THE SHROUD OF TURIN

 THE SHROUD OF TURIN

The most important relic of Catholicism is one upon which the Church has never taken an official stand. The Shroud of Turin is frequently said to be one of the most studied relics in history, and yet scientists cannot determine how the image was formed.

The Shroud is a point of contention at many levels: For the non-believer, a material and physical manifestation that attests to the veracity of the Gospel accounts is a serious challenge to a comfortable world-view -It is difficult to approach the issue dispassionately if an acceptance of the legitimacy of the Shroud and the story it carries is a challenge to one’s belief system.

Of course, if the Shroud is valid, if it is a genuine product of the Crucifixion and burial of Christ, then it would be apparent that God has left us with material evidence to substantiate every element of the Passion - that it occurred exactly as recorded in the Gospels, including the Resurrection.

However, we, the faithful, must believe through our faith informed by reason, not by the demand of material validation, as St Thomas required: after all, as Our Lord said to St Thomas the Apostle, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Its modern recorded history tells us that it was captured by European crusaders in Constantinople in the 1350’s and was then housed by Geoffrey de Charny and the House of de Charny in Chambery, France. In 1453, Margaret de Charny sold the Shroud to the House of Savoy in return for two castles, for which act she was excommunicated by the Pope. The House of Savoy at the time were the ruling power over parts of France, Italy and later ascended to the Italian throne. The Shroud was kept by the House of Savoy in the Sainte Chapelle in Chambery. However, in 1532, a fire in the church damaged some parts of the linen but not the image itself.

It was then transferred to Turin, the House of Savoy commissioning a chapel to house the Shroud behind St John the Baptist Cathedral’s main altar.

The modern fascination and controversy regarding the Shroud started with Secondo Pia, a lawyer and amateur photographer, who had been engaged by the city of Turin to photograph the Shroud as part of the 400th anniversary of St John the Baptist Cathedral, together with the 50th anniversary of a statutory regime in 1848 in favour of the House of Savoy. The King, as owner of the Shroud, was petitioned to allow the Shroud to be photographed.

On 28th May 1898, Pia, with the assistance of two other men took the photographs, and together, they returned to Pia’s studio at midnight to develop them. Pia said that he almost dropped and broke the photographic plate from the shock at what had appeared on it: The image of a man and a face - revealed by its negative on the photographic plate. The image was one that had, hitherto, not been apparent for the duration of the Shroud’s existence, but was revealed for the first time, at this moment, by the negative print in the photographic process.

The revelation by Secondo Pia of the negative image was initially dismissed, (by some), as a hoax, until, in the 1930’s, the image was replicated with a more sophisticated photographic technique, and by an esteemed professional photographer.

Throughout its modern history, from the time of the revelation by Secondo Pia, there has been vehement opposition to the validity of the Shroud. In opposing its evidential value, the same arguments have been resurrected, (excuse the pun):

1 Almost invariably quoted by journalists as evidence of a medieval forgery, perhaps in an attempt to bestow some provenance on the claim of fraud, is an allegation that was contained in correspondence to Geoffrey de Charny in 1389, by Bishop d’Arcis in Lirey, France, opposing exhibition of the Shroud and alleging that it was a forgery. Bishop d'Arcis claimed to have based his allegations upon the fact that the forger had confessed to his predecessor, Bishop Henri.

Mark Oxley, in his book, “The Challenge of the Shroud” (1) points out that the transcript invariably presented as the correspondence of Bishop d’Arcis was, in fact, a concoction of different letters which amount to a misrepresentation. It is correct that d'Arcis was hostile to the exhibition of the Shroud: However, D'Arcis' allegations involved hearsay regarding his predecessor but, contrary to his allegations, his predecessor had been supportive and not hostile to the Shroud. D'Arcis moreover, had produced no evidence of forgery and never mentioned the name of the supposed forger.

However, the issue for present-day journalists in the main stream media, bearing in mind modern developments, is not whether a medieval bishop claimed that a linen shroud which was represented as the burial cloth of Jesus was a forgery: not only did the Bishop lack expertise in dating the Shroud, but importantly, at the time the allegation was made by him, such an allegation of forgery was infinitely easier to bring than today, with the modern scientific investigations and their unanswered questions. Using Bishop d’Arcis’ opinions to bestow some validity on the claim of fakery, while serving as a deflection, actually throws up more questions than the journalists may want: The image on the Shroud, to the naked eye, is constituted by a mere shadowy reference to the image that is hidden within. To the medieval viewer of the Shroud, forgery of the image visible to the naked eye could be envisaged far more easily - one can understand a preremptory dismissal of the Shroud as a fabricated forgery, in the (understandable) belief, prior to modern scientific examination, that the image had been painted in an impressionistic attempt at fraud. Forgery of the negative image that is, in fact encoded on the cloth, however, to Bishop d'Arcis and any medieval onlooker, would have been inconceivable.

