Just as with the UFO/UAP community, there’s always a search for irrefutable public evidence; religious folks want something tangible as well. It makes sense to seek hard evidence, but in both areas, such stuff is thus far ephemeral and mystical. Recently, the Shroud of Turin is making another of many comebacks, as even mainstream news outlets are once more talking about it.
The last time it made such news was in 2020 when Turin Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia put it on display online before Easter during the Covid pandemic. Viewing it live was presumably a method of conveying some sacred healing power. Thanks to new digital technologies, it was less risky than earlier displays during a plague that ravaged Italy in 1575-1578.
The 14-by-4ft linen cloth is one of the most tested religious relics of all time. It’s currently housed in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, and owned by The Vatican. That’s where it has remained for over four centuries after Margaret de Charny sold it in 1453, claiming it was authentic despite her grandfather Geoffroi de Charny’s wishes. She was excommunicated for the offense!
It was first discovered in the French city of Troyes, southeast of Paris, in 1354. Nobody knows where it was before that. Only in 1578 did the cloth arrive in the capital of Turin, Italy, via an Italian royal family, the House of Savoy.
“It was presented to the dean of the church in Lirey in north-central France by a knight named Geoffroi de Charny, who claimed it was the shroud that was wrapped around Jesus after his crucifixion. There is no record of where or how de Charny acquired the shroud,” reported Al Jazeera.
Why Is The Shroud of Turin Being Resurrected Again?
Why are people talking about the Shroud of Turin again? On social media, some are pointing to a new study that uses wide-angle X-ray scattering. The results of the study inconclusively find that it could be from the time of Jesus. (Or about 2000 years old.) Others online are seizing on the opportunity to claim the ghostly imprint on the cloth shows the “true likeness” of Jesus, different from the “real face of Jesus” depicted by British forensic experts and Israeli archaeologists (see video below).
The latter image, based on ancient Semite skulls dated to the time of Jesus, contradicts general Western (usually white) depictions. Unfortunately, racial hatred is fueling discussions about Jesus, the “embodiment of God’s love.” It’s absurd, and one would think any Christ-like figure would wholly reject such animus. What if we instead understood that everyone, male and female, could be a representation of Christ consciousness instead?
Video by Beyond Science:
From a glance at the image on the cloth, it looks like a typical medieval artist’s depiction of a bearded man. But in 2022, artists created a hyper-realistic latex and silicone model of Jesus that was on show at Salamanca Cathedral in Spain. They based the model called “The Mystery Man” on what they said was “multidisciplinary scientific data” from the Shroud:
Video BY AP News:
Bias to Prove or Disprove the Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin is a delicate subject, and mainstream coverage tends to avoid any talk about obvious inherent biases surrounding it. There are many devotees to this relic. In reality, there’s no DNA, skeletal, or body remains from Jesus from which to draw. Despite no serious archaeological data, questioning whether or not He was a real historical person is always controversial and will, of course, instantly offend those who are religious adherents.
That’s certainly not the intention here, but we must acknowledge the extreme bias involved in proving that Jesus was a real person who looked the way believers want him to have looked, essentially – more like them. In addition, church followers must agree (through rites like Holy Communion) to the concept that Jesus’ body physically resurrected from the dead.
Earlier Resurrection Stories
Prior ancient beliefs also told of a resurrection, such as the Resurrection of Osiris. However, the resurrection story was markedly different in that the corpse wrapped in linens didn’t reanimate. Instead, some say it was a metaphor for spiritual resurrection while one is still alive. It’s an important distinction and one more in line with earlier Gnostic Christian beliefs.
Likewise, there is bias by those who are non-believers to disprove and debunk anything related to spirituality or religion. Meanwhile, scientists are naturally prone to debunk through the scientific method, as they must. Here, after all, is a physical object, a piece of cloth. So, testing its validity is the realm of science. Nevertheless, this particular sacred artifact remains controversial, and the debates continue.
Video about the Shroud of Turin by AP News from 2015:
New X-Ray Studies
Italian scientists using X-ray analysis claim it dates back much further than previous studies. Those radiocarbon dating tests in the 80s concluded the cloth was “a medieval forgery,” made between 1260AD and 1390AD. But critics say they could have been dating fibers that were not from the original but from restorations that came later. Or, the samples could have had bacterial contamination. Consider for a moment, have similar objects faced such ongoing scrutiny following radiocarbon dating?
