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Maybe I should clarify someting - I believe the shroud is authentic.

I always have. Even as a kid. Since then, I've worked with archival artifacts (in a past life) and 2000 year old pieces of cloth just don't look like that. And yes, the fire screwed up the carbon-14 dating. I have no doubt of that.

Too many things point to authenticity, on top of my belief that authentic things generally survive. Supposedly the crown of thorns is in Paris. The French stole it at some point. (Don't let them kid you: they're only athiests because it's fashionable)

And then, I also believe strongly that a higher power watches and intervenes. True story: a sister of a friend lives in San Francisco had two bookcases of breakable figurines. In the earthquake in 1989, the really valuable ones, antique Hummels, were in one bookcase which fell over and every one was destroyed. It wasn't a life. On the other, everything fell off of it except the statue of Mother Duchesne, which didn't move.

A fire that can melt silver is hot enough to get wood and other natural fibers to spontaneously combust. There's no way anyone can convince me the shroud isn't authentic.

"And then, I also believe strongly that a higher power watches and intervenes"

The book "The Resurrection of the Shroud" runs through the history of the Shroud. It was first known as the Image of Edessa, then the Mandylion, then the "Shroud". Here's an excerpt from the book:

"The rediscovery of the Image of Edess in the sixth century shed valuable light on the cloth's disappearance centuries earlier. According to the "Story of the Image of Edessa", the closth was found in a space above the city's (Edessa's) western gate...when Ma'nu VI (Edessa's ruler) returned to paganism and began persecuting Chrisians...someone hid (the Shroud/Image of Edessa)there for safekeeping since persecution of Christians and destruction of their relics and vestiges were most likely occuring. This choice of a hiding place proved fortuitous, for it not only save the Christian relics from destruction by the pagan ruler, but it also provided a hermeticallly sealed environment for the (Shroud) for the next five centuries...the location turned out to be important for another reason: Edessa suffered severe floods in 201, 303, 413, and 525...fotunately (none of) these floods rose to the level of the western gate, where (the Shroud was hidden)."