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Shroud of Turin Story Home Page

The
Resurrection
Problem
and the
Shroud of Turin

By Daniel R. Porter

1. Introduction
2. "Ann, You're Nuts"
3. What we need to know 
4. The newer evidence
5. The resurrection problem
6. Vetting
7. Acceptance
8. Textile studies
9. Plant images and pollen
10. Travertine aragonite
11. Sudarium of Oviedo
12. The Image of Edessa
13. Jesus in art
14. A negative that is not a negative
15. Other visual characteristics
16. The most intriguing characteristic
17. A picture of a million words
18. How were the images formed ? 
19. Appendix: Carbon 14, etc.

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Part 2:  "Ann, You're Nuts!"

I remember Ann saying: "Oh, what a mess! We have three different resurrection perspectives that all make claims on history." As Ann explained, C. S. Lewis had warned against delving too much into the historical Jesus, for fear that such a mess develop. I remember, too, how Ann summarized 'the mess' (and I think she meant no disrespect for three important religious thinkers of our time): "We have Wright knocking his head on the wall of scientific reality. Borg is dancing on the wall. And Spong is blowing his trumpet, hoping the wall will fall."

Then Ann said something that I thought was absolutely crazy. "We need evidence; good, hard evidence. We need something like a photograph of the resurrection; something we can nail to that wall of scientific reality."

Remembering these words a few years later, I took special interest in an exchange between Marcus Borg and Tom Wright in their jointly authored book, The Meaning of Jesus. Wright had written:

Marcus asks, would a video camera have recorded the event? Assuming that a camera would pick up what most human eyes would have seen (by no means a safe assumption), my best guess it that cameras would sometimes have seen Jesus and sometimes not. But that, from early on Easter day, someone in principle could have photographed the empty tomb where he had lain the previous thirty-six hours, I have no doubt. (Italics mine).

But back to the diner. Ann pushed her coffee cup aside and swept away some muffin crumbs. Then she slapped a dog-eared post card onto the table. It was a sepia picture of a face that most anyone would certainly recognize as that of Jesus. "We have a photograph," Ann said with flourish. "It's called the Shroud of Turin."

I laughed out loud. "You're nuts," I said, surprising myself with my rudeness.

But Ann was not bothered. She was quick and seemingly practiced with a retort: "That's okay if you know your stuff. To be skeptical, convinced or merely intrigued are all proper responses to a well-informed view of the Shroud. Just to examine this relic, real or not; just to see how it defies the best attempts of science and history to irrefutably disprove or prove its authenticity; this will open up new ways of thinking about the resurrection - ways you never imagined."

Ann laughed back at me. "When you are well informed, tell my bishop who also thinks I'm nuts."

"The quest for the Shroud can lead only to the quest for Christ."

- Dr. John A. T. Robinson, Anglican Bishop and Biblical Scholar
Author of Honest to God

So Ann was a "Shroudie." I was surprised. She thought (I stress thought) that this ancient bloodstained linen relic, with front and back images of a crucified man reposed in death, was the authentic burial shroud of Jesus. Ann was convinced that if it really was the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, it was evidentiary archeological data for his resurrection. "What else," she said, "could possibly have created those photographic-like images except a miraculous resurrection event?"

To me, the Shroud was scientifically implausible - after all, dead men don't leave images of themselves on cloth. Even if it was real, which I seriously doubted, the images were probably some creative art added later. Its authenticity seemed historically improbable. Carbon 14 tests had demonstrated that the Shroud was a medieval fake. These tests showed that the linen fabric was no more than 800 years old, which coincided nicely with the Shroud's first documented appearance in Western Europe in the mid-fourteenth century. Was this not an era well known for its fake relics? To my way of thinking, the Shroud was simply a superstitious relic - a worldview defying absurdity.

But Ann was certain that the carbon 14 tests were somehow erroneous though she could not offer an explanation as to why. We now know, but did not know at the time of our ad-hoc seminars, that the testing protocols, the selection of fabric samples, and several other established anomalies had made accurate dating impossible (See Appendix A). Ann's certainty that the radiocarbon dating was wrong was based on a preponderance of new evidence that was just then emerging - evidence that argued for authenticity or, at the very least, for a much older date. The most important of all the evidence, as far as Ann was concerned, were the extraordinary chemical and physical properties of the images and the bloodstains. Ann had said: "There is no way you can say that these are hand made images. If you think so, you're nuts." But I was not convinced. None of us sitting in the diner that evening were convinced.

