"Jesus Box" Exposed As Fake

[Ben Kenobi]

Can you produce documentary evidence of Jesus? That means evidence contemporary with his lifetime.

Boris:

Do we have documentary evidence of anyone's existence in this period of time? You have an unnecessarily strict standard of evidence. 30 years would be considered very reliable evidence when weighed against all other sources, and how long they wrote after their sources.

I can't see a Biblical reason not to, being that the Bible doesn't comment on this either way, IIRC.

I agree. It's not an essential point of faith, since there is no explicit instruction in the bible as to the brothers of Jesus.

However, I feel that the circumstantial evidence weighs against the perpetual virginity of marriage. I just don't see why Mary needs to be a virgin after she has had Jesus.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by obiwan18

Boris:

Do we have documentary evidence of anyone's existence in this period of time? You have an unnecessarily strict standard of evidence. 30 years would be considered very reliable evidence when weighed against all other sources, and how long they wrote after their sources.

Great, then I'll have to assume that Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Hammurabi, Alexander and Darius never existed either...

sheesh...

Come on, the guy was supposedly hailed as king of the jews, persecuted by the state, the guy was one of the greatest revolutionaries in history and there's no historical evidence to prove his existence... kinda funny don't you think?

However, I feel that the circumstantial evidence weighs against the perpetual virginity of marriage. I just don't see why Mary needs to be a virgin after she has had Jesus.

And why couldn't Mary have ****ged Joseph before? I mean, seriously, what twisted puritan conservative religious BS is that when sex is considered a sin?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Boris:

Do we have documentary evidence of anyone's existence in this period of time? You have an unnecessarily strict standard of evidence. 30 years would be considered very reliable evidence when weighed against all other sources, and how long they wrote after their sources.

I've answered this several times for you, yet you still keep asking it like it's a new point.

Yes, we have tons of documentary evidence for the existence of lots of people from that time period. Paul, for instance. Caesar, and all the Roman Emperors. Writers, historians, philosophers, religious leaders, politicians, etc.

We can corraborate their existence through contemporary public records, their own writings, writings about them from contemporaries, contemporary effigies, etc. There exists NONE of this for Jesus. And he supposedly, if you believe the events described in the Gospels, made such a huge stink that he had all of Israel in fits. How could such a figure go overlooked by, well, everything?

Take the tale that Herod ordered all the babies to be killed. You'd think such a thing would be noted, especially by the Romans. But it's a fabrication, Herod ordered no such massacre.

On top of that, we have documentary sources that indicate Jesus was a composite character of sorts (such as the Talmud's "Yeshua"), and these characters had probably been long dead by 30 CE. There are many such writings that date back to 100 BCE or earlier, and in them the messianic figure described has similarities to Jesus.

So here's the basic gist:

In Israel, there are literally dozens of messianic cults abounding, much of them a reaction to Roman occupation. Some follow John the Baptist, others "Yeshua," etc., etc. Along comes our dear friend Paul. Now, what do we know about Paul before his supposed conversion? Nothing but what he tells us: That he was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians but had a vision and is converted. But was he really a Pharisee? Is he telling the truth? According the Gnostics, he was a liar. Their documents, which are contemporary with Paul, claim he was a Saducee who had a rift with the Temple leaders in Jerusalem. Probably this is due to his particular philosophy, which he details in his letters.

So Paul goes off on his own, finds one (or more) of these messianic cults and basically co-opts them. He needs a voice for his message, and the "Yeshua" figure fits the bill. You'll notice that Paul's writings, the earliest at all about Jesus, are absolutely devoid of any details of Jesus's life. Paul was concerned with expounding his philosophy.

