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Science

Film-Maker Issues $1M Challenge to Museum to Repeat Radiocarbon Testing of the 'Shroud of Turin' (theguardian.com) 147

"It was one of the most eagerly awaited scientific announcements of all time, and it pitted the world of faith against the world of rational thought, under the glare of the media," remembers the Guardian. So when cutting-edge carbon-14 tests found that the Shroud of Turin was a forgery, it seemed like the final chapter for a relic that had been revered for centuries as the cloth in which Christ's body had been wrapped when he supposedly rose from the dead at the first Easter almost 2,000 years ago.

But one man — David Rolfe, a film-maker whose documentary The Silent Witness had brought the shroud into the public eye in modern times, and who had converted to Christianity as a result of his research — wasn't prepared to give up on it. He was convinced the carbon dating, carried out in 1988 under the direction of the British Museum and Oxford University, had been flawed. And now he claims he has the evidence to prove it. This week sees the release of a new film, Who Can He Be?, in which Rolfe argues that, far from the shroud being a definite dud, new discoveries in the past few years have again opened the question of its authenticity. So convinced is Rolfe that he's issuing a challenge worth $1m to the British Museum. "If ... they believe the shroud is a medieval forgery, I call on them to repeat the exercise, and create something similar today," he says....

The sample used for the tests, Rolfe argues in his new film, was too small and taken from a corner where the shroud was likely to have been repaired over the centuries....

When it comes to the carbon dating, he's certainly not alone in his scepticism. Barrie M Schwortz, a photographer who documented the shroud in 1978, says "murky" would be a good word to describe the events of 1988. "Today there are at least six peer-reviewed scientific articles that challenge the results of the carbon dating," he says. In his view, the players involved were in a hurry to get the job done, because they wanted to get carbon dating on the map. "Those tests made it a household name, and today it's used widely in archaeology," he says....

The British Museum is less willing to get involved this time around. "Any current questions about the shroud would be best put to those who currently care for it in the royal chapel of the cathedral of Turin," a spokesperson said.

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Film-Maker Issues $1M Challenge to Museum to Repeat Radiocarbon Testing of the 'Shroud of Turin'

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  • by jeremyp ( 130771 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:25PM (#62454616) Homepage Journal

    It has no traceable history before the 14th century. It was denounced as a fake by church officials at the time. The weave is anachronistic for the 1st century. The image is wrongly proportioned for a real human and there's no distortion where the cloth would have draped over the body.

    Oh yes, and dead people don't come alive again.

  • Circular reasoning. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Malenfrant ( 781088 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:25PM (#62454618)

    This may be down to the Grauniad's famously poor proof reading, but it seems to come from a quote from Rolfe.

    "if this is a forgery it’s the most ingenious forgery in history – and of course it dates back almost 2,000 years, to a time of far less sophisticated forgery techniques."

    If the Carbon-dating was right, showing it to be a forgery, then it's 'only' 6-700 years old, not anywhere near 2,000 years. It's only 2,000 years old if the dating is wrong and it isn't a forgery. That mistake makes me doubt Rolfe's reliability.

    • "if this is a forgery it’s the most ingenious forgery in history"

      Even if it were real, it would only be a kind of mild, "that's cool." It wouldn't be earth shattering or anything. We have textiles from that era, and they're pretty cool.

      If the shroud somehow heals cancer, that would be mindblowing.

      • Actually the textiles we have from that time are radically different. This is a much better woven piece than you'd come across in the 1st century.

        • Thus, the fabric was woven using alien technology. Checkmate, atheists!
          • Yeah, if it wasn't then it's a shitty forgery but the fact that it's not a forgery and yet somehow manages to have all the magical properties required to explain away the skeptics, it must have real magic indeed. Magic exactly like the real Jesus would bestow on it, checkmate, atheists!

      • by Catvid-22 ( 9314307 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @03:56PM (#62454826)
        Even if the shroud is authentic, the identity of the person depicted in it still needs to be established for it to become the sort of holy relic some believers claim it to be.
        • If it were found to cure cancer, I think it would be enough.

        • Even if the shroud is authentic, the identity of the person depicted in it still needs to be established for it to become the sort of holy relic some believers claim it to be.

          Many years ago, I read a short story where the Shroud was tested using advanced scientific techniques and found to be from the Biblical period, with the 'bloodstains' on the cloth being actual blood that allowed for a genetic analysis... and then the lead scientist of the testing group returned to the priest who'd arranged for the testing, telling him that the Shroud had to be reported as a fake -- that it could not possibly be the burial garment of Jesus, explaining that the genetic analysis showed that th

  • Missing details (Score:5, Informative)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:29PM (#62454624)
    While Oxford University coordinated the test, the testing was done at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The article fails to mention that 3 separate institutions did the testing. Also not mentioned is the "repair" hypothesis has already been debunked.
    • Magical elves of secretly repairing part of a cloth with magical stitches that don't exist, just to weave some 14th century cloth into other cloth.

