in which Saul was acting on behalf of the High Priest. Anyone with knowledge of the religious and political scene at this time in Judaea feels the presence of an important problem here: the High Priest was not a Pharisee, but a Sadducee, and the Sadducees were bitterly opposed to the Pharisees. How is it that Saul, allegedly an enthusiastic Pharisee ('a Pharisee of the Pharisees'), is acting hand in glove with the High Priest? The picture we are given in our New Testament sources of Saul, in the days before his conversion to Jesus, is contradictory and suspect."

The temple leaders were Sadducee, so why would they let Paul do their dirty work if he were a hated Pharisee?

True, except the philosophy comes from Christ, not Paul.

Paul claims it is from Jesus, but sans evidence for Jesus, I'm inclined to think he is putting words in the mouth of a third party. Common philosophical tactic (see Plato)

The reason for the delay in the Gospels is that all the Christians trusted Christ when he said that he will come soon, to the point where they mistakenly believed that it would be within their own lifespan. Now, why write these things down, unless Christ might not be coming until much later?

Convenient, but conjecture. It still doesn't address the fact that we don't know who wrote them, nor that no extra-Biblical evidence exists for Jesus. The Christians may not have been writing things down, but lots of others were.

According to whom? You? What evidence do you have them for being in any part exaggeration without assuming that miracles do not happen?

Has any miracle ever been proven? No. Extraordinary claims like miracles require evidence to be believed. If I were to write a treatise filled with ghosts, dragons and pixies, would you be inclined to believe or disbelieve it in the absence of corroborating evidence?

We know far less about the order of composition. Many scholars favour a Matthean priority over Markan. Why favour Mark over Matthew?

Secondly, where do they exaggerate?

Look at Mark: it's the least detailed account, and the other three gospels ALL quote directly from it, whereas Mark does not compare with the other gospels in this regard. A few scholars may hold out on this, but most theologians accept the primacy of Mark. It's self-evident from the way in which the gospels are written. The exaggerations are the elaborations the subsequent gospels present. Consider that Paul does not make mention of the miracles wrought by Jesus ONCE. Why wouldn't he? Mark makes scant mention of them. And then by John, we have loads of 'em! And yet, this supposed mircale-worker is nowhere to be found in contemporary documents. Strange!

What contradictions? Difficulties, but I explained every single one you presented concerning the Gospels.

BS. You didn't even address them all, and the answers you provided were unsupported "What ifs" that wormed around the contradictions.

Do you need some cash? Skeptics have offered a $2,000 reward for anyone who can make a timeline of the events of the Resurrection that contains every incident mentioned in the Gospels and have it make sense and not contradict itself. It has never been done. Accept the challenge. You can start by detailing the actions just of Mary Magdelene that morning. It will make your head hurt, and only the most gullible could think it isn't a contradictory account.

Many assumptions here. Assumes miracles cannot happen, for one.

A valid assumption, since there hasn't been any evidence for the reality of miracles. If you make miraculous claims, you have to prove miracles happen. They can't be taken on faith.

Without this assumption, you get dates around 55-65 AD for the synoptics, and 75-90 for John. I'd love to see your source that says 110-130 for John.

The assumption that miracles don't happen has no bearing on the dates of the texts.

Here are some dating sources, some more slanted than others:

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/gospeldate.html

http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/synoptic.html

http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/

http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Homiletic/May97/gospels.html

"The current dating of the four Gospels, accepted by the biblical establishment, which includes scholars of every persuasion, is: Mark 65-70; Matthew and Luke in the 80s; John in the 90s. These dates are repeated by the columnists who write in our Catholic newspapers and the experts who draw up the curricula for religious education in our Catholic schools."

That's from a Catholic source, btw. The John dating is an extreme, perhaps it was written as late as that (one German theologian early in the century placed it at 175 CE). But we can be reasonably sure the author was not an eyewitness to the events described:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/john.html

"If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness."

And:

"The external evidence fixes the terminus ad quem for the Gospel of John. Irenaeus of Lyons made use of John (c. 180), and Tatian included the Gospel of John in his harmony (c. 170). The Gospel of John is also mentioned in the Muratorian Canon (c. 170-200). Justin Martyr (c. 150-160) and the Epistula Apostolorum (c. 140-150) may have made use of the Gospel of John. But the earliest known usage of John is among Gnostic circles. These include the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140), the Valentinian texts cited in Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodotou (c. 140-160), a Valentinian Exposition to the Prologue of the Gospel of John quoted in Irenaeus' Adv. Haer. 1.8.5-6 (c. 140-160), and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary). The oldest fragment of the New Testament, known as p52 or the John Rylands fragment, attests to canonical John and is dated paleographically c. 120-130 CE. "

B contradicts A. Assuming that the books were written that late, second century attributions should not be a problem.

Huh? What are you talking about? B doesn't contradict A at all. I stated that we have no idea who exactly wrote the gospels, because originally there weren't any attributions in the texts. None of them said "The Gospel of..." at first. It was added later.

On Earth? I think that he made a huge footprint, in terms of people and soft stuff rather than hard stuff that we can use for archaeology. 2000 years we debate all this over Jesus?