The real issue, for those in the twentieth century who quote d’Arcis’ letter as evidence of fraud, is how and why, centuries before the use of photography, a medieval forger would have fabricated an image to be discovered 800 years later as a negative image of Christ.

Today, after years of study of the Shroud, we discover that there is no evidence of paint, application by any instrument of any of the images and that modern science cannot explain the means by which the image was made on to the cloth.

2. The second and most pervasive claim of forgery is made by reference to Carbon dating that was performed by three laboratories in 1988, when, at a press conference in Turin and in the British Museum, as stated by Mark Antonacci, in his book, “Test the Shroud”, its date was “smugly provided by Edward Hall, the Director of Oxford’s radiocarbon dating laboratory, and Michael Tite with an exclamation point”, as between 1260-1390. (!) On the same day Edward Hall also dismissed the Shroud during a televised interview as “a load of rubbish”. (2)

Mr Antonacci describes the carbon dating politics and manoeuvres as a “nine year carbon dating fiasco”, one which he attributes to bad faith on the part of certain key members of the institutions who sought, (indeed lobbied), to date the Shroud. Mr Oxley, however, takes pains to assert the good faith of the various scientists, but points to the likelihood of contamination by invisible mending and various contaminants which have been shown to have been likely to lead to a false result.

Mr Oxley’s generous accommodation of the scientists was not, however, shared by the Cardinal Archbishop of Turin, Anastasio Albero Ballestrero, who frankly stated that the carbon dating results were the result of an “overseas Masonic Plot.”

The learned carbon-dating scientists, in their confident assertion that the carbon-dating result not only overrode the totality of evidence completely inconsistent with that date, but sustained a conclusion of fraud by a medieval fraudster, supported their assertion and their faith in the scientific process by studiously ignoring the questions their allegations raised.

St Thomas Aquinas taught that God created man with the gift of reason and it is by the use of this gift of reason that man can discover God. In investigating the Shroud, we can inquire with the two facets considered by St Thomas: reason and sacred teaching. After all, the evidence certainly points to a miraculous relic that is completely unexplained by modern scientific reasoning. It is, however, explained by recourse to the chronicle of Christ’s suffering and death contained in the Gospels and the prophecies: To contemplate the Shroud is to truly contemplate, in a material sense, Christ’s Passion. It may be, furthermore, the physical testament and encoded story of His glorious Resurrection.

From the 1970’s, when access to the Shroud was permitted by the House of Savoy, the Shroud has been studied by a group of scientists including those associated with the Los Alamos and NASA institutional laboratories. Further, many European groups of scientists have engaged in analysis of it.

Distinguishing features of the Shroud are:

THE BODY IMAGE IS THREE-DIMENSIONAL

"Study by the French biologist, Paul Vignon, in the early twentieth century, revealed that the frontal image of the Shroud corresponded with those body parts in contact with the cloth. In 1976 physicist John Jackson and Sandia Laboratory image specialist Bill Mottern discovered that the man’s body image contained three-dimensional information that was encoded into the two-dimensional burial cloth. Further, the parts of the body that were not in contact with the burial cloth were reproduced on the cloth. (3)

"The shading found throughout the man’s frontal image corresponds precisely with the subtle distances each part of his body was from the cloth. This feature was surprisingly demonstrated with computer imaging technology that displays relief or depth only when the lightness or darkness within a picture is directly correlated to its distance from the source of its encoding. For example, a normal photograph in a computer imaging device results in a distorted image. However when this computer imaging is applied to the Shroud image we get an undistorted three-dimensional image – the man’s features are undistorted because his nose, forehead, cheeks etc were all encoded in direct proportion to their various distances from the overlying cloth. (4)

The Body image is directionless: That is, if there had been painting or some method, modern technology could detect underlying brush strokes. Don Lynne and Jean Lorre were image processing specialists who worked in the mid to late 1970’s on various NASA space missions to planets such as Venus and Saturn. At the request of physicist John Jackson, Lynne and Lorre analysed the image: they scanned the image with a microdensimeter which digitally measures the density of photographic details. However, when this data was mathematically processed through a computer and displayed on a high resolution screen the only directional features found were on the weave of the cloth itself. (5).