As the decades wear on, Paul's teachings become popular (his message was, overall, something new and positive for most people). Meanwhile, the myths and stories of these cults are floating around. The mysterious Q gospel and Mark are among the earliest that attempt to describe the life of this Jesus, and are probably part true, part exaggeration, and part utter fiction. The subsequent Gospels of Luke, Matthew and John all use Mark and Q as a basis, adding more exaggeration to the tales. They weren't meant to complement one another (as the contradictions show), but rather be the new tale of this mythical messiah. None of these appeared until almost the 2nd century CE, with John being dated to about 110-130 BCE. We have no idea who wrote any of them, as the attributions were not assigned to them until the 2nd century as well (the earliest known manuscripts are without any authorship attribution), and the notion they were written by the disciples described therein is wishful thinking.

So, after the Christian cult has spread rapidly, thanks to Paul's philosophy, the followers decide to codify the wildly differentiating beliefs with the "New Testament" There were literally thousands of gospels flying around at this time, and they settled on four, and even then omitted and added passages to suit their tastes. This is where we see the real beginning of a single Christian faith, rather than the jumble of different tales going around the ancient world. The rest is history, for here is where the murkiness of early Christianity gives way to documentary evidence.

I don't know if the above is true or not, but I find it quite plausible (moreso than the great Jesus making so much trouble but leaving no footprints). Recent discoveries of early manuscripts has only supported this view, although there is not any conclusive evidence by any means. There is, however, more evidence for this (such as Gnostics) than for the traditional Jesus.

[Urban Ranger]

It is also important to note the striking similarities between Mithraism and Christianity, or at least comparing Jesus of Nazareth and Mithras. Also, as Boris pointed out, there's nothing new in Christianity at all - it was a mishmash of the religions and philosophies in the region at the time.

[Boris Godunov]

Indeed! If one considers that Mithraism predates Christianity by hundreds of years, it's pretty obvious that much of what was written about Jesus was just co-opting the Mithras myths.

http://www.crystalinks.com/mithra.html

Mithraism began in Persia where originally a multitude of gods were worshipped. Amongst them were Ahura-Mazda, god of the skies, and Ahriman, god of darkness. In the sixth and seventh century B.C., a vast reformation of the Persian pantheon was undertaken by Zarathustra (known in Greek as Zoroaster), a prophet from the kingdom of Bactria. The stature of Ahura-Mazda was elevated to that of supreme god of goodness, whereas the god Ahriman became the ultimate embodiment of evil.

In the same way that Ahkenaton, Abraham, Heliogabalus, and Mohammed later initiated henotheistic cults from the worship of their respective deities, Zarathustra created a henotheistic dualism with the gods Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. As a result of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews (597 B.C.) and their later emancipation by King Cyrus the Great of Persia (538 B.C.), Zoroastrian dualism was to influence the Jewish belief in the existence of HaShatan, the malicious Adversary of the god Yahweh, and later permit the evolution of the Christian Satan-Jehovah dichotomy. Persian religious dualism became the foundation of an ethical system that has lasted until this day.

The reformation of Zarathustra retained the hundreds of Persian deities, assembling them into a complex hierarchical system of 'Immortals' and 'Adored Ones' under the rule of either Ahura- Mazda or Ahriman. Within this vast pantheon, Mithras gained the title of 'Judger of Souls'. He became the divine representative of Ahura-Mazda on earth, and was directed to protect the righteous from the demonic forces of Ahriman. Mithras was called omniscient, undeceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting.

...

Ahura-Mazda was said to have created Mithras to be as great and worthy as himself. He would fight the spirits of evil to protect the creations of Ahura-Mazda and cause even Ahriman to tremble. Mithras was seen as the protector of just souls from demons seeking to drag them down to Hell, and the guide of these souls to Paradise. As Lord of the Sky, he took the role of psychopomp, conducting the souls of the righteous dead to paradise.

According to Persian traditions, the god Mithras was actually incarnated into the human form of the Saviour expected by Zarathustra. Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation. Anahita was said to have conceived the Saviour from the seed of Zarathustra preserved in the waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 B.C., 64 years after his birth. Parthian coins and documents bear a double date with this 64 year interval.

...

According to Persian mythology, Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God'. The God remained celibate throughout his life, and valued self-control, renunciation and resistance to sensuality among his worshippers. Mithras represented a system of ethics in which brotherhood was encouraged in order to unify against the forces of evil.