2000 years is but a pin drop in time, though. Think of how long ancient religions survived before dying out, such as the cult of Osiris. Egyptian civilization lasted twice as long as Christianity has.

There are a few more logical inconsistences, the death of Paul in Rome. Why die for a lie, comes for starters.

We've done this before, and you didn't answer the first time. Show me a shred of evidence of when and how Paul died. There is NO evidence as to when and how, it is pure conjecture to believe he was martyred for his faith.

Regardless, people have died for less. Paul really believed in his philosophy, and he was happy to use Yeshua as its mouthpiece.

Why would other Jews, and Gentiles believe in a lie, how could Peter attract converts at Pentecost without the Holy Spirit?

What evidence do we have for this event that corraborates the story told in the Bible? Hmmm?

Your scenario needs to fill some of these holes.

Not as many holes as are in the Bible!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
yes, it is, and you won't go into that just because science proved it several times...

Wishful thinking

BBC article (Note this article is more recent than the Telegraph one you quoted)

However independent research carried out in the US has found no evidence of blood on the shroud - ruling out the link between it and the Sudarium, according to BBC Science's Toby Murcott.

Another link

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
Yes, i understand that from your point of view science is the worst of fundamentalisms since it's based on facts...

You definitely has a very unique view of fundamentalism, I am not here to debate over semantics, however.

As for science, see below.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
But you've problems in reading or understanding?
Exactly what part of "perfect 3-Dimensionality" you don't understand?

What "perfect 3-Dimensionality?"

It has been demonstrated repeatly that you do not get the same image if you wrap something like a linen strip around a person's head. You can do the same experiment at home, with your own head.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
I repeat
There are no signs of penetration; the blood was on the Cloth before the image (an unlikely way for an artist to work); there is no outline, there are no brush strokes, no style of any period or directionality, no binders to hold paint, no evidence of paint, dye, ink, chalk creating the images

First of all, there's no blood (your cite notwithstanding, see below). Secondly,

The Electron Optics Group at McCrone Associates (John Gavrilovic, Anna Teetsov, Mark Andersen, Ralph Hinsch, Howard Humecki, Betty Majewski, and Deborah Piper) in 1980 used electron and x-ray diffraction and found red ochre (iron oxide, hematite) and vermilion (mercuric sulfide);

Totally refutes your argument

This is also an interesting quote:

...Alan Whanger admits that threads were obtained from the Shroud which did have the red ochre pigment observed by McCrone...

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
furthermore the image shows a perfect photo-negativity and 3-Dimensionality.

As I said, the image on the Shroud in no way bears any semblence to one you might actually lift off any actual human head by wraping strips of cloth around it.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
Like i said it shows perfect 3-Dimensionality exactly as it would if you wrap a long strip blah blah blah

No it doesn't. It looks a human head when it's flat, which means it will not look like one when it's wrap around a person's head.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
and this was proved by NASA using a VP-8 Image analyzer

You know what's funny? I can't find any "VP-8 Image Analyzer" on NASA's website. However, there are lots and lots of fundie websites that make the same assertion. Can you say something is fishy?

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
As a footnote is interesting to notice that all their works were peer-reviewed (i know you don't understand what i'm talking about since it's part of my fundamentalistic (scientific) terminology...) while McCrone (the author of the ink theory) not only was unable to have his work reviewed in scientific literature but his works on the shroud were even rejected by several conferences because found lacking.

You snowed the wrong person. You said peer-reviewed? Where were these findings published? Any URLs?

Just to verify my own suspicion, I Googled "Dr. John Heller and Dr. Alan Adler" and found no links to any scientific peer-to-peer journal with regards to "blood on the Shroud of Turin" on the first 3 pages. You may have better luck.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto

Yes, but since it's PROVED that it's human blood then the next step is to check its type...

I was looking around for the Telegraph article you have cited, and, lo and behold, the findings of Dr Victor Tryon was not published in any scientific peer-to-peer reviewed journal, but rather, in a book published by Dr Garza-Valdes:

The book details the experiments which show that the "blood" on the shroud is ancient and contains XY chromosones - which establishes it as human and male. The tests were conducted by a team headed by Dr Victor Tryon, director of the Centre for Advanced DNA Technology at the University of Texas Health Science Centre. The samples, on Scotch tape, were provided by the Turin microanalyst responsible for cutting the cloth for the 1988 tests, but came from his private store.

Please note that the sample was provided by Dr Garza-Valdes from his own private store.

article [Note that the date of the article in your quote is wrong - I give you the benefit of the doubt that you made an honest mistake]

What this means is Dr Tryson found human blood on samples provided by Dr Garza-Valdes, which doesn't establish there is ancient human blood stains on the Shroud.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
Oh nooooo
the great UR caught me again....
Obviously bilirubin is yellow since reddish-brown + yellow-orange = red

In the RGB subtractive colour system, red is a primary colour, you can't get it by mixing other colours. In the CMYK system, you get red by mixing yellow and magenta. No idea where you got yours from.

[mindseye]

No it doesn't. It looks a human head when it's flat, which means it will not look like one when it's wrap around a person's head.

I always found this to one of the more gaping holes in the Shroud supporters' dense tapestry of errata.

