No single Christian artifact is more challenging to skeptics than the Shroud of Turin: Once dismissed as a particularly adept medieval forgery, in recent years it has been gaining even more scientific support that it is precisely what tradition has always claimed it is – the burial cloth that for 30 hours was wound about the recumbent body of the crucified Jesus.
In 1988, the shroud’s credibility suffered a setback after three separate carbon-dating tests placed the origin of its linen fibers no earlier than the 13^th century AD, about the time it received what has long been assumed to be its first documented references in western Europe. But at a congress in May in Vienna, scientific researchers detailed solid scientific reasons why carbon dating might never work with the shroud.
And a new thesis, advanced this summer by Italian journalist Orazio Petrosillo and based on research by American, English and Swiss scientists, argues the shrouds carbon dating was compromised by a failure to recognize that new material had been added during a unique mending process undertaken in the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, an increasing amount of research unrelated to carbon dating continues to point to a first-century Palestinian origin for the shroud’s material. For example, Dr. Mechthild Flury-Lemburg, former curator of the Abegg Foundation textile museum in Berne, Switzerland, and a world authority on ancient textiles, told the Vienna conference the weave and style of the material were from the Dead Sea area and could only have been woven in the period from 40 years before the birth of Christ up to 70 years afterward.
The material, a rare 3-to-1 herringbone twill weave of hand spun linen, is so unique that "there is no way it could have been a forgery from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries," Flury-Lemberg said. Turin University pathologist Dr. Pieluigi Baima Bollone added that close examination of the cloth revealed images of two coins from the time of Pontius Pilate on the shroud, a further indication the image predated the Middle Ages.
But perhaps the most significant material presented in Vienna came from Piero Savarino, professor of industrial organic chemistry at the University of Turin. In an interview with the Register, Savarino pointed out that the human image on the shroud rests on the outer fibers of the linen weave, in a layer thinner than a human hair. Furthermore, it presents an X-ray like picture of the skeletal system, particularly displaying the bones of both hands, the left wrist, the skull and front teeth and some of the vertebrae.
"We know the image could not have been a painting because it resulted from rapid dehydration of the cellulose in the fabric" similar to what happens in a fire, Savarino said, "but we also know that this process
was done without heat. And how that could happen is a mystery." Savarino explained that when the chemical decomposition of material is accompanied by heat, substances called pyrols are left behind. And while
those pyrols can be found in abundance in the parts of the shroud scorched by the various cathedral fires it has suffered through the centuries, none are connected to the image itself.
"That’s why some scientists have suggested that the image resulted from a controlled nuclear event that occurred at the moment of the Lord’s Resurrection,"said Dr. Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of Duke
UniversityMedicalCenter in Durham, NC, and Director of the Council for study of the Shroud of Turin. "His body would have given off massive amounts of radiation as it dematerialized and passed through the Shroud, leaving a kind of negative photograph with an X-ray component relating to the bones resting near the material."
Whanger noted that Canadian physicist Thaddeus Trenn, director of the science and religion program at the University of Toronto, has hypothesized that an influx of energy overcame the strong force that bound together the protons and neutrons in the body of the man lying in the Shroud. Such an instantaneous event would have released massive amounts of X-rays. Moreover, Trenn has pointed out, the dematerialization theory is supported by distortions in the Shroud image that indicate that it was collapsing in upon itself at the precise moment the image was being produced. And only dematerialization explains how the body could have been lifted away from the blood that had soaked into the fabric while leaving no trace of pulled fibrils on the Shrouds surface.
Whanger said an event like that would have created a massive amount of neutron irradiation, which would lay down levels of carbon-14 all out of proportion to anything that would occur naturally. That could explain
why attempts at carbon-14 dating have failed to support the Shroud’s authenticity. "I don’t think they’ll ever get the carbon dating to line up with the rest of what we know about the shroud," Whanger said.
Petrosillo reaches the same conclusion in an article published this past summer in the Roman newspaper /IL Messaggero. /Researchers, he wrote, have discovered different weaves in some of the threads analyzed in the 1988 carbon-14 dating attempt.
