Shrouded Proof

The long, convoluted, and controversial history of the Shroud of Turin

As a muslim, I am conscious of the lines of the second chapter of the Qur’an, where God, speaking about the Qur’an, says, “This is the Book in which there is no doubt, containing guidance for those who are mindful of God, who have faith in the unseen …” (Qur’an 2: 2-3). As someone whose undergraduate degree is a bachelor of science, I also know that for many of us, science and religion are not an either/or but a both/and proposition. In relying on both reason and revelation, I also find connections with my Catholic friends who have their own faith in the unseen. 

I studied both early Islam and early Christianity in my doctoral work at the University of Toronto. There, I first read in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke of Jesus’ crucifixion, after which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped his body in a piece of linen cloth and placed it in a tomb. The gospel of John tells us that he used strips of linen instead of a whole cloth. The gospel of Luke tells us that three days later Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and other women go to the tomb to find the body gone, but two angels tell them that Jesus has risen. Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, finds only the linen left behind. It is this linen that some people think turns up over a millennium later as the Shroud of Turin.

Approximately 14 feet long by 3 feet wide, the cloth has an image of a man about six feet tall on front and back with his eyes closed and arms folded. There are blood stains by the wrists and feet, whip marks on the back, and wounds around the head, all corresponding to the gospel accounts of the torture that Jesus received during the crucifixion.

In 1898 in Turin, Secondo Pia took the first photographs of the shroud. When he developed the image, he saw in the plate the reversal of color, dark areas where it should be light and vice versa, and the clear image of a face, which was much more realistic and couldn’t be seen by the naked eye looking at the shroud. These photos made the shroud more well known than ever before and renewed interest in it.

There are numerous theories about how the image got onto the cloth. One was that it was created by the burial ointments, oils, aloe, and myrrh that were put on the body before being wrapped in a burial cloth. In 1978, the Shroud of Turin Research Project, a team of chemists, physicists and researchers, looked at the shroud using modern X-ray techniques, ultraviolet imaging, chemical tests, and optical processing designed for NASA imaging. Their reports indicated no traces of oils or perfumes. Moreover, other shrouds from that time show evidence of the embalming oils but no imprinted images. 

Some thought the shroud’s image was the result of a chemical reaction of a body decomposing after death. Another theory was that it was created from the energy that must have been released during the resurrection of Jesus.

For some, however, the shroud is a medieval painted forgery. They point out that the front and back images of the body aren’t the same length. Moreover, in the Middle Ages there was a thriving business of faking religious relics, which brought in money to churches as pilgrims came from across Europe to see them. Interestingly, although the Shroud of Turin Research Project found no evidence of any medieval paints, pigments, dyes, or brushstrokes on the cloth, they found the bloodstains were real.

Over time, test results have seemed as mysterious as the shroud itself. In 1988, radiocarbon dating done on the fibers of the shroud indicated that the cloth was made between 1260 and 1350 CE. In 2022, wide-angle X-ray scattering dated the shroud to 2000 years ago.

In 1998, Pope John Paul II called the shroud a “distinguished relic” and “a mirror of the Gospel.” His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, called it an “icon written with the blood of a whipped man, crowned with thorns, crucified and pierced on his right side.” On March 30, 2013, the shroud was displayed in the Turin Cathedral as part of Easter celebrations. Pope Francis recorded a video message for the occasion, saying that “the Man of the Shroud invites us to contemplate Jesus of Nazareth.” However, he also made no pronouncements on its authenticity, leaving the matter of devotions to the shroud as a personal decision of the faithful.

Amir Hussain is professor of theological studies in the LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts. A former president of the American Academy of Religion, Hussain is the author of “One God and Two Religions: Christians and Muslims as Neighbors” and “Muslims and the Making of America.”