The Authentication of the Turin Shroud: An Issue in
Archaeological Epistemology : Part 3

By William Meacham - Archaeologist

CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY - Vol. 24 - N¡ 3 - (June 1983)

Published by the University of Chicago Press

Copyright 1983 by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research


Unknown Crucifixion Victim

Guilty of McNair's charge of otiosity, a number of
commentators, including the STURP team, have suggested that
the Shroud could be the gravecloth of a person who suffered
injuries in the same manner as Christ. We shall examine here
the possibility of such an occurrence without obvious intent
to imitate the experiences of Christ. This hypothesis thus
hinges on the degree to which features now interpreted as
"clearly representing Jesus Christ" should be considered
unique.

The major characteristics of the Shroud figure which seem to
identify him as Christ are the lacerations of the head and
the wound in the side; of lesser importance are the evidence
of stationary flogging: and absence of crurifragium.
Certainly, the methods of capital punishment did not always
follow a rigid procedure; an example is the occasional
lifting of prohibitions on the use of the flagrum or
crucifixion to punish Roman citizens. Political prisoners in
Palestine may well have received harsher penalties than
common criminals in the form of more severe flogging and
prolonged sufferings on the cross. On the other hand, the
bodies of rebels and subversives were not normally released
for burial, according to a 6th-century digest of Roman law
(Ulpian, cited in Barbet 1963:51). In the Matthew account
(28:62-64), the Sanhedrin were clearly unprepared when the
request for Christ's body was granted.

The crowning with thorns is described in John's Gospel as a
spontaneous and capricious invention of the guards in
response to absurd claims of kingship associated with their
prisoner. Ricci (1977:67) and others contend that this trait
is a singular and identifying mark of Christ; among the
recorded tortures of the condemned prior to crucifixion
there is no such crowning or spiking of the scalp. It must
be allowed, however, that similar injuries might have been
sustained by other crucified men, perhaps palace intriguers
or leaders of rebellion. An instance is recorded by Philo of
a mock crowning in ca. A.D. 40 during a visit of the Jewish
King Agrippa to Alexandria; a mock procession was staged
with an idiot dressed in ragged royal purple and crowned
with the base of a basket. Preexecution tortures might also
have caused punctures of the scalp resulting, if credulity
is strained, in a pattern similar to an Oriental crown
(mitre or cap) of thorns. Therefore, while the parallel
between the head wounds of the Shroud man and those of
Christ is striking, it is not sufficient of itself to
establish the identification.

The postmortem nature of the side wound also exactly
parallels the biblical account, and again there is no
historical mention of a practice of this or any method of
coup de grace during crucifixion, other than the
crurifragium in Palestine. Bulst (1957:121) interprets an
ambiguous phrase in Quintilian (1st century) as suggesting
that piercing the corpse may have preceded its release for
burial. However, an exhaustive search by Vignon (1939) and
Wuenschel (1953) turned up only one slightly dubious
reference to such a practice: the martyrs Marcellus and
Marcellinus were dispatched with a spear during their
crucifixion ca. 290 because their constant praising of God
annoyed the sentries. In this instance, as in that of
Christ, the spearing appears as a spontaneous act by the
guards. One might conclude that similar transfixions may
have occurred occasionally, were it not for the universal
attitude in the early church toward the issuance of blood
and water from Christ's side. Christian apologists of the 2d
and 3d centuries - a period of frequent crucifixions -
believed the flow to be a miracle, Origen, who had witnessed
crucifixion, could write: "I know well that neither blood
nor water flows from a corpse, but in the case of Jesus it
was miraculous." Certainly such a belief could not have
prevailed if piercing the corpse sub alas had been other
than a very rare happening indeed.

The omission of normal washing and anointing of the body may
possibly be explained by the onset of the Sabbath, since
ritual differential treatment of execution victims does not
seem to have been practiced in 1st-century Palestine. The
individual burial and quality of linen suggest that the
Shroud man was not a criminal, slave, or rebel. Finally, the
lack of decomposition staining of the cloth indicates that,
barring highly unusual preserving conditions arresting the
normal bodily decay, the Shroud was removed from the corpse
after 24-72 hours. It would have been kept in spite of the
deep-seated aversion of the Jews (and most peoples of
antiquity) to anything which had been in contact with the
dead, not to mention bearing the actual stain of a corpse.
Eventually, the similarity of its imprint with the body of
Christ would have been noticed.

