Secrets of the Dead: Shroud of Christ? PBS Broadcast Program Series

PBS ^ | April 7, 2004 | Mechthild Flury-Lemberg

[tvn]

In a central part of Turin Cathedral is an elaborate, baroque shrine housing one of the Catholic Church's most precious and controversial artifacts: a 14-foot-long piece of cloth known as the Turin Shroud. The shroud's surface bears, in faint shades of brown, the unmistakable image of a man. The body of this individual appears to bear wounds similar to those inflicted during the ancient execution method of crucifixion. For its dedicated believers, this image is that of Jesus Christ himself, burned onto the cloth upon his miraculous resurrection from the dead.

The debate over the Shroud's origins has raged furiously since its first documented appearance in Lirey, France, in the 1350s. Is it an authentic burial shroud, or just a brilliant medieval fake? In 1532, the Shroud was stationed in Chambery in the French Alps, when the chapel housing it burned down. The corner of the Shroud, folded to fit in a silver casket, was burned through, resulting in a pattern of 24 burn holes. A team of nuns sewed triangular patches over the worst holes and sewed the Shroud onto a linen backing cloth to strengthen it.

In 1988, three of the world's foremost carbon-dating labs announced in agreement that the Shroud could be dated only as far back as the 13th or 14th century. Then, in the summer of 2002, Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, a renowned textile restorer, was invited to Turin to undertake an unprecedented restoration of the shroud, which called for the removal of both the backing cloth and all the medieval patches. It marked the first time a fabrics expert had worked so closely with the precious relic, and what she eventually uncovered shook the study of the shroud to its foundations.

SECRETS OF THE DEAD: "Shroud of Christ?," reveals the brand-new forensic evidence that Christianity's most treasured existing relic is indeed 2,000 years old, dating from the time of Christ. Upon examining a side of the Shroud no one had seen before, Flury-Lemberg's team found a style of stitching they had seen only once before-amid the ruins of the Jewish citadel of Masada, a town destroyed by the Romans in 74 A.D. Adding to the latest interest are bacteriologists' experiments that may prove once and for all how the image on the cloth was ever imprinted, and forensic experts' analysis of the wounds on the image, which appear closely to reflect those of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.

A new chapter in the history of the Shroud is unfolding. SECRETS OF THE DEAD: "Shroud of Christ?" will document the fabric experts' work, revisit the forensic science community's many attempts to accurately date the Shroud, and follow bacteriologists' quest to prove scientifically once and for all how the relic came to be.

[tvn]

Program on new evidence concerning the Shroud of Turin will be broadcast by PBS TV stations over the next week. Check local listings for program schedules.

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[happydogdesign]

No new evidence-same old pseudo science and omission of inconvenient facts by the same old hucksters selling the same old nonsense.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Shroud of Turin

[lasereye]

One of the amazing things about the shroud is that the image is a photographic negative. If you take a photo of it and look at the negative it is a positive image, and appears three dimensional, while the image on the shroud appears two dimensional. The time when the forgery was alleged to have occurred is of course long before photography.

[seastay]

I have scene the 3d photo, it took nasa imaging engineers to decode it, but there is definable 3D information in the image. So regardless of when it was made, the 3d aspect of it is fascinating and the real question would be how it came to be?

[seastay]

here is a link to the 3D http://www.geocities.com/player2000gi/turin.htm

[Drammach]

The question then, is whether it is the image, or the software..

Granted, NASA engineers were able to create a so-called 3D image from the shroud..
Can they do the same with any other images?
All images?

If so, a 3D image derived from the shroud means little or nothing..

[Kirkwood]

The image is not a true photograph or negative where details are formed with reflected light and shadows, but rather it is similar to an x-ray image combined with a pure topographic contour map of the body. If it were a photograph, the 3-D profile would show distortions due to shadows and uneven illumination. There are no such distortions with the shroud image. It is quite amazing.

[Ciexyz]

Cool image.

[Cicero]

You shoot unicorns? That's not very nice.

[TalBlack]

Granted, NASA engineers were able to create a so-called 3D image from the shroud..
Can they do the same with any other images?
All images?



