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The discerning skeptical inquirer thinks . . .
What is the Hungarian Pray Manuscript or Codex?
In the Budapest National Library there is an ancient codex, known commonly as the Hungarian Pray Manuscript or Pray Codex, named for György Pray (1723-1801), a Jesuit scholar who made the first detailed study of it.
This codex was written between 1192 and 1195. An illustration, one of five in the manuscript, shows Jesus being placed on his burial shroud, a shroud with the identical pattern of burn holes found on the Shroud. The artist has drawn the very unusual herringbone weave on the shroud and a number of other graphic characteristics consistent with the Shroud: Jesus is shown naked with his arms modestly folded at the wrists, the fingers are unusually long in appearance as they are on the Shroud, and there are no visible thumbs. There are no thumbs visible in the images of the man of the Shroud either. Forensic pathologists tell us that this makes sense since nails driven through the wrist would likely cause the thumbs to fold into the palms. In the drawing, there is also a clear mark on Jesus’ forehead where the most prominent 3-shaped bloodstain is found on the forehead of the man of the Shroud.
There can be little question that this illustrator of the Pray Codex, far removed from France – working at a time before the sacking of Constantinople by French knights, before the time given for the Shroud by carbon 14 dating, and before or the d’Arcis Memorandum – knew about the Shroud of Turin.
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Shroud of Turin and the Skeptical Inquirer
Fact:
The 1988 carbon 14 dating used invalid samples snipped from a
discrete medieval repair. Furthermore, kinetics constants for the
loss of vanillin from lignin indicates that the cloth is at least
twice as old as the dates determined by the carbon 14 dating with
the faulty samples.
By some estimates, from
examination of documenting photographs, there is sufficient new
thread (about 60%) to allow adjusting the cloth's date to
approximately the first century.
Fact :
The images are formed by a brownish, complex conjugated carbon
substance within a carbohydrate layer of starch fractions no thicker
than 1/100 the diameter of a human hair.
The images are probably the
product of an amino/carbonyl reaction.
Fact :
The bloodstains are real blood. The blood is unusually red for
old blood.
The blood probably stayed red and
did not turn black as blood normally does because trace chemicals
found in the starch fractions are hemolytic. Also, the blood is rich
in bilirubin, a bile pigment produced when a human body is under
severe traumatic stress. Bilirubin is bright red and stays red.
Fact :
There is a faint, superficial face image on the back of the cloth.
This supports the hypothesis of an
amino/carbonyl reaction.
Fact :
There are sufficient descriptive historical records to suggest that
the Shroud of Turin is the Edessa cloth (ca. before 544 to 944 CE)
and the Bucoleon Palace grave cloth of Constantinople (ca. 944 -
1204).
Fragmentary evidence suggests that
the Edessa Cloth originated in Jerusalem in the 1st century and that
it is the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth.
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