More famous than the Shroud- the Edessa cloth (FFA V3.2)
Bobbycindi
appeared out of nowhere in France in 1355. He claims that attempts to connect
the Shroud to a cloth referred to as the Edessa cloth are unfounded- that the
Edessa cloth's very existence is questionable. NOTHING could be further from
the truth. Let's take a look at why the existence of this fabulous relic is not
only indisputable, but why the Edessa cloth was ALMOST CERTAINLY the cloth we
now refer to as the Shroud of Turin. Keep in mind that this historical, and
very real artifact, can be traced right back to the time and place of Jesus.
How do we know that the Edessa cloth actually existed? Consider this: The
Eastern Orthodox Church, to this very day, celebrates on August 15 (coinciding
with the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary) the arrival of a cloth
they referred to as the Mandylion. It bore what was considered to be the
miraculous image of Jesus Christ. How real was this relic? The cloth, which in
944 was in the hands of the Moslems, was obtained by the Byzantines in
Constantinople at a cost of 12,000 pieces of silver, the freeing of 200 Moslem
prisoneers and a promise never to attack the city of Edessa- the city that for
nine centuries had served as its home. This well-documented transfer which was
carried out by a general named John Curcuas was, according to Ian Wilson, one
of the most bizarre military missions in all history.
It is a story of conquest, intrigue, double dealing, bullying and bribery that
make for interesting reading. In H.C. Bowen's Ali ibn Iza there is a
fascinating account of the deliberations held by the Moslem caliph and his
cadis in Baghdad about the pending transfer of the Mandylion. The resulting
celebrations in Constantinople, once the transfer was complete, were grand and
glorious. The Holy image of Christ, after having been ceremoniously paraded
around the city, was taken to the Chrysotriclinium of the Royal Palace where it
was placed in the great audience chamber of the Byzantine emperors. The Edessa
cloth was not only real, but more famous than the Shroud of Turin is today.
Was this Mandylion/Edessa cloth, which was of linen, one and the same as the
Shroud? The many descriptions of it and, indeed, existing paintings of it
portray an image of Christ that is astonishingly close to the Shroud's. But
that's just the beginning. More about that next.
Bob
Bobbycindi
more famous in its day than the Shroud is now. It was even assigned its own
historian to record the Pomp and Ceremony of its arrival into Constantinople.
Was it the Shroud folded up? Frank Weaver says no. The evidence says that
almost certainly it was.
But what if Frank turned out to be right? Would his case be made that there is
absolutely no evidence for the Shroud's existence prior to when it turned up in
France in 1355? Hardly! For there are a number of reports of Christ's ACTUAL
BURIAL SHROUD in Contantinople from, among others, the city's relic collection
overseer, Nicholas Mesarites. And what does Mesarites have to say about the
burial attire? He says this (the year us 1201):
"....the burial shrouds of Christ: these are of linen. They are of cheap and
easy to find materials, still smelling of myrrh and defying decay since they
wrapped the outlineless, fragrant-with-myrrh, naked body after the passion."
Notice that Mesarites didn't specifically say that the burial shroud of Jesus
bore His image. But the question automatically arises- how did the man know
that Jesus was naked? And even more remarkably, why did he refer to Him as
'outlineless'? That the Shroud's image is of a naked man (Jesus after the
passion), and that the image is in fact virtually lacking in outlines, make it
virtually unique.
But this is just our first indication that the Shroud was in Constantinople.
More reports about the burial shroud of Jesus in that city, and how it seems
all but certain that this burial shroud was the original Edessa cloth/Mandylion
folded up next.
Bob
gardibolt
The problem, Bob, is that you're accepting all of these medieval
reports of relics as the genuine article, and therefore they must be
referring to the same item. I forget who, but someone once said there
was enough wood from the True Cross during the Middle Ages to build
Noah's Ark. There were no doubt DOZENS of Christ's burial shrouds
floating about in various places, trusting to poor communication that
no one would discover the frauds being practiced. To assume that any
particular one of these is the Shroud of Turin is to make an
unjustifiable leap. Even Wilson concedes that the threads making the
connection are rather tenuous. "All but certain" is grossly
overstating the case; it's a possibility but nothing more.
