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Evidence is that Shroud ‘is Christ’s burial cloth’
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| By Kerry Myers
8 October, 2006 |
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| BEYOND SCIENTIFIC REASON: John Della Bosca (left) and author-researcher Brendan Whiting at the launch of The Shroud Story. |
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THE most likely explanation for the Shroud of Turin is that “it is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus Christ”.
Launching the newest book on the subject, The Shroud Story, NSW Minister for Commerce John Della Bosca said that any reasonable inference based on available evidence as detailed in the book, points to this explanation.
The minister said the book, by Sydney researcher and author Brendan Whiting, was a “very balanced, very thoughtful and very spiritual presentation of what are critical scholarly issues”.
“It’s an historical account of the cloth’s location and custodianship over 2000 years and it’s about the Shroud as an object of scientific study, political scrutiny and as a symbol of our Christian faith,” he said at the launch in the theatrette of the NSW Parliament last Wednesday night.
The book, four years in the writing, details the history of the Shroud, a piece of linen cloth 4.3 metres long and 1.1 metres wide that bears the life-sized image of a naked man bearing wounds consistent with scourging and crucifixion. It is now housed in the Turin Cathedral in northern Italy.
The book also addresses recent claims that the cloth is a forgery.
It says that new scientific findings prove conclusively that carbon-dating carried out in 1988 was anomalous. Most important of these discoveries is the 2005 finding that the sample taken from the cloth for testing was “chemically different” to the rest of the cloth - that it was not part of the original cloth and actually contained fragments of medieval invisible mending.
This was confirmed by eminent US chemist Raymond Rogers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory n New Mexico, who concluded “that the material on the main part of the Shroud is significantly different from the radiocarbon sampling area”.
Mr Whiting says that the extent of these recent discoveries show “there is nothing about the Shroud of Turin that prevents it from being over 2000 years old”.
“Indeed, scientists have discovered a great many facts that identify it as being the burial shroud of Christ with his death image mysteriously cast upon it,” he said.
Mr Della Bosca said that science “can answer some of the questions posed by the existence of the shroud but many are beyond any current scientific knowledge”.
“In fact, science may never be able to provide definitive answers about the most fundamental of questions in relation to the Shroud,” he said.
He said debate about the authenticity of the Shroud has raged from the time it was first put on public exhibition [in France in 1357] when the local bishop declared it as a fake.
“It was the start of a long debate about the authenticity of the Shroud … and that debate still goes on,” he said.
“It’s a very important thing to understand about the interesting connection between faith and reason – something the Holy Father was commenting on recently, and unfortunately was fairly poorly misrepresented in his comments.
“But the fact of the matter is that you can’t answer these questions by simple reason.
“It seems to me – and Brendan put together the evidence – that any reasonable inference based on all the evidence is that the most likely explanation for the Shroud is that it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. And yet the debate goes on and will for a long time.”
He said modern man can’t come to grips with the idea that there are things beyond scientific reason that are very important about the world.
“And in a sense, as it taunted those who first found the Shroud and still taunts modern people to come to grips with what it means, it is probably one of the most profoundly effective things about the Shroud and certainly encapsulated by Brendan’s work,” he said.
“This is a work that I could happily hand to any of my friends who are not professing Christians and expect that it would challenge their beliefs and perhaps challenge them in a very positive and exciting way.
“It is a scholarly achievement, an entertaining read; but it’s actually a work of evangelisation”.
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