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This is the sixth installment of my resumed Shroud of Turin News from June 2022. I have a lot less time now than I had in 2022, as I am now almost every day writing my book,"Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" (see 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22 & 8 Nov 22). However, I need to keep up-to-date with Shroud news articles for my book. So I will now only post the bare minimum of each important Shroud news article and briefly comment on it. Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated. My words are bold to distinguish them from the articles'.
Lanser, R., 2022, "Further Ruminations on the Shroud of Turin," Associates for Biblical Research, 5 June. A recent episode of ABR's Digging for Truth program presented an interview with John Long,
[Right (enlarge)] who has been researching the Shroud of Turin for the past 40 years. He presented an overview of features seen in its mysterious image, showing how they are consistent with Scripture's description of the agonies Christ endured in the crucifixion. Such details as blood stains corresponding to a crown of thorns, angled streams of blood on the arms that accurately reflect how gravity would have affected their flow, dumbbell-shaped pockmarks front and back that match those on Roman lead-tipped whips, no indication of broken legs, wounds in the wrists rather than the palms, and a spear wound in the side were discussed. The blood stains on the fabric are genuine human blood, type AB. No known mechanism can explain how the image could have been made by the hand of man. Taken together, these factors argue strongly that the Shroud covered the crucified body of Christ Indeed! ... Turning now to exegetical matters ... In the gospel of John chapter 20 verses six and seven we see specifically that John talks about how Peter entered the tomb and that "he saw the linen cloths lying there" — vs 6, and then in vs 7 it says "and the handkerchief that had been around his head not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself." Now from what I've seen of the shroud and any research that's been done, to this point ... the shroud is one piece including the head. That does not match up with the scripture. First, as I have posted previously (e.g. 11Jul12 & 08May18), this commits an error of logic, that if there were two (or more) cloths in the empty tomb, one of them cannot be the Shroud! Scripture clearly states that the linen cloth was folded together in a place by itself. It doesn't. It says "the face cloth" (soudarion) was "rolled up in one place by itself." (Jn 20:7). I do not believe that the shroud is real, simply because it does not match up with scripture. Second, it assumes that the Shroud (sindon) was in the empty tomb, when none of the Gospels says it was. As Beecher rightly pointed out, "After the resurrection there is no mention of the Sindon as having been found in the tomb":"The three Synoptic Evangelists, Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke, tell us that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Our Lord in a Sindon (Matt. xxvii. 59; Mark xv. 46; Luke xxiii. 53). The Sindon was a large white linen sheet that covered the entire body. The Evangelists carefully distinguish between it and the sudarium (napkin), which latter was in shape and size like a handkerchief, and was used for the head. In addition, as we know from St. John (xix. 40), linen cloths (ta othonia) were used, with spices, according to Jewish custom. After the resurrection there is no mention of the Sindon as having been found in the tomb. St. John tells us that Peter `saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin that had been about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place' (xx. 6,7). And St. Luke tells us that `Peter rising up, ran to the sepulchre, and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths laid by themselves' (xxiv. 12)"[BP28, 16].Likewise Bulst:"Most interpreters of Scripture, Catholic and non-Catholic, take the Sindon of the Synoptics as a large cloth and distinguish it from the cloths mentioned by John: the Othonia, taken to be bandages, and the Sweat Cloth ... The most serious difficulty in this interpretation is that John makes no mention at all of the Sindon, the largest of the cloths and the one here under discussion - neither at the burial of Lazarus or Jesus, nor at the discovery of the cloths on Easter morning. No satisfactory solution for this startling silence has as yet been proposed. His reticence cannot be accidental, for John puts great value on the different cloths and their arrangement in the tomb, especially in his account of their discovery on Easter morning ..."[BW57, 83-84]The "satisfactory solution" for this "silence," which is not "startling," is that John 20:6-7 explicitly says that what Peter and John saw in the empty tomb was the othonia i.e. "strips of linen" (Jn 20:6) and the soudarion i.e. "face cloth" (Jn 20:7), not the sindon "Shroud". See my 06Nov14 that the sindon wasn't in the emtpy tomb because the resurrected Jesus took it with him, as Beecher concluded:
