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Shroud of Turin to have 2010 showing | Stars and Stripes
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By Jim Sajo, Special to Stars and Stripes
Stripes European Travel, September 24, 2009
Photos courtesy of Barrie M. Schwortz/Shroud of Turin Research Project ©1978
The Shroud of Turin Research Project examined the shroud closely in 1978. The research revealed human blood stains and confirmed the ghostly image is not paint, pigment or any other known staining agent.
The image of a beaten and crucified man is visible on the Shroud of Turin. Many believe the image is a miraculous likeness of Jesus, somehow burned into the cloth during resurrection.
Photos courtesy of Barrie M. Schwortz/Shroud of Turin Research Project ©1978
Photos courtesy of Barrie M. Schwortz/Shroud of Turin Research Project ©1978 A close-up reveals a man whose appearance resembles images of Jesus. Wounds around the forehead are consistent with the biblical description of a crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head. Barrie M. Schwortz, who provided photos to Stars and Stripes, was the official documenting photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project, which examined the shroud closely in 1978.
Know and go
• The Shroud of Turin will be on display in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist April 10 through May 23, 2010.
• Visits are by reservation only and must be booked online at www.sindone.org, which has an English-language version. The reservation system should begin operating on Dec. 1. The Web site has a frequently asked questions section that gives details on the reservation procedure and more information on the exhibit and other sites in Turin.
• Visitors will start their tour in Turin’s Royal Gardens, in the city center. A covered, mile-long "Introductory Route" presenting historical information and photographs about the shroud will precede entry into the cathedral.
• More information on the shroud is available at the Museum of the Holy Shroud, a 10-minute walk from the cathedral.
Is it a fantastic forgery or a miraculous image? Either way, the Shroud of Turin is one of the most researched and most mysterious artifacts in the world.
But while it is thoroughly studied, it is rarely seen. In the past 300 years, the famous piece of linen has been on public display only 17 times.
Next year will make 18. From April 10 through May 23, the city of Turin will put the shroud on exhibit.
Good story: Shroud of Turin to have 2010 showing | Stars and Stripes
Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
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