The Persians called Mithras 'The Mediator' since he was believed to stand between the light of Ahura-Mazda and the darkness of Ahriman. He was said to have 1000 eyes, expressing the conviction that no man could conceal his wrongdoing from the god. Mithras was known as the God of Truth, and Lord of Heavenly Light, and said to have stated "I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths".

...

As 'God of Truth and Integrity', Mithras was invoked in solemn oaths to pledge the fulfillment of contracts and punish liars. He was believed to maintain peace, wisdom, honour, prosperity, and cause harmony to reign among all his worshippers. According to the Avesta, Mithras could decide when different periods of world history were completed. He would judge mortal souls at death and brandish his mace over hell three times each day so that demons would not inflict greater punishment on sinners than they deserved.

...

The faithful referred to Mithras as "the Light of the World", symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between heaven and earth and was a member of a Holy Trinity.

The worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world to come. They looked forward to a final day of judgement in which the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness.

Purification through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred, and the birth of the god was celebrated annually on December the 25th. After the earthly mission of this god had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.

Now, not all of these beliefs and practices were created at once time, and when the cult transferred to the Romans, it was changed considerably. Christian apologists have claimed that it was Mithraism that stole from Christianity, not the other way around. This, however, is not substantiated, as thier assertions are based on fallacious statements as to the dates of the gospels and complete assumptions as to how widespread and well-known Christian teachings were in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.

The similarities are remarkable enough to give one pause. It also demonstrates how easily a popular cult can arise based on a completely non-existant figurehead, once again pointing out that the existence of Christianity is not remotely proof of the existence of Jesus.

[Q Classic]

Q Cubed: it's an Orthodox Christian doctrine that Jesus actually did exist.

oh, i believe he existed, all right. i just don't really care to seek out any physical evidence that either proves/disproves it, because i don't want to base my faith in my religion on physical proof, but rather on its moral basis/character.

[Angelo Scotto]

Even if i already talked about religion in this forum enough for the whole next year, i would like to add a couple of corrections on the Shround and the Mithra things:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Utter nonsense. And you don't even support these wild claims! The Shroud has been debunked time and time again by science, yet people still cling to it desperately.

Science is still debating over the truth of the Shroud, the only reached consensus is that the 1988 C14 analysis were wrong...

The true nonsense is to take C14 dating as an absolute proof
In fact studing a bit how the whole procedure works one could understand that it's more like a guess-the-date game.

For a correct C14 dating the artifact should meet several requirements, the most importants are that the artifact should remain chemically and physically a closed system since its emplacement and that the radiocarbonist should know the atmospheric concentration of C14 at the dating time.

It's a fact that the radiocarbon dates often diverge from the historical dates by several hundred years and it's famous the mistake about early Egypt samples where the dates calculated using C14 were too young by several hundred years, at least according to the established chronology of dynastic history. Obvioulsy, as in our case, there were a lot of people in the radiocarbon field who argued that it was the chronology that "had to be fixed" because C14 was objective and scientifical. Later, it was confirmed that the chronology was correct and C14 dates needed recalibration.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The suggestion that the 1532 Chambery fire changed the date of the cloth is ludicrous. Samples for C-dating are routinely and completely burned to CO2 as part of a well-tested purification procedure. The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous. A weight of 20th century carbon equaling nearly two times the weight of the Shroud carbon itself would be required to change a 1st century date to the 14th century. Besides this, the linen cloth samples were very carefully cleaned before analysis at each of the C-dating laboratories.

Now, aside the fact that you can "clean" the cloth samples carefully as you want but this doesn't do a lot about "contamination" since there's still the isotope exchange with materials in prolonged contact with the shroud, it still remains the fact that science proved that fire, adding carbon isotopes to the artifact, can alter radiocarbon age by centuries (Jackson, Propp 1998).

