[maryz]

The famous carbon dating has been widely discredited

I wish I remembered the details, but I do recall reading that carbon dating is not much use on fabrics, maybe especially linen.

[.45MAN]

Well what “if” it’s real. We will never have positive proof——That’s GOD’S sence of humor— We have to have faith and HE smiles.............

[Bamanot]

The National Geographic special "The Face of Jesus" gives an in-depth rebuttal of that test -- sample was taken from a patched portion of the relic, after fire damage.

That special is a superb defense of the shroud.

I know, I know, you might say ..."Can anything but that which is anti-Christian come out of the National Geographic?" In this case, yes.

[Swordmaker]

I wish I remembered the details, but I do recall reading that carbon dating is not much use on fabrics, maybe especially linen.

Carbon dating works on anything that has organically grown carbon as it's base including cloth or linen. The problem with the dating of the Shroud was in the sampling... The used a sample that turned out to be a mixture of original Shroud material and sixteenth century patch interwoven by a technique called "French Invisible Reweaving," used to repair valuable tapestries in the sixteenth century, resulting in a spurious thirteenth century false dating. This has been proved by three different peer reviewed studies.