    • I knew someone involved in the testing. He said that the test was clear and didn't really require anything unusual. They published the result. The university had 0 interest in getting involved in a religious debate so they just left it there.

      That said, if someone with access to a fragment, wants to pay the full cost of having it tested, sure, why not. But I wish they would spend their money on more productive science.
      • Sure if the Cathedral wants to test it further. I guess that they think this is more a publicity stunt rather than real science.
    • While Oxford University coordinated the test, the testing was done at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The article fails to mention that 3 separate institutions did the testing.

      It also fails to mention that they all did the tests double-blind.

      They were all given four samples of cloth to test (one ancient, one 14th century, one modern, one from the shroud). They all came up with the same results.

  • Hear Hear (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:31PM (#62454630)

    And while we're at it, I challenge NASA to prove the Moon is not made of green cheese. All the rocks they "brought" back are suspect. Said NASA spokepersons: we feel the authenticity should be brought up with those who currently take care of the Moon. Obviously there is a conspiracy against the truth. Cue Fox!

  • It is a prop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:48PM (#62454672)
    evolution disproved the creation story which means there was no Adam & Eve which means there is no original sin so that means no need for a jesus to make a sacrifice, every museum of natural history in the world is a warehouse full of evidence

    god is a myth
    the bible is fiction
    religion is bullshit


    what do religious nuts have??? a dusty old bible written by goat molesters
    • Re:It is a prop (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @03:53PM (#62454822)

      Just to put a point on it, why would Jesus have to die anyhow? Couldn't God just hold up a few fingers, "This is not the sin you are looking for". And while we're at it, Christians seem to believe the Jews killed Jesus (hint: the Romans crucified people). So if the Jews didn't kill Christ, then he wouldn't have died so we'd all be damned to some Christian version of Hell (Texas). And if the Jews did kill Christ, shouldn't the Christians be thanking them for giving them everlasting life...which miraculously doesn't occur here on Earth where the Christian ministers take the money of people who hope to go somewhere other than Hell when they die.

      And if Satan rules the world, how come God doesn't put stop to it, or is She not All Powerful? And why are three religions fighting over a goddamn city in the Mid-East? It isn't as though God appears there regularly to see who's winning.

      To get back to theology, there's God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spook. . .er, but they are all the same. So God destined Himself to die, but be reborn as God, but he's not God, he's the Son. BTW: even David of the Old Testament was called a Son of God. At the time of Jesus, the phrase merely meant one was "of God", i.e., devout. But a 100 years later, it lost its context and, shazzam, a new religion was born.

      And if God guided the thoughts and hands of the Gospel writers, how come the 3 synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark, and Luke) have so many discrepancies? And reading the Book of Revelation (who's author was not John), it strikes me that was written after someone got a little too happy during the Summer of Love and overdid the magic mushrooms. And he was talking about Rome, not some latter musings of the Christian evangelists who never saw a checkbook after which they couldn't lust.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 )

        The road to hell is paved with critical thinking skills.

        The foundation of fundamentalism is this: One puts one's faith in God's revelations, and not in human reason, because humans are fallible whereas God is not. Case closed on all issues.

        However, that raises the question: how does one know what God's revelations are? Answer: by reading the Bible. Well, did God himself personally hand you your copy of this Bible? Or did an ordinary fallible human do that?

        How about the authors of the Bible? All fallibl

      • And if you look a bit deeper, God is kind of a thin-skinned prick.

        Lucifer is banished to Hell because he dares to challenge God, God decides to commit global genocide and then apparently condones incest because how else would just a small group of people ever manage to repopulate the earth? And going back to the whole garden of eden story... humanity is kicked out of the garden because they eat the apple of knowledge. So, god goes to all the trouble of creating humanity, the garden of eden where they would

    • Creationism itself wasn't a thing until about 200 years ago. It's a mostly American invention where the concept of scientific fact gets conflated with the idea of literary truth, & that's where all the misunderstandings & lunatic beliefs stem from. The Roman Catholic church along with many other Christian churches have reconciled themselves with science & make the distinction between scientific facts & literary truth. Whatever your beliefs, conflating the two can only lead to frustration, co
      • “No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six
        thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man
        died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause.”
        — "Rosalind ", As you like it (IV, 1:90)., William Shakespeare (1599)

        What it is you mean exactly by "[not] a thing until about 200 years ago" ? The conflation of science, philosophy, and religion is older than science itself. It's a bit like bringing bell bottom slacks back in the 1990s but claiming it is a new trend. At best 19th century Americans are retro theologians, traveling a well-worn path identical to the one laid down by medieval Europeans.

