Questions - Week 24: Is the Shroud of Turin Genuine?

The Shroud of Turin is a relic housed in the cathedral in Turin Italy and claimed to be the burial cloth of Christ.

 

The Gospels give us some details:

• Matthew 27:59-60 ESV “And Joseph (of Arimathea) took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.” 
• Mark 15:46 ESV “And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking Him (Jesus) down, wrapped Him in the linen shroud and laid Him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.”
• Luke 23:53 ESV “Then he (Joseph) took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid Him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.” 
• John 19:40 ESV “So they (Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus) took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of Jews.”

 

Shroud of Turin

• A linen shroud approximately 14 feet long, 3 1/2 feet wide. 
• Pastor shares a picture of the shroud. It’s very hard to discern what shows on the shroud.  
• But on May 28, 1898 Secondo Pia (1855 - 1941) received permission to take a picture of the shroud. The photographic negative ended up being an image of a man’s brutalized face.  He said “I think I may have been the first person in centuries to see the face of Jesus!”
• In the following years many others have used developing technologies in photography to take photos of the shroud.
• Pastor shares his pictures and how it shows the person has been crucified and brutally whipped with over 300 lacerations. 
• Many people have asked the last 100+ years if this is indeed Jesus.

 

Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) a group came to examine and test the Shroud

• 1978 - 40 U.S. scientists, multiple institutions and laboratories.
• Went to Turin Italy - 5 days, 122 hours, to study the shroud, fully expected to find a forgery
• Tests- large variety of tests and equipment
• And in the following years 1978-1981 they spent an additional 100,000 - 150,000 hours of intensive study on the results of their testing. And made their final report in 1981.

 

1981 STURP Report Findings

• Image is on the top surface of linen fibers. The image is only .2 - .7 microns - that’s several hundred times thinner than a human hair)
• Identity - it is the image of a scourged and crucified man. Approx 5’ 11” tall around 178 lbs. 
• Origin - No evidence of paint of pigment
• Bloodstains were found of hemoglobin + serum albumin - which is evidence of a person having been horrifically tortured.
• 3D data - used a VP8 Image Analyzer (developed for the space program) and discovered that what is recorded on the shroud had 3 dimensional properties.
• Mechanism - how was it produced - unknown

 

For an insider’s view of the study “Report on the Shroud of Turin” published in 1983 by John Herbert Heller. (A member of the Shroud team). The book caused many questions to start emerging. Pastor shares an article “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ” from the JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association from March 21, 1986, Volume 256 and the impact that article had on him.

 

Pastor goes further into the continued testing over the years. Here are the latest results:

• 2013 - (FTIR) Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy indicated the Shroud was 2,000 years old
• 2013 - Raman Spectroscopy also reported the Shroud to be 2,000 years old
• 2022 - (WAXS) Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering was used and it showed the Shroud to be 2,000 years old.

 

Research continues: Physicist Paolo di Lazaro and team at ENEA Labs, after 5 years and hundred of failed attempts to reproduce an image like the shroud, concluded that to make the imprint on the Shroud it would take 34 trillion watts of radiant energy for 1/40 billionths of a second. (An energy level greater than all the energy plants in the world combined)

 

Final Observations:

• 2000 year old Linen Shroud
• Crown of Thorns
• Abrasions on shoulders from carrying Crossbeam
• Nailed to the cross, not tied
• Has a side wound, no broken bones
• Rushed burial - as body was not washed
• Brief entombment 

 

Could this be the burial shroud of Jesus? Pastor shares an interesting quote from the book by Heller and then shares that he believes it is certainly possible that this is the burial shroud of Jesus! 

 

 

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