The Shroud of Turin

By Lindsay Neumann

 

“In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood on a stone slab.  Suddenly there is a burst of mysterious power from it.  In that instant the blood dematerializes, dissolved perhaps by the flash, while its image and that of the body become indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity, a literal ‘snapshot’ of the Resurrection.” – Ian Wilson

 

                                                                                                                                               Located in St. John’s Cathedral in Turin, Italy, is one of today’s most controversial pieces of archeology.  It is a linen cloth bearing the imprint of a crucified man, whom many believe to be Jesus of Nazareth.  But how could this cloth, discovered in the fourteenth century, be the burial cloth of Christ?  There are many theories as to how the cloth might have been created, but none of them have been proven true.  If the shroud was to be proven a fraud, or the actual burial cloth of Christ, how would that affect the faith of millions around the world?

                                                                                                                                   To really understand why people believe the shroud has the image of Jesus on it, we first need to know exactly what the image looks like.  The shroud is a three feet by fourteen feet piece of linen.  The linen appears to be hand-woven with a herringbone twill.  On the cloth is a faint image, of what looks like a crucified man.  The image is most clearly seen from a distance.  The fronts of the shoulders and the backs of the knees don’t appear on the cloth, while the fronts of the knees, the nose and other areas are darker in coloring than rest of the cloth.  This gives the image a three-dimensional look.  The man appears to be about 5’7”.  The wounds that the man has closely resemble those describes in the Bible when Jesus was crucified.  He has wounds in his wrists and on the tops of his feet.  He also has puncture wounds on his scalp and forehead, with blood flows dripping down.  This is one of the reasons that many believe that this is the image of Jesus, because the crown of thorns could possibly have caused the wounds on his head.  Other evidence that points to the image being that of Jesus is the scourge marks on the back, a beaten face and swollen eye, and a wound in the side from a blade.  Studies on the cloth show that the blade used was a typical Roman lance.   Another reason that makes this man appear to be Jesus is that he didn’t have broken legs.  The shroud also had burn marks from the fires that it has been through, plus four sets of three holes in the cloth.  These markings are probably from a fire poker being plunged into the cloth while it was folded in fourths.

                                                                                                                                   But what makes the shroud so interesting, and has kept people believing it to be the actually burial shroud of Christ, is the fact that the image on the shroud is not a positive image.  In other words, the shroud is actually a photographic negative; the “positive image” of the shroud is seen only in black and white photo negatives. 

                                                                                                                                   On the other side of the controversy, however, there is also evidence to negate the conclusion that this shroud was that of the crucified Christ.  One reason that many doubt the authenticity of the shroud is that no one can trace the shroud back any farther than the mid-1300’s.  A knight, named Geoffrey de Charny1, some how acquired the shroud and brought it to Bishop Pierre D’Arcis saying that it was the burial shroud of Christ.  D’Arcis put the shroud on display for the public in 1357.  History says that another bishop, Bishop Henri De Poiters, discovered that the shroud was a fraud and that he also found out who the painter of it was.  He then ordered the exhibition stopped.  D’Arcis then wrote to the Pope telling him that the shroud wasn’t real, but only a painting.  This letter is called the D’Arcis Memorandum.  But the Pope, despite the letter, told D’Arcis to keep the shroud on display.  Many churchmen during that time, however, continued to believe that the shroud was a fraud.

                                                                                                                                   Later on, in the year 1532, the shroud was being kept in Sainte-Capella, in Chambery, France.  There was a fire in the church and it nearly destroyed the shroud.  The shroud was being stored in a silver box, and the box began to melt, which caused severe burn markings running down either side of the shroud image.  The Poor Clare nuns repaired the shroud by sewing patches on it.  A second fire that nearly destroyed the shroud was on April 11, 1997.  A fireman, Mario Trematore saved the shroud from the fire.

                                                                                                                                   Since the late 1800’s the shroud has been owned by the Savoy family.  Umberto Savoy is currently the king of Italy.  The shroud is very highly honored among the Savoy family.  As the owners of the shroud they have put it on public display only for special occasions.  In 1898, the viewing was held in honor of King Savoy’s father, Victor Emmanuel III’s wedding.  The shroud was again displayed in 1931 in honor of Umberto’s wedding.  A viewing held in 1933 was in honor of the 1900th anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection. 

                                                                                                                                   A huge break through involving the shroud took place in 1898, when Secondo Pia took the first ever photographs of the shroud2.  What Pia discovered was that the image on the shroud was really like a photographic negative.  His negative of the photo showed the positive image of the man in the shroud.  Many people thought the Pia’s photos had been tampered with to show this kind of result.  But then in 1931, Giuseppe Enrie took photographs of the shroud and came up with the same results, a positive image3.  The question arose of how a painter of the 14th century could paint a negative image?

                                                                                                                                   In order to find out the king said he would favor scientific tests on the shroud.  So in 1969 a secret commission was sent to investigate the shroud.  Their results were inconclusive.  They didn’t have the technology to do as much testing as they wanted to.

