To Rebut the Authenticity of the Shroud …
Strategic Challenges
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A common presumption is that showing one evidential fact to be fraudulent would rebut the authenticity of the Shroud. That may seem rational, but it does not logically follow that the other evidence is fraudulent. An example rebuttal might be showing the blood marks are really pig blood. (It is actually real human blood—type AB!) However, the problem remaining is that most of the other factual evidences also need to be shown fake. Why? For example, some person could have added some fraudulent detail under the foolish motive to supposedly make the Shroud seem more believable. Yet the Shroud and all the other evidence could still be truly genuine. Nevertheless, clearly refuting one substantive evidential fact would cast doubt on its authenticity and demand stronger arguments for the remaining evidence.
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Specifically, the (problematic) 13th century radiocarbon date of the linen seems to refute the authenticity of the Shroud as Jesus’ burial cloth and by itself strongly suggests a hoax. That has convinced many people that the Shroud is a counterfeit despite much evidence that would be impossible to fake in the 13th century. However, now there are several alternative dating methods substantiating a first century date. How does a person explain that discrepancy? Prove the other dating methods false? Re-examine the radiocarbon data? (See §Radiation Hypothesis section in this compendium.)
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Further, scientific details about pollen, limestone, blood, and anatomy—unknown until recent centuries—strongly question how even a genius could mastermind such a hoax. That is, proposing a 13th century hoax generates many further questions demanding explanation. (See §Coins and Flowers, §Textiles and Archeology, §Whereabouts, and §Blood.)
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Another common assumption is that explaining one detail as having a purely natural explanation would suggest all the other evidence is explainable naturalistically. An example would be demonstrating how the images could have formed by natural means. However, showing one detail has a natural explanation (such as the presence of local pollen, which would be natural) does not imply, for example, that the images also formed naturally.
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Further, assuming no miraculous intervention occurred does not logically prove the conclusion that the images did form naturally. So, demonstrating that a body can naturally cause an image would be required for rebutting the claims that the image was not the result of some paranormal event. The resulting image would need to have resolution as good as that of the Shroud. Showing that this phenomenon occurred in other shrouds might be sufficient to conclude the image formed by natural means, but no other shrouds have images. See §Images
Details to Invalidate the Traditional Claims for the Shroud
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To invalidate the claim that the Shroud enshrouded Jesus Christ, a skeptic needs to demonstrate how at least most of the following details happened naturally or were faked:
(0a) Shroud characteristics that match the Gospel accounts in every detail,
(1a) frontal and dorsal images with 3-D characteristics and good resolution (See §Images),
(1b) creation of a facial image matching characteristic details of extant, geographically distributed paintings, mosaics, and coins depicting Jesus Christ over many preceding centuries (See §Artwork),
(2a) physiologically correct locations of blood marks of crucifixion nails, thorn cap, scourge wounds (See §Blood),
(2b) anatomically correct registration of the blood marks on both images (See §Blood),
(3) linen characteristic of the first-century in age, thread, and weave pattern (See §Textiles),
(4a) exposure of the Shroud’s linen to native Jerusalem pollen (See §Whereabouts),
(4b) contact of the linen with limestone unique to Jerusalem (See §Whereabouts),
(5) the match between the blood type and blood stain pattern of the Shroud with the type and pattern on the Sudarium (See §Sudarium), and
(6) the unexpectedly larger amount of carbon-14 in the linen—resulting in its 13th century date—while several other dating methods are consistent with a 1st century date (See §Age).