Archive for March, 2013

Shroud of Turin Back in the News

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Some fakes never die, and the Shroud of Turin is one of them. Despite the multiple, independent radiocarbon tests dating its fibers to the middle ages, the hope that it goes all the way back to Jesus stays alive. The latest attempt to resurrect the Shroud is described in a New York Times article by Elisabetta Povoledo, “Turin Shroud Going on TV, With Video From Pope“:

Skeptics say plenty of evidence corroborates a medieval dating, including carbon-14 tests done in 1988 by three independent laboratories. They dated the cloth between 1260 and 1390.

But others dispute that. Using infrared light, multiparametric mechanical tests and spectroscopy to analyze tiny fibers of material from the cloth, Giulio Fanti, a professor at the University of Padua, found they were compatible with fibers dating from around the time of Christ.

“Crossing the data from the various tests, we arrived at an average date” to the time of Christ’s death, plus or minus 250 years, said Mr. Fanti, whose findings were published this month in the book “Il Mistero della Sindone” (“The Mystery of the Shroud”), which he co-wrote.

Scientists have struggled to explain the image of the man on the cloth, which has markings compatible with the wounds of someone who was crucified. Mr. Fanti said he thought the image could have been created by a “very intense burst of energy,” which could have mutated the percentage of carbon-14 in the linen, leading some scientists to wrongly date it to the 13th century.

Well, I’m skeptical. I don’t know why a burst of energy at the moment of resurrection should mutate the precise amount of the Carbon-14 in the fibers to produce a medieval dating that just so happens to coincide with the first historical reports of the relic. It’s just too convenient.

We can estimate the dates of objects by the differential decay rates of various isotopes. Unfortunately, none of the new tests–infrared light, multiparametric mechanical tests, and spectroscopy–look at that. Rather, they analyze the chemical and structural composition of the fibers, which does not seem to be a promising avenue of dating the material, nor superior in its precision and accuracy to carbon dating.

The Mysteries of the Apostolic Tradition 3







and set the limit, and manifest the resurrection,


The Mysteries of the Apostolic Tradition 2

A particularly interesting and particularly obscure passage in the Apostolic Tradition occurs after the section on baptism and first communion.

Now we have briefly delivered to you these things concerning the holy baptism and the holy oblation, for you have already been instructed concerning the resurrection of the flesh and all other things as written. Yet if there is any other thing that ought to be told, let the bishop impart it to them privately after their baptism; let not unbelievers know it, until they are baptized: this is the white stone of which John said: “There is upon it a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth the stone”.

This seems to be an early example of the disciplina arcani the practice of revealing some elements of Christian doctrine and worship only to baptized Christians. However since the Apostolic Tradition has already revealed the rituals of Baptism and Eucharist it is unclear what is left to be revealed. (It has been suggested that the Lord’s prayer (Our Father) is meant alternatively some form of mystagogical catechesis on the spiritual meaning of the sacraments. However, none of these suggestions is particularly convincing.)

There are textual issues which are relevant here. The quotation above is from the Coptic. The Arabic and standard Ethiopic are similar although failure to recognise that the passage about the white stone is a quotation from Revelation has led to various errors in translation. The Latin tantalisingly has a large gap beginning just before this passage. There is no parallel in the Apostolic Constitutions The Canons of Hippolytus reads All the mysteries concerning life [baptism] resurrection and the sacrifice, the Christians alone [are] those who hear them. This is because they have received the seal of baptism because they are the participants [in it]. The catechumens are to hear the word concerning the faith and the teaching only. It is the judgment of which John speaks: “No one knows it except he who receives it. The Testamentum Domini reads And let them be taught also about the resurrection of bodies; before anyone receives baptism, let no one know the word about the resurrection, for this is the new decreee that has a new name that no one knows except the one who receives (This is the standard Syriac form. There is an important Ethiopic variant with resurrection instead of resurrection of bodies and the Ethiopic tradition has a gloss which clearly interprets resurrection as referring to the resurrection of Christ.)

The version in the Canons of Hippolytus which is about the exclusion of Catechumens from the mysteries of Baptism Eucharist and Resurrection, (i.e. Easter the ‘mystery of the resurrection’), is generally regarded as secondary. Apart from anything else, the passage seems an easier simplified version of the other readings. The Testamentum Domini with its idea of a teaching about resurrection only delivered after baptism has been regarded as the closest to the original but most scholars treat it as secondary and idiosyncratic. One result of comparing the different versions is a suspicion that resurrection in the original is at least as likely to have been about the resurrection of Christ as about the Christian hope of future resurrection.

In the next post we will consider the bearing of the new Ethiopic text on this issue.

The Mysteries of the Apostolic Tradition

The Apostolic Tradition is the name given by scholars to an ancient church order surviving in several incomplete and/or modified later forms. This title derives from the belief that the original form of this work is equivalent to the text “On the charismata – Apostolic Tradition” attributed to the controversial 3rd century Roman church leader Hippolytus on an ancient statue.

Modern scholars have increasingly questioned the attribution to Hippolytus although the origins of the work in third century Rome is still accepted by most students. Scholars have also become increasingly doubtful of our ability to determine the original text on the basis of later documents.

In later posts I am going to suggest a reinterpretation, on the basis of new evidence, of an important but obscure passage in the Apostolic Tradition. First, however, we must review the textual situation.

The Apostolic Tradition was originally written in Greek but only a few fragments survive in Greek as well as the rewrite of parts of the text in book 8 of the late 4th century Apostolic Constitutions. Our main sources are Latin Syriac Coptic Arabic and Ethiopic. There is a Latin text based on a late 4th century translation of which about half survives. There is a complete Coptic text and an Arabic text translated from Coptic and closely related to the surviving Coptic text. The standard Ethiopic text is clearly largely based on the Arabic but contains passages not in Coptic or Arabic. Some of these passages are clearly ancient, (e.g. found also in the Latin).

There is also the Canons of Hippolytus surviving in Arabic which is a late 4th century modification of the Apostolic Tradition. (Some scholars would date it well before 350 CE but this involves a controversial theory about the development of Lent in 4th century Egypt.) Finally the Testamentum Domini or Testament of our Lord. This is a church order and apocalypse put in the mouth of the risen Christ. It is probably late 4th century but possibly early 5th and (apart from a Greek fragment) survives in Syriac and Ethiopic. It is sometimes valuable as a source for the original text of the Apostolic Tradition.

The nature of the Ethiopic text of the Apostolic Tradition has been clarified by the discovery of an ancient form of the text translated directly from Greek into Ethiopic. (Published recently by A Bausi as La Nuova Versione Etiopica della Traditio Apostolica Edizione e Traduzione Preliminare pps 19-69 of Christianity in Egypt Literary Production and Intellectual Trends.) It appears that the standard form of the Ethiopic text is a revision on the basis of the Arabic of an original translation from Greek. This recent discovery will allow a more solid reconstruction of the original text of the Apostolic Tradition.