    • There was an Adam and an Eve. Probably started off as Adam, a especially primitive single celled organism. Then Adam and Steve through many generations of mitosis. Then finally Adam and Eve after Steve completed sequential hermaphroditism to change sex.

      Not that some people who ripped off Babylonian and Egyptian mythology, could have guessed any of that. They aren't even very consistent on practices that persisted throughout their own oral history, starting off as polytheists before settling on monolatrism a

  • by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:53PM (#62454688)

    People believe silly things because they surround themselves with others who believe the same thing.

    They should pause to consider what the followers of other religions believe, and why. Everyone can plainly see that "they" subscribe to a bunch of b.s., while "we" know the truth.

    Or maybe the guy with $10^6 to blow is confusing Easter with April Fools.

    • Or he's trying to establish a new holiday: Easter Fools.

    • no need for concern. this is yet another huckster pushing a trendy pseudo-intellectual mass-market "theory" for fun and profit. best to just ignore it.

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @03:47PM (#62454802)

      Or maybe the guy with $10^6 to blow ...

      If you read the fine print of his offer, it is clear that this is a publicity stunt to stir up interest in his documentary. He has no intention to pay $1M to anyone.

      To wit:

      1. He is challenging the British Museum, which does not have the shroud.

      2. In addition to a new radiocarbon dating, he also demands that the shroud be recreated with technology from the 14th century. So he can always claim that the recreation is not good enough, and welch on his offer.

      Since his challenge is insincere, no one will take it up, and he can then say, "See, I told you so!"

      But he has already accomplished his primary goal: Getting his documentary mentioned on major news sites.

  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:53PM (#62454690)

    That guy never lived.

    • Never lived? He straight-up said he liked drinking lots of wine and eating lots of food and hanging out with prostitutes. He lived plenty!
    • That guy never lived.

      Jesus existed. He is a historical figure that is well documented.
      You can decide what do do about his claims.

      • Re:It's a myth (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday April 17, 2022 @09:58PM (#62455474) Homepage Journal

        Jesus existed. He is a historical figure that is well documented.

        There is exactly one credible historical reference for Jesus (as in, the reference is credibly dated, not that the report is credible) and it is a literally third-hand account by Josephus. Despite this most historians accept the idea that such a person probably existed, mostly because it's easier than constantly arguing with Christians about how their part of Abrahamic religion is unsubstantiated, unlike either the Jews before them or the Islamics after.

        • There's no good historical evidence for the existence of Moses either, and big parts of the Jewish faith seem to have been fabricated, shock amazement. Muhammad on the other hand...

      • Jesus existed. He is a historical figure that is well documented.

        Citation needed.

      • "Jesus existed. He is a historical figure that is well documented."

        No, it's not documented at all.
        You're wrong, we have lots of Roman documents, nothing points to anything, no census was called either.
        It's a myth.
        There's no heaven nor hell, unless having to deal with people like you.

  • It would seem to me - if you say you're a Christian but you're basing that on a belief in some icon rather than on Christ's teachings, you're looking at the wrong thing and setting yourself up for a fall.

    But, regardless, this seems pointless. Most Christians couldn't care less about the Shroud of Turin; the iconodules who do care aren't going to be swayed by a carbon date (regardless of what it is); and non-Christians aren't likely to suddenly become believers just because some cloth turned out to be 2000 y

    • Re:Iconodulism (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @02:56PM (#62454704)

      Most Christians couldn't care less about the Shroud of Turin;

      Most Christians couldn't care less about the Bible.

    • I think a lot of these attempts to prove artifacts aren't necessarily about belief, but as a proselytizing tool. Ie, there used to be a lot of people convinced Noah's Ark was up there in Armenia, and the books they wrote really seemed to not be along the lines of cool archaeology, but more of a "wow, this would mean the Bible was right!"

      Except that the Ark was in Genesis, the first of 66 books in the Bible (more or less depending upon denomination, creed, religion, etc). So knowing that it inspired some s

  • Shrouds aren't real.
  • by bubblyceiling ( 7940768 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @03:14PM (#62454738)
    If people stop believing in "faith" then how will the "faith leaders" get to rule over people? 1 Million is a pittance compared to having millions of loyal followers
  • by Anonymous Coward
    I am a physicist, and happen to know people from two of the three groups that did the original tests. From discussing with them, my understanding is that carbon dating, at least at that time, was not particularly accurate, and left quite a bit of room for interpretation. Furthermore, as the measurement was very "political" and attracted lots of media attention, there was significant pressure on the labs to give a "safe" answer. There were some rules when doing the test, i.e. labs were not allowed to talk, a
    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Ya, this guy on Slashdot says it was all lies. You go girl!! Tell them!!

    • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @08:01PM (#62455298)

      I am a physicist, and happen to know people from two of the three groups that did the original tests. From discussing with them, my understanding is that carbon dating, at least at that time, was not particularly accurate, and left quite a bit of room for interpretation.