As I recall this was one of the first demonstrations that they made. They showed what happened when the software scanned an image that was not 3D. It comes out sort of smeared looking.

[Kirkwood]

The science is all solid with the exception of some of the so-called shadow patterns seen in the background. Much of that is just interpretation of random shapes, the way that people see images in clouds. Everything else though is on very solid scientific ground. The biggest problem scientists face is that the shroud is unique and cannot be replicated. Hence it is impossible to do the experimental tests that we would like to do to understand the energy source that formed the image. Virtually all scientists who have investigated the shroud come away agreeing that it is indeed a real burial shroud of a real man who died by crucifixion. It cannot be said conclusively it was the body of Jesus, but the forensics match the gospel narrative extremely well. In fact, the forensics surpass the gospels, such as pointing to errors of language (such as the position of the nails in the wrists and not the palms). It is clear that the shroud is not man-made. No other such impressions exist and the shroud has never been exactly replicated by anyone. It is a fascinating and mysterious image, irregardless of whether or not one believes it to be a relic.

[happydogdesign]

The science is all solid? Poppycock! No real scientific test proved any supernatural origin and it has been accurately dated to the 14th century. The Catholic Church contemporaneously established beyond doubt that the Turin cloth was a hoax and even found the guy that painted it.

Shroudies snort the same pixie dust as Bigfoot and crop circle supporters. Relic hucksters will never go broke, because P.T. Barnum's estimate of a sucker born every minute was way low.

[Kirkwood]

This is one of the MANY reasons why scientists believe the shroud is not a painting. Until photography, many of the features seen on the negative cannot be seen on the original shroud. Furthermore, if it had been painted, the artist would have had to understand negative imagery. Something as foreign to a person of the middle ages as radio waves or gamma radiation. It is also clearly NOT a photograph for MANY reasons. One I have posted already - that the image does not capture reflected light from a body, but height information. VERY unusual. The demonstration in the show that photography on cloth was possible in the middle ages does not answer several p[roblems including: 1) the 3-D height information embedded in the image; 2) producing a non-aberrated image from highly aberrated optics available at that time; 3) accounting for the lack of motion or deterioration of a body mounted outdoors in the sun; and 4) producing simultaneous front and back images of the same body.

[Kirkwood]

First, the shroud has not been dated to the middle ages. It is now agreed by everyone involved in shroud research that the caron dating was flawed. The flaws were not understood 25 years ago, but only in the last 10 years have some of the limits and artifacts of carbon dating been identified. Did you know in fact, MANY mummy burial cloths from both Egypt and South America are dated to the middle ages even though they PREDATE the shroud? The simple fact is that the mummies, like the shroud, are covered with a bacterial bioplastic film that will carbon date to a much later age. In addition, it has been shown that when carbon is heated, carbon age testing shifts to a later age. The carbon in the shroud was possibly affected due to the high heat it experienced in a fire hot enough to melt through the silver casket it was contained in.

Second, science says NOTHING about supernatural origins. The shroud scientists (some of whom are Jewish) are not involved in proving that it is the shroud of Jesus or even from a supernatural source, but rather how it was possibly formed by natural means. In fact, science points to some possible NATURAL origins, but they cannot be tested at this time. If you believe shroud scientists all believe in the divinity of Jesus, you would be quite wrong. Some do, some don't, and some have become believers, but you rarely hear them discuss this. They want to discuss science, not religion.

Third, don't beleive everything you read. You need to educate yourself and don't take things for granted. In particular, don't believe what the church says or doesn't say. They have a long history of being on the wrong side when it comes to science. In fact, we have a lot of scientific evidence, but it remains a mystery.

[Enduring Freedom]

Idiots like happydick are not interested in facts.

They are here to attempt to discredit this important artifact in the Christian archive.

Without question it is a burial shroud of someone who was crucified.

Even a moron like happydick can get there.

For example, the 3D information cannot be reproduced by a 2D artist.

That is, no artist can drawing in 2D to make a credible 3D rendition. It is not possible.

