Editor-in-Chief Georges Mghames English Editor Kenneth Mortimer ...

Arabic Contest Success
Dr. Mansour Y. Eid
April 15th, 2011
Issue 52
June 2011
NDU student Etienne Howayyek has won the second prize in the Arabic Presentation and Staging Contest,
organized by the Arabic Thought Foundation in collaboration with the Beirut Arab University (BAU), for all
Lebanese universities.
It is worth mentioning that this is the fourth time in a row that NDU has occupied one of the first places in this
contest, coming second in 2008, first in 2009, third in 2010 and second in 2011.
The Holy Shroud
The presumed face of Jesus, The negative of a
negative making a positive. Notice the marks
of his passion.
Emanuela Marinelli,
sindonologist
Thanks to the combined efforts of Father Roger Chikri
and Doctor Edward Alam of NDU, and the Community
of Jesus in Lebanon, Mrs. Emanuela Marinelli from
Rome came to NDU to speak about the Holy Shroud of
Turin, and despite the inconvenient hour, five o’clock
on a Sunday afternoon, 10th April, 2011, all the seating
in Friends’ Hall was fully taken by an eager audience.
It is a pity that carbon-dating results have led people
to think that the Shroud is a fake, whereas scientific
experts of every religion or non-religion who have
studied it are convinced of its authenticity. See the
French review Historia, page 22, May, 2010, #761. Mrs.
Marinelli, who graduated in Natural Science, spoke in
English but was seconded in Arabic by Mr. Fares Melki,
also expert in Sindonology, as the study of the Shroud
is called.
Most impressive was the display of a full-size copy of
the Shroud, just as it naturally appears without any
touching-up. We remind readers that attention was
drawn to the Shroud when a photograph was taken
of the relic towards the end of the nineteenth century.
When he developed his plate, the photographer was
astonished to find that his negative appeared as a
positive. Therefore the dim markings on the Shroud
were in fact the negative picture of a man who had
suffered exactly after the manner of Christ’s passion as
recounted in the gospels. The face in the positive, i.e.
the double negative, is powerful and impressive.
Mr. Fares Melki, Holy
Shroud expert.
At work on the PowerPoint!
While giving the audience the website www.shroud.it
(very informative – ed.), the speaker explained that the
width of the cloth represented the width of the loom.
It had been damaged by fire on two separate occasions,
mainly in 1532, and partially doused with water on
one of them, all of which of course affected efforts at
carbon dating. It had been mended by nuns and nine
years ago one of the patches had been unstitched for
the tests. But when the Shroud had been examined
in 1978, all who studied it, Catholics, Protestants and
Jews, had no doubt about the authenticity of the
Shroud (Dr. Edward Alam says a strongly atheist Jew of
the faculty of his university of Utah, where he obtained
his doctorate, was at least forced to admit that the
Shroud was a mystery, particularly in view of the pollen
analysis.)
The weave of the Shroud places it before the end
of the second century. Each thread passes under
three and over one, as the audience could see in the
PowerPoint projection. The rich quality indicates a rich
donor, presumably Joseph of Aramathea as indicated in
the Gospel. It is of pure linen, without wool. A large
amount of aloes and myrrh was used that must have
been donated by the said Joseph. The shroud had been
wet when it touched the body.
The pollen attached clearly showed different regions
in the Middle East, ruling out a medieval fake. The
flowers it came from did not exist in Europe. Blood
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