And the quality of many of those fake "Christian Relics" is so bad as to be laughable. If the shroud were just another fake Medieval forgery, the flaws should be so obvious that we wouldn't even be having this discussion. We're talking about people who were willing to believe that animal bones were the bones of saints and so forth. Why make a shroud that looks better as a photographic negative, which has details that withstand modern medical scrutiny, and which don't exactly match the common interpretation of the Gospel accounts? Take a good look at Medieval paintings of Biblical scenes and in many, you'll notice the people dressed in Medieval garb. We're not talking about people with a modern sense of science, history, or investigation.
If the shroud were just another fake Medieval forgery, the flaws should be so obvious that we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
I agree. I can accept the possibility that the shroud in question may be the actual burial wrap of some real human being of unknown, but ancient, origin. Note the word, "may". That it may be the actual burial shroud of Christ has not even been circumstantially hinted at by any form of "evidence", let alone proved. The "tests" performed upon the shroud only confirm the findings of that particular test and not in any way the validity of the shroud being that of the Christ. IMO.
However valid the shroud may be as the actual burial shroud of some unknown human, its approximate time of "discovery" in the Middle Ages and that it "begins to appear in the church records of the time", would more than likely subject any shroud to being fraudulently offered to; "people who were willing to believe that animal bones were the bones of saints and so forth".
In other words, a person or persons acquired the burial shroud of some anonymous human and proffered it to the gullible persons of the Middle Ages as the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. From there, the fraud becomes a legend and now a "scientific-religious mystery" of great import (to some) The "Shroud" is, at best, an authentic fraud.
What I find to be an interesting paradox and commentary on human nature is that those who believe the shroud is from the supernatural turn to science for validation of their belief. It may be only a game of words, but I presume that science can only prove natural facts and would be incapable of proving the "supernatural". But then there are those who would counter that the Shroud is not, in itself "supernatural", but the "natural evidence" (there's that word again) of the existence of the supernatural. With that, one is right back where one started (sigh).
The best reply I have read in this whole Shroud thread is by "Drammach" at post # 67. Well said, Drammach.