For one to do so in the negative is impossible.

Let alone someone a millennium or two ago.

Happytwits would have us believe that an unknown artist of a skill greatly exceeding that of any contemporary, and not to be surpassed for centuries, working in the negative so that the work could not be appreciated in his lifetime, with a knowledge of crucifixion unknown in his era, created a 3D image that could not be tested for accuracy and which no one to the present can make in 2D, using a method which scientists to this day cannot replicate.

Here's an alternative:

He's the Lord.

[Enduring Freedom]

Why the Lord?

Well, he was wearing a crown of thorns.

And was pierced in the side.

Oh, that scourging seems somewhat familiar.

Hmmmm.

Could it be?

[happydogdesign]

The claims of flawed carbon dating are by hucksters selling books to the gullible. The shroud has been reproduced, and real analysis has shown the image is composed of red ochre pigment and tempura paint. The bacterial bioplastic film nonsense has been refuted. I definately don't believe everything I read, especially from folks selling books to the credulous. I would think that the Catholic Church would cheerfully acknowledge proof of the Lord, however the investigating clergy found the artist who confessed to painting it. It is most amusing when when those who believe in proven frauds tell me that I need to educate myself.

[Enduring Freedom]

So what, exactly, do we know about the Shroud of Turin? Here are some of the astonishing findings that modern day science has uncovered so far:


The body that appears on the Shroud is naked. Under Roman law, criminals were whipped and executed in the nude. (These are facts that most medieval artists would not have known, or if they had known, would not have dared to publicly reproduce.)


The man that appears on the Shroud was crucified with nails driven through his wrists. Although artists throughout the centuries (and even stigmatists) have traditionally thought that Christ was nailed to the cross through his palms, it is now known that crucifixion victims were nailed to crosses through their wrists. This is supported both by archeological digs that discovered crucifixion victims with spike marks on their wrists (not palms) and also by studies that were conducted on corpses which proved that nails in palms will not support the weight of a body.


The life-size image on the cloth is NOT the result of pigment, stain, acid, dye, or any applied material. The image itself is confined to the top-most fibrils of the cloth's fibers. Whatever made the image did not penetrate the fibers of the cloth as all known artistic materials would.


The image on the Shroud is uniquely three-dimensional. Although most scientists believe that the image was made by the body emitting a burst of energy of some kind (which caused the body's image to be lightly burned onto the Shroud), they have no idea how this could have been done. Efforts to lightly burn images into shroud-like fabrics have all failed to reproduce the extraordinarily delicate, detailed, three-dimensional effect found on the Shroud. The way the image was burned onto the Shroud is also flawlessly accurate in terms of how a body emitting energy would imprint itself on a cloth that was covering it.


The image of the Shroud is absolutely accurate in both anatomical and physiological details.


The anatomical and physiological details of the Shroud accurately record what would happen to a man who experienced a Roman-style crucifixion (see Robert Bucklin's pathological report at the end of this summary).


The Shroud is stained by human blood that has run out of the image's wounds. The way the blood flowed, puddled and stained the Shroud are perfectly correct. Unlike the Shroud's image which only appears on the topmost fibrils of fabric, the blood on the Shroud soaked deeply into the fabric.


The exact way the man was crucified closely matches biblical accounts of Jesus's crucifixion. Among other things, there are 120 lesions, the shape of dumbbells, distributed over the back and running around the front of the body--probably caused by a Roman whip called a flagrum whose thongs were tipped with bits of lead or bone. There is a deep wound on the right side of the body between the ribs which bled profusely (which is what Biblical records indicate happened when a spear was thrust into Christ's side). There are thorn-like marks on the victim's head (possibly from a crown of thorns). And the victim's legs were not broken (which is significant both because Roman-style crucifixions ended with their victim's legs being broken and because the New Testament account of Christ's death indicates that this was a Roman custom which Jesus was spared from).


The beard and hair style of the crucified man were not common anywhere in the Roman Empire except Palestine. The image has semitic features, including sidelocks and a unplaited ponytail.


