March 18, 2005
While
science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud of Turin is not the
burial cloth of Jesus but instead a fourteenth-century forgery, shroud
devotees continue to claim otherwise.
In
medieval Europe alone there were more than forty “True Shrouds,” although
the Turin Cloth uniquely bears the apparent imprints of a man, crucified like
Jesus in the gospel narratives. Unfortunately, the alleged “relic” has not
fared well in various scientific examinations—except those conducted by
Shroud partisans like those of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP),
whose leaders served on the executive council of the pro-authenticity Holy
Shroud Guild.
The
following facts have been established by various distinguished experts and
scholars:
The
shroud contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes multiple cloths
(including a separate “napkin” over the face), as well as “an hundred
pound weight” of burial spices—not a trace of which appears on the
cloth.
No
examples of the shroud linen’s complex herringbone twill weave date from
the first century, when burial cloths tended to be of plain weave in any
case.
The
shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century, when it
turned up in the possession of a man who never explained how he had obtained
the most holy relic in Christendom.
The
earliest written record of the shroud is a bishop’s report to Pope Clement
VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing
scheme, with “pretended miracles” being staged to defraud credulous
pilgrims.
The
bishop’s report also stated that a predecessor had “discovered the fraud
and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested
to by the artist who had painted it” (emphasis added).
Although,
as St. Augustine lamented in the fourth-century, Jesus’ appearance was
completely unknown, the shroud image follows the conventional artistic
likeness.
The
physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in Gothic art), and there is
a lack of wraparound distortions that would be expected if the cloth had
enclosed an actual three-dimensional object like a human body. The hair
hangs as for a standing, rather than reclining figure,
and the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg
to which it belongs.
The
alleged blood stains are unnaturally picture-like. Instead of matting the
hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on the outside of the locks. Also
dried “blood” (as on the arms) has been implausibly transferred to the
cloth. The blood remains bright red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with
age.
In
1973, internationally known forensic serologists subjected the “blood”
to a battery of tests—for chemical properties, species, blood grouping,
etc. The substance lacked the properties of blood, instead containing
suspicious, reddish granules.
Subsequently,
the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the “blood” as
red ocher and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire image
had been painted.
In
1988, the shroud cloth was radiocarbon dated by three different laboratories
(at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of Arizona). The results were in
close agreement and yield a date range of a.d.
1260–1390, about the time of the reported forger’s confession (ca. a.d.
1355).
Those
who defend the shroud as authentic offer explanations for each damning piece
of evidence, but these often veer toward pseudoscience and pseudohistory. For
example, they offer various objections to the radiocarbon date, suggesting
that it could have been altered by a fire in 1532, or by microbial
contamination, or by imagined medieval repair in the sampled area—even by a
burst of radiant energy from the Resurrection! However, none of these claims
has merit. Clearly beginning with the desired answer, shroud enthusiasts work
backward to the evidence, picking and choosing and rationalizing to fit their
belief—a process I call “shroud science.”
Some
researchers have even claimed to see—Rorschach-like in the shroud’s
mottled image and off-image areas—a plethora of objects that supposedly help
authenticate the cloth. These include “Roman coins” over the eyes,
“flowers of Jerusalem,” and such crucifixion-associated items (c.f. John,
ch. 19) as “a large nail,” a “hammer,” “sponge on a reed,”
“Roman thrusting spear,” “pliers,” and other hilarious imaginings
including “Roman dice.”
Also
reportedly discovered were ancient Latin and Greek words, such as “Jesus”
and “Nazareth.” Even shroud author Ian Wilson (The Blood and the Shroud,
1998, p. 242) felt compelled to state: “While there can be absolutely no
doubting the sincerity of those who make these claims, the great danger of
such arguments is that researchers may ‘see’ merely what their minds trick
them into thinking is there.”
In
contrast, the scientific approach allows the preponderance of objective
evidence to lead to a conclusion: the Shroud of Turin is the work of a
confessed medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively
interlock and corroborate each other. In the words of Catholic historian
Ulysse Chevalier, who brought to light the documentary evidence of the
Shroud’s mid-fourteenth-century origin, “The history of the shroud
constitutes a protracted violation of the two virtues so often commended by
our holy books, justice and truth.”
SOURCE: Live Science