But fire is not the only cause that helped skewing the 1988 test:
There's the fact that linens are never correctely dated using C14 (look at egypt samples)
There's the bioplastic coating of bacteria discovered by the microbiologist Garza-Valdes on the linen fibers: these microbes, living, absorb and add carbon (C14) to the linen; they were not known at the time of the test and were not removed by the C14 cleaning protocol, Garza-Valdes thinks that the error added was at least of 1300 years.

Anyway it is a nonsense to try to date shroud with C14, since, like i said, a constrain is that the artifact should remain chemically and physically a closed system since its emplacement, obvioulsy, being an object of religious cult it was exposed to masses for centuries, and this hardly matches the definition of closed-system

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
"The case, Holy Father, stands thus. Sometime since in this dioceses of Troyes, The Dean of a certain collegiate church, to wit, that of Lirey, falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice, and not of any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted...

Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he [the Bishop] discovered the fraud and how the said cloth was cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed... I offer myself as ready to supply all information sufficient to remove any doubt concerning the facts alleged."

Sorry for the artist theory but the image on the shroud is NOT a painting.
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
furthermore the image shows a perfect photo-negativity and 3-Dimensionality.

Today we still don't really know how that image was done, we only know that it was not painted, because it's caused by a rapid dehydration, oxidation and degradation of the linen due to an unidentified process.
There is even who thinks that this dehydration was due to scorch caused light from a miliburst of radiation consistent with the Resurrection.
This is particularly interesting because the miliburst of radiation could be another factor to the addition of C14 to the Shroud.
As a physicist working on the problem said: "We never had a Resurrection to study and more testing must be done to ascertain whether a neutron-flux effectively occurred".

Plus your interpretation has to face with medieval knowledge about the crucifixion:
just to make an example, the man of the Shroud shows clearly nail wound in the wrist, today we know, thanks to bodies of cruxified people found in Israel in 1960, that nails where placed in the wrist, but the medieval knowledge was different:
as the art historian McNair noticed "I have studied hundreds of paintings, sculptures and carvings of Christ's crucifixion and deposition, from the 13th to the 16th centuries, and not one of them shows the nail-wound anywhere but in the palm of his hand.".
You've to explain me how a medieval artist who wanted to fool other medieval people decided to change the way to depict the crucifixion, not very smart, and, incredibly, he even guessed the historically correct method!!

and there are a ton of other evidences, if science debunked something, it's the painting theory!

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
"Blood has not been identified on the shroud directly, but it has been identified on sticky tape that was used to lift fibrils from the shroud. Dried, aged blood is black. The stains on the shroud are red. Forensic tests on the red stuff have identified it as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint. Other tests by Adler and Heller have identified it as blood.* If it is blood, it could be the blood of some 14th century person. It could be the blood of someone wrapped in the shroud, or the blood of the creator of the shroud, or of anyone who has ever handled the shroud, or of anyone who handled the sticky tape. But even if there were blood on the shroud, that would have no bearing on the age of the shroud or on its authenticity."

Not true,
The blood on the Shroud is real;
it is human male blood of the type AB as confirmed several times.
the tricky part is that this blood type is rare (3.2% of world population) and the highest percentage is found in, guess where, northern Palestine.
It is red and not black for the high concentration of pigment bilirubin which is consistent with the someone dying under great stress or trauma, and making the color more red than normal ancient blood.
A further study found a "degraded DNA" (approx. 700 base pairs) "consistent with the supposition of ancient blood."

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
"It was reported that pollens on the shroud proved it came from Palestine, but the source for the pollens was a freelance criminologist, Max Frei, who once pronounced the forged "Hitler Diaries" genuine. Frei's tape-lifted samples from the Shroud were controversial from the outset since similar samples taken by the Shroud of Turin Research Project in 1978 had comparatively few pollens. As it turned out, after Frei's tapes were examined following his death in 1983, they also had very few pollens--except for a particular one that bore a suspicious cluster on the "lead" (or end), rather than on the portion that had been applied to the shroud. (See Skeptical Inquirer magazine, Summer 1994 pp. 379-385.)"