The Shroud itself was woven with techniques common to the first century. The Shroud's distinctive weave is so rare that researchers seeking to find a control sample could not find one anywhere in the world.


A dirt sample taken from near the Shroud image's feet was identified as a relatively rare form of calcium carbonate. Samples of dirt taken from Jerusalem revealed an unusually close match. This strongly suggests the man pictured on the Shroud was crucified in Palestine.


58 varieties of pollen were discovered on the Shroud. 11 of the pollen samples were from plants that do not exist in Europe, but which do exist in the Near East. The pollen samples also indicated that the fabric of the Shroud had to have been made in Palestine before circulating in Europe. Pollen samples also helped trace the Shroud's route from Palestine through Anatolia and Constantinople into Europe. Furthermore, two of the pollen samples that were discovered on the Shroud coincided with highly distinctive plants found in the region surrounding Jerusalem. The pollen study concluded that the Shroud itself was probably made near Jerusalem and that it had been in the vicinity of the Holy City for some time before being transported out of the area.


Images of 28 different types of flowers, small bushes, and thorns have been detected in bunches around the Shroud image. All 28 grow in Israel, either in Jerusalem or in the nearby desert or Dead Sea area. Most of them are not found in Europe. 25 of the 28 flowers matched the pollen samples found on the Shroud. 27 of the 28 plants bloom during March and April, which corresponds to the time of the crucifixion.


An image of a coin appears over the right eye of the Shroud image. This coin, a very rare Pontius Pilate lepton struck in 29 to 32 A.D., was not found until 1977.


Tests which were conducted in 1993 on a piece of first century fabric similar to the Shroud's now indicate that a fire the Shroud passed through in 1532 corrupted the October 1988 Carbon-14 dates that concluded the Shroud was not authentic. According to these recent tests, which were conducted by scientists at the University of Arizona and Russian scientists in Moscow, the 1988 Carbon-14 dates were some 1200 years in error. This dates the Shroud back to the first or second century.


Some historians believe the Shroud of Turin may be The Mandylion, or Edessa Portrait, a holy relic mentioned in some accounts as early as the first century. If this is so, then the Shroud can be traced, through various legends and stories, all the way back to first century Jerusalem.


And finally, Robert Bucklin, deputy coroner of Los Angeles and a member of The Shroud of Turin Research Team, compiled the following pathological report concerning the Shroud:

"There is no problem in diagnosing what happened to this individual. The pathology and physiology are unquestionable and represent medical knowledge unknown 150 years ago.

"This is a 5-foot-11-inch male Caucasian weighing about 178 pounds. The lesions are as follows: Beginning at the head, there are blood flows from numerous puncture wounds on the top and back of the scalp and forehead. The man has been beaten about the face. There is a swelling over one cheek, and he undoubtedly has a black eye. His nose tip is abraded, as would occur from a fall, and it appears that the nasal cartilage may have separated from the bone.

"There is a wound in the left wrist, the right one being covered by the left hand. This is the typical lesion of a crucifixion. There is a stream of blood down both arms. Here and there, there are blood drips at an angle from the main blood flow in response to gravity. These angles represent the only ones that can occur from the only two positions which can be taken by a body during crucifixion.

"On the back and front there are lesions which appear to be scourge marks. The victim was whipped from both sides by two men, one of whom was taller than the other, as demonstrated by the angle of the thongs.

"There is a rough swelling of both shoulders, with abrasions indicating that something heavy and rough had been carried across the man's shoulders within hours of death.

"On the right flank, a long, narrow blade of some type entered in an upward direction, pierced the diaphragm, penetrated the thoracic cavity through the lung into the heart. This was a post-mortem event (it happened after the man was already dead), because separate components of red blood cells and clear serum drained from the lesion. Later, after the corpse was laid out horizontally and face up on the cloth, blood dribbled out of the side wound and puddled along the small of the back.

"There is an abrasion of one knee, commensurate with a fall; and finally, a spike had been driven through both feet, and blood had leaked from both wounds onto the cloth.

"The evidence of a scourged man who was crucified and died from cardiopulmonary failure typical of crucifixion is clear-cut."