First Century Burial Cloth Found

[Fidei Defensor]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091216-shroud-of-turin-jesus-jerusalem-leprosy.html

Shroud of Turin Not Jesus', Tomb Discovery Suggests
Mati Milstein in Jerusalem
for National Geographic News
Updated December 17, 2009
From a long-sealed cave tomb, archaeologists have excavated the only known Jesus-era burial shroud in Jerusalem, a new study says.

The discovery adds to evidence that the controversial Shroud of Turin did not wrap the body of Christ, researchers say.

What's more, the remains of the man wrapped in the shroud are said to hold DNA evidence of leprosy—the earliest known case of the disease.

"In all of the approximately 1,000 tombs from the first century A.D. which have been excavated around Jerusalem, not one fragment of a shroud had been found" until now, said archaeologist Shimon Gibson, who excavated the site for the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"We really hit the jackpot."

Found in a first-century cemetery filled with priestly and aristocratic burials, the tomb was initially opened by looters, who left the shroud behind, apparently thinking it has no market value. Experts were able to retrieve the artifact before it began to disintegrate.

The so-called Tomb of the Shroud is a rarity among Jerusalem tombs from the time of Jesus.

For starters, the Tomb of the Shroud appears to have been sealed shut with plaster for 2,000 years, perhaps as a precaution against the spread of leprosy or tuberculosis, which was also detected in DNA extracted from the man's bones.

The tight seal apparently allowed the shroud and some of the man's hair—radiocarbon-dated to between A.D. 1 and 50—to survive the high humidity levels characteristic of Jerusalem-area caves.

Archaeologists were surprised to even find remains inside the tomb. Traditionally corpses were removed from such tombs after a year or so and placed in ossuaries, or bone boxes. (Related: "'Jesus Box' Is a Fake, Israeli Experts Rule.")

Evidence Against Jesus Link to Shroud of Turin?

Housed since 1578 in a Turin, Italy, cathedral, the Shroud of Turin is believed by many to have wrapped the body of Jesus Christ after his death in Jerusalem—but the cloth has been decried as a hoax by many others. Several studies have attempted to settle the debate.

Carbon-dating studies by three different laboratories in the late 1980s, for example, suggested the shroud was made between A.D. 1260 and 1390, long after the time of Jesus. In 2005 another study asserted that the 1980s test had been based on a patch added in the Middle Ages and that the shroud is actually 1,300 to 3,000 years old.

(Related: "'Jesus' Shroud? Recent Findings Renew Authenticity Debate.")

The weave of the Tomb of the Shroud fabric, the new study says, casts further doubt on the Shroud of Turin as Jesus' burial cloth.

The newfound shroud was something of a patchwork of simply woven linen and wool textiles, the study found. The Shroud of Turin, by contrast, is made of a single textile woven in a complex twill pattern, a type of cloth not known to have been available in the region until medieval times, Gibson said.

Both the tomb's location and the textile offer evidence for the apparently elite status of the corpse, he added. The way the wool in the shroud was spun indicates it had been imported from elsewhere in the Mediterranean—something a wealthy Jerusalem family from this period would likely have done.

First Such Shroud, Second Such Textile

Assuming the new shroud typifies those used in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, the researchers maintain that the Shroud of Turin could not have originated in the city.

That's perhaps a big assumption, given that there are no other known shrouds from the same place and time for comparison—though in one case clothing had been found in a Jerusalem tomb.

"There have now been only two cases of textiles discovered in Jewish burials from this period," said archaeologist Amos Kloner of Bar Ilan University. And both appear to contradict the idea that the Shroud of Turin is from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

As for the analysis of the newfound shroud, the researchers "checked their findings with the best experts, and this textile was found to be different [from the Shroud of Turin]," said Kloner, who was not involved in the new study, published today in the journal PLoS ONE.

To Kloner, the most important aspect of the new find is that the shroud could be carbon-dated. Examples of Jerusalem textiles from this period—never mind burial shrouds—are so rare that their main importance is in providing organic material for such tests.

