Our belief in the Passion and Resurrection is rooted in the eyewitness accounts as narrated in the Gospels. The season of Lent should be an opportunity for many of us to contemplate on this pivotal event that underpins our Christian faith.
Informing ourselves on the remarkable research done on the burial cloth that is termed the ‘Shroud of Turin’ would help us considerably in such reflection.
The Turin shroud, which measures some 14 feet, enveloped the body of a dead man, presenting his full-length frontal and back image. This remarkable archaeological artefact has been the most intensely studied object in history.
The scientific investigations started with the sensational photograph taken in 1898 by an amateur photographer, Secondo Pia, when the shroud was exhibited for public viewing in Italy. In a subsequent exposition in 1931, Giuseppe Enrie, a professional photographer, was allowed to take photos, irrefutably confirming the results of Pia.
The most intensive investigation was done by a team of 33 top American scientists of different disciplines in 1978. They worked around the clock for 120 hours, having prepared themselves for months before. They used cutting edge technology of the time. The results were astounding.
The carbon testing of 1988 dated the shroud to the Middle Ages. The findings have now been discredited by the scientific community
The shroud depicts a photo negative, a 3D image of a man who had been severely tortured and beaten. He had been crowned with a cap of thorns that reflected the mockery of Christ as ‘King of the Jews’.
The hands and feet bore the marks of nail wounds that confirmed the techniques used by Roman executioners. The body bore 360 marks of flogging by a three-thong Roman whip [flagrum] indicating that he was subjected to a severe lashing of 120 blows. The shoulder bore the injury associated with carrying a cross beam and his side had been pierced by a Roman spear.
Further to this, his face, knees and feet bore dust that was distinctive to a very limited area in Jerusalem. Also, most of the pollen was also unique to that area.
World renowned blood chemists proved that the reddish stains were of human blood, and recent research confirms that the stains could not have been there for more than 36 hours.
This momentous fact tells us that before the onset of decomposition the body was no longer in the shroud. This would dovetail with the timing of the Resurrection in the early morning of Easter Sunday.
But the biggest unexplainable enigma were the radiation marks that portrayed the figure of the corpse. Only recently has it been deduced that such an image would take an emanation of an energy source of some 34,000 billion watts for an infinitesimal fraction of time. This again supports our conviction in the miraculous event of the Resurrection.
Needless to say, there have been vigorous attempts to discredit the authenticity of the shroud, culminating in the carbon testing of 1988 that dated the shroud to the Middle Ages. Contrary to professional practice, the labs that carbon dated the specimen refused to release their raw data to be subjected to peer review. The data was eventually released following a legal battle 27 years later. The findings have now been discredited by the scientific community.
In an exhaustive interview, Turin shroud expert Fr Andrew Dalton stated that: “The shroud is the natural effect of a supernatural event. The miracle is not the shroud, but the resurrection.”