                                                                                                                                   Then in 1988, three laboratories took samples of the shroud for carbon 14 dating4, hopefully to find out when the shroud was created.  On October 13, 1988, they held a press conference to announce the results of the tests.  The carbon-14 test puts the origination of the shroud between 1260-1390 AD.  But many still believe that the shroud originated in the first century.  They say that the carbon-14 dating wouldn’t be very accurate because the shroud had been handled and it had been through fires.  It was also a possibility that there was a coating on the shroud samples that made it test younger than it actually was.  Others argue that the samples used for the tests had different threads than the rest of the shroud. Dr Michael Tite, from the British Museum, was even accused of switching the shroud samples with linen from the Middle Ages.  Whatever the case, if the shroud is truly from the first century, we need to discover how 3 laboratories came up with later dates.

                                                                                                                                               One of the most common theories of how the shroud was created is the painting theory5.  Many people believe that a 14th century artist painted the shroud, although there is no trace of how it was done.  One reason that many do believe that the shroud is a fraud is that during the Middle Ages many ancient relics were forged or copied.  A church in Constantinople and another in Angeli claimed to have the head of John the Baptist6.  So it is easy to see why many believed it was created by an artist.  There is much speculation as to who the artist may have been.  Two artists that are commonly considered to be the creators of the shroud are Michelangelo and DaVinci, because both of these medieval artists were known for making counterfeits.   Also DaVinci studied dead bodies, so he would have had some background knowledge of how to paint a man like we see on the shroud.  Many people believe that if the shroud was the work of an artist the artist very well could have been Leonardo DaVinci, of one of his students.  But this is impossible since DaVinci was not born until the 15th century, a good 100 years after the shroud’s discovery.                                                                                                                                               In contrast, there is much evidence that point to the fact that the shroud image is not painted on.  One fact is that the image is only in the top layer of the fibers.  There are also no brush strokes evident on the shroud, no signs of pigments, dyes, or powders.  Pigment could not have created the 3-D image that we see on the shroud.  Then there is the evidence from the fire in 1532.  The shroud was being stored in a silver box and during the fire the silver box began to melt.  For the silver to melt the temperature of the fire had to reach over 200 degrees Celsius.  If the shroud is a painting and it was exposed to that kind of heat, there would have been a significant change in the pigmentation, and there is none.  Also the fire could have burned the pigment.  If water had been used to put out the fire, it would have caused the pigment to run.

                                                                                                                                   But there is even more evidence that says that the shroud could not have been painted, especially by an artist in the 1300’s.  Artists at the time of the shrouds discovery had little interest in archeology7, and for an artist to paint in the detail that is on the shroud he would have to have been and expert in archeology.  For example, it was commonly believed, at the time of the shroud discovery, that when someone was crucified they were nailed to the cross through the hands.  On the shroud however, the nail marks are through the wrists.  Some might argue that this proves the shroud is fake and the artist of it simply made a mistake.  After all, the Bible says the nails were driven through Jesus’ hands.  But the Greek word for hands, which was used in the Bible, often means wrists and arms as well.  Also it is impossible to nail someone to a cross by putting the nails through the hands.  Dr. Peirre Barbet discovered this in 1932, when he crucified a dead body8.  If the nails were driven through the hands the man could have easily fallen off the cross, but if they were put through the wrists he wouldn’t be able to pull away from the cross.

                                                                                                                                   Then there is the fact that the shroud image is really a photographic negative.  No one could have painted that on accident.  The artist would have had to be trained to paint a negative, and photography didn’t exist in the 14th century.  Why would someone paint a negative almost 500 years before his work could be appreciated?  Even today no one could paint a photographic negative with the detail like that of the shroud.  Therefore, scientists have rejected all painting theories considered.

                                                                                                                                   But the painting theory isn’t the only one.  There are many, many other theories.  A common one is that the natural decaying processes caused the image.  The body sweats and burial spices, in combination with the decaying body may have caused the image to be imprinted on the cloth.  But in 1939, tests were conducted to see if burial spices could have made the image.  They did create an image, but it wasn’t nearly as clear as the shroud’s image. 

                                                                                                                                   Another theory is that of Walter McCrone.  He speculated that iron oxide was used to create the shroud image9.  But there is hardly any on the shroud.  Plus iron oxide is red, not yellow, like the image on the shroud.  Lynn Picknett and Clive Price say that the shroud is an actual photograph, done by DaVinci because Pope Innocent VIII ordered it.  A South African professor, Nicholas Allen, agrees with them, but he cannot explain how the bloodstains got on the cloth. Some believe that the image is that of a crucified crusader, but they cannot explain the negative image.  Joe Nickell, a magician, believes the shroud image was created by a bass relief, by rubbing aloes on a cloth that is stretched over a three dimensional image.  Nickell has created several face images, like that of the shroud, but his faces lack the clarity that the shroud has10. 

