Tuesday, October 5, 1982
Page 8
Daily Nebraskan
Technology aids search for truth
about
shroud
By John Koopman
The controversy over the Shroud of Turin, supposedly
the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, has taken on a new di
mension in the last decade with the introduction of
modern research technology.
Scientific research performed on the shroud was the
topic of a lecture and slide show presented at First Ply
mouth Congregational Church, 20th and D streets,
Sunday night.
Capt. Ralph Enger, a U.S. Air Force laser physicist
and member oi trie Shroud of Turin research team, pre
sented the show.
Although he gave the lecture to a crowd of mostly
church members, Enger urged his listeners to be scientists
with him.
"As scientists, we have to put our . religious beliefs
aside while we look at the data presented. Otherwise we
could distort the facts," he said.
The shroud is a 5 by 14 foot rectangle of woven cloth.
Faintly distinguishable on the cloth is the impression of a
man.
Enger said the most important discovery made about
the shroud was in 1898 when an amateur photographer
got permission to take pictures of the shroud. (The shroud
is shown only about every 40 years). After he took a
picture and had a negative, the photographer realized that
the impression on the shroud is, in fact, a negative.
Shroud scorched
Capt. Enger said the most important information
gathered by the research team was that the impression on
the shroud is a scorch. He said that using sophisticated
lighting techniques, the scientists have determined that
aside from blood on the cloth, there are no particles of
substance in the weave of the fabric that could have made
the impression. He said that when light is shown through
the cloth the impression cannot oe seen.
The blood on the shroud is that of an animal or
human, he said, but at this time it cannot be determined
which one.
He said there are marry ideas how the scorch was made,
ranging from low-level radiation to using a hot statue. But
theologists believe the scorch was made at the time of the
resurrection.
Enger said the age of the cloth has not been determin
ed yet because the process of carbon 14 dating, which is
used to determine age, is a destructive test and a large
portion of the cloth would be destroyed.
The physicist said that it will probably never be deter
mined if the cloth is actually the burial cloth of Jesus
Christ because there -is not enough known about Jesus,
such as blood type or specific physical characteristics.
Not positive
Although they probably won't be able to say positively
that the shroud was used to bury Jesus, Enger said infor
mation from the shroud can be compared with informa
tion already known and comparisons made. He cited these
comparisons:
-The image on the cloth is that of an adult male Jew.
Rabbis say he is a Jew because they claim to see the image
of a small square pouch on the head, which rabbis say
early Jews used to hold Scripture passages.
-The beard of the man in the shroud is parted in a V
shape, much the same as a drawing of Jesus made during
his lifetime.
-The image shows wounds that were made by crucifix
tion: holes in the wrists and feet.
-Certain wounds seem the same as those the Bible says
were inflicted on Jesus. The image shows small holes in
the head similar to ones that would be made by a crown
of thorns, bell-shaped welts in the back that fit the size of
the barbelled ends of Roman whips, and what some say is
a wound in the side, piercing the heart, as a soldier is said
to have done after Jesus had died.
-Some scientists and theologians say they can see the
impression of coins on the eyes of. the man. One
theologian in Chicago claims there are 22 points of
similarity between the coins on the eyes and two coins
produced under Pontius Pilate during the time of Christ.
-A Swiss criminologist has taken pollen sample's from
the cloth that, he says, match pollen samples from the
area of Jerusalem, some from plants that haven't grown
there for many years.
UNL helps
The research group that Enger belongs to is not the
only one trying to determine the origin of the shroud.
Another group headed by Ray Rogers in Los Alamos,
N.M., has been conducting research fof a number of years.
The Los Alamos group was helped in their research by
UNL.
According to Michael L. Gross, chemistry professor
and director of the Midwest Center for Mass Spectro
metry, tiny threadlets, or lint particles, were sent to UNL
in the fall of 1980. The center is part of the UNL
chemistry department.
Gross said the particles were sertt to determine the
organic content to see if they have the same compounds
that are present in paint or any other substance which is
used to make images. .
He said the particles were slowly heated at 300 degrees
Celsius and liberated gases were analyzed. He said the
analyzed particles came from areas of the cloth which had
the image, areas which do not have the image and from a
cloth woven that year in the same way as the cloth of the
shroud.
The results, he said, showed that the particles from the
image area had less organic content than those from the
non-image area. Gross said these findings are consistent
with the theory of scorched fabric because when a fabric
is scorched it loses some of its organic content.
DM? 0Q3
- - -- - - - - m, --fc.it -
Agriculture to be topic of seminar
The Agricultural Advisory Board will
present an agriculture seminar called
"Getting Involved In Agriculture" on
Thursday. The seminar will be from 1 p.m.
to 4:30 p.m. in the East Union.
Three speakers will discuss various
topics relating to agriculture. They include:
1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. - "Agri-Motivation,"
Pat J. Bosco, assistant dean of
students, Kansas State University.
2:30 p.m. to 3:00 pan. - "New Policy
Horizons for Agriculture," Roy Frederick,
UNL professor of agricultural economics.
3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. - "The Politics
of Agriculture," Roger Sandman, former
director of intergovernmental affairs, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, state of Neb
raska. The seminar is open to all agriculture
students and other interested students and
faculty members at UNL.
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