"But the fact that St. Luke does not now mention the Sindon, which had occupied his attention previously, but speaks of cloths [othonia] instead, would indicate that the Sindon was not in the tomb. And this is very significant in connection with what St. Jerome tells us, on the authority of the Gospel to the Hebrews (a work from which he often quotes), namely, that Our Lord kept His Sindon with Him when He arose from the dead"[BP28, 17]."The Shroud of Turin defies its sceptics," William West, 12 July, 2022. Even though it failed a carbon-dating test 40 years ago, new findings suggest that the scientists were wrong ... In April 2022 new tests on the Shroud of Turin — believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ — dated it to the first century. See below. This dating contradicted a 1980s carbon dating that suggested the Shroud was from the Middle Ages. Some people would have been surprised, but not anyone who had been following the build-up of evidence indicating the Shroud is authentic. A total of four tests have now dated the Shroud to the first century. It was already four (see 22May22b):
| Test | Max/Min | Range |
| Vanillin | 150 BC ±850 | 1000 BC-AD 700 |
| FT-IR | 300 BC ±400 | 700 BC-AD 100 |
| Raman | 200 BC ± 500 | 700 BC-AD 300 |
| Mechanical | 400 AD ± 400 | AD 0 - AD 800 |
So all four tests yield a date range in which Jesus' death in AD 30 falls!
In addition, an immense body of other evidence suggests the cloth, which appears to carry an image of Jesus's crucified body, is genuine ... Only days before the new dating results were announced, one of the main players in the drama, British filmmaker David Rolfe, issued a million-dollar challenge to the British Museum to replicate the Shroud.
[Left (enlarge): David Rolfe holds up a negative image of the face on the Turin Shroud. See 22May22a.]
The Museum oversaw the carbon tests on the Shroud and Rolfe explained: "They said it was knocked up by a medieval conman, and I say: `Well, if he could do it, you must be able to do it as well. And if you can, there's a one-million-dollar donation for your funds.'" ... You would think if anyone could copy the Shroud, the British Museum could. It certainly has the resources: around a thousand employees, including research scientists, links to major universities — and I'm sure the museum would not refuse outside help. So, was Rolfe's bet risky? Those familiar with the evidence would say no. Given all we now know about the Shroud of Turin, and the fact that no one has ever been able to copy it or even explain how it was made, Rolfe's million dollars appears safe. A 22 February 2024 article in The Catholic Weekly said:
"After almost two years of no response from the British Museum, the challenge is being extended to the United States by the National Shroud of Turin Exhibit ..."!The most recent verification of its authenticity came in April this year 2022. A member of Italy's National Research Council, Dr Liberato de Caro, used a new X-ray technique designed specifically for dating linen. He used a method known as wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS), which he says is more reliable than carbon dating. See 22May22c:
"The first published paper from 2019 demonstrated the reliability of the new X-ray dating technique on a series of samples, taken from linen fabrics ranging in age from 3000 BC to 2000 AD (see black, red, green and blue curves in the figure below ... These curves show that the
[Above ( enlarge[PE22]): Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) curves. The green "2000 years" curve is from a linen sample recovered from the Jewish fortress Masada which was conquered by the Romans in AD 74 and never occupied again. The orange curve is from a Shroud sample. As can be seen, the Shroud sample's WAXS curve very closely matches that of the 1st century Masada sample!]
sample of the Shroud of Turin (orange curve in the picture) should be much older than the approximately seven centuries indicated by the radio-dating carried out in 1988." This makes it a total of five tests which have now dated the Shroud to the first century!
He said this was because carbon dating can be dramatically wrong due to contamination of the thing being dated... These days, if anyone asks me if I really think "that Shroud thing" could be Jesus' burial cloth with his image on it, all I can say is: given the evidence, I can't think what else it could be. I am open to being talked out of this view, but so far nobody has managed to do it. Whatever your own view, following the trail of evidence is possibly the most fascinating and rewarding journey you will ever undertake. This is partly because the case for the Shroud does not hinge on a single fact — certainly not on the radiocarbon date. It involves many interlocking facts — a big picture painted by intriguing details. My experience is that the Shroud asks more unanswerable questions than anything on the planet ...
