The Shroud Of Turin

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THE SHROUD OF TURIN

Pope Paul VI called it "the greatest relic in Christendom."

A 16th century Roman Catholic soldier, sent to persectute the Christians in the Waldensian Valleys, wrote to Rome that it was his great sorrow that he had not been able to travel the short distance to Turin to venerate the Holy Shroud.

Dr. D. James Kennedy, in TRUTHS THAT TRANSFORM, interviewed Kenneth Stevenson, a scientist who examined the shroud and judged it to be authentic. Dr. Stevenson relates that he was raised Roman Catholic, and does not give any details of any conversion from that religion.

While Dr. Kennedy does not state that he absolutely believes the shroud to be authentic, the positive nature of this interview shows that he was leaning to this position even though he admits that when he first heard about the shroud, he "was very skeptical." This skepticism seems to have been overcome by Stevenson's "positive evidence" of the shroud's authenticity.

Dr. Kennedy asked if any of the scientists had become Christians through their examination of the shroud. The reply of Mr. Stevenson is an enthusiastic "Absolutely". Of course, since we know nothing of Stevenson's spiritual position now, we do not know what he means by "becoming a Christian." Many Roman Catholics believe they become Christians when they are baptized as babies.

The whole interview, in which the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin was unequivocally maintained by Stevenson, is described by Dr. Kennedy as "most fascinating." Many of his followers probably took this as a vote for the Shroud, and it further confused them regarding Catholic evangelism.

An article from Turin, Italy by Robert Suro, from the New York Times News Service and printed in THE OREGONIAN on 10/14/88 states that the Roman Catholic Church says tests show that the Shroud of Turin could not possibly be Jesus' burial cloth. Tests conducted independently by three laboratories concluded that the shroud cloth was created between 1260 and 1390. Archbishop Ballestrero of Turin said that they don't have any answers to explain how the image of Christ was created on the shroud.

The Shroud of Turin, a 14'3" long cloth that was alleged to have been the burial cloth of Jesus, first showed up in a small village in France in 1357. Roman Catholic scholars have attempted to minimize the importance of the shroud's having been missing for over 13 centuries, and some tried to establish its validity because it was said the features of the man plainly seen on the shroud was very like religious icons of Christ that can be traced back to the 6th century.

It was last exhibited to the public from August 27 to October 8, 1978, and millions of visitors came to Turin to see it. It was at this time that the group of scientists, including Mr. Stevenson, had the opportunity to subject the cloth to a series of analyses which caused the conclusion by some of the men that it was authentic.

In 1984 scholars presented the Vatican with a proposal for radio- carbon dating. The three laboratories selected by the church to conduct these tests were at Oxford University, the University of Arizona and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.

The church has never proclaimed that the shroud was Jesus' burial cloth, but it certainly has not discouraged that belief. Ballestrero noted that in church liturgical texts and in his own preaching the shroud has been presented as a holy image worthy of "respect and veneration."

He continued, "What the Church values most about the shroud is that its representation of a gaunt, sunken-eyed man has a capacity to inspire religious faith."

Christians certainly do not hold to the exactness of radiocarbon dating, and have always found it more authentic to ask "What does the Bible say?" John 11:44 and 20:7 assure us that the Jewish custom of burial was to wrap the head in a separate linen cloth, and John 19:40 tells us Jesus was buried as was the manner of the Jews.

Isaiah 52:14 says of Christ, "His visage was so marred more than any man", and the face on the shroud shows no evidence of this. The Shroud of Turin is just another of Satan's counterfeits designed to obscure the true Christ of the Bible. It is a tragedy that highly- respected Christian teachers should lend their influence in this direction.

LURE OF RELICS INSPIRED FRAUD, THEFT

by James Davis, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL, 10/22/88, p. A-4

The Shroud of Turin may not, after all, be a snapshot of Jesus' resurrection. But it still offers a glimpse into an alien world of medieval relics.

It's a world of holy places, saints' corpses, vials of tears, splinters from the One True Cross, and even grave robbing in the name of reverence.

That world, despite its strangeness, still echoes in our own. But until recently, scholars have all but ignored relics and their effect on worship. "They once thought the subject was beneath their notice, " says John Van Engen, head of the Medieval Institute at Notre Damne University. "Now they're more interested in the religion of the people."

