The Shroud of Turin—a relic many Christians believe to be the cloth in which Jesus was wrapped after being taken down from the cross—has long fascinated both believers and disbelievers alike.
It has been embroiled in controversy ever since the late 1970s when, for the first time, it was subject to scientific scrutiny. Images discovered on the reverse of the shroud are bound to intensify the debate.
Why not come to this year’s Lenten Series and discover what the experts are talking about?
The first study will take place after Evening Prayer at 6.15 PM on Wednesday, March 12th, and the series will continue through March 19th, March 26th, and April 2nd, concluding on Wednesday, April 9th.
As usual, we will be providing beverages, hearty winter soup, and the best bread in Baltimore. If you think you’ll be hungrier than that, just bring a sandwich.
The Holy Shroud of Turin might aptly be described as a divine joke at the expense of skeptics. It is one of those rare objects that would be even more miraculous if it were a fake than if it was genuine.
The shroud is a piece of linen some 4.8 yards long and 1.2 yards wide. Its first recorded appearance was in the small town of Lirey in 14th century France. It has been held in the Italian city of Turin since 1578.
On its front can been seen the image of a tall, bearded man bearing the marks of crucifixion. Experts, over the years, have detected traces of blood, as well, and pollen and soil typical of Jerusalem.
Skeptics were cock-a-hoop, however, when, in 1988, three separate laboratories announced that Carbon 14 tests conducted on small pieces of the shroud proved the artifact dated from the 14th century—indicating it, thus, was a fake.
This still left the doubters with problems on their hands—not least explaining, how, if the shroud is a forgery, the forgers had intimate knowledge of scientific discoveries and technologies that did not come into being until many centuries later.
For example, the shroud—which bears the image of a crucified man—is a high quality photographic negative. Yet the principles of photography were not discovered until the 19th Century.
Some skeptics advance the theory that Leonardo da Vinci painted the shroud using a projection method known as camera obscura. Aside from the fact Leonardo was born long after the shroud was first exhibited, it still isn’t a satisfactory explanation for the contention it is a “fake.”
The shroud appears to bear a conventional, two-dimensional image. But scientific studies show that it is, in fact, a precise, undistorted three-dimensional image.
Scientists, however, have been unable satisfactorily to reproduce the three-dimensional image of the crucified man, because the computer technology so far available has not been sufficiently advanced to decipher the huge volume of data encrypted in the shroud.
Be that as it may, the latest findings of Shroud scholars has further pulled out the rug from under the skeptics feet.
For starters, doubts have been cast on the Carbon 14 tests. It seems that fabric for the tests was taken from portions of the shroud heavily contaminated by centuries of human handling, or from a piece of Holland cloth sewn onto the shroud by nuns in the 16th century to cover up fire damage.
Testimony in support of the shroud’s authenticity has come from Swedish textile expert Dr. Mechthilde Fluryemberg, who discovered a seam on the back of the cloth apparently sewn in the first century AD.
“There have been attempts to date the shroud from looking at the age of the material,” she said, “but the style of sewing is the biggest clue. It belongs firmly to a style seen in the first century AD or before.”
On top of all this, Italian scientists have just announced they have found images on the back of the shroud that match the face and possibly the hands on the front. GPH✠
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