A SUPERFICIAL BODY IMAGE

Exodus 12:10; And you shall let nothing of it remain until morning, but that of it which remains until the morning you shall burn with fire.

12:11; It is the Lord’s Passover.

Luke 17: 24; For as the lightening flashes and lights up the heavens from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day.

"Another remarkable feature of the Shroud’s body image is its superficiality. Its image resides only on the topmost fibres of the cloth’s threads; the colour does not penetrate into or between the threads. These fibres all consist of the same uniform colour throughout the complete full-length frontal and dorsal images: where one fibre crosses over another, it is white on the underlying fibre. When a fibre is cut into pieces, it is white on the inside. Only the outer layers of the individually encoded fibres are coloured. Remarkably, the colouring is found 360 degrees around each encoded or coloured fibre. If one part of the Shroud’s body image is darker than another, it is not because the fibres are encoded more intensely, rather, it is because a greater number of coloured fibres exist in that area. Neither this distribution nor type of superficial encoding had ever been seen before. (6).

Theories posited by the investigating scientists include the possibility of a burst of radiation emanating from the body itself.

If this is the case, then the electrical action– a burst of fire – complies with the requirement of the Passover Lamb that it be fully consumed on the evening of the Passover and, if any parts remain unconsumed, then they are to be subjected to destruction by fire. Tradition says that the Resurrection occurred at midnight.

THE BODY IMAGE DOES NOT CONSIST OF ARTIFICIAL MATERIAL AND DEVELOPS OVER TIME

The coloured body image fibres of the Shroud do not consist of any pigments, powders, dyes or artificial materials of any kind: They consist of oxidised, dehydrated cellulose: cellulose is a natural material found in all plants and fibres and is the raw material from which linen is made

"That is, while the background has naturally yellowed as the cloth aged, something caused its two full-length body images to yellow even further as the cloth naturally aged over time. Because the straw yellow colour on the body image blends in with the background linen, the eye sees very little contrast, especially when near the cloth. In order to properly see the full length body images with the naked eye it is necessary to stand 10-15 feet away. (7)

THE CONDITION OF THE VICTIM

The Shroud was studied from 1978 by American and Italian scientists as part of the STURP team of scientists. (7A). There are thousands of photographs of the body image.

Based on a wide variety of findings, first hand examinations and photographs, experts are agreed that the Shroud depicts the unique full-length frontal and dorsal images, wounds, blood marks and bodily reactions of an adult human male who was well-proportioned and of average height and weight. This man incurred a series of wounds, died during a crucifixion and was wrapped in a linen burial shroud.

The man’s blood flows and blood marks consist of real blood type AB – found in the Middle East. The Shroud’s blood marks not only have different features from the body images but they were encoded in a different manner – for example, they penetrate the cloth, causing the fibres to stick and matt together. (7A).

BLOOD

“The presence of serum around the wounds means that the Shroud’s bloodstains are composed, not only of real blood, but of whole blood. Other studies of bloodstained fibres confirmed the presence of bile pigments, serum-type proteins (such as albumin), and nonheme proteins adjacent to bloodstains – all of which are indicators of bleeding wounds. Tests by Fourier Transform Infrared microspectrophotometry and ultra-violet spectrophotometry confirm these finds by identifying the presence of bilirubin in the blood sample and yellow serum coated fibres from the Shroud. Biochemist Dr Allen Adler, of Western Connecticut State University, worked as a blood analysis chemist studying the Shroud. Dr Adler stated that the ultraviolet photographs of the man in the Shroud reveal that ‘every single blood wound shows a distinct serum clot retraction ring.” (19)

It was announced in 1997, after examining two blood samples taken from the Shroud at the back of his head, that Dr Victor Tryon of the University of Texas found human DNA with both X and Y chromosomes in the samples – confirming the samples were those of a male.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE IMAGE WITH THE CLOTH-THE BLOOD STAINS TELL A STORY

"Dr [Pierre] Barbet [in the early twentieth century] was among the first to notice the unique transfer of bloodstains on the cloth. As a battlefield surgeon in World War I, Barbet had seen countless dressings removed form soldiers’ wounds; these dressings covered injuries in various stages, ranging from fresh to several days old. In all of his experience never had he removed a dressing that showed the exact form of the underlying wounds or blood marks with such clean lines. Any one who has ever removed a tissue or bandage from a cut can attest to this same phenomenon: the blood on the bandage is not a mirror image of the coagulated blood that formed on the body. The Shroud exhibits an unusual correspondence between the blood visible on the Shroud and the man’s injuries. (20)

"Paul Vignon and Pierre Barbet found, after many attempts, that it was impossible to transfer blood to a linen cloth with anything like the precision shown on the Shroud…. The perfect-bordered, picture-like clots on the Shroud, it seemed could not be reproduced by staining.” (21).

