The Shroud of Turin

Almost everyone knows the story of the Shroud of Turin. I, for one, am incredibly skeptical about any "holy relics". I have to agree with Mark Twain who said "If you took all the splinters I've seen that claiming to be from the true cross, you could build a city." My standard feeling about "holy relics" is "And...?".  I don't think Christ's cup would have any more influence over what you might drink than Ronald Reagan's pen would influence what you might write. Maybe I should compare Hemingway's Remington.

Generally it is accepted that the fabric may be too young, carbon dating from around 1350 CE, but that the pollen and other biological markers found on are definitely from Jerusalem and the chronicled path of the shroud. The weaving of the fabric is consistent with first century Hebrew manufacture. In other words, the consensus appears to be "We're pretty sure from one scientific test that this isn't real, but a lot of other scientific tests support it to be genuine."

One fact that is not contested is that the fabric made a fantastic negative for the photographs taken in the last century. The detail is remarkable. The point made Easter Morning on CBS Sunday Morning  by a researcher, Thomas De Wesselow, describing himself as "an agnostic, maybe a skeptic" is that his book has determined that everything on the shroud is absolutely consistent with the method of Roman crucifixion in the first century. Almost all of the paintings created to depict this event are NOT accurate, i.e., they do not depict the crucifixion in the way it was executed. Accepting the carbon dating, my first questions start with, "Who did they crucify in 1350 following exactly the Roman methods and the biblical account to create this hoax? And who was it that traveled the chronicled route of the shroud collecting pollen and other biological determinants to make sure they would later be found on the fabric?"

Then came a theory I had never heard before: The sightings of Jesus after the resurrection were not sightings of his immortal body, but sightings of the shroud. What Mary of Magdalene saw and talked with in the garden was the shroud. What Paul came upon on the road to Damascus was the shroud. The entity that baptized the disciples with the Holy Spirit was the shroud.

I guess if you start from a supposition fraught with superstitious beliefs of miracle-producing relics, it is not a difficult reach to shrouds that walk, talk, bless, eat and invite the touch of a doubting Thomas.  For my part, it is easier to conceive of a god reassuming his perfected body than it is to accept animated fabric. And I have to ask this question, "How did they prepare and feed the fish to the shroud?"