The different weaves are the result of an invisible mend, in which new threads were woven directly into older, original material sometime during the Middle Ages. Where the invisible mend occurred, the new fibers are coated with a dark yellow starchy substance common for medieval fabrics. The older fibers lack the substance. A thread from the older side was dated at the California Institute of Technology back to the third century. On the other hand, the newer, coated material dated back to the 13^th century. Petrosillo reports that according to Beta Analytic, a radiocarbon dating service, a mixture of 60% of 16^th century material with 40% of first century material could lead to a dating of the 13^th century.
Apart from carbon dating, an extensive amount of evidence indicates the shroud is genuine and from the period in which Christ lived. The nail holes, for instance, are placed not in the palms but in the wrists, a
position necessary to support the crucified mans full body weight, but also a bit of knowledge unknown to medieval artists. Also persuasive are images on the cloth of the titulus, the board nailed to Jesus cross upon which Pilate wrote the words, "The King of the Jews"; the 24 flower images identified on the shroud, all from plants with geographical ranges known to overlap only within the vicinity of Jerusalem; the crown of thorns revealed on the cloth to be lying next to the body, an appearance unique to Christ because no one else is known to have been so crowned prior to their crucifixion. Moreover, discoveries of ancient records in European libraries and museums, including drawings and written descriptions of the shroud, have pushed knowledge of its existence back several hundred years before it was first known to have begun its Turin residency.
Leading shroud skeptic Walter McCrone, a forensic scientist who has studied the cloth since 1974, did not respond to Register requests for interviews. But in an earlier interview with this writer, he insisted the shroud is a pious fraud designed to compete with similar products in the Middle Ages’ burgeoning relics market. His analysis of fibers lifted from the shroud onto sticky tape led him to conclude that the image is a clever painting, done with a red ochre tint in a very dilute gelatin solution.
"Of course he found evidence of paint," Whanger replied. "The shroud was known to have been the basis for some 55 ‘true copies,’ handmade reproductions of the shroud's image produced by medieval artists who would then lay their work on top of the original for added sanctity. Such an action would inevitably leave threads behind and provide the source of the iron oxide that has been found."
* *
*Faith and Science*
But even the shroud’s scientific supporters argue against using it as central proof of the Christian faith. "That’s dangerous," Savarino said. "Faith must be found on the Word of God and Christ, not science." Speaking during a May 1988 visit to the shroud in Turin, Pope John Paul II stressed the Church does not regard the shroud’s authenticity as a matter of Christian faith. "As it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce itself on these questions. It entrusts the task of research to scientists; to arrive at appropriate answers for questions related to this cloth.
What really counts for believers is that the holy shroud is a mirror of the Gospel," the Holy Father explained, emphasizing that there is a convergence between the gospel narrative and the image of the man on the cloth. Nevertheless, a number of former skeptics have found that their shroud studies surprised them with an unexpected spiritual component. "When I really came to accept the shroud’s authenticity several years ago," said Phillip Wiebe, professor of philosophy at TrinityWesternUniversity in Langley, British Columbia, "I really began to believe in the resurrection. Then I found that for the first time in my adult life I was also comfortable with the other miracles in the New Testament, including the virgin birth of Christ. I asked myself, ‘If this man had such an extraordinary end, then what was his beginning?’"
Added Wiebe: "I suddenly realized that if Jesus was the God-man, there must have been some purpose behind his death. I was then able to accept Christianity’s other fundamental teachings. My faith was restored in a cascading series of insights in what I can only describe as a wonderful act of grace."
. Fr. George Welzbacher, Church of St. John of St. Paul: On one or two occasions in the past I have given space in my Easter Sunday Pastor's Page to a fascinating report on the evidence contained in the Shroud of Turin for a TWO-FOLD crown of thorns. The report, written by Shafer Parker, Jr., appeared in the April 13, 2003 issue of the National Catholic Register. May I share it with you here, with extensive abridgement. April 7, 2010.
* * * * *
Shroud's TWO Crowns of Thorns Show Crucifixion's Brutality.
Two researchers at Duke University Medical Center say they have perceived signs of a SECOND object in the head area of the image of the Shroud of Turin.
