>It's a hard to balance the need to protect the artifact with the inquiry, >but (and again I've not looked into it nearly as much as you) most of the >controversies would seem to be addressable with further tests. The carbon >dating test, in specific - just do 'em damn it. Do 'em and do 'em right.
It's actually surprising to a lot of people just how much scientific inquiry has been allowed on the shroud. And continues to be done on the samples that have been taken so far. Keep in mind as well that the Church moves *very* slowly. They don't care if a lot of us have scientific curiosity about all this, it simply does not play a part in their own world view. I have no doubt they will allow continued study of the shroud...most likely when it is once again time for it to be put on display (2025 I think). But also keep in mind that other methods of dating continue to be found, the vanillin decay that I mentioned tells us the linen is actually at least 1300 years old. It is also consistent with the weave used in Palestine at the time of Christ, and not in medieval times, and pollen evidence supports this as well. The problem with carbon dating is that it can only tell us the age of the linen....which we already know a lot about. It cannot however tell us when the image itself was formed, so is of dubious use when considering whether to destroy additional pieces of cloth, as regardless of the age of the linen, skeptics can still say the image itself came later. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:250282 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
