Religious Mysteries -- The Shroud of Turin

Detail from the shroud.

It's Christmas Eve, and all thoughts turn to -- that's right -- religious mysteries.

One of the strangest mysteries I've ever come across is that of the Shroud of Turin.  While the shroud was always considered a religious relic, a detailed view from a photographic negative was produced in 1898 that really kicked things off.  For nearly a century, people debated back and forth whether the figure depicted on the shroud was really that of a crucified man, and therefore possibly Jesus himself, or a clever forgery.

The debate seemed to be settled in 1988 when carbon dating returned a date in the 13th or 14th century.  But that figure has been cast into doubt because of further discoveries -- mainly, that the portion of the shroud that was taken came from a part of the cloth that had been repaired in the middle ages.  It does not seem likely that any material will be taken from an area not near the edges of the shroud, so this may be a mystery that remains unsolved, at least scientifically.

There are other avenues of discovery that have cast their doubt on any resolution to the mystery.  Here's an interesting example taken from the Wikipedia article:

First, according to experts, the weaving of the shroud proves it cannot be a first century textile from Jerusalem:

In 2000, fragments of a burial shroud from the 1st century were discovered in a tomb near Jerusalem, believed to have belonged to a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy. The shroud was composed of a simple two-way weave, unlike the complex weave of the Turin Shroud. Based on this discovery, the researchers stated that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

Well, that's it then, right?  Not so fast:

According to textile expert Mechthild Flury-Lemberg of Hamburg, a seam in the cloth corresponds to a fabric found only at the fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, which dated to the 1st century. The weaving pattern, 3:1 twill, is consistent with first-century Syrian design, according to the appraisal of Gilbert Raes of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology in Belgium. Flury-Lemberg stated, "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high-quality product of the textile workers of the first century."

I guess nobody can say the shroud that wrapped Jesus in the tomb cannot have come from Syria.

For nearly every point you find in this debate, it seems there is a professionally defended counterpoint.

Here's one of my favorite bits of evidence in favor of the shroud:

The VP8 Image Analyzer was produced by Pete Schumacher of Interpretations Systems Incorporated[102] and was delivered by him to John Jackson and Eric Jumper in Colorado Springs in 1976. It showed the Shroud image has properties that, when processed through this analog computer, yield a 3-dimensional image.[103] Rather than being like a photographic negative, the shroud image unexpectedly has the property of decoding into a 3-dimensional image of the man when the darker parts of the image are interpreted to be those features of the man that were closest to the shroud and the lighter areas of the image those features that were farthest. This is not a property that occurs in photography, and researchers could not replicate the effect when they attempted to transfer similar images using techniques of block print, engravings, a hot statue, and bas-relief.

That's pretty strange right there.

Even if we did find proof that the shroud was a first century artifact, this would not prove the shroud once wrapped Jesus.  There is no test that we can do to prove that.  Even if we are able to recover enough DNA to make a clone, we'll never know who the man was.

But the anomalies apparent in the image, if it was to be thought a forgery, are really puzzling.  It does not appear to be painted.  Nor was it made as a photograph.  The light and shadow effect would have to have been produced locally at every location in the shroud, as if the light were emitting from the body itself as a radiation.

One thing that puzzles me is that the body and the wounds on it correspond exactly to the Jesus we read of in the New Testament.  I find it hard to believe that the oral reports, which turned into familiar stories passed down a generation or two, would have remembered every detail of the condition of the body, so that the shroud and the New Testament fit together like a lock and key.  That's the sort of thing that you would think could only come about through intention, right?

So is the Shroud an intentional artifact?  If it is, and it wasn't forged in the 13th century, but formed by a process we don't understand yet in the 1st century, what does that mean?  Are we talking about a miracle of God here?

Or are we talking about one of those "control mechanisms" that Jacques Vallee speaks of in his writing?

I am pretty sure there will never be evidence enough, one way or another, to prove a case.  It will be left up to our free will to believe how we may.

For myself, I believe in the Shroud.  I can't help it.  The fellow I met during my NDE-ish experience would totally do something like that.  I like these lines from Walt Whitman (though he was talking about the grass, I don't think he'd mind my borrowing):

5 A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,. 6 Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

It fits my understanding of that fellow that he would leave us encouraging signs, to believe or disbelieve as we may.  Which is not to say by any means that I think everybody has to be a Christian.  I think there are a lot of religious mysteries.  I'd like to look into a few of them over time.

If you celebrate Christmas, have a merry one.  If you don't, have a blessed and safe weekend.

I'll be taking a little time off for family stuff, but expect me back next week, if I am not seized with some unconquerable urge to write sooner.

UPDATE: Thanks to Episcopalian for the kindness of a link to this post over at The Shroud of Turin Blog.  I've returned the favor by adding his blog to my blogroll over on the right.