There is an article in The Living Church magazine about Mystery and Faith: The Shroud of Turin exhibition at The Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. that runs through July 31st. The Living Church is a twice-monthly magazine for Episcopalians in the United States and the greater Anglican Communion.
The article is hard to access online. You must subscribe ($45.00/year) in order to be able to download a PDF file of issues. This story is in the April 10, 2022 issue. I’ve picked out a couple of fair-use paragraphs.
On authenticity:
Since 1969, when the Shroud first underwent direct testing, it has been subjected to various scientific analyses, most notably in 1978 by the Shroud of Turin Research Project, which were in turn declared by an adviser to the project as the work of a medieval artist who used various red pigments to paint the cloth. Findings went back and forth until 1988 when the Holy See permitted radiocarbon dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the cloth. Those results determined that the material probably dated from the 13th to 14th century. As recently as 2017, independent researcher Tristan Casabianca obtained all the data from the 1988 carbon tests held by the British Museum and reported two years later that they were seriously flawed and unreliable, which inspired demands for new tests.
A Review of the Exhibit:
This exhibition stands in clear but subtle support of the cloth as a holy relic showing a figure whose features and markings correspond directly to the Passion accounts.
But the show is equally respectful of and makes room for science, which can interrogate — and disagree with — that faith without threatening it. Well researched and engaging, this is an exhibition worth seeing and pondering.
The author is Pamela A. Lewis, a member of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in New York City.