Mark
Bobbycindi
>connection are rather tenuous. "All but certain" is grossly
>overstating the case; it's a possibility but nothing more.
>
I guess you'll have to show me where Wilson says that Mark. In his latest book
he says this: (talking about the idea that the Edessa Cloth was the Shroud
folded up)
"For me, the crucial breakthrough in overcoming this objection surfaced in the
1960's when I noticed how a sixth-century Greek version of the Abgar story, the
"Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddaeus', describes the Edessa cloth as a
'tetradiplon'. In all the corpus of Greek literature 'tetradoplon' is an
extemely rare word, and TOTALLY EXCLUSIVE to the Edessa cloth. Yet, because it
is a combination of two common words, 'tetra' meaning 'four' and 'diplon'
meaning 'two fold' or 'doubled' its meaning is actually very clear: 'doubled in
four', suggesting four time two folds. This immediately raised the thought:
What happens if you try giving the Shroud four times two folds?
When I tried this, using a full-length photograph of the Shroud, I was
dumb-founded by the result- as I continue to be today. There was the Shroud
face, front facing and disembodied-looking on a landscape aspect cloth EXACTLY
as on the earliest artists' copies of the Cloth of Edessa."
He goes on to describe how the 1978 raking-light photos of the Shroud not only
revealed these folds, but showed that the cloth had been folded in a manner
consistent with its being made to raise up out of a casket- something Robert de
Clari reported in 1203.
This is just one of several reasons to believe that the Edessa cloth was the
Shroud. In fact, there is even one guy who described the Edessa Cloth ITSELF as
bearing the full-figured image of Christ. His name was Gervase of Tibury. (See
page 144 in Wilson's book The Blood and the Shroud.) This reference alone
renders the issue a moot point. THE actual burial 'sindone' of Jesus, bearing
His full-bodied image, was reported to have been in Constantinople.
One, of course, can do what Frank Weaver does. And that is simply deny the
evidence, or minimize it- something easy to do that, in addition, makes one
sound scholarly to folks not versed in the subject. But Weaver's not a
historian. He tries mightily to sound like he knows what he's talking about. He
doesn't. What he knows, he's learned from Joe Nickell- or so it would seem. He
has not done primary research. He's not uncovered historical writings. He's not
a language expert- like Mark Guscin a guy he likes to slam. Guscin knows more
about ancient languages than Weaver ever will. Like Wilson, Guscin's uncovered
yet even MORE references to the Mandylion's full-bodied image. I know because I
was at the Dallas Conference and listened to his lecture and looked at the
written evidence with my own eyes.
Don't let other's do your thinking for you Mark. A thinking person will look at
the evidence and decide for himself. And there is plenty of evidence when it
comes to the Shroud of Turin.
Bob
Bobbycindi
guess what? He announced the publishing of a new book by the Archbishop of
Baghdad Gewargis Silwa. He is the Archbishop of The Church of the East.
According to Silwa, this church was started in the FIRST CENTURY by the Holy
Apostles Mar Thomas, Mar Addai (Thaddeus) and Mar Maris. He refers to them as
the "authors of our Church Litergy in the Blessed City of Edessa."
Does that guy in the middle (Addai) ring a bell with you by the way? He should.
The subject of the book is the Shroud of Turin. As it turns out, the Archbishop
has lectured on the Shroud to folks in his neck of the woods for a number of
years. The title of his Book? The Image of Edessa.
Bob
Frank Weaver
In article <20030119014845...@mb-fv.aol.com>,
bobby...@aol.com (Bobbycindi) wrote:
[snip]
>How do we know that the Edessa cloth actually existed? Consider this: The
>Eastern Orthodox Church, to this very day, celebrates on August 15 (coinciding
>with the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary) the arrival of a cloth
>they referred to as the Mandylion.
