I just listened to a lecture by Dr. Gary Habermas at the EPS apologetics conference, and according to Gary it turns out there is very strong evidence in favor the Shroud’s authenticity. There are paintings of Jesus from the third through the tenth centuries that look they copied the face from the shroud. If the shroud was their model it had to preexist the artwork. It’s not a casual similarity, they have the same bruise marks and all. Forensic scientists have verified that the blood is real and that the body was in a state of rigamortis. Not to mention there is pollen from Jerusalem on it which is an unlikely find if it was a medieval European forgery as skeptics assert. As usual, skeptics have written it off as a hoax, which is understandable. In fact, I had discounted it as a forgery like so many other “relics” the medieval church attempted to pass off. Mainly because there was a carbon 14 test in the 1980s that dated it to the Middle Ages. So you would think that would be the end of it…
However it has now been demonstrated that the cloth they tested was a patch woven into the shroud from when it was scorched by fire – the original fibers are much older. At a symposium in 2005 it was demonstrated that newer fabric was spliced and woven into the old in the sample taken for the test. The carbon 14 test from the 1980s is now regarded as unreliable. Here is the peer reviewed scientific journal article that discredits the 1988 carbon dating.
Abstract :
In 1988, radiocarbon laboratories at Arizona, Cambridge, and Zurich determined the age of a sample from the Shroud of Turin. They reported that the date of the cloth’s production lay between a.d. 1260 and 1390 with 95% confidence. This came as a surprise in view of the technology used to produce the cloth, its chemical composition, and the lack of vanillin in its lignin. The results prompted questions about the validity of the sample.
Preliminary estimates of the kinetics constants for the loss of vanillin from lignin indicate a much older age for the cloth than the radiocarbon analyses. The radiocarbon sampling area is uniquely coated with a yellow–brown plant gum containing dye lakes. Pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the shroud.
Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the shroud of turin by Raymond N. Rogers
The image on the Shroud of Turin has not been explained by science and appears to be holographic in nature according to particle physicists who have examined the image. Far from being painted on the cloth , there is no other image like it in the world. It appears to be burned into the very top layer of the fibers similar to (but not identical to) radiation. The holographic nature strongly controverts ancient forgery methods, could it be that it evidences Jesus’ miraculous transformation from death to life?
About Cris Putnam
I like the gist of the last paragraph even though I would refrain from calling it holographic or appearing to be burned in. But yes, the 3D encoding (height field data) of the image is unexplained by science and controverts ancient forgery. Thanks for a great posting and I plan to explore your blog in the days ahead.
Dan Porter
Archeologist Shimon Gibson with his colleagues found the tomb discovery in Jerusalem 2009. The discovery exposed remains of the man who had suffered leprosy and died tuberculosis. The researches records that deceased have lived in 1-50 A.D. (in the time of Jesus) and the tomb was obviously the family tomb of upper class or priest family.
Gibson said that the man had been buried according to manners of the Jews at that time. The manner was that the body wrapped to linen clothes, and the head wrapped with separate face linen. Gibson said that if the person wasn’t actually dead and woke up, he could shake and blow off the face linen and shout for help.
Professor Shimon Gibson said that the shroud of Turin doesn’t fit together for burial practices in first century Palestine. Gibson said that the shroud of Turin is a single sheet made with a twill weave. According to Gibson the twill weave was known only from the medieval period.
Shimon Gibson’s archeological evidence is accord with the testimony of the Bible. According to the Bible Lazarus and Jesus had been wrapped with linen clothes and the head with the separate napkin.
John 11: And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
John 19:40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
John 20:
6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
The Bible gives the testimony that the bodies, hands and feet of Lord Jesus and Lazarus wrapped linen clothes and with the separate napkin. In the case of Lazarus Greek text use from the word graveclothes word keiria, which is in plural. This means that Lazarus’ body, hands and feet had been wrapped with several linen clothes. In the case of Lazarus the napkin is in Greek text soudaria and in a singular form. According to John 11:44 Lazarus’ head wrapped with the separate napkin (face linen) as his body, hands and feet. Shimon Gibson’s archeological discovery’s man had been wrapped the exactly same way as the Bible describes wrapping of Lazarus.
John 19:40 the napkin word is in Greek text othonion, which is in this verse plural. John 20:6 the linen clothes is in Greek text othonion and in plural form. John 20:7 the napkin is in Greek soudarion and in a singular form. The discovery of Shimon Gibson with his colleagues is accord with the testimony of the Bible, because Jesus’ body, hands and feet had been wrapped with several linen clothes and in His head had been separate face linen (the napkin).
According to the theory of the shroud of Turin Jesus’ had been wrapped on a large linen (shroud). According to the testimony of the Bible, the shroud of Turin is the deception and the fake.
You really aren’t looking at all the biblical evidence:
“And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. ” (Mark 15:46, ESV)
“Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. ” (Luke 23:53, ESV)
There are various opinions and researches of the shroud of Turin. Some people say that it is the genuine and some that it is the fake and the hoax. The fact is that the shroud of Turin doesn’t present Jesus of the Bible. If we can find even one evidence, which disprove the shroud of Turin theory, so the whole story shall be invalidated. We can find a large number of evidence from the Bible, which show that the shroud of Turin cannot be the shroud of the Lord Jesus.
Very good scholars like Dr Habermas think it likely is authentic. Do you care to present any of these “large number of evidence” that show it cannot be? Because it is not at all clear to me why it definitely cannot be. Please support your claims with arguments and evidence.