"In describing the distinctive blood encoded throughout the Shroud, Dr Barbet noted that it was comprised of ‘stains with clearly marked edges which with such outstanding truthfulness reproduce the shape of the clots as they were formed naturally on the skin’”. (22).

The blood marks vary in depth, size and intensity. The man’s wounds were inflicted in different ways, with different instruments and at different times.

When seen with the naked eye, the blood marks retain a reddish colour. Yet blood marks, on exposure to air, should have long ago turned dark brown or black. The still reddish colour of the blood is not only immediately apparent to the eye, but, when the cloth is exposed to sunlight, it appears even redder.

Interestingly, to Barrie Schworz, a photographer who had been employed by NASA and on the Los Alamos project and who was then engaged to record the Shroud by the US scientific team (STURP), the reddish colour of the blood was extremely significant. He was an orthodox Jew who had become an atheist and was initially sceptical of, or disinterested in, the Shroud.

During his many years of photographing the Shroud, he had become awestruck by the many aspects surrounding it and the questions the investigations raised. His main problem in completely accepting its authenticity however, was the fact that the blood was red - this defied his life experience. It was at this point that it was explained to him by Dr Adler that the presence of bilirubin indicated a change in the composition of the blood. This change, the production of bilirubin, occurs in blood under conditions of extreme torture. The bilirubin then acts to turn the blood red, and it thereafter remains red.

It was then that Mr Schworz became convinced of the authenticity of the Shroud. He stated that, “[a]fter 18 years of study, the full conviction [of its authenticity] came when I spoke to the blood chemistry expert, Allen Adler, another Jew who was part of the study group, and he explained why the red blood remained on the Shroud. The old blood would have to be black or brown, while the blood on the Shroud is a red-crimson. It seemed inexplicable, instead, to me, it was the last piece of the puzzle. “

THE BODY HAS TORTURE MARKS ALL OVER

Isaiah 1: 16; From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it.

THE HAIR AND BEARD ARE PLUCKED OUT

Isaiah 50:6; I gave…my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard.”

SCOURGE MARKS

Psalm 129.3; ‘The ploughmen ploughed upon my back; they made their furrows long.”

Isaiah 50:6: I gave my back to those who struck me.

John 19:1; Then, therefore, Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.

Isaiah 53:5; By His stripes, you are healed.

The man’s front and back, from his shoulders to his lower legs, are covered with an estimated 300 or more scourge marks – Roman citizens were limited as to the scourging permitted but the Jews, or other non-Roman citizens, were not. These dumbbell shaped patterns, which are most noticeable on the dorsal image, generally run parallel and diagonal across the body in groups of 2 or 3. Although all are approximately the same size, the scourge marks vary in intensity from light contusions to deep punctures and close examination reveals the presence of blood in many of them. (9)

Because the scourge marks have 2 lobes, these wounds must have been inflicted with a bifid instrument. The form and distribution of these marks led medical examiners to believe they were caused by a whip or cordlike device containing metal or some other object capable of tearing flesh. In particular, these wounds match, in size and shape, the Roman flagrum. The flagrum, a whip used for flagellation, had pellets of lead, (or sometimes, bone) at the end of a pair of leather thongs. These unusual marks and their similarity to the flagrum led medical experts to conclude that the man in the Shroud must have been whipped or scourged.

Since the scourge marks are more numerous and visible on the dorsal view, physicians further believe the man was whipped from behind. Since the man’s arms, head and feet seem to be the only areas that escaped scourging, we can assume that his arms were elevated above his body during the scourging, or that his hands were tied to a pillar or post in front of him while he was whipped from behind. (10)

Modern technology has revealed scourge marks that are not visible to the naked eye and confirm they occurred on a human body. When examined by photography, microscopes and ultraviolet lighting, each scourge mark reveals slightly indented centres and upraised edges, just as would be inflicted by a bifid object on human skin. Moreover a halo of lighter colour surrounds the scourge marks that chemical testing and photography under ultraviolet light confirms is blood serum. (11)

According to Dr Adler, the upraised edges, indented centres and serum surrounding the scourge marks illustrate precisely the process called syneresis, which occurred when a blood clot forms then retracts. During coagulation, red blood cells and serum separate; the red blood cells bond to form a blood clot which then retracts in the wound. As the clot shrinks, the serum is squeezed out and settles around the wound.