Not true,
aside the fact that Max Frei was a botanic expert and not an handwriting one (maybe Einstein was a jerk at cooking, this make us dump relativity?) his results were confirmed several times:
by Israeli botanist and expert on the plant life of Israel, Dr. Avinoam Danin
by Dr. Alan Whanger, Professor Emeritus at Duke University
by Dr. Uri Baruch of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

In fact Danin indicates that such pollen grains serve as "geographic and calendar indicators" demonstrating that the origin or provenance of the Shroud was definitely the Holy Land and more specifically in an area in and around Jerusalem. Evidence also suggest that the flowers on the Shroud were picked in the Spring, a period consistent with the time of the Passover and the Crucifixion.

And again there are also a ton of others facts against the fraud theory (what about Tiberious coin? he painted it too? and in a 3D coherent way?) but i wrote enough for today.

Maybe the man was not Christ but another poor fellow crucifixed by romans, anyway i strongly believe that evidence shows us that it can't be just a medieval painting.

About Mithraism:
It's well known that Mithraism predates Christianity, but the point is that Mithraism, being a mystery religion, changed to adhere to Christianity.
In fact Mithra, in ancient Persia and India, was considered a warrior:


From his celestial eyrie he spies out his enemies; armed in fullest panoply he swoops down upon them, scatters and slaughters them. He desolates and lays waste the homes of the wicked, he annihilates the tribes and the nations hostile to him. On the other hand he is the puissant ally of the faithful in all their warlike expeditions. The blows of their enemies "miss their mark, for Mithra, sore incensed, receives them"; and he assures victory to them that "have had fit instruction in the Good, the honor him and offer him the sacrificial libations.


The birth of Mithra is witnessed by shepherds who see him emerge from a rock "adorned with a Phyrgian cap, armed with a knife, and carrying a torch.".
The first battle of the young hero is with the Sun whom he defeats and then restores to power as his vassal. Following this Mithra pursues and upon the command of heaven slays the Bull, the first created creature.
Having insured a good life for people, Mithra is borne into the Heavens by the Sun on his four-sided chariot. Mithra now looks down on the earth to preserve it from evil.


It's hardly a surprise to discover that a warrior God spread easily in roman legions and in Rome itself.
Christianity has to face it during its first steps in Rome but Mithra was changed by the contact, not the other way around, in fact, your quote comes from a later period when "contamination" with Christianity already happened, and it's hard to find in it the warrior traits of the original persian Mithra, and, as you can read, in old Persian myth there's no reference to a virgin mother since Mithra was supposed to born from a rock...ok, maybe a virgin rock but it's not the same...

And i could go ahead since in Mithraism there's no Passion (Mithra never sacrificed himself or died, he simply decided to ascended to heaven riding the sun) or other things that makes Christianity unique (yes, Mithra too incarnated into a human... a human emerging from a rock adorned with a Phyrgian cap, armed with a knife, and carrying a torch... ).

[Urban Ranger]

Angelo Scotto,

I am not going to dispute your disagreement wrt to C-14 radiometric dating, whether the blood is real (no it is not, but I am not going into that), and other random "refutation," since that looks liks some copy-and-paste fudamentalist stuff.

At any rate, you don't need C-14 to know the shroud is a forgery. It's all very simple - if you wrap a long strip of clothing around a man's head, then unravel and flatten it, you will not get such an image. By unfolding 3D into 2D, you get an elongated image instead of one that looks like a flat painting job.

[Ben Kenobi]

Boris:

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

writings about them from contemporaries,

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

Take the tale that Herod ordered all the babies to be killed. You'd think such a thing would be noted, especially by the Romans. But it's a fabrication, Herod ordered no such massacre.

Really. BAM as it stands, without evidence.

According the Gnostics, he was a liar.

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?

Their documents, which are contemporary with Paul, claim he was a Saducee who had a rift with the Temple leaders in Jerusalem.

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

You'll notice that Paul's writings, the earliest at all about Jesus, are absolutely devoid of any details of Jesus's life. Paul was concerned with expounding his philosophy.