      Anonymous "scientist" guy on the internet heard from some guy that some science was not accurate in the ye olden days of 1988.

      Furthermore, as the measurement was very "political" and attracted lots of media attention, there was significant pressure on the labs to give a "safe" answer.

      I would disagree as giving the answer it was almost 2000 years old would have been the "safe" answer.

      Carbon dating was also not thought to be the best method for dating a "recent" sample accurately.

      As a physicist what is the "best method" for dating the shroud then? Here's how I know you are not a physicist as no physicist would say that.

    • One more physicist here, with some experience into radiocarbon dating, and other methods.
      Besides all the philosophical/religious/free-thinking/[put here your preferred stuff] arguments, we are dealing with a piece of cloth that, during the Middle Age, has been exposed to public in a church, exposed to flames coming from candles, oil lanterns and such. These are devices that burn carbon-based substances, and produce plenty of volatile carbon either as CO2 or soot. May also remember the 1532 fire, that nearl
  • Even if it was dated to 2000 years ago it still is a forgery.
    The two separate images - front and back - are like photographs in that they have been 'taken' from a distance away from any 'body'. If the cloth had been in contact with the face then the nose and ears would look completely differently. The two images are then joined at the head with no room left for the top of the head.
    We do not know how the two images were produced, but it certainly was not by any mechanism that believers claim. The most like
    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      What you are describing is photography, which was not invented until long after 1400CE.

      It's certainly not impossible that an ancient artist from that period could have stumbled across a photographic technique for producing imagery centuries before photography was officially invented, but it is suspect that there are no other records of such a technique being used for artwork in the interim.. For most, that's still an easier incredulity to swallow than the alternative.

  • Which of the parties involved has a stake in this being "A true thing", and which of the parties couldn't care less if it's true or not.

    The latter has an enormous advantage in being believable right off the bat.

  • The Fool!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by PinkyGigglebrain ( 730753 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @04:05PM (#62454852)

    To paraphrase HHGTTG

    'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.'

    'But, says Man, the Shroud of Turin is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have been forged. It proves you exist, and, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

      'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and vanishes in a puff of logic.

    See? The LAST thing a devout Christian would want is proof the shroud is real!

  • No ammount (Score:4, Insightful)

    by meglon ( 1001833 ) on Sunday April 17, 2022 @04:43PM (#62454924)
    No amount of actual evidence will sway someone blindly faithful to bullshit.
  • The proposed test, that of recreating the shroud using current technology, would not be probative. On the one hand, if someone were successful, that would show that it could be a forgery, not that it is. On the other hand, if no one could duplicate it, that would not show that it could not have been forged in the Middle Ages. Medieval artisans may have used techniques that have been lost and materials that we are no longer familiar with or that are no longer available. It is only within the past 25 years that metallurgists have succeeded in producing wootz steel, which was developed over 2,000 years ago in Southern India. The technique for making Dhaka muslin was around 1800. Only in the past few years has it been rediscovered. The technique for making the dye known in Hebrew as tekhelet, used on the garments of the High Priest in Jerusalem, was lost in the Middle Ages. Some people believe that they recently have rediscovered the technique and identified the organism from which it is made as Hexaplex trunculus, but this is disputed, and is probably impossible to determine conclusively since we have no samples of the ancient dye.
  • Keep those samples coming. Test it every week!
  • Challenging scientist to create a replica is simply daft. The only reasonable challenge would be test using radioisotopes again, but with modern technology. But of course the guy who's willing to put money on it would not like it because it would have to be his way or the highway.

  • "The evidence points to a conclusion that I don't like, so the evidence must be wrong."

  • On a positive note, none of this has any bearing on actual reality.
  • meh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Monday April 18, 2022 @12:31AM (#62455686) Homepage Journal

    tl;dr:

    A film maker who made money making a film about a fake artifact and has a new dubious film out now is trying to drum up publicity by repeating previously debunked bullshit claim.

    He made it to /. so for whatever reason, it works.

  • If he truly thought that testing was flawed, he would have offered the money to re-test with supervision from people who believe that the Shroud is real.

    The fact that he's offering the money as a challenge to create a second forgery, not to verify the truth of the first forgery, means that it's just a PR move. He is worried that actual testing will again prove it's false, and it's easier to just later try to twist the fact that the challenge was declined into "proof" that the Shroud isn't fake.

  • ...(and please hold the "Total Perspective Vortex" jokes - Doug's had his day above)...

    Why argue about this? This is one of those things I file away as "mostly harmless". Like flat earthers, they strike me as people that should just be left to their own fun. It costs us nothing, I'd go so far as to say that the television show "Bones" has made the world stupider than Turin-ists (?) ever did.

    Worry about people that believe questionable things that matter. These folks are just enjoying themselves. Let them be

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