These intimate details of the scourge marks are not visible to the naked eye – only by photography and when enlarged and then examined under a microscope. Photography under ultraviolet light is necessary to reveal the serum-fluorescing borders and to observe those marks invisible to the naked eye, (pretty amazing achievement for a medieval forger)!.

FACIAL AND HEAD WOUNDS

On close examination, the man’s nose, which is bruised and swollen, shows a deviation, possibly an indication of separation of the cartilage. The areas above each eye appear swollen and the face exhibits signs of having been beaten. A number of wounds are visible on the top middle and sides of the man’s forehead: Altogether more than a dozen blood flows have been counted on the front of the head alone. The blood marks flow in different directions, which seems to indicate the head was in different positions when the blood was flowing. (12).

THE CROWN:

Psalm 69: 7; “Humiliation has covered my face.”

Isaiah 53:3; Despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity.

Matthew 27: 29; Plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on His head and a reed in His right hand.

Circling the head is another series of blood marks as scalp wounds. Dr Sebastiano Rodante has identified twenty separate blood flows on the head.

The wounds support the theory that the man was wearing a cap made of sharp pointed objects that encased his whole head; this is in keeping with the Eastern crown and in contrast to the pictorial renditions of Christ as Crowned with the thorns resembling a medieval crown. This was a crown of thorns that rendered Jesus a figure of humiliation, in contrast to the medieval focus on majesty. (13).

HAND AND ARM WOUNDS

Unlike the nearly unanimous pictorial portrayal throughout the centuries of Jesus as crucified through his hands, this man’s nail wounds are in his wrist.

Although the right wrist is covered by the left hand, similar blood flow patterns are observed on both wrists and arms, showing that the victim’s hands were higher than his head.

The absence of a thumb image is significant, and a factor that no medieval forger would have considered – that is, when the wrist has been pierced by a nail, the thumb spontaneously contracts inward towards the palm. Experiments by Dr Barbet, who was an autopsy surgeon and anatomist, showed that such injury to the median nerve causes contraction of the thumb – a feature of the image in the Shroud. (14).

CARRYING THE CROSS – SHOULDER INJURIES

John 19:17; He went out, carrying His own cross, to a place called the Place of the Skull. (15).

Two broad excoriated areas are present across the shoulder blades, consistent with surface abrasions caused by contact between skin and a heavy rough object. (15A)

Examination shows that the scourging must have preceded the shoulder abrasions. The Shroud contains evidence of falls – scratches, lesions and abrasions on the man’s knees have been revealed by white light photos and by ultraviolet fluorescent lighting. Microscopic examination of the image also discloses particles of dirt on the front of the knees nose and bottom of the feet.

LEG AND FOOT WOUNDS

Psalm 22: 16; Like a lion they pin my hands and feet.

Zechariah 12:10; So they look to Me, whom they have pierced through.

John 19: 17-18; Golgotha – they crucified Him.

John 1: 5-6; This is He who came by water and blood- Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.

Detailed study of the lower extremities reveals two large blood marks on the front of the feet the larger of which has surrounding border that fluoresces under ultraviolet light. The Shroud thus reveals a man who was nailed to the cross with two nails for his arms and a longer one for His feet. (16) The nailing of the wrists was shown to have pierced in a cavity in the skeletal structure - that is, not to have broken the bone.

LEGS NOT BROKEN

Ex 12:46; Nor shall you break a bone of it (the Paschal lamb).

John 19: 33; They did not break His legs.

John 19: 36; For these things happened so that the Scripture should be fulfilled ‘Not one of His bones shall be broken.’”

The only other remains of a crucifixion victim, also crucified in the first century AD exhibit broken fibula and tibias. Although there is a dislocation of the shoulder which is evident on the man in the Shroud, his legs were not broken. (17)

CHEST WOUND - THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB:

Exodus 24:5-11; Then Moses took the Blood of the Covenant and threw it on the people and said: Behold the Blood of the Covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with these words.

John 19:34; One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out.

