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Each attempt to reproduce the images presumed that the carbon dating was correct. When it became obvious, to some, that the cloth was very much older, some skeptics modified their stance. Robert Carroll, in his popular, thorough and well written Skeptics Dictionary, wrote, “Of course, the cloth might be 3,000 or 2,000 years old . … Continue reading
This unawareness was underscored for me when one day, in 2005, I received an email from Molly, a high school student in Alaska. Her chemistry teacher had handed out a sheet of paper with the title, “Carbon 14 Dating Successes.” It was a list and the topmost item read, “Shroud of Turin proven fake.” She … Continue reading
Teachers, particularly science teachers, face a difficult problem when confronted by students who hold religious beliefs that are at odds with a school’s science curriculum. Biblical Creationism and Evolutionary Intelligent Design theory (ID) are the most prominent examples. Tact and careful wording may be the teacher’s best option for handling questions and objections from students … Continue reading
Science is not the only field of study in which we find this type of problem in the classroom. Objective history challenges scripture as history. It raises serious questions about early church history and cherished beliefs about our religious traditions. My sympathy lies with the teacher. His job is not easy in a secular school … Continue reading
The shroud is a religious object, believed by many to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus and hence a relic. We should not be surprised that after the carbon dating, many people attempted to challenge the results, often inventing highly imaginative, creative explanations. One was that the images of Jesus, seen on the cloth, … Continue reading
A real Kirk, the conservative and brilliant philosopher-scholar Russell Kirk (1918-1994), a late-in-life convert from Atheism to Christianity and a strong believer in the Shroud’s authenticity, caught the sense of it. While speaking about the Shroud, he described the notion of dematerialization in somewhat strange yet lucid terms: But the Resurrection in the flesh—which some … Continue reading
The ultra-liberal Anglican bishop and biblical scholar, John A. T. Robinson, author of the bestseller, Honest to God, famous for wanting to change the conventional language of the church so it would better accord with a scientific worldview; famous too for reappraising common wisdom about when various books of the New Testament were written; believed … Continue reading
Fortunately, the very word dematerialization has itself mostly dematerialized among the majority of serious Shroud researchers. It is given no credence by scientists. Few proponents of the Shroud’s authenticity will so much as whisper the word. But, read newspaper stories or Internet blogs, and you might easily think that this was the belief of anyone … Continue reading
It would be several years before a clear explanation why the carbon dating was invalid would be published in a secular, peer-reviewed journal. It would take as long for hypotheses to emerge that might explain how the images might have been formed that was not paranormal, did not seem to violate the laws of nature, … Continue reading
Father Joe is a Jesuit priest. Lenny, his brother, is an Atheist. Joe, the Catholic priest, did not think the shroud was genuine, though he readily admitted that proof that it is fake is illusive. Lenny, the atheist, thought it was the real deal, the actual burial cloth of the historical Jesus. “Obviously,” he said, … Continue reading
Shroud of Turin Story 