UR is spot-on. Wet your head and wrap a white sheet around it (go ahead and use paint - or blood! - if you have an old sheet). Try it! Try it several times! You can't get anything remotely like the painterly 2D representation of a face found on the shroud. What you get is a distorted image all but unrecognizable as a face.

The wrinkling required to get over the nose and back down to the cheeks alone introduces significant distortions when the cloth is again laid out flat.

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Wishful thinking

BBC article (Note this article is more recent than the Telegraph one you quoted)

I note that in the whole article there's not a clue of what is the independent research, who made it and why they ruled out the link...
I'm afraid they're still talking about McCrone, the ONLY one that still refuse to accept evidence.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Another link

Again McCrone...
Interesting, but someone else? don't tell me, he's the only source who refuse to consider blood on the shroud, what a surprise...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You definitely has a very unique view of fundamentalism, I am not here to debate over semantics, however.

As for science, see below.

you are the one who compared science with fundamentalism, i only followed your way of reasoning...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

First of all, there's no blood (your cite notwithstanding, see below). Secondly,

Totally refutes your argument

Don't tell me...
McCrone tells a different story!
the strange thing is that he's the only one who support the ink theory.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You know what's funny?

Aside your continue quoting a discredited scientist as McCrone as your unique source? no, tell me.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I can't find any "VP-8 Image Analyzer" on NASA's website. However, there are lots and lots of fundie websites that make the same assertion. Can you say something is fishy?

I would be surprised if you're able to find info on a machine obsolete as the VP-8 (it was built in 1970...) on the NASA site.
Anyway the VP-8 thing is well known and showed in countless conferences and no one from NASA ever said "No, we don't know what VP-8 is..."
In fact, the only thing that NASA said about the Shroud can be found an article appeared in "NASA Activities," September 1978, p. 7.

Although the "Shroud of Turin" investigation by JPL scientists is not a NASA enterprise, the image enhancement techniques used stem from space technology. The work, therefore, has a NASA connotation. The following article, from the JPL Universe, covers the latest developments in this fascinating story. (See NASA Activities for November 1977 for earlier coverage.)

It's interesting to hear the declaration of Lynn, one of the JPL group which worked on the shroud, you can read by yourself on the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's magazine:

"We didn't feel we made any major finds," says Lynn, "partly because we had poor quality negatives to work with. However, frequency analysis did tend to rule out the possibility that the figure was hand painted."

Anyway, instead of searching the NASA website try to obtain the original paper:

Jackson, J.P., E.J. Jumper and W.R. Ercoline, "Three Dimensional Characteristic of the
Shroud Image," IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics
and Society, October 1982, pp. 559-575.

Guess what? peer-reviewed by IEEE and no one noticed that VP-8 was an invention of fundie the great UR hit again...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You snowed the wrong person. You said peer-reviewed? Where were these findings published? Any URLs?

Just to verify my own suspicion, I Googled "Dr. John Heller and Dr. Alan Adler" and found no links to any scientific peer-to-peer journal with regards to "blood on the Shroud of Turin" on the first 3 pages. You may have better luck.

Ehm, What is exactly a peer-to-peer review? a review you can download with Kazaa?
If you know what you're talking about at least try to use correct terminology

And it seems you're unable to use google too...

Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin," Applied Optics, Vol. 19, No. 16, 1980, pp. 2742-2744.

Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1981, pp. 81-103.

It is curious, however, to notice that none of McCrone scientific articles on the Shroud were ever submitted to a peer reviewed journal but were self-published in his own magazine, The Microscopist.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I was looking around for the Telegraph article you have cited, and, lo and behold, the findings of Dr Victor Tryon was not published in any scientific peer-to-peer reviewed journal, but rather, in a book published by Dr Garza-Valdes:

So make me understand better: you don't believe to the director of the Center for Advanced DNA Technologies of the University of Texas who confirmed the (reviewed, see above) work of several others scientist because it's not peer reviewed, but you're ready to believe McCrone, the director of his self-made organization whose conclusions where rejected by the whole scientific community and, consequently, are not peer reviewed by anyone?
interesting...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
[Note that the date of the article in your quote is wrong - I give you the benefit of the doubt that you made an honest mistake]

Eh yes, an error of three days catching the month and the year is obviously suspicious and completely changes the content of the article

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What this means is Dr Tryson found human blood on samples provided by Dr Garza-Valdes, which doesn't establish there is ancient human blood stains on the Shroud.

What do you think is the meaning of:
The book details the experiments which show that the "blood" on the shroud is ancient and contains XY chromosones - which establishes it as human and male. The tests were conducted by a team headed by Dr Victor Tryon?
His conclusions about ancient blood was due to, guess what, degraded DNA

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
This is also an interesting quote:

...Alan Whanger admits that threads were obtained from the Shroud which did have the red ochre pigment observed by McCrone...

Yes, it's even more interesting when quoted fully

Finally, although Alan Whanger admits that threads were obtained from the Shroud which did have the red ochre pigment observed by McCrone, he claims that these are merely "translocated fibers" from the many copies of the Shroud "that were painted during the Middle Ages." According to professor Whanger, such copies "were laid face down on the shroud" and therefore "have nothing to do with the formation of the shroud images."