Clearly, this scenario requires the most improbable
combination of many fortuitous and highly improbable events.
For each detail, an explanation of sorts can be concocted,
but that all of them could have been strung together
accidentally into a configuration corresponding exactly to
the biblical account of Christ's crucifixion is, quite
simply, inconceivable. The order present in the Shroud data
reveals, just as surely as does the workmanship of an
artifact, an intentionality in its composition. If it is not
the actual Shroud of Christ, it must be the result of a
deliberate attempt to duplicate the experiences of his death
and burial.

Early Forgery

The first centuries of Christianity afforded ample
possibility and motivation for the forgery of a relic such
as the Shroud. A widespread cult of relics developed in the
4th century following the conversion of Constantine and was
intensified by the discovery of the "True Cross" during an
expedition to Jerusalem of Constantine's mother in 326 and
the distribution of shavings of the wood throughout the
empire. Similar "discoveries" soon followed, of the nails,
lance, crown of thorns, clothing, and other material items
from the life of Christ, the apostles, Old Testament
figures, saints, and martyrs. As noted above, a Shroud of
Christ was claimed by a convent on the Jordan in 570, and
cloths believed to bear his facial imprint were current by
ca. A.D. 500. Early ecclesiastical writers frequently
denounced spurious relics created for reasons of rivalry,
reverence, or profit, and relic forgery was especially rife
in Egypt and Syria in the 4th century, It may be suggested,
then, that forgers obtained the corpse of a crucifixion
victim, marked it to resemble Christ, and attempted to
imprint an image on cloth, achieving by accident a
remarkable result.

The objections to this scenario are manifold and
insurmountable. Of greatest importance is the medical
interpretation of the head wounds as inflicted on a living
body; spiking the scalp of a corpse or marking it with blood
could not approach the pathological exactitude of the wounds
and blood flows on the Shroud man. Straining credulity, one
might escape this difficulty by postulating a collusion
between forgers and executioners for preparation of a victim
with suitable head wounds. The postmortem side wound
presents equal if not greater difficulties: it was inflicted
on an upright corpse, resulting in a copious flow of blood
and clear fluid (matching the biblical account); a second
flow issued when the body was horizontal, not simply laid
out but being moved, as indicated by the collection of blood
across the small of the back. There can be no doubt that
early forgers could not have attained such precision and
that it was unnecessary in any case for the simple
production of a bloodstained cloth for a gullible public.

There are numerous other difficulties with this hypothesis:
(1) The major demand for relics came after the state
establishment of Christianity, by which time crucifixion had
been abolished. (2) Stains, dyes, oils, or other materials
likely to have been used by early forgers in an attempt to
imprint the cloth are completely lacking on the Shroud. (3)
The victim appears to have been Jewish, with the correct
burial posture, chin band tied and eyes covered, yet the
legs were not broken as was the practice in Palestine. (4) A
successful imprint of Christ's likeness made in this era
would have been trumpeted as another great relic "come to
light." (5) An image of the nude and unwashed body of Christ
would have been considered offensive, lessening or
destroying its economic and ceremonial value. Based on the
already shaky premise that forgers accidentally and
spectacularly succeeded in their task, this hypothesis is
hopelessly fraught with difficulties. It can be
unequivocally rejected, and with it any possibility that the
Shroud is the product of a forgery attempt. As Donald Lynn
(quoted in Rinaldi 1979:14) of STURP concluded, "it would be
miraculous if it were a forgery."

Imitation of Christ

Finally, the possibility may be considered that the Shroud
man was literally a "little Christ" - that, out of
fanaticism, extreme asceticism or desire for martyrdom,
someone was able to inflict or have inflicted the exact
wounds of Christ on his own person. There is ample evidence
of asceticism and self-denial carried to extremes in the
early monastic- anchorite movements of the late 3d and 4th
centuries. Hermits isolated themselves in the deserts, in
cave cells, on pillars, there to indulge in all manner of
bizarre vilifications of the flesh: wearing of chains for
years, self-flagellation, dietary privations, exposure to
heat and cold, etc. The above-cited theological writer
Origen in his youth committed self-castration; the first
monk ascete, Paul of Egypt, was reportedly found dead in his
cell: in a kneeling position of prayer.

