Essay On Turin Shroud

Turin Shroud: Ancient Sign from God or Middle Age Fraud?

What do all Christians and most Atheists, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and almost every other religious sect have in common? They know the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. The story itself is fairly simple: Man is killed on a cross, man is buried in a tomb, and (according to Christians) man becomes alive again. Regardless of individual beliefs, researchers have been investigating a specific part of the story since almost the Middle Ages: the shroud Jesus was wrapped in. Scientists have been split over whether this could possibly prove the existence of Jesus or whether it was faked for religious reasons. Despite the theory that the Turin Shroud is a hoax created during the Middle Ages, it can be proven that initial carbon dating was incorrect and the way the shroud portrayed Jesus’ wounds were accurate to how crucifixions occurred, rather than what is portrayed in the media, proving that it is real.

According to Scripture, Jesus Christ, said to be the Son of God, was crucified by the Romans for being a false god and speaking against the

polytheistic Roman faith. The Bible says he was buried in a linen shroud, and then multiple cloths, and placed in a tomb (Wayne). Now here is where the differences begin. Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead three days later, leaving his cloths behind. This cloth, which was discovered in 1353 AD in a French church, is said to have been smuggled through Judea, Turkey, Constantinople, and Greece between the years of AD 30 and 1225 (Ghose). But what makes this shroud such a widely-discussed controversy? Not its existence; it currently resides in the Cathedral of St John in Turin, Italy (Adams). No, what made this cloth such a treasure is that it bears the image of a man, said to be Jesus Christ himself. The image in inexplicable, a negatively imposed image (the image is off-white, while the shroud is a rich brown) of a man, arms folded, with nail-holes in his ankles and wrists and scars around his forehead (Adams). The controversy over the cloth can be summarized in a single sentence: Was this shroud’s image created while Jesus was wrapped in it, or during the Middle Ages, when it first made its appearance?
Many skeptics believe that the cloth is a forgery. This idea is deeply rooted in the fact that there is no record of this burial cloth until thirteen hundred years after the crucifixion of Christ (Wayne). This amazing cloth should have been coveted by Christians as soon as it was found, not smuggled across the continent, landing in Italy. This adds fuel to the theory that it was created as a painted/dyed religious symbol and is not real. Another reason the shroud is not universally accepted by scientists is carbon dating. In the 1980s, samples of the shroud were tested by measuring the rate at which isotopes of carbon in the cloth decay. These samples concluded that the shroud was made between AD 1260 and 1390, approximately 1,230 years after the date of the crucifixion (Ghose). Finally, a popular theory of how the image was created was that the embalming spices/Jesus’ bodily vapors generated the image. Skeptics disprove this theory using the idea that the body would have been washed before he was wrapped in the cloths and that no embalming materials were found on the cloth through testing (Wayne).
A common reason as to why the Shroud could not have been real was carbon dating “proving” that the shroud was created between 1260 and 1390, though the crucifixion occurred in 30 AD. But since the cloth has been restored and repaired over the years due to age and fire damage, scientists argue that restored sections of the cloth may have been what was tested, rather than the original sections (Lallanilla). In 2013, Professor Giulio Fanti of Padua University, Italy, decided to retest the shroud, using not carbon dating, but “testing the decay rates of microscopic fibers within the Shroud as compared to similar linen cloths known to be both older and newer.” Fanti could include that the Shroud’s creation was within 280 BC to 220 AD and with a ninety-five percent level of confidence that his findings were correct (Adams). And since the year Jesus died was 30 AD, which is obviously included in those dates, it is practically indisputable that the shroud was created during the accurate time period.
There’s a classic image of Jesus on the cross, isn’t there?

Hands out, nails through the palms, feet crossed with nails through the arch of the foot, etc. That’s how images have portrayed the crucifixion to look for centuries. However, Romans knew that hands and feet were not strong enough to support the entire body as it hung on a cross. Even though the accepter artist norm was to pierce the palms, the Shroud shows nail punctures in the wrists, where Romans did attach their victims to their wooden crosses (Adams). This shows that the cloth cannot be a forged painting, because the artist would not have wanted to contradict what was already a typical representation. In addition to the nails, there is also evidence that the man on the image had worn a painful crown of thorns, like Jesus had had, and he had no broken bones, which is consistent with the Bible’s teachings

(Adams).
The final detail that has not been approached is how the image itself was created. Skeptics stand by the idea that it was painted during the Middle Ages, however science and history disprove this theory. First of all, it could not have been painted in the Middle Ages because it such an idea is inconsistent. Researcher Thomas de Wesselow argues that “medieval artists did not paint in photorealistic style,” the style in which the body of Jesus is laid out on the Shroud, and “a forged Shroud in the Middle Ages would be anachronistic,” (Lallanilla). A theory supporters of the Turin Shroud believe is based on earthquakes. In the Bible, the book of Matthew references to an earthquake that occurred when Jesus died. That earthquake would have released a burst of neutrons that could’ve done a number of things. It could have thrown off the radiocarbon dating and darkened the uncovered shroud bits, creating the negative image. (Ghose)
So although the Shroud is believed to be a hoax that was created in the Middle Ages, the carbon dating tests that were initially done were proved to be false. Additionally, the wounds that were represented on the cloth were anatomically accurate to what Romans had to do to crucify, as opposed to how it was portrayed in recreations and images. These two main facts, among others, support the concept that the Turin Shroud was really created at the time of Jesus’ death, with the imprint of Jesus’ body. So Christians, Atheists, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, it should be indisputable that this cloth has the actual body of Christ imprinted onto it.