The opportunity to compare the weave of this shroud to the weave of the Shroud of Turin is simply an added bonus, he said.

"It is wonderful that they found this niche with the remains of a person, and even remains of hair," Kloner said. "If the fabric undergoes a carbon-14 test, then it can be dated with an accuracy of within 15 to 20 years."

Shroud Is a Picture of Health

In addition to adding to the Shroud of Turin debate, the newfound shroud could help paint a clearer picture of the public health situation at the start of the last millennium.

Experts don't know much about the origins of leprosy, and biblical references may well have referred to various skin conditions. The disease is believed to have originated in India and to have arrived in the Mediterranean region sometime between the fourth and second centuries B.C. These most recent findings in Jerusalem may be able to fill critical gaps in knowledge of the disease.

The deceased's apparently high status, right up to the end, indicates leprosy and tuberculosis crossed socio-economic lines at the time in Jerusalem—and that perhaps not all lepers were ostracized, as historical accounts often suggest, the study says.

The origins of leprosy remain hazy, but the researchers are hopeful that, as with the new study, a combination of archaeology and molecular pathology will help trace the evolution and distribution of this and other ancient diseases.

"The medical research has been quite extensive and has shed enormous light on the inhabitants of Jerusalem," study leader Gibson said. "This is the first time that DNA research has been done on the skeletal remains of human beings from the period of Jesus around Jerusalem."

[Winchester]

They got the AD placement right.

[CatherineM]

So are they saying that only one kind of cloth was weaved at the time? I have no expertise in burial shrouds, I know fabric. Most textile from that time was home spun. Each woman wove her own as she was taught by her mother. Even then there could be differences. My mother taught me to sew and to crochet. My crocheting is completely different because my hands are stronger than my mom's so my stitches are much tighter. My sewing is vastly different because I also took classes in professional tailoring. I would imagine in Jesus' time that women not only learned from their mothers and grandmothers, but later their mothers in law as well.

To suppose the Shroud of Turin isn't authentic on the basis of this one piece of cloth is actually quite silly. They may have used a different kind of cloth simply because this man was so diseased.

[kamiller42]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='17 December 2009 - 01:08 PM' timestamp='1261073333' post='2022322']
To suppose the Shroud of Turin isn't authentic [b]on the basis of this one piece of cloth[/b] is actually quite silly. They may have used a different kind of cloth simply because this man was so diseased.
[/quote]
It's two.
[quote]"There have now been only two cases of textiles discovered in Jewish burials from this period," said archaeologist Amos Kloner of Bar Ilan University. And both appear to contradict the idea that the Shroud of Turin is from Jesus-era Jerusalem.[/quote]
I think they are after a death by a thousand cuts. They want to put an end to the Shroud of Turin with many pieces of contradictory evidence.

[Skinzo]

Mechtild Flury-Lemberg is a distinguished historian of textiles. She has examined other burial cloths from the time of Christ and is of a different opinion:
"Flury-Lemberg had originally been approached back in the early 1980s to try to date the Shroud by analyzing the structure of the cloth. She refused, "because," she says, "it is impossible to get a serious result dating a textile by textile analysis alone." In 1988, the keepers of the Shroud permitted radiocarbon dating of the relic -- with unanticipated results. The tests indicated that the cloth had been made sometime between 1260 and 1390 A.D., and thus was a medieval forgery rather than the actual burial shroud of Christ. And yet, when Flury-Lemberg finally did agree to head the restoration and conservation of the linen in the summer of 2002, the Shroud had a far different story to tell her. She first noticed that the entire cloth was crafted with a weave known as a three-to-one herringbone pattern. "This kind of weave was special in antiquity because it denoted an extraordinary quality," she says. (Less fine linens of the first century would have had a one-to-one herringbone pattern). That same pattern is present on a 12th century illustration that depicts Christ's funeral cloth, which, she says, is "extremely significant, because it shows that the painter was familiar with Christ's Shroud and that he recognized the indubitably exceptional nature of the weave of the cloth." Flury-Lemberg also discovered a peculiar stitching pattern in the seam of one long side of the Shroud, where a three-inch wide strip of the same original fabric was sewn onto a larger segment. The stitching pattern, which she says was the work of a professional, is surprisingly similar to the hem of a cloth found in the tombs of the Jewish fortress of Masada. The Masada cloth dates to between 40 B.C. and 73 A.D. The evidence, says Flury-Lemberg, is clear: "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high quality product of the textile workers of the first century."
Her whole interview is quite worth reading as she makes other interesting observations too.
See: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_shroudchrist/interview.html

S.

