WHY THE SHROUD OF TURIN COULD REALLY BE JESUS' BURIAL CLOTH

1. Biblical Similarities
The Shroud of Turin is a burial shroud which bears a picture on it, strikingly similar to that of what some think Christ to look like. The Biblical evidence that this could be the same shroud is found in a few passages:

  • "Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away." Matthew 27:59-60 (NIV)
  • "Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened." Luke 24:12 (NIV)
    If the Shroud of Turin really is the same burial cloth mentioned in the Bible, it is one of the greatest artificats supporting the claims about Jesus' life ever known.

    2. Coins on the Eyes
    If examined carefully, the Shroud of Turin shows evidence that the body had two coins lying on both eyes. Under isodensity enhancement, these coins were found to be leptons, coins issued by Pontius Pilate between 29 and 32 A.D.

    3. Hemoglobin in Blood Stains
    While some tried to dismiss the blood stains on the shroud as paint, they were quickly proved wrong when hemoglobin (a substance found in blood) was found on the stains.

    4. Pollen on the Shroud
    Pollen on the shroud was found. Some of the species of pollen were species that could only be found in Jerusalem, indicating that the shroud was there at some time, long enough to collect the pollen.

    5. Herbs
    "He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs." John 19:39-40 (NIV). Reasoning with logic, if the Shroud were the truth burial cloth of Jesus, it would still have some kind of evidence left behind of all those herbs and plants. Sure enough, the images of 28 different herbs and plants, all grown in Israel, were found. Some of these plants are recorded to only grow during Passover, the time when Jesus was crucified.

    6. Dirt
    Remarkably, microscopic bits of dirt were found on the Shroud where the feet would have lain. They were aragonite, iron, and strontium. These are kinds of dirt that can be found in the Middle-East area as well! If the Shroud of Turin was really a fraud forged in the Middle Ages, why would the forger have gone to the trouble of putting microscopic pieces of things like pollen and dirt? Back in the Middle Ages, there was no technology to test that, and they assumed that there probably never would be.

    7. Historical Evidence about a Shroud
    The English writer Gervase of Tilbury wrote in his Otia Imperialia (which dates A.D.1211, more than a century before the supposed date of the shroud guessed by skeptics): "The story is passed down from archives of ancient authority that the Lord prostrated himself with his entire body on whitest linen, and so by divine power there was impressed on the linen a most beautiful imprint of not only the face, but the entire body of the Lord..
    A medieval book by the monk historian Ordericus Vitalis contains this passage: "Abgar reigned as toparch of Edessa. To himteh Lord Jesus sent...a most precious cloth, with which he wiped the sweat from his face, and on which shone the Saviour's features, miraculously reporduced. This displayed to those who gazed upon it the likeness and proportions of the body of the Lord.
    Yet another reference to a cloth like the shroud is made by Robert de Clari (in the fall of 1203): "There was another church which was called My Lady of St. Mary at Blachernae, where there was the sydoine (Shroud) in which our Lord had been wrapped, which every Friday raised itself upright, sot hat one could see the figure of Our Lord on it."

    No Smudges
    Another interesting fact about the Shroud of Turin is that since--on the cloth--there is real blood and real dirt where the feet went, some people speculate that Jesus Christ or some other person might have really been presumed dead and buried but then reclaimed consciousness. Then the person could have gotten up, but there would be no blood smudges as one would expect. It's almost as if the body of the crucified victim had miraculously disappeared in a burst of light--engraving the image of the person onto the cloth--and then reappeared outside of the cloth!