On the right side of the man’s chest, located between the 5th and 6th ribs, a large side wound is apparent. This wound accounts for the biggest concentration of blood on the Shroud. All medical authorities agree that this blood flow resulted from a post-mortem wound – the blood having flowed from the force of gravity, not by a pumping heart, with no swelling surrounding the wound. So much fluid poured from this wound that it collected in a puddle at his back when he was placed in a horizontal position after death. The side wound is darker and more copious than the other blood patterns, yet it is interrupted by clear watery fluid, quite visible in photographs. Pathologist Robert Bucklin hypothesises that the blood came from the heart and the watery fluid from the pleural cavity in the chest. (18)

"The only times in history that such a flow of blood and water has been recorded was when Jesus was crucified. Christians regarded the flow of blood and water as a miracle. A spear thrust at an upward angel at the location of the side wound on the man in the shroud aligns perfectly with the right auricle of the heart which fills with blood upon death. This would allow the blood and watery fluid from the pleural cavity to flow vertically by gravity from this post-mortem wound. (27).

THE CLOTH

Textile expert Dr Fleury-Lemberg found that the linen cloth of the Shroud does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high quality product of textile workers of the 1st century AD. Further, there are no traces of wool even though cotton was found. Jewish practice forbade the mixture of linen and wool. (23).

POLLEN GRAIN ANALYSIS

Samples were analysed of 58 pollen grains on the shroud, including 16 plants that are only found in sandy or desert environments and not in Europe and seven plants that are only found in the Middle East areas of Anatolia, extending to the Mediterranean. (24)

Dr Avinoam Danin, Professor of botany at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, confirmed previous findings in concluding that the only place in the world that all 28 of the Shroud’s flower species could be found was Jerusalem and- interestingly - they all bloom in March or April, that is, Easter. (25).

The Jewish burial custom required burial before sunset. Romans however buried crucifixion victims in a mass grave. Fine linen cloth was unusual for a crucifixion victim. The Romans allowed the Jewish to perform their burial customs only for a short window of time, from 6AD to 66AD, a window which was finished with the Jewish War. (26).

A RELIC THAT RAISES MORE QUESTIONS THE MORE IT IS EXAMINED

Whether or not those connected with the dating of the Shroud were of bad faith, Masons, or objectively compromised, there remain significant and unexplained, (and scientifically inexplicable), issues that have been obscured by the media emphasis on the dating, (as perhaps they were meant to, if we accept Cardinal Ballestrero’s view).

In summary;

True three-dimensional distance information had never been encoded on a two-dimensional image before. Could a medieval forger have created three dimensional imagery on a two-dimensional fabric?

Would a medieval forger have forged an item that waited 800 years to reveal its most significant aspect – the face of Christ in the negative?

And, how would a medieval forger have had the medical knowledge to produce the image with its complex medical accuracy?

The wonderful irony contained in the Shroud is that, the more we develop in scientific skills of investigation, the less we have answers - that is, it was actually easier in the medieval times and any time up to the invention of photography and then even more so, later science, to dismiss the Shroud as a forgery; now it's a bit more of a problem, (and it keeps getting worse)....

If the Shroud is the work of a medieval forger, as the carbon-dating scientists and journalists would have us believe, the forger was a genius and this forgery must be one of the most marvellous miracles of all.

Biblical references and links to the Shroud characteristics are taken from Professor Guilio Fanti, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padua, Italy, “Science and Christian Faith: The Example of the Turin Shroud. Glob J Arch & Anthropol 2019; 8(1) 555726, DOI.

(1) Authorhouse, 2010, at pp. 57 et seq.

(2) Forefront, 2015, at p. 317.

(3) Ibid., at p. 3.

(4) Ibid., at pp. 4-5.

(5) Ibid., at p. 6.

(6) Ibid., at pp. 10-11.

(7) Ibid., at p. 11.

(7A) STURP: Shroud of Turin Research Project, formed in the 1970's, constituted by US scientists and related experts, from various disciplines, including Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratories, universities, defence academies and the US Weapons Laboratories.

(7A) Ibid., at p. 17.

(9) Ibid,, at p. 10.

(10) Ibid.

(11) Ibid., at p. 20.

(12) Ibid., at p. 21.

(13) Ibid., at p. 22.

(14) Ibid., at pp. 26-27.

(15) Jewish lore said that Golgotha was the Place of the Skull and the Skull was – Adam.

(15A) Ibid., at p. 28.

(16) Opcit., at p 22.

(17) Ibid., at p. 69.

(18) Ibid., at p. 31.

(19) Ibid., at p. 33.

(20) Ibid., at p. 38.

(21) Ibid., at p. 39.

(22) Ibid.

(23) Ibid., at p. 49.

(24) Ibid., at pp. 78-79.

(25) Ibid., at p. 63.

(26) Ibid.

(27) Ibid., at p. 93.