The Shroud of Turin

I thought it had been proven years ago that the Shroud is not old enough to have wrapped the body of Christ. Didn't they do some sort of scientific test which proved that it was a fake?

I don’t really think that it’s genuine, although it’s been established that it is very old. It’s certainly a very moving artefact though.

I’ve been interested in the shroud since a book came out about it many years ago. It’s certainly an interesting item but I don’t believe the claims made for it.

I feel moved when I go into churches, though I am not a believer. I think it’s the age and history that make me feel that way.

There have been numerous tests NotTooOld it's the most studied relic in the world.

Yes it is lemongrove and what struck me was the serenity and peacefulness of the face. There's no doubt that a crucified man was wrapped in it. Such an agonising and prolonged death and yet the face looks so peaceful.

I know what you mean SueDonim I am a believer and often feel moved just walking into a church, seldom though have I been moved to the extent I was today when I saw it.

I thought when it was carbon dated they used the fibres from a part that had been repaired
in 12th century.

Yes, I read a book about that, too. It was carbon dated to the 12th or 13th century, but it is extraordinary that it has remained in such good condition.

A Middle Ages hoax which the gullible still swallow, hook, line and sinker.
Scientific fact.

I didn’t think anyone would still believe the shroud was authentic given it was debunked years ago ?
In the 12th century fake relics were very common, due to towns wishing to be a pilgrimage site, with the boost of many travellers and the lucrative income they provided to the town.
Some towns would actually steal other towns relics to be able to steal there pilgrim tourist trade, and travelling through Germany, the amount of Christ’s thorns from the crown of thorns he wore on the crucifix, that I saw in various museums, he’d have needed to have the volume of a full tree on his head at the crucifixion for each of the relics I saw to be ‘real’.

My mom read loads about it, and most definitely believed.
I remember her saying that one test (done in the 80s - she died in the 90s) revealed that it had pollen on it from a plant that located it in the correct time and place.
I will try to find out which book it was…

It was by Ian Wilson.
It’s quite old, so I’m sure others might say that the science is ‘new and improved’ now.
I’m with Mr.S

*their. Autocorrect fails again.
I really am quite genuinely shocked there are people on gransnet that believe the shroud is real!!
But then there are many books written by pseudo archaeologists/historians et el.
The independent has an article on one of the more recent debunkings of the shroud.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turin-shroud-latest-fake-forgery-scientific-blood-pattern-spatter-study-carbon-dating-debunked-a8450101.html%3famp

I was brought up in a devout Catholic household OP and my dear dad was always looking for proof of Christ’s existence; he was therefore somewhat obsessed with the shroud and we had a picture of it in the house. I remember him dragging us up to London as small children to go to a presentation about it.

I do think it’s a fake but it still exerts a real hold on me and I think it’s utterly compelling to look at. I’m slowly coming back to my faith after being lapsed for many years and in a strange way things like the shroud are a great comfort.

If it moves you even though it may only be a replica of an original then go with your own flow. God moved in mysterious ways I was taught at Sunday School.

Yes that's right FannyCornforth pollen from three plants only found in that region that pre date medieval times.

The samples that were carbon dated where as you say where the shroud had been repaired Nanawind due to the amount it had been handled and also when it caught fire.

One of the problems is the amount of contamination by being previously handled on countless occasions.

MaggieTulliver it is "utterly compelling to look at" and I'm looking forward to seeing it again this morning.

Genuine or fake, it is clearly provocative, this can only be a good thing.

Smileless it’s the very same for me

Relics of any sort are moving I find.
It's the feeling of time and an ancient presence.

We all need the feeling that we are part of something wider, now and again.

There’s a bit of my brain missing I think because I really don’t understand the whole concept of relics. But then I don’t do keepsakes or souvenirs either.

When people say I keep it to remind me or It makes me think of them, I just think Well I think of them anyway and my thoughts of them are in my brain all the time.

Just not very attached to things really.

But genuine or not, if it helps anyone along the road , that’s good enough?

I believe absolutely in Jesus Christ . My proof ( not that I need it) being feeling him in the room with me at the moment my son died .

It doesn’t prove that the shroud is only 12/13th century if it was only tested in one spot. I think the plant/seed information is far more compelling. I would love to see the real thing and feel relics somehow manage to capture the ethos of time and feeling in a very powerful way.

True enough in the late seventies or early eighties the shroud was "proved" to be a fraud due to the tests that could be carried out then, but a few years ago, the tests were repeated and dated the shroud to the right time!.

Yes, relics were often fakes - but why should that matter.

If anyone is profoundly moved when contemplating a relic, then it has done its job in religious terms, which is to focus our thoughts and feelings on God.

We can be profoundly moved by a painting, irrespective of whether it depicts a purely fictional scene or not, to take another example.

If the emotion we feel leads us to becoming better or kinder people then it makes no difference whether whatever caused this change in us was genuinely what it is said to be, or not.

It's just incredible Annie. The body was laid on the cloth and the remainder of the cloth was folded so it was laid over the
front of the body, the result being you can see both back and front.

The wounds inflicted by the whipping are clearly visible on his back, buttocks and backs of the legs. It must have been absolutely brutal, and yet as I posted yesterday, the face is both serene and peaceful.

I agree with you NotSpaghetti, Peasblossom, TwiceAsNice and grandtante.

It's certainly had a very profound affect on me and I think I'll be spending quite a lot of time this week just looking at it.

I've been fascinated by the Shroud for many years, and read extensively about it. There is some pretty compelling evidence that it is genuinely of the time and place claimed. The particular form of weaving was the standard work of the 1st cent Near East, the pollen of uniquely N.E. plants, the scourging by the brutal double-headed Roman lead whip-ends, unknown until recent archaeological finds, the crucifixion nails through the space of Destot, in the wrists, rather than the hands, the hairstyle, with a pigtail at the back, as worn by Jews of the period...so many more little details never depicted in the art of the 13th cent onwards. Without a doubt, the man in the shroud was actually crucified, as the minutiae of his injuries proves. It's either the cleverest fake ever created, using knowledge unknown until recently, or it's genuine. Proof for the Doubting Thomases of the nuclear age, maybe?

Genuine question: even if it dates from the right period in time, what leads people to think that it is the shroud of Jesus as opposed to that of another person who had been crucified?

I read about the shroud many years ago, but don't recall the reason(s).

Despite being studied extensively including research by NASA scientists, no one has been able to explain how the image was left on the shroud MamaCaz.

It isn't a painting or a print. One explanation is that it was produced by a great source of light, but there's nothing to explain where this light source came from.

"Proof for the Doubting Thomas' of the nuclear age, maybe" yes, maybe BoadiceaJones.
When the first photographs were taken of it, in black and white, the photographer when he began developing his pictures was amazed that they show far more detail and the image is in 3D