A shroud and its sillier aligning

I've just finished another Scholarly Activity workshop (the third in a series of seven) in Manchester and would like to thank Adele Turner for bringing me a copy of Saturday's Telegraph which contains a wonderful example of how not to conduct evidence based research.

In it, a Cambridge-based art historian called Thomas de Wesselow describes his feelings upon finally seeing the Turin Shroud "face to face", and puts forward a "theory" as what it is. His "theory" is that the Shroud is indeed two thousand years old and the image on it is that of Jesus, but not necessarily created in a burst of divine energy during the resurrection. Although De Wesselow's "research" "was largely done at his desk or in libraries, save for one episode ... when the connection between the Shroud and Resurrection came to him in a kind of eureka moment", he's concluded that the first disciples didn't see the Risen Christ; they saw a soiled cloth with a miraculously-produced image on it and knew at that moment Jesus must have risen from the dead.

Neat idea, but unfortunately for his credibility as a historian, there's absolutely no evidence to support it. Nothing. No historical, material, scientific, archaeological or palaeographical evidence, and not even anything in the Bible as far as I can tell; where if memory serves correctly, Thomas is described as putting his hand into Jesus' pierced but resurrected flesh.

So logically, not only did the gospel writers, Paul, the early church fathers and everybody else writing things down during the development of Christianity keep the "facts" of the Easter (up)rising secret; everybody who saw it for the next millennium-and-a-half or so also neglected to mention the existence of the Shroud until it was exhibited in northern France around 1355. It was soon withdrawn from view on the orders of the local Bishop (Henri de Poitiers) who doubted its authenticity at the time "after diligent inquiry and examination, ... the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed."

The real mystery of the Turin Shroud, is unfortunately not just limited to why this undoubted fake continues to exert any fascination over believers, researchers, writers and documentary-makers, but that it also gets used to disparage 1988's carbon dating which gave the Shroud's date of manufacture as sometime in the 13th or 14th century. It would after all, be truly miraculous if the normal rules of carbon 14 decomposition were actually unreliable just this once. So not only is there good 14th century evidence that the Turin Shroud was known (or at least very strongly suspected) at the time to be a forgery, there is excellent scientific evidence to confirm it.

To paraphrase an old saying about ducks: if looks logically a fake, looks historically like a fake, and tests scientifically like a fake, then it's a ....

Money Talks

I've just arrived in Crawley to deliver a day full of assessment workshops and am happy to discover that not only is there apparently no recession here, the local authority has such a cash surplus that it must surely be reducing the business rates and community charges for the coming year. Not convinced? Well the local paper is carrying the headline that West Sussex county council has spent over £100,000 making information videos on such important subjects as "how to wash your hands", and "how to use a mobile phone". Therefore, simple logic suggests a surfeit of cash, as they surely can't think that this kind of thing is in anyway necessary. Can they?
For example, any user of the national rail service could have told them that 90% of the population already know how to "get on train/switch on phone/call someone/use loud voice to tell that someone you're on a train .....".