Shroud of Turin: Christianity’s Biggest Fake?

A very popular Joan Osbourne song titled "One of Us" ventured into the hypothetical, asking at one point what God would look like.  While the song was more thought-provoking than purely religious, it puts forth the question, of how we would react if the Christian God turned out to be similar to us in face, habits and life instead of the mysterious, faceless and unknowable God as presented in both the Old and New Testament.

Yet, while God the Father is a great big cloud of mystery, how his son – Jesus Christ – looks like is easier to picture out and imagine. If we were all to believe the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, which is one of Christianity's most cherished artifacts, then we have an indicator of just how Jesus Christ looked in the human form.

The Shroud of Turin is a piece of cloth that bears the imprints of a man who was crucified.  Many Christians, especially Catholics, believe that this was the cloth that was used to cover the body of the dead Christ.  The Shroud of Turin, kept in the grounds of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Italy, has inspired the devotion and strengthened the faith of Christians all over the world.  For some, it was a physical proof that Jesus Christ lived among us more than two thousand years ago and then died on the cross for the salvation of man.  For most, it is a testament of His pain and suffering.

What is more startling about the Shroud is that the image of Christ is even more visible if you view it on a negative and in black and white.  The cloth in real life measures around 14 inches long and 4 inches wide.  What has been originally white has become brownish with age.  You could discern the outline of a tall man with beard and moustache.  One end has been imprinted with the outline of His front body while the other end displays His back.  The Shroud also bears brown stains, believed to be imprints of Christ’s bloody wounds, specifically wound that signify crucifixion.

Controversial

However, the Catholic Church has not officially recognized the Shroud of Turin as an authentic relic from Christ.  And for a good reason.  The Shroud was originally "discovered" by Italian lawyer Secondo Pia, who also took the first photographs of the cloth near the end of the 19th century.

About 90 years later, scientists contested the age of the Shroud, and estimated it to be only 600 to 750 years.  In short, carbon dating conducted more than 20 years ago revealed that the Shroud was created more than 12 centuries after the death of Christ.

A lot of other “findings” came out, trying to prove that the Shroud is fake.  The most recent came in October 2009 when Luigi Garlaschelli, an Italian scientist, came out with a reproduced Shroud that was created with materials that are both cheap and available during the middle Ages.  Garlaschelli revealed that the process included using pigments and heating the cloth using an oven.

Faith

As with everything in the Christian and Catholic doctrine, it is all a matter of faith.  Believers would always say that it is authentic, while skeptics would always say that it is a product of deceit.

But even so, the arguments and counter-arguments continue to volley back and forth.  When Pia came out with the negative images of the Shroud, accusations of forgery flew from all camps.  It was only 33 years after his 1898 photographs that he was vindicated, when another photographer took pictures of the Shroud and found that his own photographs were the same as Pia’s, thereby corroborating his claims.

Skeptics have come out with one study after another in efforts to discredit the Shroud: from the scientific like Garlaschelli’s to the absurd discussions of what aged dried blood would be like on a cloth.  The carbon dating that says the Shroud is not as old as it should be having been challenged by allegations that the cloth tested was not from the Shroud.

Christians around the world are then faced with the task of relying on their own faith.  As a religious symbol or icon, it is up to the individual to take their own interpretations and relate it to their own beliefs and faiths.  For now the Shroud does not prove anything like the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ or other mysteries of the Christian faith, but it should prove that one’s faith shouldn’t be dependent on any relic at all.