Scholars Call Shroud A Crude Fake Say Area Climate Too Humid For Textile To Have Survived

While Italians rejoiced at saving the Shroud of Turin from a fire, scholars in the Holy Land say the shroud revered by some as Jesus’ burial cloth is a crude forgery by someone ignorant of Jewish customs.

Furthermore, they say, a textile such as the 14-foot-long shroud could not have survived for 2,000 years in the wet Mediterranean climate.

Enshrined since 1578 in a cathedral in Turin, Italy, the linen shroud bears the faint yellowish negative image of the front and back of a man with thorn marks on the head, lacerations on the back and bruises on the shoulders.

But Jewish custom in the first century required the head to be left uncovered when a body was wrapped in a burial shroud, said Joe Zias, an archaeologist at Jerusalem’s Rockefeller Museum and an expert on ancient methods of crucifixion.

Zias noted that the shadowy image of the shroud suggests that nails were driven through the palms. “It has been known for centuries that you have to nail high on the arms” to keep the body upright on the cross, and that nailing the palms would not have sufficed, he said.

There is a discrepancy of 6 inches between the shroud’s imprints of the front and back. And the fingers, resting on the pelvis bones, are unnaturally long and cover the genitalia. “Whoever made this thing, for reasons of modesty, elongated the hands greatly,” he said.

Amos Kloner, an archaeologist at the Israeli Antiquities Authority and Bar Ilan University, noted that no textiles from the first century have been found in the Mediterranean region because the climate is too humid. The only fabrics to survive were from desert areas.

Both researchers pointed to three different radiocarbon tests conducted by separate laboratories that found the Shroud of Turin dates from the 14th century.

The Roman Catholic Church has never claimed the cloth as a holy relic. Its legend began in the 14th century when the linen was taken to France by a crusader and transferred to Turin. Zias noted that pilgrims to Turin would get dispensations for praying before the shroud.

Calling the Vatican courageous for having the shroud dated by radiocarbon several years ago, Zias said the cloth could serve as an aid to believers - just like an icon of Jesus.

“But if they take something from the 14th century, and say this comes from the time of Jesus, I feel scientists have a right to speak up.”