                                                                                                                                   Another major possibility of how the shroud was created is that somehow the image of Jesus was scorched onto the cloth.  The theory that heat and light may have created the image is most probable because the properties of the image are nearly identical to the other burned areas on the shroud11.  It could be that a statue of a crucified man was heated and then had the cloth wrapped around it, but what about the bloodstains?  Or is it possible that the resurrection caused enough heat and light to scorch Jesus’ image onto the cloth?

                                                                                                                                   It is clear that no one has been able to come up with significant evidence as to how the shroud was forged.  In recent studies people have come to the conclusion that there must have been an actual body in the shroud at one point in time.  Could it have been the body of Jesus Christ?  Many people believe so.  But still other’s say that it cannot be true.  First there is the fact no one can trace the shroud back past the 14th century.  That’s true, but there is other evidence that suggests the shroud did exist before then.   The shrouds weave is common for New Testament times.  There is pollen on the shroud that is not found in Italy, which suggests that the shroud has been in places other than just Italy12.  Also many paintings of Christ before the 1300’s bear many similarities to the face seen in the shroud.  In fact, with evidence from paintings the shroud can be traced back to the 6th century13.  A lot of the artwork prior to the 6th century pictured Christ beardless, but since that time almost all artwork shows Christ with a beard.  The shroud face may have inspired this idea of Christ having a beard.  In a 10th century painting of Christ, there are numerous similarities to the face in the shroud.                                                                                                                                                                                The shroud also closely lines up with scripture.  The image on the shroud is consistent with the New Testament account of Jesus’ death and burial.  The shroud also does not conflict with Jewish burial methods.  For instance they say that if a man dies and there is blood not to clean the blood before wrapping the body.  That would explain the blood on the shroud.  There is also the fact that Jesus was buried in a hurry because it was the Sabbath14, and in Jewish tradition the dead must be buried before the Sabbath begins.  Also, the way that the blood flows proves that the body that was in the shroud was not removed by being unwrapped or moved.  In addition, the body didn’t have contact with the shroud for more than four days (that is when severe decomposition occurs.)  According to scripture, Jesus’ body did not have contact with the cloth for more than three days.  But some say that the resurrection didn’t occur, that Jesus didn’t die but merely fainted on the cross.  This was disproved when scientists discovered how torturous crucifixion was15.  As far as proof for the resurrection, Jesus himself predicted he would rise again.  The story of the resurrection wasn’t changed or added to, and there were eyewitnesses to a risen Jesus.

                                                                                                                                  

With so much evidence surrounding the shroud trying to prove it or disprove it, it is hard to know what conclusions to draw.  Could this piece of linen discovered in the 14th century really be the burial cloth of Christ?  And if it is, how was the image made?  Was it a painting, a burn mark, or a supernatural force?  No one knows for sure.  If the shroud were proven to be Christ’s it would serve as further proof of the truth of the gospels.  But if it were proven a fraud, it would not take away from the truth.  It wouldn’t hinder Christian faith because Christianity is based on a relationship with Jesus, not on any single artifact.

 

 

Endnotes

1 Gary R. Habermas and Kenneth E. Stevenson, Verdict on the Shroud (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1980) 100

                  2 Robert K. Wilcox, Shroud (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1977) 4

3 Robert K. Wilcox, Shroud (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1977) 5

4 David Van Bienna “Science and the Shroud” TIME Magazine April 1998:  2

5 Gary R. Habermas and Kenneth E. Stevenson, Verdict on the Shroud (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1980) 110

6 David Van Bienna “Science and the Shroud” TIME Magazine April 1998:  3 

7 Ian Wilson, The Mysterious Shroud (Garden City:  Doubleday and Company, 1986) 13, 31

8 Robert K. Wilcox, Shroud (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1977) 14

9 Ian Wilson, The Blood and the Shroud (New York: Touch Stone, 1998) 9-10

10 Ian Wilson, The Blood and the Shroud (New York: Touch Stone, 1998) 9-10

11 Gary R. Haberhas and Kenneth E. Stevenson, Verdict on the Shroud (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1980) 144            

12 Ian Wilson, The Mysterious Shroud (Garden City:  Doubleday and Company, 1986) 43

13 Ian Wilson, The Mysterious Shroud (Garden City:  Doubleday and Company, 1986) 110

14 Gary R. Habermas and Kenneth E. Stevenson, Verdict on the Shroud (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1980) 100

15 Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1998)  196-200

 

Works Cited

 

 Habermas, Gary R. and Kenneth E. Stevenson.  Verdict on the Shroud.  Ann Arbor: Servant books.  1980

 

Heller, John H.  Report on the Shroud of Turin.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.  1983

 

Nickell, Joe.  Inquest on the Shroud.  Buffalo Prometheus Books. 1983

 

Strobel, Lee.  The Case for Christ.  Grand Rapids:  Zondervan Publishing House. 1998

 

VanBienna, David.  “Science and the Shroud.”  TIME magazine.  April 20, 1998

 

 Wilcox, Robert K.  Shroud.  New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. 1977

 

Wilson, Ian.  The Blood and the Shroud.  New York:  Touchstone, 1998

 

 Wilson, Ian.  The Mysterious Shroud.  Garden City:  Doubleday and Company Inc.  1986