Monday, April 16, 2012

The Shroud - Supernatural Hypothesis and Natural Hypothesis

There are, in general, two hypotheses about how the Shroud came to be. The first is that the shroud represents the work of human ingenuity. The second is that the shroud represents an artifact of supernatural activity.

We'll explore the supernatural hypothesis first. In very general terms, if something is the artifact of a supernatural process, we have no particular expectations about what sort of physical evidence we should expect to accompany it. In other words, there is no scientific way to test a supernatural hypothesis. The shroud could be the artifact of a supernatural process, and there is no way that this hypothesis could be completely ruled out, because it is not as though supernatural activity would leave any tell-tale marks.

So, there is really no scientific way to test the supernatural hypothesis.

Let's assume for a second that the shroud is an artifact of supernatural activity. If it is, we still need to keep in mind that there are at least two sources of supernatural activity. On the one hand, there is divine supernatural activity (including the various angels and wonderworking prophets). On the other hand, there is demonic supernatural activity.

There is, again, no way to discern "scientifically" the difference between the two kinds. Moreover, in this case there is no alleged witness to the shroud's creation. So, the difference cannot be discerned from the historical context.

So, again there is really no scientific way to test the hypothesis that the supernatural activity is divine.

Even if the shroud is an artifact of supernatural activity, and even if it is the result of divine activity, that still leaves the question: of what activity? Of course, Shroud lovers think that the activity has something to do with the person of Christ. Yet there is nothing on the Shroud that say, "Christ was here." There have been lots of people crucified. The apostle Peter is one example of other people that we know had supernatural power from God and who were crucified.

Yet again there is really no scientific way to test the hypothesis that the divine supernatural activity was Jesus as opposed to Peter as opposed to anyone else.

In short, even if the supernatural hypothesis is true, there is really no way to prove it scientifically, no way scientifically to distinguish divine from demonic supernatural activity, and no scientific way to discriminate between Peter and Jesus.

What about a natural hypothesis? If it is merely a natural artifact, then various hypotheses can be tested. However, of course, while the shroud is still interesting as an example, perhaps, of the earliest known pair of photographs. If that is what the shroud is, the technological evidence argues for a relatively late date.

Mixed Hypotheses

No one that I know of has suggested that the shroud was created by supernatural power ex nihilo. Thus, a lot of the hypotheses are really mixed hypotheses: partly natural, partly supernatural. The natural parts of these can be tested. For example, the linen of the shroud can be tested by radioactive testing. It has been tested, and it came back as 13-14th century linen.

This has led shroud defenders to claim that the portion tested was a part of the shroud that was a repair to the original shroud. Thus, on this theory the shroud is only partly fake. To test this theory, it would be necessary to do radioactive testing on other parts of the shroud.

But ultimately, why bother? There is no real reason to suppose that the shroud is of supernatural origin. There is no possible scientific evidence that it is of supernatural origin, that it is of divine origin, or that it relates to Jesus Christ as opposed to someone else. At present, the most reliable dating technique has dated the linen to the 13-14th century. Shroud defenders will doubtless point to various criticisms of the testing, but at most those suggest that it would be nice to confirm the original results with more testing.

- TurretinFan

P.S. Jason Engwer has a post up on the question, "Is the Shroud of Turin Demonic?" Jason states that "we use probability judgments" about these things. But, of course, these are not probabilities in any rigor sense of the term. They are just speculation, and the "probability" ends up being fully determined by how much the evaluator wants a particular conclusion to be true.

There is one item of interest in his post, however: "The burden of proof is on the shoulders of those who would want us to think the Shroud is something other than what it seems to be." What it seems to be is a photo negative of a man, with blood applied to it, on medieval linen. The burden is on folks like Engwer to establish that it is more than it seems to be.

But, of course, he cannot meet that burden. It's not his fault - there is just no Scriptural or other historical support for the Shroud.

The most that scientific evidence could ever do for the shroud (in the best case for someone like Engwer) is to show that it was made in the 1st century in Palestine and has the blood of someone Jewish on it. In which case, we would still not actually know which of the myriad of crucified 1st century Jews the shroud pertained to.

In short, the shroud would be (by such tests) elevated to the status of the "Jesus tomb" ossuaries. But like the Jesus tomb ossuaries, there would still be nothing to positively connect the shroud to Jesus. It would just be wishful thinking on the part of shroud admirers - just as it is wishful thinking for the ossuary advocates.

Nevertheless, shroud advocates are much worse off than ossuary advocates. The shroud has already been proven to be from the 13-14th century at the earliest - the ossuary may well be from the 1st century.

-TurretinFan

9 comments:

Ljdibiase said...

TF,

Do you know if Rome has 'officially' declared this thing to be authentic? Also, what do they keep it for? Evidence? Devotion? Miraculous healing powers?

JasonTE said...

TurretinFan wrote:

"So, again there is really no scientific way to test the hypothesis that the supernatural activity is divine....In short, even if the supernatural hypothesis is true, there is really no way to prove it scientifically, no way scientifically to distinguish divine from demonic supernatural activity, and no scientific way to discriminate between Peter and Jesus."

Who said that only science would be involved? Like Jesus' resurrection and other phenomena, more than one field of knowledge is relevant (history, philosophy, etc.).

And those who accept the authenticity of the Shroud have argued at length for the identity of the crucifixion victim as Jesus. I've given some examples of the relevant evidence in previous threads. You aren't interacting with the arguments against your position.

You write:

"What it seems to be is a photo negative of a man, with blood applied to it, on medieval linen. The burden is on folks like Engwer to establish that it is more than it seems to be."

We keep giving you evidence for our conclusions and against yours, but you ignore so much of it. Then you repeat your conclusions without interacting with counterarguments already provided.