Since you were so kind to give me the benefit of the doubt that i made an honest mistake i'll give you the same benefit of the doubt on this one (although writing 16 November 1998 instead of 19 November 1998 when quoting a newspaper article is not the same than omitting a quote which completely changes the meaning of a phrase...)

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
In the RGB subtractive colour system, red is a primary colour, you can't get it by mixing other colours. In the CMYK system, you get red by mixing yellow and magenta. No idea where you got yours from.

We're not talking about publishing a magazine and choosing the cover colours...
maybe you've to submit your idea based on your RGB monitor to McCrone, probably he'll publish it on his site instantly...
Obviously the guys at Applied Optics which peer-reviewed the paper of Adler and Heller didn't know about the RGB thing, thanks god there's UR...

Anyway, let me think:
i've to believe to a biophisicist as Adler and a chemist as Heller who truly worked on the shroud and whose findings about blood color were confirmed by an ancient DNA expert such as Loy and published on several scientific journals or i've to believe to you and your monitor theory?
... well, nothing personal, i think i'll choose Adler, Heller and Loy...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What "perfect 3-Dimensionality?"

It has been demonstrated repeatly that you do not get the same image if you wrap something like a linen strip around a person's head. You can do the same experiment at home, with your own head.

Originally posted by mindseye
UR is spot-on. Wet your head and wrap a white sheet around it (go ahead and use paint - or blood! - if you have an old sheet). Try it! Try it several times! You can't get anything remotely like the painterly 2D representation of a face found on the shroud. What you get is a distorted image all but unrecognizable as a face.

Again, it's not a 2D representation it has incredible 3D properties as showed by VP-8 and confirmed several times using better hardware and software.

It's hard for me to obtain the same representation just wrapping a white sheet around my head with paint simply because it's not paint what you see on the shroud.
I repeat, it's confirmed that what you see is a rapid dehydration, oxidation and degradation of the linen due to an unidentified process.
In fact, there's a way to obtain an image similar to the shroud one:
In an experiments that used injected radioisotopes, Dr. Gus Accetta was able to recreate an image very similar to the shroud. Further, using the same VP-8 image analyzer, he demonstrated the "3-D" similarities that existed between the x-ray images created from internal radiation and the image on the Shroud of Turin.

Carter, Giles F. 1984. Formation of Images on the Shroud by X-rays: A New Hypothesis.
ACS Advances in Chemistry No. 205: Archaeological Chemistry, pp 425-446.

Accetta, August D., "Experiments with Radiation as an Image Formation Mechanism"

Happy reading...

[Boris Godunov]

Angelo, you haven't cited any of your sources in this argument. We have. Please do so.

EDIT: And by that I mean links to where you cut n paste from.

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Angelo, you haven't cited any of your sources in this argument. We have. Please do so.

EDIT: And by that I mean links to where you cut n paste from.

Boris, i pointed you to papers with data of publications and title, what on the hell do you want?

In fact i've better cited sources than you (since when a web link has scientific authority? a peer-reviewed scientific journal instead has)

[Boris Godunov]

If you have those journals in front of you, that's one thing. If you're quoting the cites from web sites that provide them, that's another.

I will happily point you to numerous sources linked to by talkorigins.org and others where Creationist web sites cited peer-reviewed material, but did so out of context to support their claims. It is not an unknown tactic, and I, for one, would like to stake what they claim the authors are saying vs. what they are really saying.

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
If you have those journals in front of you, that's one thing. If you're quoting the cites from web sites that provide them, that's another.

I will happily point you to numerous sources linked to by talkorigins.org and others where Creationist web sites cited peer-reviewed material, but did so out of context to support their claims. It is not an unknown tactic, and I, for one, would like to stake what they claim the authors are saying vs. what they are really saying.

Ok, it's fair.

As you know, you must be subscribed to a scientific journal to read its articles, so i'm unable to give you direct links to them (but if you don't trust me you just have to check your city public library)

On the net i found several abstracts which refers to the sources i pointed you to, some are of the same authors saying the same things, others are simply people trying to resume advances done on the topic and quoting them.
I hope you'll notice that authors are all academic people and not creationists fundie
(i thank you for not start yelling "you're fundie, you're fundie" like someone else did...)

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ford1.pdf

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/adler.pdf

http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/accett2.pdf

http://www.west.net/~shroud/pdfs/schumchr.pdf

http://www.west.net/~shroud/pdfs/orvieto.pdf

http://space.tin.it/scienza/bachm/POWER1.PDF

http://space.tin.it/scienza/bachm/MORAN1.PDF

http://space.tin.it/scienza/bachm/VHAELST6.PDF

http://www.shroud.it/MARINO.PDF

http://www.west.net/~shroud/pdfs/daninx.pdf

I think i've covered all my arguments, if not, tell me and i'll try to find the source i got it from
(you know, it's hard when you don't have just McCrone to quote )

[Heresson]

A thought... Mary's physical virginity must have been broken anyway - when she was giving birth to Jesus. Unless there's been another miracle.
I think Bible and Christianity is enough proof for existance of Jesus. We don't have such strong proofs when it comes to lots of other historical figures.

[Boris Godunov]

Ok, Dating the Shroud:

The C14 tests are the only tests to have been done to date the Shroud, correct?

