Is the Shroud of Turin Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus?

Reality Check on the Shroud of Turin: For many, interest in the Shroud of Turin is about hoping to find more evidence of the resurrection of Jesus; an affirmation of the biblical story, an accommodation with the realities of science and a challenge to modern biblical revisionism.

For decades, scientists, archeologists and historians have struggled to answer two questions: 1) How old is the shroud? 2) How were the images made? These questions remain unanswered.

Even without answers to these two basic questions, we may wonder if there are reasons to believe that the shroud is Jesus' burial cloth? And if that is likely so, is the Shroud of Turin evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?

Stunning developments between 2002 and 2005 provide new information. The shroud is possibly 2000 years old. And though we still don't know how the images were formed, we know that they are extraordinarily unique. Chemically, physically and optically the images are unlike any other known images of any kind.

But is the Shroud of Turin evidence of the resurrection of Jesus?

Studies in 1978 seemed to suggest that the Shroud might be the real thing. But ten years later, carbon 14 tests seemingly proved it was medieval. Then in 2005, two scientists, working independently with different technologies, showed that those tests were wrong. Both found that the radiocarbon dating was performed on a repaired section of the cloth: a mixture of older and newer threads. There was enough newer material to skew the results by a dozen or so centuries. Moreover, micro-chemical findings clearly showed that the shroud is much, much older. The Shroud of Turin could be 2000 years old.

In the past, some claimed that the images were painted. Others speculated that they were produced by an unknown form of medieval photography. Proponents of the paint theory amply proved that it could not be a photograph. Proponents of the photograph theory amply proved it could not be a painting. But scientists have chimed in as well. Sensitive spectral analysis at the National Science Foundation Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska proves that both theories are impossible. Moreover, scientists now understand that the mystery of the images lies within a sugar coating.

Newly found historical documents clearly show that a cloth with an image of a man, believed to be Jesus and found in the city of Edessa in 544 AD, is the same piece of cloth we now call the Shroud of Turin. Either that, or there are two such bloodstained burial cloths with full-body images that are inextricably linked to each other through history. And new analysis of the Christ Pantocrator icon at St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai, created less than a decade after the discovery of the Edessa cloth, bears uncanny proportional and detail similarities to the face on the Shroud of Turin.

	What is the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud Described.
	How the images might have formed. Images on the Shroud of Turin.
	Hints from Edessa, 544 AD. Early Shroud of Turin History.
	The Shroud of Turin's Mended Corner. The Carbon 14 Dating Problem.
	Startling, Mysterious, Unexplained. The 3D Encoding of the Shroud.
	The Variegated Cloth. Fooled by the Shroud's Background Noise.
	The Art Connection. Christ Pantocrator and the Shroud of Turin.
	Was the Shroud of Turin Described? Voices from the Past
	Medical Perspective: Forensic Pathology of the Images
	The Second Face: From the Back of the Cloth
	Some say . . . Painted, da Vinci, Jacques deMolay, coins, etc.
	Essay: The Shroud of Turin for Journalists [PDF] [HTML]

Even More

The forensic pathology picture is quite clear. The image is of a man in rigor with puncture wounds, contusions, abrasions and blood marks that only a modern pathologist can comprehend. This is the image of a man who was scourged and crucified. Some of the fine pathological details are imperceptible to the unaided eye in the faintness and the negativity of the images. The medically precise details become apparent only with help from modern image enhancement technologies.

But is this enough to say that the shroud is evidence of Jesus' resurrection? Possibly, but not certainly. However, there is more.

The Shroud of Turin is Sugar Coated

A clear polysaccharide residue coats the outermost fibers of the cloth. In selective places that residue has changed to a brown, caramel-like substance. That brown substance forms the images we see.

The residue is apparently a soap residue. It appears to be from washing the cloth in suds of the soapwort plant, a natural soap containing saccharides like glucose, fucose, galactose, arabinose, xylose, rhamnose and glucuronic acid. Washing to remove starch used as a lubricant during weaving was the final step in the production of linen in the first century.

Nature is one of the two most prestigious and important science journals in the world. It was Nature that published the results of the carbon 14 tests in 1989. In 2005, following the discrediting of those tests, Philip Ball, a contributing scientist and consultant editor for Nature wrote a commentary published in the journal's online edition. He wrote:

The scientific study of the Turin Shroud is like a microcosm of the scientific search for God: it does more to inflame any debate than settle it. . . .

And yet, the shroud is a remarkable artefact, one of the few religious relics to have a justifiably mythical status. It is simply not known how the ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made.

The topics listed to the right are fascinating subjects. The pages are short, informative and factual. The intent is not to convince but to provide information. Some topics lead to other topics like the intriguing Hymn of the Pearl.

Is this enough?

The Shroud of Turin is certainly not a medieval fake relic. That much is clear from the evidence. All things considered, it is probably a burial cloth of a crucifixion victim.

If this is a burial wrapping -- and it is hard to imagine what else it might be -- we must confront a simple reality. Burial cloths do not survive tombs. Certainly, the only way that this burial cloth could exist is if it was separated from the body before decomposing flesh ravaged it. That would happen within just a few days. And it goes without saying that the tomb must have been open in order to retrieve the cloth.

Ultimately, the argument is circular if we are trying to affirm the Gospel stories; for without the Gospels the shroud makes no sense.

Rather than wonder if the Shroud of Turin is evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, perhaps it makes more sense to ask how well it reconciles with what each of us believes. It is probably a mistake to try to prove the resurrection with science (or for that matter, the existence of God); for in doing so, we subtly place science above God.

For those who believe in the resurrection, the Shroud of Turin can be exciting and mysterious. For those who wonder about the story, the shroud is something to think about.