Let's see.

1 Cor 15:3-8

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[1] : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter,[2] and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.


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

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?

The mysterious Q gospel and Mark are among the earliest that attempt to describe the life of this Jesus, and are probably part true, part exaggeration, and part utter fiction.

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

The subsequent Gospels of Luke, Matthew and John all use Mark and Q as a basis, adding more exaggeration to the tales.

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?

They weren't meant to complement one another (as the contradictions show), but rather be the new tale of this mythical messiah.

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

None of these appeared until almost the 2nd century CE, with John being dated to about 110-130 BCE.

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

and the notion they were written by the disciples described therein is wishful thinking.

as the attributions were not assigned to them until the 2nd century as well

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

(moreso than the great Jesus making so much trouble but leaving no footprints).

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?

There are a few more logical inconsistences, the death of Paul in Rome. Why die for a lie, comes for starters.
Why would other Jews, and Gentiles believe in a lie, how could Peter attract converts at Pentecost without the Holy Spirit?

Your scenario needs to fill some of these holes.

SPLITTING POST

[Ben Kenobi]

And why couldn't Mary have ****ged Joseph before? I mean, seriously, what twisted puritan conservative religious BS is that when sex is considered a sin.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Mary and Joseph were Jewish.

[Urban Ranger]

What the heck, let me poke a hole right here.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
The blood on the Shroud is real;
it is human male blood of the type AB as confirmed several times.

Confirmed by who?

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
the tricky part is that this blood type is rare (3.2% of world population) and the highest percentage is found in, guess where, northern Palestine.

Blood type does not come into play when attempting to identify whether something is human blood.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
It is red and not black for the high concentration of pigment bilirubin which is consistent with the someone dying under great stress or trauma, and making the color more red than normal ancient blood.

Who are you trying to fool? Bilirubin is a waste product produced by breaking down of hemoglobin. What's more interesting is it is not red. In fact, an elevated level of bilirubin in humans causes jaundice.

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
A further study found a "degraded DNA" (approx. 700 base pairs) "consistent with the supposition of ancient blood."

Cite? (No, a fundie website doesn't count)

[Ben Kenobi]

According to Persian traditions, the god Mithras was actually incarnated into the human form of the Saviour expected by Zarathustra. Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation.

Old skepticism.

Go here:

http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_04_02_04_MMM.html

"By the time of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies in the early 70s, the lack of evidence of an Iranian/Roman continuity led Mithraic scholars to suspect that Roman Mithraism was "a new creation using old Iranian names and details for an exotic coloring to give a suitably esoteric appearance to a mystery cult" [MS, xiii] -- and that Roman Mithraism was Mithraism in name only, merely a new system that used the name of a known ancient Eastern deity to attract urbane Romans who found the east and all of its accoutrements an enticing mystery. Think of it as repackaging an old religion to suit new tastes, only all you keep is the name of the deity! And what was that new religion? For years Mithraic scholars puzzled over the meaning of the bull-slaying scene; the problem was, as we have noted, that the Mithraists left behind pictures without captions. Thus in the 70s, one scholar of Mithraism lamented [MS.437]:

At present our knowledge of both general and local cult practice in respect of rites of passage, ceremonial feats and even underlying ideology is based more on conjecture than fact."

Oh and BTW, the star map is indeed a star map.

[Mr. President]

Star map? I am confused.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Angelo Scotto
Science is still debating over the truth of the Shroud, the only reached consensus is that the 1988 C14 analysis were wrong...

Who is debating? Have any dating tests shown the Shroud to be older? Is the assertion that the tests are thrown off by other factors based on any evidence, or just wishful thinking? It's the latter. People presuppose the Shroud is real, and invent "what-ifs" to back up their claims without evidence.

Obvioulsy, as in our case, there were a lot of people in the radiocarbon field who argued that it was the chronology that "had to be fixed" because C14 was objective and scientifical. Later, it was confirmed that the chronology was correct and C14 dates needed recalibration.