While the new study suggests the earlier tests were flawed, it also admits the X-ray tests are “experimental” and that their findings depend on the cloth being kept “at an average temperature of about 22C and relative humidity of around 55 percent 13 centuries before it emerged.” To confirm their date to 2,000 years old, they need more samples of the cloth to test.
In 2013, a non-standard spectroscopy (absorption of light of different colors), method described by Giulio Fanti placed the age between 300 BC and 400 AD: “perfect for true believers,” as the BBC put it. Notably, Giulio Fanti is also one of the co-authors of the new study based on X-rays.
The Shroud has also been through at least two fires, one in 1532 in the Sainte-Chapelle in Chambéry and one in 1997, in which firefighters broke through four layers of bulletproof glass to save it. Thus, it could not have been kept in pristine room condition.
Italian scientist Liberato De Caro published his findings from the X-ray analysis in a journal called Heritage in 2022. For some reason, the news is only hitting the mainstream now.
Church Leaders Views of the Shroud
Various church leaders have had widely different views of the Shroud, generally calling it either an icon or a relic.
In 1389, Bishop Pierre d’Arcis of Troyes declared the Shroud a forgery. He said an artist had confessed to its forgery and wrote to Pope Clement VII to tell him so. Nevertheless, the Pope allowed the “man-made religious icon” to remain on display in the church.
In 1936, Pius XII called the Shroud a “holy thing perhaps like nothing else.”
In 1998, Pope John Paul II visited the Shroud when it was on public display. At that time, he said the Catholic Church had “no specific competence” to find its authenticity and urged more scientific testing. Previously, in 1980, he called it a “distinguished relic linked to the mystery of our redemption.”
In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI gave it far more credit. In a “meditation,” he said it was “an icon written in blood; the blood of a man who was whipped, crowned with thorns, crucified, and injured on his right side.” He went on to say it was something that “no human artistry was capable of producing” and an “icon of Holy Saturday.”
Most recently, Pope Francis similarly called it an “icon of a man scourged and crucified” in 2013. He also said the image was “impressed upon the cloth,” implying it was not painted. Avoiding a dispute about dating, Francis said the man of the shroud “speaks to the heart.” In 2015, he “venerated” it.
Video by EWTN:
An Image Made By a ‘Burst of Light?’
Today, a Catholic source is saying the new X-ray evidence is “too strong to ignore” and that the Shroud “confirms the resurrection of Jesus.” In addition, the same source suggests the image was made by a “burst of light” after Jesus “dematerialized.”
“The bottom line is that science has shown the image on the cloth is an ‘impossible’ image’ – one that cannot be replicated. One of the main reasons is, as scientists have now confirmed, the image on the Shroud had to be caused by a mysterious burst of light – that is, electromagnetic radiation,” writes author William West, an author on the Shroud.
Interestingly, the same article suggests no further carbon dating is necessary, in some “researchers” views.
“Some researchers argue the evidence for the Shroud’s authenticity is now so compelling that further dating is unnecessary,” it states.
Scientific Views of the Shroud
When it comes to hard evidence, like stained cloth, it’s always going to fall within the domain of science to conclude the facts. Indeed, The Catholic Church has agreed it’s a “matter for scientific investigation.” But unsurprisingly, scientists seem to have had an incredibly slippery time convincing people of the objects’ true age or how the image was actually created.
Was it an “impossible image?” The BBC laid out extensive evidence for and against all kinds of hypotheses, such as it being a painting versus a mysterious impression. Likewise, there are arguments for and against the presence of blood stains, with one study finding the AB blood type. Badly degraded human DNA suggests a body may have once been present.
Others suggest there was some unknown scientific process, an energy source coming from a body or some kind of “electric field” of mysterious radiation when Jesus was laid to rest. Notwithstanding, there’s no concrete proof of Jesus or his contact with this religious relic.
One suggested a photographic process made the image with a light-sensitive compound such as silver nitrate. In another case, a researcher suggested the Shroud’s ghostly image formed due to a post-mortem burst of body heat rather than some miracle.
In the end, people are apparently going to continue resurrecting the Shroud of Turin, and maybe will forever.
For more of the scientific viewpoint, watch science enthusiast Rebecca Watson’s funny take on the Shroud of Turin.
Featured image: Wikimedia commons