JasonTE said...

Ljdibiase wrote:

"Do you know if Rome has 'officially' declared this thing to be authentic?"

No, they haven't.

turretinfan said...

Ljdibiase:

JP2 said: "The mysterious fascination of the Shroud forces questions to be raised about the sacred Linen and the historical life of Jesus. Since it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce on these questions. "

However, both JP2 and B16 have suggested that the shroud can teach people about the historical Jesus.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/travels/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_24051998_sindone_en.html

http://www.doctrinafidei.va/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20020824_ratzinger-cl-rimini_en.html

-TurretinFan

Natamllc said...

Jason,

I am glad you wrote this: "...Who said that only science would be involved? Like Jesus' resurrection and other phenomena, more than one field of knowledge is relevant (history, philosophy, etc.). "

Since you opened that door, let me ask you what you believe Peter was being given by revelation from the Holy Spirit when he makes a clear distinction between science/(knowledge) and spiritual knowledge/living by the Faith once delivered to the Saints?

See 2 Peter 1 and the Greek words Peter uses there when he makes the distinction.

Somehow I believe the science and philosophy argument isn't enough in this instance seeing there is a lot of conversions going on about life with the existence of the Shroud of Turin, not the least of which is treating the shroud idolatrously, a sin that seems to be the chief culprit here among men of the world and within the Church?

Peter begins using this Greek word, epignōsis; and also uses this Greek word, gnōsis.

Now if you are an idolater, which we all are until the Holy Spirit begins the sanctification work leading us into the epignosis/knowledge of our spiritual promised land, so to speak, it seems to me we have to keep the two in balance, our natural instinct to believe in something, science in and of itself/idolatry, and believe in the Word of God, by the Faith once delivered to the Saints, believing without seeing or knowing God beyond nature.

What the shroud does is flushed out the heart of idolatry seeing how much fascination has been given to proving that image is Christ which violates and contradicts with the Word, "the righteous live by Faith". What ever happened to good old living by Faith in the Promises of God instead of trying to establish scientific facts that do nothing to increase Faith in the Believer, that is in this instance, facts about the shroud and is it or is it not authentic and an image of Christ. All this is still happening because of this linen shroud debate.

There are countless other idolatrous realities to contend with and debate about in the world devils filled. The Shroud of Turin is just one of them.

turretinfan said...

Jason: Most of your "arguments" are throw-away assertions that don't matter to you. Like your claim that the wounds are in the wrist, not the palms. But they don't appear to be in the wrist in the shroud image, as this shroud advocate likewise argues:

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

Furthermore, you claim that Jesus is not shown nude in the entombment in medieval iconography, but that's also not true.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/renzodionigi/3852883129/

(notice that the wound in the hand is essentially the same place as alleged in the former article)

And even those that don't show him absolutely nude, still are not loathe to show him with only a token swath of cloth across his groin:

http://www.lib-art.com/artgallery/16907-entombment-simone-martini.html

I could go on and on, but is there really any point? Are you going to be convinced, just because it turns out that every one of the trivial arguments you presented is false?

-TurretinFan

EdwardTBabinski said...

The shroud is a fake. But it's part of what keeps Catholicism going just like "evidence" of dinosaurs living with humans is part of what keeps young-earth creationism going (though major YECs no longer depend heavily on the so-called evidence from Paluxy, they continue to claim they have evidence of humans living with dinosaurs). http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2011/01/shroud-of-turin-john-calvin-versus.html

turretinfan said...

YEC is mostly driven by the text of Scripture.

EdwardTBabinski said...

But "the text of Scripture" depends on interpretation, especially Genesis 1, a real battleground there, since even Evangelical Protestant scholars have begun to admit there's nothing scientific there, it's ancient Near Eastern cosmology. I was also comparing the shroud and Paluxy man track claims to physical evidence that such groups rely upon to try and "prove" their beliefs in the resurrection, YEC-ism, respectively.

At any rate, have fun battling out the meaning of "the text of Scripture" with these fellow Christians:

The Evangelical, John Walton, published Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology only months ago: http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-1-as-Ancient-Cosmology/dp/157506216X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333063465&sr=1-2 It's far more detailed than Walton's previous work on Genesis 1. And Walton teaches OT at Billy Graham's alma mater.

The BIOLOGOS website is for Evangelicals who are pro-evolution. And it offers research papers, such as:

"Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography in the Bible"
http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/godawa_scholarly_paper_2.pdf

"Biblical Creation and Storytelling: Cosmogony, Combat and Covenant"
http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/godawa_scholarly_paper.pdf

And here are links to papers on the THEOLOGICAL/COSMOLOGICAL WORLD VIEW OF THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES and how much it had in common with other views in the ANE: http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2010/10/rise-of-monotheism-israels-theological.html

There is no doubt among scholars who specialize in ANE studies of the debt ancient Hebrew writers owed to ANE ideas of the cosmos (among other shared ideas). Such ideas and depictions of both God, the cosmos, kings, priests, temples, sacrifices, and high moral gods leading nations, were already around. The Hebrews were a part of that milieu. To claim as Ben Schuldt put it so aptly, "they didn't inhale," is ludicrous. You can't defend that view without committing intellectual suicide. "Young-earth creationism" is no longer a valid interpretation, not once you study the matter more deeply and in a scholarly fashion.

I also suggest you add Heiser's blog to your blog reader. He's a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (M.A., Ancient History) and the University of Wisconsin- Madison (M.A., Ph.D., Hebrew Bible and Semitic Studies). He taught on the college level for twelve years before accepting his present position working for Logos Bible Software, a company that produces ancient text databases and other digital resources for study of the ancient world and biblical studies. Cut and paste this search string into google:

site:http:michaelsheiser.com firmament