…piling up more evidence for its authenticity.
I’ve always believed it to be genuine. If it’s a fake, make another one, using the technology available in 14th century France or 13th century Constantinople. Good luck with that.
There’s even a credible line of transmission from first century Jerusalem to 14th century France.
One of the curious passages in Scripture regarding the morning of the Resurrection is this:
Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. (Jn 20:1–9)
“He saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” What did he see? I think he saw the Shroud. And I think his point is that it kindled the beginning of faith, while at the same time that faith was immature and required the Resurrection appearances to link the event to a mature understanding that Christ had really fulfilled the law and the prophets.
It is also notable that the blood stains on the shroud–yes, it b-l-u-d blood and not paint–match exactly the stains on the Sudarium of Oveido, the napkin that had been on his head.
Why does that matter? Because the carbon dating on the Sudarium dates it back to 700 AD, while we know the history of that cloth is traceable back to at least 570 AD. In other words, don’t bet the farm on carbon dating–particularly of relics that have been constantly exposed to smoke in liturgies for the first thousand years of their existence, not to mention a Shroud that was in a huge fire in the mid 16th century.
Some people will not that the Church makes no claims about the authenticity of these relics and that they constitute no part of the deposit of faith. Perfectly true. You can ignore them and be a perfectly good Catholic.
Still and all, that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth is also not an integral part of my Catholic faith. But it’s still true though. That the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ is, I am persuaded by the evidence, still true, integral part of the Faith or no. It’s a grace–a help. Not a mainstay. And it one of the strangest things in the world.
Whenever I say this, one common response I receive from skeptics (typically atheists) is something like what I got on Facebook today:
“It’s a leftover from the Middle Ages’ obsession with relics. This is sad.”
Such kneejerk reaction to the Shroud always make me remember all that stuff about how Christians are dogmatic obscurantists who fear science while rationalists are hard-head realists who just follow the facts wherever they lead. The evidence keeps piling up for its genuineness. And the challenge stands to make another one. And in response, the skeptic can only tweet insults like Donald Trump. My recommendation: Don’t be afraid of science and just follow the evidence where it leads.
But there’s no evidence that the figure on the Shroud is Jesus!
Yeah. Even though it contains fossil pollen from the Holy Land, cannot be reproduced, and has a perfect photo negative image (and by the way, why? if it’s a forgery) showing the blood-stains that exactly match the biblical description of the Crucifixion (including the unknown-in-the-14th century nails through the wrists and not the palms), it is possible that image is of some other random guy and not Jesus and that the early Christians somehow came into possession of such a strange fluke and believed it was Jesus’ image.
Me: I would bet more money that Elvis is still alive than on that proposition.
Another complaint one hears comes from Fundamentalists that veneration of the Shroud is “idol worship”. The sensible response to this is that veneration is not worship, but honor. Scripture has always recognized degrees of honor. So God commands us, for instance, to honor our parents and to honor the king. And we have always shown honor to people and things in various ways: saluting the flag, applauding actors, standing when the President enters the room, etc. None of that is worship which is the highest form of honor a human being can give. As long as a creature is not honored above God, there is no problem. And that includes the Shroud.
I honor the Shroud for what it is, an image of what Jesus endured for our salvation and a profound mystery born (I believe) in the instant that he was translated from death to glorified eternal life. It is a token that he, almost playfully has left behind to help the faith of those who believe and tantalize those who are willing to at least make the effort to wonder.
Thanks be to God for the glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Marytown will be hosting the Shroud of Turin Exhibit again:
Funny story: The last time, Marytown hosted the Shroud Exhibit, they had me out to give a talk on Private Revelation in preparation for its arrival. Outside, their reader board said “MARK SHEA SHROUD EXHIBIT”. I felt bad raising people’s hopes like that.
Mike Flynn has a nice discussion of some speculations on how the image got on the cloth and how the cloth might have made its way from the grave of Jesus to 14th century France.
…not a painting, not a scorch, not a photograph.
That’s cuz it’s the real thing. Challenge to Skeptics: If it’s medieval forgery made by and for primitive suckers then get with the program. We live in the 21st century. There’s nothing technological a medieval could do that we can’t do ten times better and faster. So make another one. But do it using the 14th century tech you say created this. And don’t give me this piece of carob on the right…
,,,and call it chocolate. If that thing on the right is a “reproduction” of the Shroud then Justin Bieber is Enrico Caruso.