The 4th-century anchorites of Egypt retained practices of
mummification of the dead; the body was wrapped in bandages
and the outer surface sometimes painted with a mask or
Christian symbols. As this custom fell out of use, the dead
were simply wrapped in a winding sheet and carried into the
desert, to be buried after three days of wailing. The Shroud
might thus be the burial sheet of an unknown but charismatic
figure in the early anchorite communities of Egypt or Syria,
crucified by followers in a manner exactly imitating that of
Christ. The presence of natron on the Shroud takes on a
special relevance here, and several other details may be
fitted into this hypothesis: the wrist and foot nailing of
Roman crucifixion would have been known; the victim might
have been "Semitic," the crown of thorns conceived of as a
cap, the cloth preserved in the desert conditions; and the
areas were rife with relic-mongering.

The hypothesis requires, on the other hand, a virtually
impossible double occurrence of freakish events: a
self-styled crucifixion and a body imprint by unknown
mechanism. There are other difficulties: the matching of the
wounds with Roman implements, the Jewish burial customs
(most unlikely to have been known), the linen itself
(luxurious and urban), and of course the silence of the
historical record on the entire proceedings. The coup de
grace for this wildest of hypotheses is, appropriately, the
lance wound in the side. It would have been well nigh
impossible to draw forth intentionally from a corpse a flow
of blood and fluid at a single thrust. The presence of
pericardial or pleural fluid in sufficient quantity and the
exact site, angle, and depth of piercing would have to be
carefully determined before such a feat could be performed
by a modern surgeon, as Barbet discovered in experiments on
corpses.

A similar set of historical circumstances can be cited in
attributing the Shroud to a crucified martyr eager to
imitate the "Way of the Cross." That early Christians
sometimes exhibited a fanatical desire for physical
suffering and martyrdom is well documented; it is reflected
in the remark of Antonius, 3d-century proconsul of Asia,
when confronted with mass confessions and volunteers for
martyrdom: "Miserable people, if you are so weary of life,
is it not easy to find ropes or precipices?" Hagiographies
overflow with accounts of martyrs' showing contempt for the
exertions of their torturers, and a situation may be
imagined in which the condemned entreated or goaded their
guards into "glorifying" them with a crown of spikes and a
spear wound in the side,

By the 3d century, linen brandea or "second-class relics"
were being created by touching them to the body or blood of
a martyr. At the beheading of Bishop Cyprian of Carthage in
258, a linen sheet was spread on the ground to collect his
blood, and the body was then carried through the streets in
the cloth. Is it possible that the Shroud is a similar relic
in linen intended to absorb the blood and holiness of an
exceptional martyr who bore all of the wounds of Christ? The
answer again must be a definite negative. The scenario
posits the concurrence of no fewer than four extremely rare
and improbable phenomena - a martyr's crown of thorns, a
postmortem side wound, blood and fluid issuing therefrom,
and the imprint. If a spear thrust to the corpse on the
cross had been a common practice, eventually a repetition of
the blood and fluid flow from the wound would have occurred,
but to attach this extremely unlikely event to the other
wounds and features of the Shroud and to the accident of
body imprint, all in total historical obscurity, is clearly
to enter the world of fantasy.

It is unnecessary to extend this exploration of extremely
farfetched and improbable hypotheses to the limits of the
imagination, e.g., to concoct a massive conspiracy such as
might be formulated to challenge any historical document or
fact. Suffice it to note that even the most preposterous
notions - e.g., mass crucifixions conducted during the
persecutions to replicate in every detail Christ's
sufferings (Gramaglia, in Sox 1981:69) - would founder on
many of the Shroud's details and on the accidental image
formation. Neither should any consideration be given to the
ludicrous suggestions of the "paranormal," that the Shroud
man was a stigmatist bearing in exact detail all the wounds
of Christ, or that the Shroud is a satanic ploy to focus
attention on the dead rather than the spiritual Christ.

CONCLUSIONS

The question of authenticity may be readily divided into two
stages: (1) the Shroud as a genuine burial cloth recovered
from a grave or removed from a corpse and (2) the Shroud as
the gravecloth of Christ. The first stage may be established
from direct examination of the object and comparison with
relevant data from other disciplines. The second stage
relies heavily but not entirely on the historical record
and, ironically, at certain points on the silence in that
record. In the foregoing discussion, we have reviewed the
evidence related to each stage of the authentication
process. The final judgement generally depends on whether
one in inclined to stress the positive or the negative
evidence.

