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I've wasted far too much time on the Shroud as I am sure you have. If I had to make a decision, on peril of my life, I would say it was a fake, made in Constantinople, in the early 1300's and that Charny was stiffed by a fast-talking Levantine relic merchant, possibly from a linen cloth woven somewhere in the Holy Land and painted with rouge pigment (iron oxide) brushed on the the cloth. But this is all guesswork, because of the uncontrolled conditions of the carbon dating and the unaccountable failure to do the chemistry of the "blood stains" around the crown of thorns. Today, of course, the blood spots could be identified as blood or rust with a single test by NMR. If it turned out to be blood (which I doubt), it would be possible to determine if the owner was haploid (virgin born) or had x chromosomes and similar equipment. It will probably be possible to clone the owner from blood in a few years, and I for, one will willingly wait for that. If it turns out to be Jesus, it will be at least his second trip to earth, and that, I hear, is supposed to be the last. |