Three separate tests conducted, after thorough cleaning of the samples, all had the same conclusion, correct?

Pro-authenticity people have tried to poke holes in the dating using the contamination argument. However, while these claims bring the C14 done into question, there has never been another dating that corroborates a 1st century date, right? Right.

http://www.shroud.com/c14debat.htm

Roger Sparks, an expert in radiocarbon dating, debates archaeologist Meacham (who, it must be pointed out, isn't).

Sparks points out:

However, the arguments of Meacham & Garza-Valdes suffer from the same flaw, in that they are qualitative arguments. There seems to be the belief that by simply postulating the existence of a "contamination" the 14C dates must be discarded. But the important question is -how much- contamination is present. If it is insufficient to significantly affect a radiocarbon measurement then it is irrelevant to the argument. The quantitative dimension is essential to this discussion. That is the essence of the problem that I have with the Garza-Valdes theory, and the objections I set out in my original posting have not been answered.

Side issues such as "isotopic exchange" are just red herrings. Isotope chemistry is a well understood science, and exotic effects caused by the 1532 fire should have been observed elsewhere by now. Radiocarbon dating of burnt or charred material is commonly done (notably charcoal). Appealing to the special nature of radiocarbon because it is radioactive leads us into the area of voodoo science. Keeping an open mind for new knowledge is one thing, but all new discoveries must account for what we already know. If the only way we can explain a particular phenomenon is by rejecting what has already been established without providing an acceptable alternative way of interpreting prior knowledge, then that explanation must be viewed with deep suspicion. From this point of view the Shroud of Turin and Cold Fusion have a lot in common.

Meacham himself says: "Of course, no real age has been *established* for the Shroud, just as it has not been established that fire cannot affect the C14 content of a sample."

Nicholas Allen has dated the Shroud according to iconography, and his conclusions are that it can indeed be seen as a medeival creation:

http://www.petech.ac.za/shroud/Dating.htm

Other claims have been made, concerning factors that may have affected the dating included such things as the possible existence of bioplasmic material on the Shroud fibres (e.g. Dr Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes) as well as the fact that a fire nearly destroyed the Shroud in 1532 However, even if any of these various claims had any merit, no one can yet prove (even with the most circumstantial of evidence) that the Shroud is in fact two thousand years old. Indeed, citing Garza-Valdes' case as an example, the best that can be stated is that the dating could be out by a few centuries.4 In short, even if the dating was out by as much as a say a millennium, this is clearly too late for the historical Jeshua bar Josef to have left his imprint upon it, irrespective of the method employed.

It must be noted that the samples used by Garza-Valdez have not been authenticated as actual fibers from the Turin shroud. The Vatican has refused to authenticate them. Garza got them from a third party source, not the Shroud itself.

Blood:

There is no consensus that real blood is on the shroud:

http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/as/maloney.html

See Maloney's dissection of the blood claims on both sides. Too long to quote here, but his conclusion is that there is no definite yes or no.

Any claims to DNA on the Shroud are out of order, since the DNA of anybody who ever touched it could be on it (see below).

Even if the blood may be real human blood, Nickell points out in the above article that the blood flows are completely incongruous with real corpse bleeding. Maloney points out that the blood could have been applied via brush or other artificial means and not have penetrated the shroud, if done carefully"

If these are supposed to be natural blood flows issuing from a freshly deceased corpse, then clearly, something very strange was going on at the time. Indeed the blood often defies gravity as well as the contour of the body it is supposed to be running upon. There is a simple explanation for this phenomenon, viz.: the blood flows were applied with an instrument such as a brush or a spouted container (which had a uniform thickness) upon a flat piece of material by human agency. In short, they are clearly applied by hand, showing distinct and common stylistic traits.

(Nickell)

Your claim that the blood is "ancient" is baffling. Who has dated the blood, and how have they done so? There is no way of determining how old the blood is.

Citing Tyron was funny in this light:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2843/n4_v22/20915031/p3/article.jhtml?term=

"Another recent claim concerns reported evidence of human DNA in a shroud "blood" sample. Actually, the scientist cited, Victor Tryon of the University of Texas, insists that "Everyone who has ever touched the shroud or cried over the shroud has left a potential DNA signal there." Tryon resigned from the new shroud project due to what he disparaged as "zealotry in science." (Van Biema 1998, p. 61)"

The pollen:

Ignoring the possibility that Frei's samples could in fact be fraudulent, the existence of the pollens of Middle Eastern plants prove nothing as to the origin or age of the shroud. The claim that these plants were all extinct after the 1st century AD is false: All the pollen samples were of plants known to still be in existence to this day. This would indicate the Shroud was in the Middle East, but that says nothing as to its date of manufacture or authenticity. Again from Maloney:

Before we turn to another topic it is important to sound a word of caution regarding the interpretation of the presence of pollen on the Shroud. In my opinion, if in the evaluations by Horowitz and Danin it appears that the Shroud was in the Middle East at some time, or even specifically in Israel, the pollen could, at the present state of technology, say nothing about when it was there. Due to a misunderstanding of an article published on the pollen data in 1978 by Prof. Giovanni Charrier29, geologist at the Turin Polytechnic Institute, it was thought that the pollen data could date the Shroud, or at least tell us when the Shroud was in the Holy Land. This is emphatically not true. Dr. Horowitz told me that there are no extinct pollen in Frei's list; all the pollen found there have been in existence for at least the last 2000 years (Personal communication).