As early as 1902, the basic cleavage of opinion an the
Shroud was already apparent. For the anatomists, scrutiny of
the image yielded positive evidence that it was the imprint
of a corpse bearing wounds exactly corresponding to those
described of Christ. For historians, the silence of history
and the sudden appearance of the relic in suspicious
circumstances constituted an equally convincing negative
indication. It has been my contention in this paper that,
while the lack of historical documentation and the claimed
confession of the artist are difficulties, the evidence from
the medical studies must be treated as empirical data of a
higher order. The dead body always represents a cold, hard
fact, regardless of a lack of witnesses or a freely offered
confession of murder. With anatomists and forensic
pathologists of the highest caliber in Europe and America
(many of whom are also well versed in the history of art) of
one mind for 80 years about the image as a body imprint, one
is on firm ground in characterizing the Shroud as the real
shroud of a real corpse. The direct testing of the last 20
years goes farther in demonstrating that the relic is a
genuine gravecloth from antiquity rather than the result of
a medieval forger's attempt to imprint the cloth with a
smeared corpse. Fleming (1978:64) concurs, with the
conclusion that "it is the medical evidence that we are
certainly looking at a gruesome document of crucifixion
which satisfies me that the Shroud is not medieval in
origin."

Current opinion on the Shroud's authenticity ranges
generally from "probable" to "proven" for Stage 1 and from
"possible" to "probable" for Stage 2. For a variety of
reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the object
is a religious relic, these opinions seem to err an the side
of the cautious, place undue emphasis on the negative
evidence, and are often based on an assumption that the
identity of the Shroud man is "unprovable." Rather, the
second stage of authentication may well be more easily
demonstrable than the first, as even the arch-skeptic
Schafersman (1982a:41) admits. That is to say, if the Shroud
image is truly a body imprint (as the evidence
overwhelmingly indicates), and if the wounds seen in the
imprint are real (on which point there is little room for
doubt), then surely we must conclude that the imprint must
be from the body of Christ.

Therefore, applying standards of proof no more stringent
than those employed in other archaeological/historical
identifications, one is led, I submit, to an almost
inescapable conclusion about the Shroud of Turin: it is the
very piece of linen described in the biblical accounts as
being used to enfold the body of Christ. The pattern of data
revealed by the Shroud is unquestionably unique, it concurs
in every detail with the record of Christ's death and
burial, and it is unfakeable. The combination of premortem,
postmortem, and postentombment information cannot be matched
with any other known or hypothetical series of events. In
eliminating other explanations of the Shroud's origin, I
have put greatest weight on the most firmly established
evidence - the uniqueness of the body image phenomenon and
the pathology of the wounds. The former has defied the most
sophisticated technological investigation, while on the
latter there has been unanimous agreement and such force of
medical opinion that it cannot be questioned without
dramatic new revelations. But every detail of the Shroud,
from the pollen to the scourge marks, accords with or does
not run counter to authenticity, which may be considered as
"reasonably well established," at least in the same sense
that many other facts of history or archaeology are
established by the interpretation of documents and material
evidence. Its authenticity should be accorded a degree of
certainty comparable, for example, to the identification of
ancient city sites such as Troy, Ur, etc., to the dating of
the Lascaux cave paintings, or to the description of the
death of Nero - all of which rely on a complex and seemingly
unfakeable pattern of data. The Shroud's authenticity is a
matter for expert rather than personal opinion and certainty
not a matter of faith; it involves a "judgement of fact"
than a "judgement or value" (after Mandelbaum 1938).

Delage, to his eternal credit as a scholar, perceived all
this of the Shroud in 1902, working with the poorer 1898
photographs and in a milieu of militant agnosticism. The
anatomical realism of the body imprint and the accuracy of
the wounds led him to conclude, "The man of the Shroud is
Christ. . . . if instead of Christ, there was a question of
some person such as a Sargon, an Achilles or one of the
Pharaohs, no one would have thought of making an objection"
(quoted in Walsh 1963:66). I have here examined the remotest
possibilities of forgery or imitation precisely because of
the religious nature of the relic and the spurious character
of many similar objects ascribed by tradition and popular
veneration to holy men, religious leaders, or miraculous
events. Most such relics would not allow of a positive
identification in any case; nor would the Shroud were it
merely a piece of ancient linen. But encoded in the image
are data of such specificity that the relic can be fixed in
time and place, used to generate hypotheses to be tested in
the laboratory and in the field, and finally attributed to a
single, historical person.

