AMERICAN ATHEISTS


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
ELLEN JOHNSON, PRESIDENT AMERICAN ATHEISTS
VOICE 201-334-4033, E-MAIL EJONBAND@AOL.COM or fzindler@atheists.org
OR CALL AMERICAN ATHEISTS 512-458-1244


                           PRESS RELEASE

    ATHEISTS CRITICIZE SHROUD DATING CRITICS

    American Atheists science advisor Frank R. Zindler is under-
whelmed by recent attempts to rehabilitate the Shroud of Turin as
the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, despite radiocarbon dating studies
which have shown it to be a late medieval fraud.  "It's hard to decide
which alleged proof is the sillier," he says, referring first to a
report that Italian investigators claim to have found the image of a
Roman coin over the left eye of the shroud face, and then to a report
from a Texas team that claims that microbes and fungi on the surface of
the shroud's linen fibers contaminated the test samples with "young"
carbon.
    "If the image of a coin over the eye were to prove authentic,"
Zindler points out, "it would be conclusive proof that the person
wrapped in the shroud was NOT a Jew, and thus could not have been the
Jesus featured in the New Testament legend.  In ancient times, only pagans
placed coins over the eyes and in the mouths of their dead - payment for
carriage across the river Styx or its equivalents.  A devout Jew
certainly would not do that.  Moreover, most coins had human images
on them, and such images were shunned by every good Jew of the time."
    Concerning the claim that microbes contaminated the samples
subjected to radiocarbon dating, Zindler chides the members of the
American Society of Microbiology, who heard the report, for not
pointing out elementary facts of microbial physiology to the team
from the University of Texas health Science Center who made the claim.
"Instead of the carbon from the microbes contaminating the shroud,"
he notes, "it is carbon from the shroud that is contaminating the
microbes.  I wouldn't be surprised if carbon dating of fungi now
feeding on the shroud found them to be six hundred years old!"
Since microbes feeding on the linen fibers are not photosynthetic
and cannot fix large amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide (the
only source of "young" carbon), the vast majority of their carbon
atoms are taken from the food they are absorbing.  If they are
feeding on old carbon compounds they will appear to be old.  If
they are feeding on recently produced compounds, they will appear
to be their true age.  On the other hand, the amount of young
carbon they would contribute to the cloth fibers would hardly
affect their dating at all.
    "It is little short of miraculous," Zindler chuckles, "that the
alleged error introduced by these bacteria just happens to be the
exact amount needed to cause three independent laboratories to
arrive at a date when the medieval bishop Pierre d'Arcis is
known to have told the pope that the relic was a cunning,
contemporary forgery.  That's a bigger miracle than the image on
the cloth."

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