Design in the Shroud of Turin - The Shroud of Turin Website

More documents

Recommendations

Info

2DESIGN IN THE SHROUD OF TURINIntroductionControversy continues to surround the Shroud of Turin. The carbon datingtests conducted in 1988 that yielded a medieval date convinced many that it wasnot the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. However, the information that continues to begleaned from the Shroud suggests otherwise. A recent theory that explains manyof the Shroud’s perplexing properties presents information that allows anargument from design to be developed, which is reminiscent of other designarguments in natural theology. This argument is new to natural theology, to myknowledge, and really requires giving more attention to the Shroud than I canprovide in a short paper, but I will sketch the necessary information about theShroud needed to advance it.The theory I will examine is of particular interest if the Shroud is not an artobject. The evidence suggesting that it is not is impressive, and has been advancedby others. I will not review this evidence here, however. 1 The theory embeddingthe design argument that I will advance claims that the Shroud finds its origins insome process associated with the body of a Man, apparently killed by crucifixion,that once lay in it. This theory does not assume that the Man was Jesus.1 I have outlined some of the most impressive reasons in an Appendix.
3The Theory of “Weak Dematerialization”Physicist John Jackson, long associated with research into the Shroud, hasconjectured that the body of the Man in the Shroud “became mechanically“transparent” to its physical surroundings,” and that “a stimulus was generatedthat recorded the passage of the cloth through the body region onto the cloth as animage.” 2 This stimulus, described as “radiation emitted at all points within thatbody” interacted physically with the cloth to produce the discolorations that formthe main Image. This radiation left its imprint on the cloth to form the frontal anddorsal Images. Jackson notes that the somewhat flatter dorsal Image does notquite exhibit the “blended, continuous shading structure that … contains acorrelation with presumed cloth-body distance” of the frontal Image. 3 This featureof the frontal Image, he says, resulted from that half of the Shroud that coveredthe body falling through the residue of the Body to add to the frontal Image.Jackson postulates two processes for the formation of the frontal Image, and onefor the dorsal Image. He acknowledges that this conjecture lies outside normalscience.Physicist and historian of science, Thaddeus Trenn, describes the essentialelement in Jackson’s somewhat obscure account as “weak dematerialization,” and2 John P. Jackson, “An Unconventional Hypothesis to Explain all Image Characteristics Found onthe Shroud Image,” p. 328.3 Ibid., p. 331.
Page 1: DESIGN IN THE SHROUD OF TURINPHILLI
Page 6 and 7: 6not tear the thread fibrils. Howev
Page 8 and 9: 8Trenn do not specifically comment
Page 10 and 11: 10dematerialized, or only atoms of
Page 12 and 13: 12feature found in the fine tuning
Page 14 and 15: 14about human dissolution of the mo
Page 16 and 17: 16circumstances is that the molecul
Page 18 and 19: 18APPENDIXThe evidence indicating t
Page 20 and 21: 209. The dorsal foot imprint has an
Page 22: 22Tribbbe, Frank C. Portrait of Jes

Design in the Shroud of Turin - The Shroud of Turin Website

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?