They also continue to celebrate Mr. Christopher day. Or how about
that revered virgin-martyr St. Thecla, long known to be a fictional
character. You could read about her in "The Acts of Paul and Thecla,"
one of the many spurious Acts readily available on the Web. A
fourth-century bishop confessed to making her up to encourage the
spread of the cult of virginity.
>It bore what was considered to be the
>miraculous image of Jesus Christ. How real was this relic? The cloth, which in
>944 was in the hands of the Moslems, was obtained by the Byzantines in
That's a long way from the time of Jesus Christ, Bob. Nine hundred
years long.
Why, you can't even trace the Mandylion legend reliably back to the
FIRST Holy face, which appears without provenance in a dubious story
by a known sixth century miracle-monger.
>The Edessa
>cloth was not only real, but more famous than the Shroud of Turin is today.
You also cannot trace the Mandylion legend forward to the first
appearance appearance of the "shroud" of Lirey later moved to Turin.
That is another gap of at least 150 years, exacerbated by very major
differences in the descriptions of the two items.
Picking and choosing which parts of history you use and selectively
ignoring every single part of the historical record that doesn't fit
your preconceptions (which in this case is almost all of it)
is not honest and certainly does not make for reliable history.
Gaps of hundreds of years filled only with hand-waving interpersed
with occasional fits of let's-pretend are not the same as a consistent
set of records going back to the time of Christ.
[snip]
- --
Frank Weaver Encrypted email preferred
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On a keyserver near you
Lagers and porters and beers! Oh my!
-- Dorothy, "Wizard of Brews" (1939)
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Bobbycindi
wonderful. And when it's bad? It's still pretty good! (I make joke) What I'm
trying to say is that we're asking a lot when we insist on two thousand years
of uninterrupted history for a given item. It's not realistic. Not even
remotely. The fact is, the circumstantial evidence connecting the Shroud to the
Mandylion is amazingly good whether you like it or not.
I haven't even gotten to the Vignon markings, the Hungarian Pray manuscript and
the recently discovered (in the Vatican library) sermon of 944 where talking
about the newly arrived Edessa cloth archdeacon Gregory referred to the blood
on it that had come from Jesus's side. I'll ask our readers (Ken) to put on his
thinking cap and decide if all these things combined don't add up to a
compelling case. Your in trouble now buddy boy.
Bob
Frank Weaver
In article <20030123211649...@mb-cp.aol.com>,
bobby...@aol.com (Bobbycindi) wrote:
>Coincidentally Mark, Barrie just updated his website day before yesterday and
>guess what? He announced the publishing of a new book by the Archbishop of
>Baghdad Gewargis Silwa. He is the Archbishop of The Church of the East.
And this is supposed to qualify him how?
>According to Silwa, this church was started in the FIRST CENTURY by the Holy
Well, since it's a Nestorian sect, the Church of the East (the
Assyrian Church to Roman Catholics) could have an independent
existence only since the Nestorian schism in the mid-5th century.
The church does trace its history back farther, but only to the
middle of the SECOND century. This is consistent with established
history. The first documentation for Christian in Edessa was 150.
The Gnostic philosopher Bar Daisan converted in 179. The Syriac
liturgy first appeared c. 200 CE, well into the reign of Abgar VIII
(or was it Abgar IX?) of the Osrhoene (177-212), perhaps the first
Christian king anywhere.
>Apostles Mar Thomas, Mar Addai (Thaddeus) and Mar Maris. He refers to them as
>the "authors of our Church Litergy in the Blessed City of Edessa."
The first is not surprising. Every one of the Asian churches --
Maronite, Chaldean Rite, Antiochean, Syrian Rite, Syrian Orthodox,
Jacobite, even the Armenian Apostolic, regards Thomas as its founder
and chief evangelist. Although Addai and Mari are traditionally
considered the authors of the Syrian Rite, I've previously written
about how the first may have been invented in the 5th century in a
deliberate effort to sow confusion concerning a Manichaen missionary
of the same name. As for Mari, one Catholic source I checked (the
Concise Dictionary of the Saints) has nothing much to say about him
except that he is probably fictional.