The main exception has been the Shroud itself, a 14-by-3-1/2-strip of linen that bears the faint image of a whipped and crucified man. Many people believed it was the burial cloth of Jesus, who miraculously left his bodily imprint on it as he rose from the dead. That notion wilted last month as a results of Carbon-14 tests dated the Shroud around the 14th century.

That would place it solidly in the "golden age" of relics in Europe, when every church had its patron saint, and the saint's body itself, or at least one of his possessions, under the altar.

"People couldn't always go to the alter to pray, so the relic was a tangible link with the saints, " says Rev. Thomas McNally, a historian at Saint Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, Fla. "They didn't divide the sacred from the secular as we do in our scientific age."

Thus the 12th century Three Kings Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, boasts three skulls purportedly belonging to the Wise Men who visited the infant Jesus. And a house that Jesus, Mary and Joseph supposedly inhabited is in Loreto, Italy, allegedly flown there by angels.

Some churches claimed to possess Jesus' milk teeth or the foreskin from his circumcision. Others claimed they had Peter's tears, Enoch's slippers, Moses' rod, St. Michael's sweat, the hem of Joseph's coat of many colors, or the fingers of Paul, Andrew, or John the Baptist.

Msgr. John Ellis, church historian, recalls with disdain his visit to St. Anthony Church in Padua, Italy. The guide casually pointed out a vial containing "the milk of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

Remarks Ellis, "Some relics are fed by sheer curiosity, but some are by fanaticism. I don't say there are no real relics, but there's so much fraud you can't be sure."

At one time in Europe, there reportedly were two heads of John the Baptist; three spears that pierced Jesus' side; three corpses of Mary Magdalene; innumerable thorns from Jesus' crown and splinters from the cross. The Shroud of Turin itself was one of 40 such cloths, all of them supposed to be the real one.

THE HOLY FACE

Another interesting aspect of the Shroud of Turin came as I was reading the publication, THE MEDAL AND THE HOLY FACE put out by the Holy Face Association, Box 1, St. Henri Station, Montreal Canada H4C 3J7. By sending a self-addressed envelope to them, you can receive a religious medal which has an interesting history.

Sister Pierina was a Roman Catholic nun who died in 1945. During her lifetime, she was repeatedly urged by Mary and Jesus to spread the devotion to the "Holy Face", in reparation for the many insults Jesus suffered in His Passion, as well as the ways in which it is now being dishonored in the Blessed Sacrament by neglect, sacrileges and profanations.

Sister Pierina was given a medal which on one side bore a replica of the Holy Shroud, with an inscription in Latin that, translated, reads "May, O Lord, the light of Thy countenance shine upon us."

After great difficulty, Sister Pierina obtained permission to have the medal cast. The expense for this was met when she found on her desk an envelope containing the exact amount of money that was needed. The devil is supposed to have expressed his rage at this by burning pictures of the Sacred Face, and beating Sister Pierina savagely.

The first medal to the Holy Face was offered to Pius XII, and now it has spread over the world. It is said that no prisoner of war wearing this badge of salvation has ever been executed. Jesus also is supposed to have requested that a special feast be instituted to honor His Holy Face on Shrove Tuesday.

DR. KENNEDY RE THE SHROUD OF TURIN

A letter was sent to Dr. D. James Kennedy regarding an article he published on the Shroud of Turin. While Dr. Kennedy was careful not to conclude that the shroud was definitely genuine, he related that people were converted as a result of examining the shroud. The person who told of these conversions was raised a Roman Catholic and never told of a conversion to Christ, so my letter tried to ascertain some facts that would help us to understand Dr. Kennedy's position re Romanism and the Shroud of Turin.

So far the only response I have received was two letters asking for donations to Dr. Kennedy's ministry, so I am on his mailing list.

These two problems are very critical to fundamental Christianity, when men who have widespread ministries give false impressions about Roman Catholicism. It is necessary for us to bring this to your attention so that you will understand some of the battles being faced in Roman Catholic evangelism today. Every soft statement on the issue makes our work more difficult, and makes our support more restricted to those who truly understand the needs within Romanism today.

Copyright to this article is held by Christians Evangelizing Catholics. You are allowed to reproduce this article only in its entirety and without any additions or deletions. This article originated on S.O.N.