There is, however, a disturbing current (now reaching cliche
status) in Shroud studies, expressed both by scientists and
those with a religious interest, that the Shroud's
identification with Christ is beyond the scope of science or
proof and requires a leap of faith. Sox (1978.56), for
example, contends that, even after exhaustive testing, "it
can never be said that this is Jesus' burial cloth, . . .
this conviction, as always, must come through the eyes of
faith." Cameron (1978:59) believes that "we shall only be
able to prove that the Turin Shroud might be the burial
cloth of Jesus Christ, not that it actually is." Weaver
(1980:752) asks, "Is it the Shroud of Christ himself? That,
say both scientists and theologians, will remain forever
outside the bounds of proof."

This line of thought must be rejected as verging on
obscurantist and lacking any solid basis in
historical/archaeological assessment of the object and the
relevant data. To my knowledge no writer on the Shroud has
examined the various hypotheses presented above (unknown
crucifixion victim, early forgery, imitation of Christ) or
seriously attempted to probe the uniqueness of the Shroud
data other than in unscientific probability calculations. To
suggest that science (in the form of direct testing of the
cloth) can attain only a certain point, beyond which lies
subjective opinion or faith, is to ignore the essentially
scientific character of historical knowledge. This attitude
is reflected even in the much more reasonable conclusion of
STURP member Bucklin (1981:189) that identification of the
Shroud man "is not within the realm of science, but may be
decided by careful historical inquiry." Unfortunately, STURP
spokesman Janney (in the Associated Press report quoted
earlier) confuses the matter with the claim that "the
classical scientific method cannot prove who it was" beyond
establishing that the Shroud figure was "a scourged,
crucified man." In truth, it is merely obvious, not
scientifically proven sensu stricto, that the body was male,
But in the same scientific manner in which complex patterns
of data are interpreted in the natural and social sciences,
alternative explanations may be rejected with a reasonable
degree of certainty, and a firm association of the Shroud
man with the historical phenomenon of crucifixion and with
the historical person of Christ may be established. The fact
that these relationships are not subject to irrefutable
laboratory confirmation does not place them "outside the
bounds of proof," except on the philosophical level that no
knowledge of the past derived from the study of history,
social science, geology, paleontology, or astronomy can be
proven beyond any possibility of doubt.

The genuineness of the Shroud must have a considerable
impact on biblical exegesis, especially on the allegorical
school which has emphasized the symbolic and spiritual
rather than the historical content of the Gospels. As noted
above, a genuine Shroud provides a striking confirmation of
the recorded detail of the torture and execution of Christ.
The crown of thorns was not a poetic embroidery of the basic
story. The flow of blood and water from the side, seen by
tradition as miraculous and by modern demythologizing as
symbolic (of atonement through suffering and of purification
by baptism), must now be seen as at least a real, natural
physiological occurrence. The removal of the cloth from the
body after a brief contact period is also indicated,
demolishing what little remained of the theory that the
empty tomb of Christ was an invention of the early church.

On the Shroud as evidence of Christ's resurrection, those
with "eyes of faith" have seized upon the inability of
scientists to arrive at a technologically credible mechanism
of image formation and asserted that the Shroud might
constitute empirical evidence for some moment of
regeneration or "transmaterialization." Clearly, the data
can be taken no farther than to indicate a separation of
body and cloth before the onset of decomposition and the
prevalence of rare conditions in the tomb which resulted in
the image. These conditions may reasonably be assumed to
derive in some as yet unknown manner from the 40-kg "mixture
of myrrh and aloes" which, according to John (19:39), was
placed with the body in the linen as a preservative and
aromatic. An alternative but perhaps less likely theory is
that the imprint resulted from a "Kirlian effect" or other
unknown quality of Christ's body; the aura of light and the
rare condition of haematidrosis (bloody sweat) recorded of
Christ may be cited in this regard.

The Turin Shroud is without doubt one of the most mystifying
and instructive archaeological objects in existence.
Although its first thousand years are a total blank,
intention and accident combined to preserve it, however
unceremoniously, from discovery in the tomb to eventual
transfer to Constantinople. Although the image-forming
process is not known, the image itself is an important
document of Christ's crucifixion and has appropriately been
termed "the fifth gospel." And whereas the scholarly
consensus a mere 60 years ago deemed the Shroud a medieval
fraud, the present evidence allows a firm archaeological
judgement for authenticity.