Dr. Alan Whanger, professor emeritus at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N. C. and director of the Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin, (www.shroudcouncil.org) together with his wife, Mary, published their finding that high-grade enhanced photographs of the Shroud of Turin reveal the image of a band of woven straw. It perfectly matches the size and shape of the well-known Crown of Thorns now housed in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. This circlet would have rested on the back of Jesus' head reaching down to the upper part of the neck
The shroud, a sheet of fine linen some 14 feet long and 3.54 feet wide, contains the life-sized negative image, front and back, of a crucified man, complete with nail prints and bloodstains. Pope John Paul II himself has venerated it as the shroud that Christ was buried in. According to the Whangers, the newly perceived object is actually a second crown of thorns. And although Scripture has never been interpreted as mentioning two crowns, Whanger argues that his discovery of a second crown is yet more proof that the man represented on the shroud is Jesus. "Two crowns would be entirely consistent with what we know about the period," he said. "If the shroud were actually a medieval forgery based only upon Gospel accounts, as some scientists have claimed, they'd never have thought to include TWO separate crowns.
Whanger, who is a Methodist, suggests that when Pilate sent Jesus to be flogged, the soldiers naturally decided to mock the supposed King of the Jews as a ROMAN EMPEROR, complete with purple robe (which is mentioned in the Gospels) encircling crown on the back of the head. It would have been the work of a moment, he says, to twist a few bands of straw together, stick a few thorns and thistles through the back and then jam it on Christ's head.
Later, the soldiers must have been inspired to mock Jesus as a Jewish HIGH PRIEST, which led to the construction of the larger, bonnet like crown made from the Gundelia Tournefortil thorn tree, as con firmed on the shroud by Avinoa Danin, Professor of botany at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a world authority on the .flora of the Near East.
The Gundelia tree possesses thorns so sharp and strong the maker would have been forced to wear leather gloves. The larger crown, first identified on the shroud by the Whangers several years ago, effectively mocked the multitiered crown worn by the Jewish high priest. "The high priest's crown would have been well known to the soldiers," the Whangers said, "since it was kept locked in the Antonia Fortress and only released to the high priest for his use during festivals."
Finding a second crown on the shroud helps explain why the Crown of Thorns in Paris has no thorns. Because the thorns had merely been stuck through the straw bands to begin with, they either remained embedded in the crucified man's neck when the crown was removed, or they fell from the mid-forehead to the low back of the neck. The wounds on top would have come from the bonnet-like high priest's crown, while those on the neck would have come from the emperor's circlet.
Though impossible to authenticate as to date, the shroud has been venerated since at least the 14th century (but possibly as early as the second century) as the actual winding sheet used at Jesus' burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
But is has only been in the last 30 years that modern science has been able to uncover a number of clues, including pollen spores and microscopic grains of soils UNIQUE to Jerusalem and Palestine, that increase the probability that the shroud once wrapped the Messiah's body.
Abiding Mystery But the abiding mystery is how the images of a crucified man and crucifixion-related objects became imprinted on the shroud at all.
Canadian physicist, Thaddeus Trenn, director of the science and religion program at the University of Toronto, has hypotheisized that a massive influx of energy similar to a controlled nuclear event actually overcame the strong force that bound together the protons and the neutrons in the body of the man lying in the shroud.
Such an instantaneous event would have released massive amounts of X-rays, leading to a rapid, but cool, dehydration of the cellulose fibers in the fabric that resulted in a negative image of the man and, due to the enormous amounts of energy present, a CORONAL discharge that led to imprints of OTHER items buried with the body.
Trenn has noted that the dematerialization theory is supported by distortions in the shroud image that indicate that it was collapsing in upon itself at the precise moment that the image was being produced. And only dematerialization explains how the body could have been lifted away from the blood that had soaked into the fabric while leaving no trace of pulled fibrils on the fabric's surface...
A bronze statue, titled 'The Body of the Man of the Shroud,"'is seen in an exhibit on the Shroud of Turin at Regina Apostolorum University in Rome. The actual artifact is on display through May 23 in Turin.
The Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Christ, went on public display in the city’s cathedral tomorrow, providing a valuable opportunity for the truth about the relic to become better known to the public. That’s according to John Iannone, an American author who is an authority on the shroud. He told the Register Feb. 23 that the display, which takes place through May 23, is “particularly important” because it will provide an opportunity to present evidence, which today is “overwhelmingly in support of the shroud’s authenticity.”
More than 2 million people are expected to visit the shroud while it’s on public display for the sixth time in 100 years. The last showing was during the Jubilee Year of 2000. Pope Benedict XVI will also view the sacred burial cloth on May 2 after a day of events in the city.
Traditionally, the public is allowed to see the shroud every 25 years, but according to Fiorezo Alfieri, Turin’s councilor for culture, Church officials agreed with civic authorities to bring the date forward because they understood “the importance to the economy and employment” in the industrial city.
Debates have long taken place whether what is said to be the most-studied artifact in human history bears the image of Christ or is the skilled work of a medieval forger. “For those of us who have studied the shroud for many years, we have gotten used to hearing far more anti-shroud news than anything,” said Barrie Schwortz, executive director of the Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association. “This new exhibition will help to offset that, at least for a while.”
He said that, together with many resources online and elsewhere, “any public attention drives those who are truly interested in the subject to dig deeper and find out what is truly known about the shroud, rather than relying solely on the misinformation typically reported in the media.”
Schwortz would have liked the shroud to be also available for a planned scientific examination (the Archdiocese of Turin has said the showing will be for pastoral purposes only), but added that any exhibition of the shroud still serves a “very positive” purpose. “I have never met anyone who has actually seen the shroud claim that it is a painting, so the more who get that opportunity, the better,” he said.
Iannone pointed out that this showing is the first since 1988 carbon-dating results, which purported to show the shroud was a medieval hoax, were debunked. “The public exposition provides a vehicle for getting the truth about the shroud to the world that was misled, in a major way, by the media reports of 1988 and following years,” he said. Schwortz said the 1988 research “has always been the primary piece of scientific evidence that disputed the shroud’s possible authenticity.”
In a video made shortly before his death three years ago, Ray Rogers, a chemist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said that despite wishing to prove the shroud a fake, he found that the “worst possible” sample of the shroud was taken for the 1988 carbon dating. The research, he said, was performed on an area of the relic that was repaired in the 16th century.
Rogers, who helped lead the Shroud of Turin Research Project and had once strongly argued in support of the carbon dating research, said in the video made in March 2005 that after dismissing the carbon-dating claims, he came “very close to proving the shroud was used to bury the historic Jesus.”
Schwortz said that since Rogers’ discovery, “several more peer-reviewed articles” have corroborated Rogers’ findings.” In 2008, he said, nine scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory independently re-examined Rogers’ work and further corroborated his conclusions. The findings, he added, are also very significant because the bulk of scientific evidence gathered before 1988 favored the shroud’s authenticity, but all of it was summarily discarded after the carbon-dating finding. Rogers’ work “is probably the most important scientific contribution made supporting the shroud’s authenticity in more than 20 years,” Schwortz said, adding that any future carbon dating, if it is to be taken seriously, must be “accomplished openly, with complete transparency.” Interest in the shroud is immense and crosses every Christian divide.
“I can tell you an exciting fact,” Iannone said. “Although I am a Catholic and have spoken at over 100 Catholic churches in the U.S. and Canada, I have also been invited to talk at Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Greek Orthodox churches. The shroud is a truly ‘ecumenical’ phenomenon.”
He added that his website attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world which, to him, reveals the “worldwide interest in this precious gift of Jesus.”
Asked recently why he thought the shroud should be understood by Christians, Iannone replied: “If you accept the authenticity of the holy shroud, you must ask Why would Jesus have left his images, mysteriously, on the linen? It is because the holy shroud tells us in compelling images what the Gospels tell us in dramatic words. It is the ‘visual Gospel.’”
Announcing the public display of the shroud last year, Pope Benedict said it will be an occasion to “to contemplate the mysterious face, which silently speaks to the heart of men, inviting them to recognize in it the face of God.”
