Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Shroud of Turin Hoax

I recently saw that there was yet another tv special on the "Shroud of Turin". If you don't know what this is: the story is that the image of Jesus was "burned" into the linen shroud placed over his body (the magic of God!), so this is somehow proof of it all. For centuries, since about 1300, people have made pilgrimages to Turin, Italy, to see this item in a glass case.

Well, the church finally admitted years ago that it is a complete fraud, a church fabricated con. Some apparently are real slow getting the news. Of course, modern carbon-dating placing the cloth at around the 13th century forced them to confess. The only reason I mention it here is that they are still making and showing tv specials on it, so I'm assuming there's at least some audience out there gullible enough to believe a hoax even after it had been admitted. In one ear and out the other.

They used this to generate tourism for themselves. No telling how much money Italy got over the centuries luring people to Turin for no other reason. Now, someone intelligent would ask "why would they need to do this?", unless trying to convince people of some other story, people without enough faith, who need "tangible evidence". (someone will always be glad to provide it; why, I have a jar of Mt. St. Helen's volcanic dust for sale myself!). In other words, we don't need to fabricate a "shroud" if we know he existed. In the case of some Biblical figures, all we have is the Bible itself, no outside sources can confirm even their existence, so the church has actually harmed their own position by creating hoaxes like this through the centuries in order to "fool the gullible with fabricated proof". This makes all but the blindly faithful suspicious of everything else they say as well, so they do more harm than good to religion in the world's populace.

10 comments:

Bible Prophecy on the Web said...

The Shroud of Turin

John 20:5-7 (below) does not depict that Jesus was laid in the sepulchre in a SHROUD. Jesus was laid in the sepulchre in linen CLOTHES. Separate from the clothes a NAPKIN that was wrapped about Jesus’ head lay in a place by itself.

Based upon the Scriptures, I believe the shroud imprint is not that of Jesus.

It is interesting to note that Jesus’ earthly grave clothes did not enter into eternity with Him.


Jn.20:5 And he stooping down, [and looking in], saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
Jn.20:6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,

Jn.20:7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.


Patricia © Bible Prophecy on the Web
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BibleProphecy

José Sinclair said...

I think people get lost in meaningless detalis like this and miss the whole point of the story. I haven't compared the "death clothes" parts of the four Synoptic Gospels, but I have for the trial itself, and NO TWO agree on what was said.

This is clear: there were no eyewitness recordings of the "most important trial in history". I find that odd. Therefore you can take all these other 'details' with a grain of salt since they were all written 200 yrs after the fact. They likely just guessed based on local tradition of the times.

We don't even know where Mozart was buried and that was in modern times, we wrote everything down, and he was extremely popular, the Beatles of his time.

It's the parable that's important, not the details. This is the spiritual awakening of a man and the transformation of that spiritual being until the complete separation from the material realm as a temporary house of the soul, and its temporal nature, and into something eternal, beyond the corporal.

TatianaV said...

I am not really sure about how meaningless details actually are Jose. The existence of Jesus is a fact for some, and not so for others. And try telling a theologies proffesor that he has never existed, or that there is no prove, and he will prove you wrong. And I do see where the point of your story comes from, as the Catholic church did place the hoax. This still does not prove that the entire faith is based on a hoax, or does it ;)

José Sinclair said...

1. Something provable is called science, something that happened is called history. There are no historical records for this particular Jesus, just the Bible.
2. Something based on FAITH is called religion, superstition, philosophy, myth, parable, etc.. If they teach wisdom, they will likely last through the centuries, if not they'll become simply interesting cultural and anthropological myths.
3. Wisdom that lasts is called "perennial wisdom" - most think this is what keeps all religions alive; without this they would perish, like say Mayans worship of caves, thinking the sun descended into and out of a big one daily, as they watched the horizon this is how it looked. We now know this is false scientifically, so it's now reduced to historical anthropology or whatever you want to call it - the "religion" behind that is now dead, it had no perennial wisdom to offer.

I've read numerous books on the historical Jesus - they all agree on one thing: there are no historical records outside the Bible, important for such an "important figure in history". You'd think Roman and Jewish scholars in the area would have recorded this first hand. We have more accurate accounts of the lives of Pharoahs and prehistoric philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle. We also have NOTHING written by Jesus, nor mention of any of that in the Bible. All that wisdom and never writing any down or instructing the apostles to write anything down?

Odd to say the least, for "history". SO, we have to take it all on faith.

I'll point out in my next post "The Life of Horus", that the "Jesus parable" preceded "him" by thousands of years, and link to a post that lists all the other "incarnations" of the same story around the world.

Joseph Campbell's book "The Hero With 1000 Faces" also studies this perpetual story in the history of man's religious mythology. There is absolutely nothing unique in the Biblical version whatsoever.

