Five Weird Facts About The Shroud Of Turin

Five Facts About The Shroud Of Turin

Definitely seen as one of the most important religious artifacts in the modern era that helps to not only prove the legitimacy of the claim surrounding the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth as well as the contents of the New Testament, the Shroud of Turin is a remarkable artifact that also helps to establish never before known facts and information pertaining to the Son of God and his experiences. Unfortunately, despite the massive amount of evidence pertaining to the Shroud as being legitimate, many still doubt the incredible information it holds as well as the anomalous properties it contains. In this section, we will be going over these mysteries surrounding the Shroud of Turin and what it could mean for human history.

Number 1: The History of the Cloth

According to the testimonies of the New Testament in the scriptures found in the Bible, after the torture and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, he was seemingly wrapped in a burial cloth and then placed into the tomb of which was guarded by Roman soldiers to make sure that nobody would attempt to enter. It had already been foretold in the Jewish prophecy that the true messiah would rise from the dead once again and so the Roman government was ensuring that no one could break into the tomb to fake the body coming back to life or claiming that the body moved on its own to fulfill the prophecy. After three days of the Roman soldiers standing guard in front of the tomb, a light in the sky appeared in front of the Roman soldiers that terrified them as they watched the tomb open and slowly a massive amount of energy described similarly to a bolt of lightning entered the tomb and resurrected the deceased Jesus of Nazareth.

Oddly enough, rumors had often spread concerning the burial cloth in which Jesus was wrapped in, claiming that not only did it hold the bloodstains of the Son of God but that burned upon the cloth was the image of Jesus of Nazareth that was trapped inside as the strange energy entered the tomb and resurrected him. Unfortunately, it appeared that the burial cloth was nowhere to be found when the apostles had entered the tomb to confirm the resurrection of the Son of God. This could explain as to why the cloth itself was not ever mentioned in the writings of the apostles and that the burial cloth had been taken in secret by one of the soldiers of whom witnessed the event or another that had come to confirm the resurrection outside of the apostles themselves. Considering the fact that the cloth itself had been filled with such divine energy, it would be no wonder that the cloth would be a highly sought after artifact by anyone of whom could get their hands on it.

Number 2: The Church's Hidden Ownership

Despite the existence of this incredible artifact at the time of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, any mention of the cloth at the time of its creation had been completely concealed from that of the general public. This concealment of information led to the existence of this artifact being put into question on whether or not it had existed at the time of the resurrection and the artifacts authenticity in general. Many skeptics of the cloth originally claimed that given the fact that the apostles failed to make any mention of the cloth in their scriptures, then it must not have existed during the time of Jesus's Resurrection. This skeptical claim; however, appears to be of that of factual inaccuracy. Despite the fact that the cloth had not been mentioned to the general public until roughly the 1300's does not mean it did not exist prior to this point.

In fact, mention of such artifacts began surfacing around the time of the Resurrection of Jesus and it has been well known that such artifacts have been concealed away by the Catholic Church of which holds countless artifacts and documents away from the public. It was not until the Shroud of Turin came into public knowledge back in the 1300's when it was housed at the Chapel of the Holy Shroud located at the Royal Palace of Turin, of which the cloth first derives its name, that the public became aware of its existence despite evidence of the church holding hidden ownership of the artifact many centuries before this first appearance. Since its appearance to the general public, the Shroud of Turin has been a major religious icon of those devoted to the faith and will see many religious members journeying from far away lands just to see the artifact. The artifact can still be visited today at the Royal Palace of Turin for those interested in making the religious trek.

Number 3: No Paints or Substances

Back in 1390 at the Royal Palace of Turin, an unnamed and anonymous artist came forward to claim ownership of the Shroud of Turin, making the audacious claim that it was nothing more than a forgery that he created himself using paints and substances throughout the cloth to create the imprint of what he best imagined Jesus of Nazareth. This unnamed artist refused to provide his name or likeness and also demonstrated no prior ability to create artistic works of any kind, leading the priest of whom was in charge of the protection of the artifact believing that the man had made up the claim for the sole purpose of stealing the artifact for his own personal ownership.

Ever since this claim; however, many skeptics cited it as definite proof of the artifact's forgery as an artistic piece. It was not until several decades ago that these claims of using paints and substances were completely disproven by the scientific community. Back in the early 1970's, a special Eleven-Member Turin Commission conducted several tests on the Shroud to determine whether or not the image on the Shroud was produced via the use of different paints and substances.

After using conventional and electron microscopic examinations of the Shroud, there appeared to be an absence of heterogeneous coloring material or pigments whatsoever on the Shroud. Puzzled by the lack of paints of any kind, they began questioning what it was exactly that made up the image of the Man on the cloth and so were given special permission to analyze samples of the Shroud. When the team subjected the samples of the Shroud to further testing, they found that there appeared to be an organic material on the Shroud that was later identified as containing a rich and pure iron oxide. When accounting for the concentration of pure iron oxide, researchers found that it mimicked the properties of blood as the iron oxide is a natural residue of hemoglobin.

Unfortunately, despite these testings, they concluded that the existence of the organic material was not the cause of the formation of the image and was rather a layer found on top of the image. Further testings into the iron oxide residue allowed for the blood found on the cloth to be tested and had the same consistencies as that of an AB type blood though no further information could be found. Conclusively, no paints or physical substances of any kind were found to make up the image of the man on the shroud.

Number 4: The Image on the Shroud is a Negative

Back in 1976, several researchers analyzed a photograph of the Shroud's image using a VP8 Image Analyser, a system of which was originally developed to be used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to help create brightness maps of the moon. It turns out that the image of the Man on the cloth is not a normal imprint but rather that of a negative image. A negative image can be accomplished when a person takes a picture of an individual and flips the brightness of the colors so that the brightest sections of the image are the darkest and the darkest sections of the image are the brightest.

This has allowed the image of the Man on the cloth to hold such incredible accuracy and impossible to achieve realism that, by using the VP8 Image Analyser, the researchers could gather three dimensional information from the image. Not only would it have been impossible for an artist to forge such a production, but many researchers argue that a negative image proves that the image on the cloth must have been made using a bombardment of high energy particles of some kind. This three dimensional information has led to the Shroud of Turin being used to recreate a complete 3D image of the Man in the cloth of whom seems to bear similarities with Middle Eastern characteristics and wounds across the body that match those mentioned in scripture.

Number 5: The RadioCarbon Dating of The Cloth

One of the main claims against the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is the radiocarbon dating results surrounding the cloth. Radiocarbon testing of the artifact had been allowed under special permission for researchers to take a tiny sample of the Shroud of Turin and use it for testing. Unfortunately, the sample they took from the Shroud was the same damaged section burned in a fire that would have thrown off the carbon results from the tests which made the test inconclusive.

It was not until many years later that testing could be redone, but instead of the usage of radiocarbon testing, they used state of the art techniques to date the artifact by using techniques in vibrational spectroscopy of which demonstrated to researchers in 2013 that the cloth was most likely produced somewhere around 300 B.C. and 400 A.D. which would have put the average of the artifact's creation at the time of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, helping to prove the authenticity of the age of the cloth.