It may truly be the cloth that covered Jesus of Nazareth.
Even if that could be proved, would the cloth then be 'holy'.
Some might think so, but I do not.
He told us not to worship false gods, idols, or images.
I think that would include burial clothing.
A sign? To those who need it, it is.
A treasured Christian artifact. That may well be true.
The image on the cloth? The human body is covered with microscopic bacteria and mites. In that era, desert dust was blowing through the atmosphere regularly, and baths were few and far between.
The body was wiped down with olive oil, IIRC.
The image was very likely to transfer if left on the body after death, for a relatively short time. Then to have the cloth kept preserved would help preserve the image and it soaking it's way into the cloth.
It's not a miracle the image is still there. The miracle was in what is believed to have occurred afterward.
Deut. 5:8 - God's commandment "thou shall not make a graven image" is entirely connected to the worship of false gods. God does not prohibit images to be used in worship, but He prohibits the images themselves to be worshiped.
Exodus 25:18-22; 26:1,31 - for example, God commands the making of the image of a golden cherubim. This heavenly image, of course, is not worshiped by the Israelites. Instead, the image disposes their minds to the supernatural and draws them to God.
Num. 21:8-9 - God also commands the making of the bronze serpent. The image of the bronze serpent is not an idol to be worshiped, but an article that lifts the mind to the supernatural.
I Kings 6:23-36; 7:27-39; 8:6-67 - Solomon's temple contains statues of cherubim and images of cherubim, oxen and lions. God did not condemn these images that were used in worship.
2 Kings 18:4 - it was only when the people began to worship the statue did they incur God's wrath, and the king destroyed it. The command prohibiting the use of graven images deals exclusively with the false worship of those images.
Source: Scriptural Cathoic
It's not a miracle the image is still there. The miracle was in what is believed to have occurred afterward.
If the Shroud is an authentic burial cloth of a much wounded crucified man (it is if it is not a hoax) then is it a lucky fluke that the images are so visually correct? A truly natural explanation requires that a chemical reaction starts and ends. And this is key: The reaction must end sufficiently late for there to be discernible images. And, it must end early enough that the images are not oversaturated. Analysis of the images shows no saturation plateaus. Timing is everything. In photographic terms this is correct exposure. Is this mere luck?
Just as there is nothing like the Shroud's images in the world of art, there is nothing like them in nature; after all dead men do not normally leave images of themselves on burial cloths.
Science is good at figuring out that with certain ingredients and certain conditions, certain processes will start and end. And it may well be that scientists will eventually figure out a complex process by which the images were seemingly so miraculously formed on the Shroud. Will scientist also be able to deal with the problem of how likely it is that all those right ingredients and conditions might have prevailed perhaps only once in history.
Source: Shroud Story