Jesus’ Image On Shroud of Turin: Controversial Still

Detective Friday in the old black and white TV series “Dragnet” was credited with the phrase, “Just the facts, ma’am.” He didn’t want opinions, but first-person accounts of what witnesses saw or heard. Only eye-witness accounts can be used as evidence in an investigation. What you thought, or imagined, or second- hand rumors are inadmissible in a court of law. Those things are all called hearsay. Those kinds of reports are not reliable.

Over the decades, I’ve watched several documentaries and read books on The Shroud of Turin. Have you seen it? Let me tell you about this unusual religious relic. It is controversial to this day. According to Wikipedia, the Turin Shroud is a length of cloth bearing the image of a man. The artifact is kept in the Cathedral of Turin in Italy where it is safely displayed behind airtight glass.

Is it a clever fake or is it real? It first surfaced in 1390 A. D. At that time, it was assumed to be a fake, a forgery by an artist. However, scientific investigation wasn’t done until 1988, 600 years later. The puzzle that a team of scientists could not solve then (and have not resolved yet) is precisely how the full-length image of an adult crucified male came to exist in the fabric of the shroud. Furthermore, the image is not a painting, as there is no paint pigment embedded in the fiber of the cloth. It was somehow burned – or irradiated – into the cloth itself.

Most puzzling of all? The Shroud’s image is in the form of a photographic negative, a concept and technique that was totally unknown during the time of Christ or in the 14th century. This kind of technology did not appear until after the invention of cameras. The first cameras had negative plates. Later flexible film was invented. Rolls of negatives were sent off to be processed at labs. Today, digital images are common, modern cameras, iPhones. The amazing negative image on the Shroud was first discovered in a photograph that was taken in 1898.

If you look at a digitally processed image of the face of the Man on the Turin Shroud, it looks like the face of Jesus Christ. It is unmistakable. It is uncanny, arresting, and seems undeniable. This man is rugged, not sissified, not cleaned up. He is a man among men who would attract rough fishermen and rugged followers. He looks like how I envision my Savior. If he is not, he sure is what I am expecting to see when I personally meet Jesus in heaven.

In the photograph, his head has blood stains on his brow from a crown of thorns. His wrists have blood stains from where they were pierced, as do the ankles. His side has a bloody stain from being pierced by a spear. His back has streaks of blood from being flogged, the flesh cruelly torn by a Roman flagellum.

If the Shroud of Turin is eventually proved to be a fake, it won’t rock my faith. But it looks real. My faith is anchored in the written record of the Bible, the authenticate eye- witness records of believable people who testified to what they saw and gave their lives to uphold as true. History says Jesus suffered on the cross and rose again. I believe it.