The Shroud has been probed by virtually every appropriate
element of high technology; science, like Thomas, has
verified for itself the reality of the wounds. The verdict
on this awesome cloth must be that, remarkably, it is
exactly what it appears to be. As a unique specimen of
material evidence relating to one of mankind's great
religious teachers and major historical events, this
icon-relic, this strange 1st-century photograph of Christ,
has tremendous anthropological significance and enduring
fascination for a wide range of people of differing beliefs.

------------------------------------------------------------

COMMENTS

by James E. Alcock

Department of Psychology, York University, Glendon College,
2275 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ont., Canada M4N 3M6. 22 xi 82

Meacham at the outset calls for an objective examination of
evidence pertaining to the Shroud, arguing that it should be
treated in the same manner that scientists would treat any
other historical object. He subsequently argues against the
value of carbon-14 dating, which to many might be the first
step to take if one really wants scientific evidence about
the Shroud's origin. His argument is rather strange, unless
one were so cynical as to suspect that he is preparing the
groundwork for a defense of the authenticity hypothesis ("it
is Christ's burial-cloth") should such dating place the
origins of the cloth at any point in time well after the
presumed date of Christ's death. He correctly points out
that if carbon-dating were to indicate that the cloth is
about 2,000 years old or older, one could still argue that
some medieval artist painted the image of the Shroud on an
ancient piece of linen. However, while it would seem that if
carbon-dating indicated that the cloth is much younger, this
would be a compelling piece of evidence against the
authenticity view, Meacham argues that variations of ambient
temperature, boiling in oil and water, exposure to smoke and
fire, and contact with other organic substances could lead
to a conclusion of this nature even if the cloth really is
2,000 years old. This strikes me as sheer whimsy;
carbon-dating may have its problems, but how do boiling or
changes in ambient temperature come into it? And how do we
know that the Shroud was boiled in oil, anyway? Surely one
should press for permission to proceed with such testing
without at this point speculating about the results.

What is most disturbing about Meacham's account is not so
much his obvious belief in the authenticity of the Shroud as
his apparent belief that he is presenting a careful
scientific review of the evidence. Not only does he give
what I think is a very one-sided view of that evidence, but
he even goes so far as to dip into what many consider to be
pseudo-science when he presents, albeit as "perhaps less
likely," the theory that the imprint on the cloth resulted
from a "Kirlian effect."

Science does not proceed by pronouncements of authenticity.
It requires free and open inquiry and debate. If Meacham
wants scientific validation of his belief in the
authenticity of the Shroud, he should press for the
examination of the Shroud, including carbon-14 dating, by a
group of scientists who represent skeptics as well as those
inclined towards the authenticity hypothesis.

Before making up their minds on the validity of Meacham's
analysis, readers should avail themselves of quite a
different interpretation of the evidence such as can be
found in McCrone (1982), Mueller (1982), and Schafersman
(l982a), among others.

------------------------------------------------------------

by Robert Bucklin

3321 Bonnie Hill Drive, Los Angeles, Calif. 90068, U.S.A. 6
xii 82

From the point of view of a physician-pathologist, with more
than 30 years' experience in the study of the Shroud of
Turin, I find the report by Meacham extremely satisfying.
His approach is thoughtful, scientific, and rational, and he
has objectively combined known results of highly technical
research findings with his comprehensive review of
historical events and biblical references. The conclusions
that he has drawn are wholly realistic. At this period in
time it is not possible for anyone to make a final judgement
on the authenticity of the Shroud. Certainly, science can do
no more than analyze the available physical evidence of the
image on the cloth, including the stains and other markings,
and express an opinion, based on reasonable probability, as
to their nature. By correlating these scientific findings
with historical data, Meacham has extended the investigation
one step farther.

Scientifically speaking, one's faith or religious beliefs
should play no role in arriving at a conclusion concerning
the true nature of the Shroud. On the other hand, it would
be a gross injustice to deny to one who believes the
biblical account of the passion, death, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ that the physical findings on the Shroud of
Turin, in correlation with pertinent historical facts
discovered thus far, including those related in the Bible,
make a strong argument that the Man of the Shroud and Jesus
Christ could indeed be one and the same. Obviously, this
judgement must, in the end, be a matter of personal
conviction.

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