Comments On This Page:

Shroud facts posted by Truth seeker on 04/11/2009 at 12:43:16 from IP# 71.235.167.33
After actually seeking the original sources and the actual evidence, it has been determined that the shroud has some 14th century cloth, but also 1st century linen of Christ's time at his crucifixion....it depends upon where one decided to test and "claim" the cloths dating to his liking. It would appear over the centuries, the Shroud was attempted to be mended. The location where the cloth was mended, was found to be dated during the 14th century. This is where one would be testing the cloth if one was looking for evidence to disprove the main cloth found to be a 1st century cloth. No new news under the sun... It was done back in the first century and is still being done today..truth suppression.

re: Swiss Prof. Max Frei's rep & questionable results of the posted by Juno P.F. N o r p e t's Turin-shroud-was-forged? on 06/16/2003 at 04:01:06 from IP# 66.81.61.138
Well, real blood does not contain red
ochre, vermilion, and alizarin red pigments as McCrone charged. And to date many dispute McCrone's conclusion that
real blood and its organic derivatives have refractive indices much less than red ochre or vermilion, and they can be
easily distinguished using Becke line movement under a light microscope. McCrone's examination of the red particles
on the Shroud samples revealed the discovery that the iron oxide was purely the result of a chemical change that takes
place in the manufacture of linen, coupled with the effect of heat from the fire of 1532. The experts were able to
successfully duplicate this process in the laboratoryno blood or blood derivatives Frei much later, in 1994 13, I learned
that Max Frei had pronounced as genuine the forged "Hitler Diaries," and that he had "been several times found guilty
and was censured" by the police administration in Switzerland for "overenthusiastic interpretation of his evidence," in
other words, for faking his results to make it easier to obtain convictions, as a number of other forensic scientists have
been accused of doing recently in the United States. His Basel counterpart expressed surprise that Max Frei was able
to keep his position as head of the police crime lab in Zurich. Dr. Maloney knows this history and these facts, too, so I
will thank him for not needlessly impugning my reputation in the future by his continued defense of Max Frei's
"reputation." And while we are on this subject of reputations, what is Dr. Maloney's purpose in recounting his story of
how he "submitted" Max Frei's tainted pollen data to legitimate, presumably neutral pollen and botanical authorities
such as Dr. Orville Dahl, Dr. Aharon Horowitz, Dr. Avinoam Danin, and Dr. Shokry Ibrahaim Saad, "requested" their
professional "evaluation," and then published their observations which support Maloney and Frei's thesis1? In my
opinion, on the Shroud of Turin, and second, a brief summary of the convincing empirical evidence that makes it clear
that the Shroud is a fourteenth-century artifact and not a first-century archaeological object. The Shroud of Turin is a
notorious religious relic that, without the tremendous pseudoscientific support and evidence led many to the discovery
that the iron oxide was purely the result of a chemical change that takes place in the manufacture of linen, coupled with
the effect of heat from the fire of 1532 put forward to popularize its authenticity Topic(s): Swiss Prof. Max Frei's rep & questionable results of the organic derivatives found in the image refractive indices for christ's-burial cloth of Turin (the holy Relic) 'evidences' . . Turin-shroud-was-forged? Come tell me the other side of (this most mysterious relic) the debate or evidence your wanting to point to concerning the image-of-the-shroud

Shroud Relics posted by Frank on 12/12/2001 at 14:27:53 from IP# 138.23.125.245
Very interesting artical, most informative. My question pertains to shroud relics or medals that might have been produced or marketed. I have two old medals that have a very small square of cloth on one side, and a engraved picture of St. Joseph holding the Christ child on the other. The inscription around the edge appears to be in some type of old Latin. I was only able to translate part of it. "cloth of the saint" was what I translated from the writing. One word, at the bottom of the medal, reads "padova". One medal is in the shape of a even cross and the other is an oval shape. I know these are at least 50 years old as I got them when I was eight from a neighbor who was about 80 years old at the time. (She told me she got them as a child from her grandmother, but who knows) I have been searching for years to find similiar medals but to date have found none. The closest I came was a medal that was similiar in design to the cross. It did not have the piece of cloth in the center and it was dated back to the 16th century. The pieces of cloth are covered by what appears to be plastic, not glass. This is the questionable portion of the medals. If it is plastic covering the cloth, that would mean the medals were made in the 20th century, right? Any comments would be appreciated.

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