Suddenly, one day, Ann stopped coming to our Al Anon meetings and the diner. Presumably she had returned home. The seminar was over and I thought nothing more about the Shroud until a few years later. It was 1999. It was then that I came across a brief mention of it in a book I was reading. The book was Jesus Christ: the Jesus of History, the Christ of Faith, by J. R. Porter, Professor Emeritus of Theology at the University of Exeter. He wrote:

In recent years, the cloth has attracted widespread attention because of the possibility that modern scientific methods might determine its date to and provenance. In 1988, a carbon-14 test dated the cloth to ca. 1260 - ca. 1390 CE, with a margin of a century on either side, thus branding it a pious medieval forgery.

However, this verdict has not quite settled the issue. Other evidence suggests an earlier date, for example a number of early medieval images of Christ that closely resemble the facial features of the shroud image. It is not a painting and it has proved difficult to explain how it could have been created in late medieval times. Whether or not it dates back as far as the first century CE - let alone depicts the actual body of Jesus - the shroud retains, for many, its mysteries.

Had it not been for Ann, I would have passed over the text without much interest. But because I remembered Ann's comments I was intrigued enough to look for other sources of information. I was surprised to learn how many people - among them Anglican, Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical and Jewish scholars - echoed, amplified, and extended J. R. Porter's assessment. Could they be correct?

What if the Shroud is first century cloth? What if it is Jesus' burial cloth? These were daunting questions. In my mind I could not separate the mysterious and inexplicable images on the Shroud from the idea of the resurrection. Perhaps, because Ann had suggested it, I imagined cause and effect. Scientists who study the Shroud are better at separating the images from a resurrection event by stressing that science can only go so far in explaining things. But I, lacking their scholarly methodical restraint, let my imagination take over. I wondered if the images were formed, somehow, by the very act of resurrection. If so, and if the Shroud is real, then maybe the resurrection was a physical, bodily, historically real event. If so, then my long held metaphorical interpretation of the resurrection was thoroughly challenged.

In this age when skepticism is so fashionable, when people who think as C. S. Lewis did are themselves the 'rare exceptions,' when the resurrection is seen as something other than an historically real event, and when we are "downright embarrassed" to voice beliefs that challenge the prevailing scientific worldview; it is very hard to accept the possibility that a real relic of Jesus' burial might exist today. The more I explored the Shroud, the more mystifying it became. It seemed to me, indeed as Ann had argued, to defy the best attempts of science and history to irrefutably disprove or prove its authenticity. I was puzzled.

The prima facie case against the Shroud of Turin's authenticity is certainly strong. It is, indeed, historically implausible. It surfaced in Europe in 1357, a time known for medieval fake-relics. In 1988, scientists at three prominent radiocarbon dating laboratories demonstrated that the cloth's origin was likely between 1260 and 1390 - medieval. But the greatest challenges to its authenticity were the scientifically implausible images of Jesus on the cloth with all the implications that they were not manmade, or even natural. Those images seemed scientifically preposterous.

But new evidence has been emerging since 1988 that not only challenges the carbon-14 tests, but also argues convincingly for the Shroud's authenticity. Scientists can easily explain what the images are and what they are not. But they cannot explain how the images were imprinted on the cloth. If it was a work of art - a forgery or a hoax - than it is more expressive than all other visual works ever made in telling the horrific story of the passion and the crucifixion. If, on the other hand, the images were impressed upon the cloth by some natural process - as we have 'nuclear' shadows of the victims of Hiroshima frozen on walls - it was a process like no other in its capacity to capture manmade horror upon a person.

To look at the Shroud with all that we know about it - and I will try to show you how some scholar have done so - is to dare to look at the Shroud and the resurrection in new ways.

The newer, emerging evidence that Ann alluded to is not from religious fanatics as some suppose, but from reputable scholars. Among them are archeologists, historians, chemists, physicists, botanists, palynologists, forensic pathologists, image analysts, art historians, textile experts, and technical photographers. Most of them are from leading academic institutions or from prestigious scientific establishments including the Los Alamos Laboratory, the Israel Antiquities Authority, Sandia Labs, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. Their work, which is well documented, formidable in detail, and carefully peer reviewed, warrants consideration.

Dan Porter is an Episcopalian and a member of Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York City. He may be contacted by email at porter@shroudstory.com or by mail at 20 McIntyre Street, Bronxville, NY 10708. 

(c) Copyright 2001, Daniel R. Porter. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced in full for any non-commercial purpose without further permission.