The science of the Shroud of Turin

A report today on LifeSiteNews reprises the research published in 2022 into the dating of the Shroud of Turin. This looked at other linen fragments from the Holy Land that are dateable to the first century. The research looked at the breakdown of cellulose in the fibres, and found them to be congruent.

The article also draws attention to the issue of contamination of the Shroud fabric, or others, from the past, and the effect of that on radio-carbon dating, to the presence of Middle Eastern pollens on the Shroud and the nature of the blood stains.

Friend whose father was a distinguished Middle Eastern archaeologist once told me when discussing the Shroud that his father was strongly of the opinion that he did not 

trust carbon dating

Having read quite a lot over the years about the Shroud I am very much inclined to believe that it is what it is claimed to be.

Given the passage of two millennia no- one can ever say absolutely, with 100% certainty that it is the Shroud of Jesus, but of what in this life, let alone the past, can one be that certain? What one can aim for is that certainty - not perhaps “beyond all reasonable doubt”, let alone “with reasonable certainty“ - but that all other arguments and hypotheses are negated. That, difficult as it may be to believe that something so fragile and vulnerable could have survived for two thousand years, but that there is no other explanation.

The article can be read at New study traces Shroud of Turin to time of Jesus in first-century Middle East