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.

Now, aside the fact that you can "clean" the cloth samples carefully as you want but this doesn't do a lot about "contamination" since there's still the isotope exchange with materials in prolonged contact with the shroud, it still remains the fact that science proved that fire, adding carbon isotopes to the artifact, can alter radiocarbon age by centuries (Jackson, Propp 1998).

Bull****. "The suggestions that modern biological contaminants were sufficient to modernize the date are also ridiculous. A weight of 20th century carbon equaling nearly two times the weight of the Shroud carbon itself would be required to change a 1st century date to the 14th century."

Sorry for the artist theory but the image on the shroud is NOT a painting.
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

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

"This included careful inspection of thousands of linen fibers from 32 different areas (Shroud and sample points), characterization of the only colored image-forming particles by color, refractive indices, polarized light microscopy, size, shape, and microchemical tests for iron, mercury, and body fluids. The paint pigments were dispersed in a collagen tempera (produced in medieval times, perhaps, from parchment). It is chemically distinctly different in composition from blood but readily detected and identified microscopically by microchemical staining reactions. Forensic tests for blood were uniformly negative on fibers from the blood-image tapes.

There is no blood in any image area, only red ochre and vermilion in a collagen tempera medium. The red ochre is present on 20 of both body- and blood-image tapes; the vermilion only on 11 blood-image tapes. Both pigments are absent on the 12 non-image tape fibers.
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); their electron microprobe analyzer found iron, mercury, and sulfur on a dozen of the blood-image area samples. The results fully confirmed Dr. McCrone's results and further proved the image was painted twice-once with red ochre, followed by vermilion to enhance the blood-image areas."

furthermore the image shows a perfect photo-negativity and 3-Dimensionality.

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?

just to make an example, the man of the Shroud shows clearly nail wound in the wrist, today we know, thanks to bodies of cruxified people found in Israel in 1960, that nails where placed in the wrist, but the medieval knowledge was different:

Clearly? BS again. There is a bright sploch over the wrist area. That's all. Why do you assume it represents a wound of any kind? Considering the number of such sploches on the shroud, assuming it represents anything is wishful conjecture. 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, especially if they were under the instruction of someone to create an authentic-seeming forgery.

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?

Not true,
The blood on the Shroud is real;

BS, it has never been confirmed. Cite scientific sources.

The shroud itself has NEVER tested positive for any blood, and the supposed blood stains have been tested to be vermillion (as stated above). The only DNA evidence came from tape that supposedly lifted the samples from the Shroud. Contamination and/or outright forgery is what happened.

Not true,
aside the fact that Max Frei was a botanic expert and not an handwriting one (maybe Einstein was a jerk at cooking, this make us dump relativity?) his results were confirmed several times:

Frei was a glory-hog with little concern for the truth, that was the point. You didn't read the evidence carefully. 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. Whether Frei knew it was one or not is a question, but given his penchant for exaggerating to make news, like the Hitler Diaries, his conclusions are suspect. The source I quoted already explained why Danin's testing doesn't support the Shroud's authenticity.

And again there are also a ton of others facts against the fraud theory (what about Tiberious coin? he painted it too? and in a 3D coherent way?) but i wrote enough for today.

Elaborate. What coin? Roman coins were not impossible to be found in c. 1300 Europe, especially not by anyone who had connections to the Church.

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?

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?

Maybe the man was not Christ but another poor fellow crucifixed by romans, anyway i strongly believe that evidence shows us that it can't be just a medieval painting.

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

About Mithraism:
It's well known that Mithraism predates Christianity, but the point is that Mithraism, being a mystery religion, changed to adhere to Christianity.
In fact Mithra, in ancient Persia and India, was considered a warrior:

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. One can trace a steady evolution in all religious doctrines over centuries, especially those of the ancient era when access to written media was more rare.

And i could go ahead since in Mithraism there's no Passion (Mithra never sacrificed himself or died, he simply decided to ascended to heaven riding the sun) or other things that makes Christianity unique (yes, Mithra too incarnated into a human... a human emerging from a rock adorned with a Phyrgian cap, armed with a knife, and carrying a torch... ).