[Archaeology cat]

So what can be garnered from this is that there is evidence for a shroud being made in 2 pieces and of a different weave/quality than the Turin shroud. With this being the only in situ shroud found and studied, one cannot make sweeping statements about what was or was not the common practice of the people, or if this was the only common practice at the time. If I remember correctly, the shroud spoken of in the account of Lazarus was in 2 pieces. In archaeology, though, you really need a few more examples before you can say "x is the standard type of artefact from this period". And of course it often happens that there are variations in any given time period anyway.

It is also important to note that the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin has no bearing on the faith.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

Is anyone as tired of hearing this neverending debate about the Shroud of Turin as I am? One would think they're debating the existence of God from the way they carry on about this one relic.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='King's Rook's Pawn' date='20 December 2009 - 10:22 AM' timestamp='1261264936' post='2023216']
One would think they're debating the existence of God from the way they carry on about this one relic.
[/quote]
That's what the atheists are aiming at. However it cannot be proven one way or the other. To maintain free choice there always has to be alternate explanations.
[img]http://www.tech-faq.com/emoticons/free-animated-emoticons/smiley_89.gif[/img]

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Mark of the Cross' date='19 December 2009 - 07:33 PM' timestamp='1261269225' post='2023259']
That's what the atheists are aiming at. However it cannot be proven one way or the other.
[/quote]

What do you mean that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved? It is dogma of the Church that God can be known with certitude by the natural light of human reason.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='Resurrexi' date='20 December 2009 - 11:44 AM' timestamp='1261269873' post='2023265']
What do you mean that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved? It is dogma of the Church that God can be known with certitude by the natural light of human reason.
[/quote]
Those people like you and I can use our reason and experiences to [u]Know[/u] that God is real, but we cannot prove it to others is what I meant. If you and I were able to prove conclusively to atheists or agnostics that God was real and that all you have been taught is truth. Then the atheists would be deprived of free choice. Jesus wants people to come to him because of love of him not by truth of what he can do for them. Further this knowing was not always the case with me. The greater part of my life's faith journey was coming from faith to knowledge. I consider that people like you and I are priviledged to know Jesus and that he is God. It is our responsibility to introduce others to God.


Use words if you have to. [img]http://www.tech-faq.com/emoticons/free-animated-emoticons/smiley_88.gif[/img]

[Brother Adam]

Same story, different day.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Mark of the Cross' date='19 December 2009 - 11:29 PM' timestamp='1261283345' post='2023350']
Those people like you and I can use our reason and experiences to [u]Know[/u] that God is real, but we cannot prove it to others is what I meant.
[/quote]

I disagree with your statement that one cannot prove the existence of God to others.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Resurrexi

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Resurrexi' date='19 December 2009 - 11:37 PM' timestamp='1261287438' post='2023368']
I disagree with your statement that one cannot prove the existence of God to others.
[/quote]
If it were that easy, there would be no atheists. I'm not illogical or unreasonable. I understand the arguments. But I do not believe them to be valid. Sorry. "Proving" God requires faith and then the "logic" follows.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='Brother Adam' date='20 December 2009 - 04:34 PM' timestamp='1261287281' post='2023367']
Same story, different day.
[/quote]

[img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/uploads/av-18.jpg[/img]What would a gorilla know?

Edited December 20, 2009 by Mark of the Cross

[King's Rook's Pawn]

[quote name='fidei defensor' date='20 December 2009 - 02:02 AM' timestamp='1261288969' post='2023377']I'm not illogical or unreasonable.[/quote]

How do you know that?