Of course, there may be a naturalistic cause for the Shroud, as Mike Flynn attempts to argue here. If so, I have no big issues with that. I merely note that it is certainly a teensy bit lucky that this purely natural thing only happened to the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth out of all the people who have ever died in the history of the world.
Not that Catholic faith rests on the Shroud. Millions of Christians have lived and died never so much as having heard of, let alone seen, it. But such grace notes are kindnesses from a God who, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions and despite advice from the finest ideologues money can buy, does whatever he feels like.
A reader writes:
I enjoyed your talk today about what was in the bible and why i.e. Churches were using some documents like Luke but not Thomas etc. Those “new” documents found in the second century that were “secretly” taught were rejected.
I was wondering your thought on the shroud of Turin since it is 1000 years later than Thomas, Judas and Infant 1 and 2. Shouldn’t it also be discarded as a fake since it has no biblical reference and showed up so late?
Merely because there is no biblical reference to something does not make it a fake. The Bible is not intended to be the Big Book of Everything. John himself attests that there are plenty of things Jesus said and did that don’t make it into the biblical record (Jn 21:25). So lack of mention in Scripture does not necessarily make something a fake.
Likewise, the Shroud’s emergence into the documentary record in the 14th century doesn’t necessarily mean it was created at that time. Indeed, one of the problems of the Shroud is that nobody, even today, can make another one, which argues for its genuineness.
As it happens, the ever-fascinating Michael Flynn took a look at the Shroud and argues, not only for its authenticity, but does a reasonable job of showing how the evidence we have suggests a path through history from the Holy Land to 14th Century France where it really becomes well-documented.
If genuine, it is part of a species of what the Church calls “private revelation“, not part of the public deposit of faith. Christians can venerate it if they like, but there is no obligation to do so. It’s a reminder that God, under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, can do whatever he likes–and of the terrible price Jesus paid for our sins.
…to the time of Christ. That’s because it is the face of Christ, imprinted on the shroud in which he was buried. The atheism of the gaps loves to come up with ways to try to avoid this, but in fact, there is a) a reasonable account for how it could have been formed (though I don’t leave out the possibility that it is just flat miraculous) and a perfectly reasonable account of how it got from Jerusalem on Easter morning to France in the 1340s.
For some, the notion that there is a naturalistic explanation for the Shroud deprives it of a divine origin. Me: I find myself thinking, “Out of all the millions of people who have lived and died, it seems like more than luck that only Jesus of Nazareth should have his image preserved.”
And I can’t help but think that atheists of the gaps sense rather the same connection, since they spend so much time attempting the hopeless task of writing it off as what it obviously is not: a “medieval forgery”.
He offers a nice discussion of the state of the Question, followed by an absolutely fascinating speculative reconstruction of its history, featuring a gob of documentation I was unfamiliar with. After this, I think it’s pretty darn hard to buy the “It was made in the 1340s” line of dogma.
My challenge to Shroud skeptics and similar Atheism of the Gaps types remains unchanged. If it’s a fake, make another one.
It’s not an article of faith, but it is the most obvious and sensible synthesis of all the evidence we actually have. To hold that opinion is not an article of faith, but a rational opinion based on evidence–like thinking Oswald shot Kennedy. I don’ t think that evidence will be overturned. But if it turns out to be a fake, no biggie.
So do I. I never bought the gleeful and rushed debunking in 1988 and everything since then has persuaded me it had all the scientific rigor (and hype) of cold fusion. There’s nothing like it in the world and the fact that nobody has been able to reproduce it at this late date, plus the fact that it reveals a knowledge of crucifixion utterly unavailable in the 14th Century, plus the fact that the pollen is traceable and dateable to 1st century Palestine screams “authentic”. Only an a priori commitment to materialism fuels the mulish insistence that it’s a fraud. If it’s a fraud, make another one.
Somebody found a piece of cloth from 1st Century Judea–and it’s a different weave! So that proves… um, that the Shroud is, er, woven differently. Which clearly shows that… um….
Haven’t these people ever shopped at Penneys?
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