Shroud: Scientific aspects
With Dr. Richard Sorensen. Shroud of Turin Website, https://shroud.com/The Shroud of Turin is purported to be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, and its
authenticity has thus aroused intense and sometimes hostile debate between those who
believe that the Shroud is authentic, and those who do not. Accepting or rejecting the
authenticity of the Shroud is to many an issue of Christian or anti-Christian conviction.
This is especially true for anti-Christians - if the Shroud is a fake it doesn't really affect
the pro-Christian side, but if it is authentic then it is dramatic evidence in favor of it.
So the Shroud of Turin is the most highly and intensively studied artifact in the history of
the world. "Somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 scientific man-hours have been
spent on it, with the best analytical tools available” according to one source.
2. Please note that this is not about "proof" in the scientific sense because it is not possible
to prove anything historical. For example, we can't prove that Julius Caesar lived, so
likewise we can't prove that the Shroud was the burial cloth of Christ. What we can do is
examine the evidence that supports or challenges that assertion. Regardless of conviction,
those who seriously seek to study the Shroud should approach it with an open mind and
suspend their religious persuasions as they examine the evidence, both pro and con.
3. Regardless of our convictions, it is right that we should question the Shroud and
approach it with skepticism because the history of religious artifacts is filled with
fraudulent attempts to make money at the expense of naïve worshippers. Many fake
shrouds have been produced, and in 1902 a researcher claimed that there were forty-two
medieval shrouds of Christ around Europe. However, they were not intended to deceive
anyone - most were either simply pieces of cloth or artistic copies, and some of these
“shrouds” still exist.
Scientific challenges
1. There have been many attempts to debunk the Shroud, and perhaps the main one is in
regard to dating. The Carbon 14 dating in 1988 indicated that the cloth was medieval
(1260 to 1390 AD). However, it was later discovered that the pieces used for testing
contained rewoven fibers that had been used to repair the cloth, so the C14 dating was
discredited.
A new non-destructive method of dating ancient textiles known as WAXS (wide-angle x-
ray scattering) has been developed which operates by detecting the degree of structural
degradation of threads from a cloth. Using that method a thread from the Shroud was
dated to the same period as a line fragment from the siege of Masada (55-74 AD), so it
places the Shroud in the era of Christ's death and resurrection, ca. 33 AD. No other grave
cloth in history has ever had an image on it like the Shroud.
Other scientific challenges have claimed that the Shroud was:
2. A painting.
3. A photograph.
4. A bleaching.
5. A rubbing.
6. A scorching from a hot statue.
7. A 3D block print.
But all of these attempts fail to explain a number of Shroud characteristics:
1. First recorded showing of the Shroud. That took place in the period 1355-1357, and it
was publicly displayed many times after that, so if it were a forgery, it must have been
done prior to or during that period, and with the technology available in that era.
Leonardo DaVinci, who some have alleged to be the artist, was born in 1452.
2. Artistic characteristics. The Shroud figure is naked, which would have been repugnant
and unacceptable for a medieval artist in depicting Christ. Also, the plethora of artistic
depictions of Jesus from the first through the sixteenth centuries all show him as being
nailed to the cross through the hands, whereas in the Shroud image he is nailed through
the wrists. Nailing through the hands would not have supported a man’s weight, and the
purported artist would have had to have both knowledge of that fact and gone against all
artistic precedent.
3. Body characteristics. The Shroud image is highly realistic and detailed, and depicts many
bodily wounds that are completely consistent with Biblical accounts of the crucifixion,
such as whipping, lacerations, contusions, scalp punctures, wound in the side, etc.
Detailed examinations of the image by medical investigators have uniformly confirmed
its accuracy.
4. Image Characteristics. The Shroud is linen, and raw unprepared linen repels water and is
a difficult medium to work on. Furthermore, there are no pigments or brushstrokes so it
cannot be a painting. Water McCrone, the STURP team member who claimed the image
was painted, had never personally examined the Shroud. He based his analysis on sticky
tape residue lifted from the Shroud which contained small amounts of pigment. However,
this came from artists who had previously made painted copies of the Shroud image by
laying their material on its surface. Receive SMS online on sms24.me
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