"Shroud of Turin is a puzzle that only fits together one way, former Australian journalist says," The Catholic Leader, Joe Higgins, 20 July 2022 ... THE Shroud of Turin is a four and a half metre long, one metre wide The dimensions of the Shroud are ~438 x ~113.35 cms (see 08Apr20), or ~4.4 x ~1.1 m. linen cloth bearing the front and back image of a scourged, crucified man. Since it appeared in 1578 The Shroud didn't appear in 1578 - that was the year the Shroud was transferred from Chambery, France to Turin, Italy (see "1578a"). The Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at an exposition in c. 1355, at Lirey, France (see "c.1355"), many believers have venerated the Shroud as the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. It has also been the subject of scrutiny by sceptics. The Holy See, which has had custody of the Shroud since 1983, has never taken a definitive stance on the Shroud's authenticity As I have stated before (e.g. 29May21), it is duplicitous (i.e. "two-faced"), of the Vatican to refuse to confirm or deny that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet. By its actions of spending the equivalent of tens (if not hundreds) of millions of US dollars preserving the Shroud and exhibiting it to millions of people as though it is Jesus' burial sheet, the Vatican clearly does believe that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet, so it should say so. Shroud sceptics cite the Vatican's refusal to state that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet as evidence that it is not. I am not being anti-Catholic in this, I am being pro-Shroud and pro-truth! but many popes have visited it and attested to its devotional power. Former journalist and Sydney Catholic William West [Below (original[HJ22])], who spent nearly 
20 years at The Australian and has been founding editor of multiple publications, weighed into the debate with his book, Riddles of the Shroud – Questions Science Can't Answer. He began his research with an open mind and found that the more he researched, the more his opinion swung from believer to sceptic to believer again ... he thought the best story would be to show the Shroud was a fake but over time he was drawn to a single conclusion – "Given the evidence, I can't think what else it could be" other than the burial cloth of Jesus. ... For Mr West, the most perplexing part about the Shroud was the image of the crucified man. "No one can explain it," he said. Despite many attempts at reproducing the image from organisations as well-resourced as the British Museum, Mr West said no one had ever reproduced a convincing replica. "The most intriguing fact about the Shroud is that, from what we now know, the only possible explanation for the impossible image on the cloth is that it is a miracle." The book points to many questions about the Shroud that no one has been able to answer despite more than a century of scientific research. "Blood chemistry and other forensic details indicate that the man on the cloth is real, that the wounds are real, and the blood is real," he said. ... "And then there is the well-known fact that the Shroud image has been shown by modern technology to be a photo-like, high-resolution, three-dimensional, negative image – something that can't be done today, let alone in the Middle Ages. "The simple fact is that no medieval forger could have conceived all the impossible features of the Shroud, let alone have created them. ... Agreed! I have West's book, but I have only dipped into it. His Chapter 11, "99 Questions that Science Can't Answer," might be helpful in writing my book.
"Holy Shroud of Turin’s Authenticity Can No Longer Be Disputed, Expert Asserts," National Catholic Register, Solène Tadié, 30 December 2022. The Shroud of Turin, which is believed to have wrapped Jesus’ body after his Crucifixion ... some seeing it as a simple icon symbolizing the death and resurrection of Christ, while others remain convinced of its authenticity because of the numerous studies supporting this idea. French historian Jean-Christian Petitfils [1944-]
[Left (enlarge) Jean-Christian Petitfils in 2012[JPW].]
is one of the latter.