The image:

The notion that the full image on the Shroud is authentically human is flawed as well. First and foremost, the body/head ration is 8:1. Human being have a ration of 6:1. The Shroud actually looks very much like the body was done separately from the head.

The head itself has features that resemble gothic artistry, such as an exaggeratedly long face and nose, quite incongruous with standard human features, but common in Gothic art (see Nickell):

Also see: http://www.geocities.com/player2000gi/turin.htm

and

Also, the hair hangs as for a standing rather than recumbent figure, and the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs. Everywhere the "blood" flows are unrealistically neat. Instead of matting the hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on the outside of the locks. And even the dried blood has implausibly transferred. In addition, real blood soaks into doth and spreads in all directions, rather than leaving picturelike images. As the noted pathologist Dr. Michael Baden observes of the overall shroud image, "Human beings don't produce this kind of pattern" (Baden 1980).

It should be noted that numerous people have created Shroud like images using techniques that could have been done in the 12th-15th centuries. Their replicas of the Shroud exhibited all the characteristics the Shroud does, and did not require a real corpse to be present.

Other aspects indicate that there are problems with the Shroud being authentic. First, the analysis reveal that the image shows a light source creating shadows below the nose and other surfaces, indicating a source of light above. No such light source could have been present underneath the shroud when the body lay wrapped up inside.

Second, the blood stains provide a problem in and of itself. Jewish ritual law requires a body be thoroughly cleaned before bwing shrouded and buried. There would not have been ANY blood on a crucified Jewish corpse, as the shroud depicts. This corroborates the above evidence that the blood stains are falsified.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Matthew 12:46-50 indicates he had brothers.

What reason or evidence do we have to assume they weren't his biological brothers that isn't circular? None.

What reason do we have to assume Mary remained a virgin her whole life? None.

We don't have any proof on the other side, though.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Heresson
We don't have any proof on the other side, though.

Not absolute proof, but there are far more indications, given what the New Testament says, that Biblical Jesus did indeed have brothers. There is NOTHING in the NT to substantiate that Mary was a perpetual virgin.

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Ok, Dating the Shroud:

The C14 tests are the only tests to have been done to date the Shroud, correct?

Three separate tests conducted, after thorough cleaning of the samples, all had the same conclusion, correct?

Pro-authenticity people have tried to poke holes in the dating using the contamination argument. However, while these claims bring the C14 done into question, there has never been another dating that corroborates a 1st century date, right? Right.

And in your opinion what is the relevance of this argument?
They made a C14 experiment which is rejected from the scientific community as full of mistakes (i gave you links to the papers, at least you could read them).
Another C14 experiments IMHO is useless since, for the third time, the shroud hardly match the constrains for a correct C14 dating (closed-system != religious cult object)

Anyway, an interesting paper about the 1988 test is the paper of Van Haelst which shows that tests were wrong even on the theoretical side (the 95% of confidence is a joke):

http://www.shroud.com/vanhels5.pdf

just a quote:

A NEGATIVE Chi^2 is proof, that the dates under examination are NOT CONSISTENT. In
such cases, it should have been wise, to follow the advice, given by Prof. Hoel (University of
California) : "In the case of a Chi^2 test CLOSE to the LIMIT, it is better not to draw
conclusions, but to search for more and better data and to examine the reason of non
consistency."
Probably, nobody in team of the British Museum did read the advice of Prof. Hoel, because
despite of a Chi^2 test not close to, but FAR OVER the limit, one converted these non
consistent data into CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE !
[...]
The answer of the British Museum reads as follows : "Your calculations are correct. The
differences between Yours and our results are due to the use of different weighting
systems". Because I used the recommended Wilson & Ward method, one may wonder,
which method was used by the British Museum.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Roger Sparks, an expert in radiocarbon dating, debates archaeologist Meacham (who, it must be pointed out, isn't).

Yes, it must be pointed out since an archaeologist such as Meacham "uses" radiocarbon dating as well as other
instruments to date artifacts, so he is able to say if it is reliable or not.
I would be really surprised to hear a radiocarbon expert to say that radiocarbon dating is unreliable.

Anyway, if you want a Radiocarbon expert i'll quote you Prof. Gove
"This [Garza-Valdes theory about bioplastic coating] is not a crazy idea. A swing of 1000 years would be a big change, but it's not widely out of the question and the issue needs to be resolved".