All religions have their unique aspects, so citing a unique belief is proof of nothing. Certainly Christianity isn't as unique as you imply, as many aspects of it can be seen in far more ancient religions. The Resurrection isn't new at all, as it can be seen in the legend of Osiris, among others. Thankfully, in that regard, the Christ myth didn't feel the need for a wooden phallus.

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
whether the blood is real (no it is not, but I am not going into that)

yes, it is, and you won't go into that just because science proved it several times...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
since that looks liks some copy-and-paste fudamentalist stuff.

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

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
It's all very simple - if you wrap a long strip of clothing around a man's head, then unravel and flatten it, you will not get such an image. By unfolding 3D into 2D, you get an elongated image instead of one that looks like a flat painting job.

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

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
furthermore the image shows a perfect photo-negativity and 3-Dimensionality.

Like i said it shows perfect 3-Dimensionality exactly as it would if you wrap a long strip blah blah blah, and this was proved by NASA using a VP-8 Image analyzer:
Any two-dimensional image (like a painting or photograph) when placed under the VP-8 will not read properly. The image will appear distorted on the machine, but the shroud did not.
This test proved that the image was formed on the shroud while draped over a three-dimensional object.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Confirmed by who?

Dr. John Heller and Dr. Alan Adler
Dr. Joseph Gall
Professor Pierluigi Baima-Bollone and Dr. Jerome Lejeune
Professor Marcello Canale
Dr. Victor Tryon and Nancy Mitchell Tryon.
Are they enough?
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.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Blood type does not come into play when attempting to identify whether something is human blood.

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

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Who are you trying to fool? Bilirubin is a waste product produced by breaking down of hemoglobin. What's more interesting is it is not red. In fact, an elevated level of bilirubin in humans causes jaundice.

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

anyway if you think to understand this fundie...:

[...]
For one thing, not all the ‘blood’ material is red, for its
color ranges from yellow to orange to red to brown.
Also, the ‘blood’ is not whole blood, but exudate from
a blood clot (when a blood clot dries, it contracts,
exuding liquid blood material). The ‘blood’ moreover
is blood clot exudate from a beaten, traumatized
individual. A traumatic beating would destroy red
blood cells, and the red cell debris would go to the
liver, which in turn would take the debris’s
hemoglobin and convert it to the bile pigment bilirubin.
Bilirubin levels in the blood would rapidly rise,
meaning that should a cut form, the resulting blood
clot’s exudate will contain serum albumin (a protein
found in blood serum), and that albumin will bring with
it bilirubin. The clot exudate’s hemoglobin oxidizes to
become “methemoglobin,” which is reddish-brown/
brown; this reddish-brown/ brown + the
yellow-orange bilirubin = red. (Malaria can produce
red cell destruction, but severe malaria cases are
rare.) Ancient DNA specialist Thomas Loy agrees
with Adler’s explanation for the seemingly too-red
color of much of the ‘blood,’ himself having found
300,000 year-old blood with the same vivid red
color.
[...]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
cite

The Sunday Telegraph | London | November 16 1998
DNA OBTAINED FROM BLOOD ON THE TURIN SHROUD
[...]

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.

Gene segments from the stains were cloned and the analysis showed that the blood came from a male with an AB blood type, common among Jewish people.

[...]

He disagreed with suggestions the DNA could be used to clone Jesus in the style of Dolly the sheep, saying that the samples were too degraded.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
(No, a fundie website doesn't count)

But what on the hell are you talking about?
I'm talking about science and science is about facts, i'm not interested if a fact agree with your skeptic theory or confirms a christian one, in fact the only fundie i see in this discussion are you.
I show you scientific analysis and facts and your only answer is: "it's a cut & paste of fundie".
Shroud is NOT a medieval painting, science proved it.
If i'm a fundie because i believe science and not your house-made scientifically-rejected theories? ok, i'm a fundie