The four decades he has devoted to the study of the Shroud have convinced him that the face unveiled to the world by the Italian photographer Secondo Pia [1855-1941] in 1898 is indeed that of Jesus Christ in the tomb, as he explained in this interview with the Register.His extensive investigation, which compiled and analyzed all the studies ever made on the precious relic ... was recently published under the title ... The Shroud of Turin: The Definitive Investigation! ... My study is definitive in the sense that there is such a body of evidence that there is no going back on the discussion of authenticity. Agreed. The evidence really is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet! And Shroud sceptics don't comprehensively grapple with that evidence, so it will remain unrefuted and more are being added! This is what is important. In the future, researchers will be called upon to discuss many other topics. For example, it is still unknown how the image was formed on the linen ... It remains an extraordinary mystery. Disagree. Jackson's Cloth Collapse Theory, coupled with the ENEA experiment, that "a flash of light at short wavelength ... [does] fit the requirements for reproducing the main features of the Shroud image":
"One of the assumptions related to the formation of the image was that regarding some form of electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short wavelength), which could fit the requirements for reproducing the main features of the Shroud image, such as superficiality of color, color gradient, the image also in areas of the body not in contact with the cloth and the absence of pigment on the sheet"[TM11"].And that is consistent with The Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-2; Mk 9:2-3; Lk 9:28-29), where Jesus' "face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light," "his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them," that Jesus' resurrection (implied by Lk 9:30-31 where during The Transfiguration "Moses and Elijah ... appeared in glory and spoke of his [Jesus'] departure [Gk. exodus] which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem") produced intense light which imprinted His image on the Shroud. (see 23Jun15, 05Sep16, 05Feb17, 09Sep23).
... I have been interested in the Shroud of Turin for 44 years, and it has fascinated me for the historical, archaeological and scientific mystery it represents. ... the Shroud gives us information about the Passion of Christ. We know, for example, that he was flogged very violently, in the Roman way, and not in the Jewish way, with a flagrum, which had two small balls and a barbell between them, the trace of which can be seen under a microscope. We can see that he was indeed crowned with thorns, that he was speared on the right side. The type of Roman spear used has even been identified, as there were several of them ... I was really surprised by the results of the carbon-14 analysis, in 1988-89, insofar as they were in contradiction with very reliable previous works, such as those of ... professor Paul Vignon [1865-1943] in the 1930s, showing an absolute and perfect correspondence between the iconography of Christ, which appeared as early as the end of the fourth century, and the face of the man on the Shroud. A change of iconographic model occurred at this time, which corresponds to the arrival of this precious linen in the city of Edessa, in present-day Turkey. It therefore seems impossible that a forgery could have been made in the Middle Ages, in the years 1260-1390 — that is, the range provided by the radiocarbon laboratories. It is impossible that the Shroud is a forgery made in the years 1260-1390. For starters, the Shroud was indisputably exhibited in 1355, 45 years before the Shroud's latest 1390 possible radiocarbon date! And, see my post of 12Sep21a that there are at least 7 Byzantine icons, starting from the sixth century, which have up to 14 of the 15 "Vignon markings" found on the Shroud. See, for example, a side-by-side comparison below between one of them: the sixth century St Catherine's Sinai Pantocrator and the positive face of the Shroudman.
[Above (enlarge): Comparison of the sixth century Christ Pantocrator in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai and the and the Shroud face with the 15 Vignon marking numbers superimposed in yellow. By my count it has twelve: (1), (2), (3), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), (13) and (14) - see 12Sep21b. Particularly striking is "(13) transverse line across throat" which the artist had faithfully depicted as Jesus' garment neckline! Again this is further proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Shroud was the artist's model and therefore already existed in c.550, seven centuries before the earliest 1260 radiocarbon date of the Shroud, and eight centuries before Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95) claimed that the Shroud had been "cunningly painted" in c. 1355 (see "1389d")!]
To be continued in the seventh installment of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
BP28. Beecher, P.A., 1928, "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin.
BW57. Bulst, W., 1957, "The Shroud of Turin," McKenna, S. & Galvin, J.J., transl., Bruce Publishing Co: Milwaukee WI.
HJ22. Extract from Higgins, J., 2022, "Shroud of Turin is a puzzle that only fits together one way, former Australian journalist says," 20 July.
JPW. "Jean-Christian Petitfils," Wikipedia (Fr), 11 April 2024.
PE22. Pentin, E., 2022, "New Scientific Technique Dates Shroud of Turin to Around the Time of Christ's Death and Resurrection," National Catholic Register, 19 April.
TM11. Tosatti, M., 2011, "The Shroud is not a fake," The Vatican Insider, 12 December.
Posted 11 May 2024. Updated 16 May 2024.
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