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Nicholas Allen has dated the Shroud according to iconography, and his conclusions are that it can indeed be seen as a medeival creation:

http://www.petech.ac.za/shroud/Dating.htm

I must confess that this article of Allen left me wordless, but what is trying to show this guy?
the only scientific theory that Allen raise here was already debunked by a paper i pointed you to last time:

http://www.west.net/~shroud/pdfs/orvieto.pdf

And after that? incredibly enough he said that the Shroud must be a painting of 1300 because it's too realistic to be a painting of early ages (since in early ages Christ crucifixion was depicted in a symbolical way).
But since it's NOT a painting it must be realistic...
And he goes ahead saying what even the most fundie doesn't dare to say, that an obvious correlations exist between the Way of the Cross and the events implied by the design of the image itself

I truly don't think any scientist can prove a similar correlation.
(and it's interesting that you, who said that the wrist wound was just a unidentified splotch, now agree with Allen when he talk about crown of thorns, the evidence of a heavy object, such as the cross, rubbing on body's shoulders and bloodied knees)

The point is that Allen bases his work on the 1988 C14 test instead of confirm it:
Since C14 showed that the Shroud is a medieval painting, his work seems to say, what are aspects of medieval iconography we can find in it? the only problem here is that the C14 date was wrong (i hope you read carefully points i made above)

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
It must be noted that the samples used by Garza-Valdez have not been authenticated as actual fibers from the Turin shroud. The Vatican has refused to authenticate them. Garza got them from a third party source, not the Shroud itself.

Obviously, the Vatican doesn't like people trying to clone what they think could be the God's DNA, in fact, after the Tryon analysis, not only Vatican refused to authenticate samples but requested back all samples released during STURP experiments to avoid further analysis, it's a questionable decision from a scientific point of view, but understable from the Vatican one.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Blood:

There is no consensus that real blood is on the shroud:

http://www.freeinquiry.com/skeptic/shroud/as/maloney.html

See Maloney's dissection of the blood claims on both sides. Too long to quote here, but his conclusion is that there is no definite yes or no.

Interesting, you started saying that science proved that there was no blood on the shroud and now you admit that there is still no definite yes or no.

Anyway, at least Maloney is a well known authority in scientific field, let me read...
in this paper Maloney simply describes different positions about the blood thing, interestingly enough the only people he quotes of the against-blood front are McCrone and Nickell (see below)

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Any claims to DNA on the Shroud are out of order, since the DNA of anybody who ever touched it could be on it (see below).

Where i said that the blood was Jesus blood? I simply said that there is blood on the shroud and that it is ancient Anyway, if there's foreign material on the shroud then it can't be correctly dated with C14, so you've to decide:
or the blood was added after by some pilgrim (and then it can't be dated with C14) or you can date it correctly with C14 (and then the blood was part of the closed-system required by the C14 tests)

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Even if the blood may be real human blood, Nickell points out in the above article that the blood flows are completely incongruous with real corpse bleeding.

And Nickell is an authority in the blood field?
You still have to tell me who is Nickell and what is his field of experience.
(where he works? in what he took degree?)
In fact the only information i was able find on him is that Joe Nickell is the Senior Research Fellow (???) for the Committee for the Scientific Investigations of the Paranormal (strange, i never heard about this university... oh it's a private no-profit organization ) and that worked professionally as a stage magician, private investigator, journalist, and university instructor...
note the "instructor" instead of "professor", and that there's no clue about which university worked and that the university instructor title comes after the journalist, private investigator and EVEN stage magician, probably it was placed there just to give Nickell some scientific authority.

In fact on the CSICOP Mailing list he is cited as :

Joe Nickell, CSICOP Senior Research Fellow. Nickell has investigated ghost
claims for more than twenty-five years and has never found a haunted place,
only haunted minds. He is author of _Entities_ and _Secrets of the
Supernatural_.

Joe Nickell, CSICOP Senior Research Fellow, Paranormal investigator who has
tracked countless cases of psychic sleuths. Also expert on psychic mediums
like James Van Praagh and James Edward. Author or editor of fifteen books on
investigation.

Joe Nickell, CSICOP Senior Research Fellow. Expert on alien abduction and
alien implant claims. Contact Nickell regarding Whitley Streiber's latest
book _Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us_.

Wow, this is a CV

You started citing a discredited scientist and now end up citing someone who can't be even considered a scientist...

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Maloney points out that the blood could have been applied via brush or other artificial means and not have penetrated the shroud, if done carefully"

That was a Nickell theory and not a Maloney one, and the only thing Maloney says about it is:

Joe Nickell has suggested that the iron oxide was applied dry using a dauber on cloth formed over a bas relief as a rubbing; much in the manner as gravestone rubbings have been produced. From experiments I have conducted the latter technique presents us with some problems.
[...i'm cutting because it's too long but suggest you to read also the parts omitted...]
But one does not need to use a bas relief to prove my point. Simply select a very tight weave piece of cloth, place it on a flat piece of white paper, dip the dauber in the pigment, and rub gently on the cloth. Even with the lightest rubbing the red pigment penetrates and leaves a visible iron oxide dusting on the paper. This point is very important since with a bas relief, when the cloth is molded over the details of the relief, the high points tend to spread the weave. At these particular points even greater amounts of pigment penetrate.
[...]
However, I have not completely ruled out Nickell's approach to producing the Shroud face because I think with practice and experimentation one can learn to control the pressure of one's strokes.
[...]
Nevertheless, it seems to me that such control as Nickell has developed has been after the fact, using the Shroud face as his guide. Since the Shroud is unique; whether as a genuine burial cloth, or as an artist's production; no artist in the mid-1300s had such a unique image to copy. Further, pace Nickell's view, the greater challenge is not to copy the face, rather it is the entire Shroud image which would have required a bas relief of both front and back and consistent control to have rendered an image the size of a human body similar to the one we find on the Shroud without evidence of directional marks.

