Friday, April 09, 2004

Shroud of Turin: Is it real or a hoax?

The other day I was at a friend's house when we came upon a PBS program about the Shroud of Turin. I thought it was a fake myself, after there was that carbon dating that placed it in the 1200's, but this show was pretty surprising. It's a forensic look at the shroud and all the evidence suggests that it really is 2000 years old. The weave of the linen used is the same kind found only in the middle east 2000 years ago, the imprint can be explained by bacteria which occurs on the skin (the same bacteria that makes yellow pit stains in otherwise nice white shirts), and the water stains can be explained by this 2000 year old method of keeping valued objects. They probably placed the cloth in a clay jar, which then had condensation and stained the bottom corner of the cloth. AND there's also a companion relic to the shroud, a cloth used for covering the head of the deceased after a violent death, whose blood stains match the blood found on the shroud.

So who knows? Maybe it was Jesus, maybe just another unfortunate crucified soul's shroud. Check it out on your local PBS station.

Ah, PBS, it's so informative.

Shroud of Christ?

For Christians reading this blog, happy easter, for other people, happy day off work weekend!

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