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Scientifically, we don’t know the age of the Shroud of Turin. But we do know it is at least twice as old as the now discredited carbon 14 date. As for the images, we have no idea how they are formed. But we do know that they were not made by any known artistic method.
The Atheist, the skeptic, the rationalist must accept the scientific facts just as a Christian should. To deny that the shroud is authentic requires a leap of faith. So does affirmation. But the Christian who thinks it is the real thing may be at an advantage because a preponderance of evidence points that way.
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
Exactly where is the data that discredits the Radiocarbon dating. Have other parts of the Shroud been dated for comparison. Is cotton vs. linen the only “evidence”. In other words are we still in need of information. And what the notion of a neutron flux at the resurection…as put forward in the issue of Nature with our shroud paper. Careful fellow humans for we are without the final truth and in a perfect creation we do not want to give out a dream of our own imagining as a replacement. As one of the original authors of the dating I am still waiting to see something interesting and have remained silent. I see many have a lot to say and seem to know all the secrets of the universe. Besides fragile human ego I see nothing so far. More will be revealed beyond the fragility of human nature …I pray.
Brad H. Gore