BTW, this seems like a good place to plug Mark Dickens's excellent
Nestorian Pages (http://www.oxuscom.com/nestpage.htm) and the official
website of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East
(http://www.cired.org). Happy reading!
[snip]
- --
Frank Weaver Encrypted email preferred
wea...@world.std.com PGP KeyID: 33935039
On a keyserver near you
Lagers and porters and beers! Oh my!
-- Dorothy, "Wizard of Brews" (1939)
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Frank Weaver
In article <20030127235854...@mb-mq.aol.com>,
bobby...@aol.com (Bobbycindi) wrote:
>Seems to me Frank that history's kind of like sex. When it's good, it's
>wonderful. And when it's bad? It's still pretty good! (I make joke) What I'm
>trying to say is that we're asking a lot when we insist on two thousand years
>of uninterrupted history for a given item. It's not realistic. Not even
>remotely. The fact is, the circumstantial evidence connecting the Shroud to the
>Mandylion is amazingly good whether you like it or not.
Seems to me that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. With
that in mind, let's look at the 'circumstantial evidence.'
(1) 33-586 550 years of dead silence.
(2) c. 586 Report (from a questionable source) of a cloth that
differs from the shroud is size, shape, extent of image
and major features of that image.
(3) 586-877 300 more years of dead silence.
(4) 877-1204 Assorted reports of 'shrouds' of varying size and shape
in miscellaneous locations in Europe and Byzantium.
(5) c. 944 Reappearance of a cloth similar to the one in (2), still
not resembling the shroud in size, shape or extent of image.
(6) 1139 Cloth in (5) changed to a new size and with a more
extensive image. Revised description is redacted into
earlier accounts.
(7) 1204 Traveler's tale that may or may not be either the cloth
in (5) or the one in (6).
(8) 1204-1356 150 years of dead silence.
(9) c. 1356 A 'shroud' of dubious provenance surfaces in the hands
of a middle-class Frenchman with a profit motive.
So your chain of circumstantial evidence for the hidden 1300 years
consists of 1000 years of silence broken by the occasional appearance
of cloths that you can match to the shroud only by selectively
ignoring their actual descriptions. You don't have an object even
vaguely similar to the 'shroud' of Turin until 1139.
That's not even 'circumstantial' evidence. It's a web of gossamer
fantasy. Compare it to the chain of hard evidence that links the
'shroud' from Lirey through the House of Savoy to Turin.
>I haven't even gotten to the Vignon markings,
A major indicator of the risibility of your 'circumstantial'
evidence. Are we to pretend that the observers who so punctiliously
copied insignificant and supposedly meaningless marks that can hardly
even be seen without technological aid were so cavalier in ignoring
the size, shape, and major, obvious features (e.g., copious blood and
injuries)?
>the Hungarian Pray manuscript and
A classic example of the dictum 'there's one born every minute.'
NOW we're supposed to believe that a copyist was so sloppy that he
didn't miss only *part* of the image, but all of it! Somehow, he
found some minor burn marks beside the body, though. Not to mention
that we're supposed to pretend that there's really no difference
between the coffin (where all the figures are) and a piece of cloth.
Then we have to overlook the 80% of the coffin's figures that DON'T
fit the 'copied from the shroud' rationalization.
>the recently discovered (in the Vatican library) sermon of 944 where talking
>about the newly arrived Edessa cloth archdeacon Gregory referred to the blood
>on it that had come from Jesus's side.
I've been thinking about that. What do you want to bet that the
revised description was redacted in a couple hundred years later,
just like it was for Pope Stephen's lecture?
Seems to me that there's a difference between history and historical
fantasy. 'Shroud history' is like jerking off -- you can imagine
anything you want, but you just end up in a puddle of your own
making.
[snip]
- --
Frank Weaver Encrypted email preferred
wea...@world.std.com PGP KeyID: 33935039
On a keyserver near you
Lagers and porters and beers! Oh my!
-- Dorothy, "Wizard of Brews" (1939)
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