Mel Gibson on religion: what the evidence says · JRE #2254
SUBJECT: RELIGION
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Also, the weave was a 1st century weave that was typical. And another guy, an archeologist who I knew who actually translated the passion in Aramaic, told me that if you look close, you can see that that the image of a Tiberius coin marks on the eyes.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Gibson's claim that the Shroud of Turin's weave dates to the 1st century is contradicted by the best-documented scientific test of the cloth: a 1988 radiocarbon dating study by three independent laboratories (Oxford, Arizona, Zurich), published in Nature in February 1989, which concluded the linen is mediaeval, dating to approximately 1260 to 1390 AD rather than the 1st century. The 'coin over the eyes' theory Gibson attributes to an archaeologist traces to a claim popularized starting around 1979-1981 by Father Francis Filas, who argued image-enhancement analysis showed a Roman coin (associated with the era of Tiberius/Pontius Pilate) over the shroud figure's right eye. This coin theory has never been corroborated in independent peer-reviewed image analysis and is regarded within Shroud scholarship as a disputed, minority interpretation rather than an established finding; critics attribute the perceived markings to pareidolia in the cloth's weave texture rather than an actual imprinted image. The weave-dating claim is contradicted by direct scientific testing; the coin-over-eyes claim remains unsupported by independent, replicated evidence.