If we remove questions about God and miracles from the questions about the Shroud, the evidence is overwhelming that this artifact just might be real. There is no need to appeal to miracles to explain the images. And claims that the Shroud is somehow evidence of a miracle, even specifically the Resurrection, is problematic.
One of the biggest problems in deciding if the Shroud is authentic is overcoming many misconceptions; for instance the notion, repeated incessantly in the press, that believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen's fibers at the time of his resurrection. That is simply wrong. Some do think this. But most serious researchers who think the Shroud is authentic do not think so.
In 2008, Philip Ball, a contributing editor for Nature, the acclaimed international scientific journal that in 1989 published the results of carbon dating that suggested the Shroud was medieval, wrote in Nature Online: It's fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever. Not least, the nature of the image and how it was fixed on the cloth remain deeply puzzling.
Ball gives scientific reasons why the carbon dating is invalid and historical reasons why it might be real. He avoids any religious discussion of the topic. He is correct to do so. It is, after all, a scientific journal in which he is writing. If we explore the peer-reviewed journals, as he has, we see that is assessment is correct. It is murky. But is it only murky?
Science, so far, has completely failed to prove anything about authenticity, one way or the other. The carbon dating, as we now know from the journals, was a bust. And, indeed, as Ball tells us, science offers no real answers for how the images were formed. All attempts, including ones reported periodically in the press, have been complete failures. What explanations have so far been offered remain untested. They are hypotheses or mere speculations. Even so, there are good chemical reasons to think that images might have formed very naturally when amino products from a body reacted with a natural soap residue that is found on the cloth producing a chemical image. The soap might have been used to wash the cloth after weaving, before it was used as a burial cloth.
One thing science has succeeded in doing is proving that the images were not painted and are not some form of medieval proto-photography. Another is proving that bloodstains on the cloth are from real human blood and from contact with real wounds.
History provides some of the most compelling evidence. The piece of cloth that is in Turin today was certainly in Constantinople between A.D. 944 and 1204. Before that, it was in the city of Edessa, at least since 544. Numerous documents attest to that. Dates and places before 544 are tentative, at best. Nonetheless, there is ample evidence to push the Shroud's provenance back to near the time of Christ. It is good history, as good as ancient history gets.
Mystery is unavoidable. For instance the images are a mystery. Where the Shroud was between 1207 and 1349 is a mystery. How it came to be in Edessa is a mystery. Such mysteries can be seductive giving rise to unprovable explanations. We need to remember that these are scientific and historical mysteries. If we are not careful, unanswered questions can lead to god-of-the-gaps thinking. All too easily some of us who are religious can be lulled into thinking that because something lacks a scientific explanation it must be miraculous; because something lacks a historical explanation some legendary account is true. Such thinking is bad science, bad history, bad theology and bad philosophy. Mysteries can point us towards common sense. Mysteries can challenge us to find answers. But they are never ever proof of anything.
Crazy Stuff is also unavoidable. It appears wildly on both sides of the authenticity debate. It appears in newspapers, books and thousands of websites. Sadly, it fools many people. Inscriptions on the cloth, images of coins over closed eyes, claims that the images have been reproduced, conspiracy theories such as the one that argues that Leonardo da Vinci created the images with a room-sized camera are but a few examples.
A Quest for God is part of what the Shroud means for many people. Ball also wrote in Nature Online, in 2005, that "The scientific study of the Turin Shroud is like a microcosm of the scientific search for God. It does more to inflame any debate than settle it..." But should it be? It certainly needs not be to establish authenticity and explain the images, if those things are possible.
It is when we look at the Shroud objectively, when we set aside our beliefs or disbeliefs, that we see that it might be real.
Daniel Porter is the editor of the Shroud of Turin Story, a comprehensive website on the Shroud of Turin. He argues that the shroud is probably the real thing, the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth and history. Nonetheless, he thinks proof of authenticity remains elusive while the shroud's historical and religious significance is still unclear. Check out Shroud Story to see details behind this article.
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