Daniel Egan said...

Jose - This comment is about 4 years too late but I thought I might give it a stab.

#1 Whoever said that the Catholic Church said that the Shroud of Turin was a hoax, is mistaken, they have said no such thing.

#2 The carbon dating from the shroud was taken from a part of the shroud that was damaged by a fire in the 13th century and also repaired in the 13th century. So the carbon dating is correct, and the shroud can still be traced back to 1st century Palestine.

#3 There is contemporaries of Jesus who claim that he existed. The secular one is Josephus, and the other ones are the 4 gospels; just treat them as historical records, especially Luke's.

#4 They were not written 200 years after the fact, they can all (the gospels) be traces back very easily before 70 AD.) Modern scholars NEED them to be late so they don't have to accept the miracles and prophecy.

#5 That's all I got right now.

José Sinclair said...

Many fundamentalists refuse to accept any revelations from the church that created this mythology.. the Vatican was heavily debating reteach the Christ story as a parable, "as first intended" (their words), when the sex scandal "broke" - in my opinion, that was merely a smokescreen to take attention away from this debate, b/c many fundamentalists were upset that their "religion was being taken away", or if Jesus is a parable, then I believe in another "Santa Claus" story, while they are forgetting that the real point of all this are the metaphysical teachings, NOT the historical story of an avatar.. if "magic makes the messiah", then David Copperfield is the 2nd coming, and his magic is proof, but that's not the point so he isn't.. Jesus is the awakened spirit of god within us, hence a "virgin birth".. if you don't get that basic premise, then the entire religion will be superficial for you and you will only be a worshipper, not an initiate on the path.. maybe in the next lifetime, you will get many

José Sinclair said...

PS - "This myth of the Christ has served us well" - Pope Leo X

José Sinclair said...

THOSE who "hunt for material proof" of religious myths are only proving that they don't "get it" at all, for this is all metaphysics, it's not about reality.. there is no "ark" to find, no "shroud", etc.. they are all parables.. those who "need material proof" are not only missing the point but showing their lack of faith, which apparently requires physical evidence of gods and invisible concepts for them to make sense

Daniel Egan said...

Jose,

You didn't respond to my facts. The second thing is that your not getting your facts about the Vatican's "announcements" from a very reliable source.

I notice that you didn't site places where you get your information from.

Pope Leo X never said that.

"Although the quote is commonly attributed without source documentation to Pope Leo X, it is believed to have originated in a satirical piece titled "The Pageant of the Popes" by a Protestant controversialist named John Bale (1495–1563). Bale wrote: "For on a time when a Cardinall Bembus did move a question out of the Gospell, the Pope gave him a very contemptuous answer saying: ‘All ages can testifie enough howe profitable that fable of Christe hath ben to us and our companie.’"
- Catholic Answers

You need to back up your mythology with some facts.

Dan

José Sinclair said...

from WIKIPEDIA:
After years of discussion, the Holy See permitted radiocarbon dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud. Independent tests in 1988 at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology concluded with 95% confidence that the shroud material dated to 1260–1390 AD.[1] This 13th to 14th century dating is much too recent for the shroud to have been associated with Jesus of Nazareth. The dating does however match the first appearance of the shroud in church history.

It's not worth much "research", IMO - those who seek MATERIALIST PROOF of SPIRITUAL CONCEPTS are already "lost in the wilderness" of the material world. Look up METAPHYSICS, a word created by Aristotle (3500 yrs ago) for "beyond physics" or "after physics", relative to WHAT people should study after they learn PHYSICS..

Most religion followers believe simply what their parents believed (over 90%), while those with more education and higher IQ's tend to be much less religious, until only 2% of NOBEL prize winners believe in any religion.. so following these as "material reality" seem to be a function of education.. to me, it's function of the brain, certain centers are NOT active yet in those who only see the material world.. eventually people have an "awakening", get "enlightened" (hence halos in art), and realize NONE of this is about the material world.. this awakening (also called "religious experience", and "cosmic consciousness") is the VIRGIN BIRTH, the birth of your spiritual self.. to say there's an IMAGE of just ONE of these spiritually awakened beings is just plain missing the point.. (like people who POINT to the sky! is "God" up there somewhere, maybe in another galaxy?? one called "Paradise"??)

Eventually true initiates on the path will have their awakening.. while most will only be "blind faith worshippers", wondering what the heck it all really means..

When you take theology, mythology, comparative religions, you get all this - but who wants to do the mental work on their own? hence churches on every corner - people, as my neighbor said, "just want to be TOLD what to believe" -- nice.. DO NOT seek knowledge of GOD and you won't find it - it's pretty simple..

THIS TAKES SOME EFFORT ON YOUR PART.. the bible says "no man can be a priest in Israel who doesn't seek knowledge of God"