It's difficult to say that Maloney is supporting Nickell's theory here...

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Your claim that the blood is "ancient" is baffling. Who has dated the blood, and how have they done so? There is no way of determining how old the blood is.

Citing Tyron was funny in this light:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2843/n4_v22/20915031/p3/article.jhtml?term=

the Skeptical Inquirer, the CSICOP magazine... Nickell wrote the article?

The fact that the blood is ancient is due to degraded DNA found in it by Tryon and others.
The funny thing is that you started saying that there wasn't blood and now you say "Yes there is blood but it's not ancient".

In fact i totally agree with Tryon when he says that "Everyone who has ever touched the shroud or cried over the shroud has left a potential DNA signal there."
The only thing i said is that there's blood on the shroud (contrary to what McCrone said) and that it's ancient (medieval and previous ages could be considered ancient too, but 1980 is simply not far enough to degrade DNA, so the X-Filish conspiracy theory evoked by McCrone simply doesn't hold)

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The pollen:

Ignoring the possibility that Frei's samples could in fact be fraudulent,

Maloney himself in the same document you cited says:

Frei's data have not been generally accepted by the Shroud scientific community partially because STURP was unable to find pollen on their sticky tapes. The explanation turned out to be rather simple. STURP, using a torque applicator which limited the pounds per square inch pressure on the Shroud, only took samples strictly from the surface of the cloth. Frei, in a letter to me just before he passed away, told me he was able to secure samples of materials from between the threads by moving the tape (and cloth) laterally, thus lifting the pollen between the threads up onto the sticky tape. The tapes themselves still preserve this evidence.

In 1986, through the kind courtesy of Mrs. Gertrud Frei-Sulzer, the ASSIST organization had access to four of the tape samples Dr. Frei removed in 1978, plus a fifth, unlabeled slide, also removed from the Shroud but of uncertain date. Intense microanalysis of all four of the labeled samples show that 95% of all the pollen are localized in the first 1/2 inch or "lead" portion of the tape. This demonstrates that the sticky tape technique per se is pressure sensitive, the highest number of pollen on the tapes coinciding with the highest number of flax fibrils on those tapes.

Meanwhile, Italian microanalyst Dr. Giovanni Riggi, a member of STURP, has confirmed the presence of pollen on the Shroud. But he has not ventured to identify any of them since his research carried him in directions other than the study of the pollen. He distinguishes two different types: "ancient" and "modern" with the former being identifiable from the mineral coating on them.

[...]

I wish to reiterate that Prof. Shafersman does not support the authenticity of the Shroud, preferring to believe that Dr. Frei himself put those pollen on the cloth. But this suggestion is unfair bacause it needlessly impugns another man's reputation. The evidence in the sticky tapes which the ASSIST Organization examined support a different hypothesis: that flowers were laid directly on the Shroud at some time in its history25.

So, even your source exclude the fraud theory.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
the existence of the pollens of Middle Eastern plants prove nothing as to the origin or age of the shroud.

Again, you started saying that the pollen was a fraud and now you say "ok, it's true and they're from middle east plants but it prove nothing"
like i was trying to say, it proves that there is middle east pollen on the shroud and that the fraud you started talking about was simply not supported by evidence.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The claim that these plants were all extinct after the 1st century AD is false: All the pollen samples were of plants known to still be in existence to this day.

Where i said that these plants were all extinct after the 1st century? in fact Danin says that you can easily find those plants today if you make a journey to Jerusalem

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
This would indicate the Shroud was in the Middle East, but that says nothing as to its date of manufacture or authenticity.

But since, according to the painting theory, the Shroud was made in 1355 and never moved to middle east you have to choose...

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The head itself has features that resemble gothic artistry, such as an exaggeratedly long face and nose, quite incongruous with standard human features, but common in Gothic art (see Nickell):

Ah, so now Nickell is also an expert in Gothic art too...

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
It should be noted that numerous people have created Shroud like images using techniques that could have been done in the 12th-15th centuries. Their replicas of the Shroud exhibited all the characteristics the Shroud does, and did not require a real corpse to be present.

Are you sure? point me to a paper which shows a Shroud replica which exhibit all the characteristics the Shroud does.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Other aspects indicate that there are problems with the Shroud being authentic. First, the analysis reveal that the image shows a light source creating shadows below the nose and other surfaces, indicating a source of light above. No such light source could have been present underneath the shroud when the body lay wrapped up inside.

like you said, provide sources for your arguments.
I need to better understand this objection.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Second, the blood stains provide a problem in and of itself. Jewish ritual law requires a body be thoroughly cleaned before bwing shrouded and buried. There would not have been ANY blood on a crucified Jewish corpse, as the shroud depicts. This corroborates the above evidence that the blood stains are falsified.

In fact, this could be a problem but it seems that the body has been washed, at least according to a paper
which can be found on www.shroud.com but which i don't link because contains disturbing images (it's easy to find but if you can't ask me and i'll PM the link to you, i'm afraid the moderator's wrath since we're threadjacking )