My podcast series on the resurrection is still going strong. I’ve recently started my last sub-series within the larger series, focused this time on the Shroud of Turin. If you have never heard of it before, it’s the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ, bearing the image of a crucified man. Many Protestants have dismissed it as a fake Catholic relic, and most non-Christians have dismissed it as a medieval forgery due to carbon dating tests in the 1980s. However, interest in the Shroud has not gone away, and for good reason. There is much more to the story. In this sub-series, I’m examining the mountains of evidence for its authenticity, and I’ll address questions related to dating, and more.Check out the series wherever you get podcasts or at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com.
Thinking to Believe 
March 25, 2025 at 9:38 pm
it is a very strange “relic” but 1st century Jewish burial practices and biblical scholars indicate it is a fake.
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March 27, 2025 at 9:53 am
Jewish men generally wore their hair short in the 1st century. The long-haired man on the shroud is indicative of the cultural standard of the Middle Ages.
The earliest representations of Jesus show Him with short hair. The earliest piece of art to show him with long hair comes from the late 4th century. In that era, men generally wore their hair short, but some philosophers, scholars and religious figures wore theirs long as a sign of their ascetic lifestyles. Thus, artists may have wanted to portray Christ in accordance with their cultural norms.
The negative image on the shroud can be produced by technology known in the Middle Ages. This was shown by experiment some 30-40 years ago. Regrettably, I don’t have a footnote handy. So, the possibility of a forgery from that era is a real one.
Finally, with respect to the age of the cloth or “shroud,” it may well be as old as the 1st century, but that doesn’t mean that the image on the shroud was produced then. People may have kept relics from that era like people today collect rocks, dirt and water from the Holy Land. Then along in the Middle Ages or thereabouts, some fella decides he wants to cash in on people’s gullibility…and the rest is “history.”
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March 28, 2025 at 4:27 am
I’ve seen some interesting photogrammetry study results that used high resolution scans of the negatives and allegedly show items of interest. Tefillin straps with rhombus shaped embellishments wound around the right arm down to the fingers on the right hand, a small box on the forehead, a small hexagonal broach with small chain links attached to a clasp on the forehead. The blood stain from the contours of the clasp also appears on the small napkin know as the Sudarium of Oviedo. Tradition says this was the napkin used initially to cover the face, then later folded and pinned with the broach and clasp. Large chain links can be seen at the left forearm and on the reverse. Also the strip of shroud material previously removed but sewn back along the long edge can be seen still tied around the waist with the long ends visible on the front and rear of the body. This strip would’ve been tied around the waist and used to support the weight as the body was removed from the cross. The body is also apparently wearing a caleçon garment along with a snake skin belt and buckle. The same buckle image appears on the strip material as well. The crown of thorns is more like a cap of the thorny bush sarcopoterium spinosum, visible with leaves, thorns, and berries. The nails in the hands and feet are visible. The most shocking discovery is the evidence of stroboscopic imagery indicating movement of the person on the shroud.
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March 28, 2025 at 1:43 pm
So I’ve tried unsuccessfully to embed a YouTube link to a 50 minute documentary describing the findings I referenced above. I’ll keep trying because it is very interesting. Also, I incorrectly identified which arm has the tefillin and which has the chain links. I guess I’m accustomed to looking at the image rather than considering the anatomy.
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March 29, 2025 at 8:52 pm
To follow-up with the negative image techniques known in Medieval times, the likes of Luigi Garlaschelli, Paul Vignon, Walter McCrone and Nicholas Allen all showed how such an image could be reproduced with techniques known in the Medieval era.
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March 31, 2025 at 9:30 am
No luck using the embed feature. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a WordPress account. Anyway, just search YouTube with the terms “shroud” & “photogrammetry”. It’s an Italian documentary about 53 minutes long. Interestingly, they claim that anyone can easily verify their results using tools widely available.
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April 1, 2025 at 12:38 am
How do you explain John 20:7? There was a separate cloth for Jesus’ head?
4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.
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April 1, 2025 at 2:09 pm
mizpeh1, there were two cloths: one that wrapped the head, and one that wrapped the body. The head cloth would have been put on Jesus’ body when His body was removed from the cross. He would have been wrapped in the shroud inside the tomb.
There is a head cloth called the Sudarium of Oviedo, which purports to be the head cloth of Jesus. I haven’t studied it as much as the shroud, but it’s my understanding that it has a good claim to authenticity. The blood patterns are similar to that on the shroud, and it’s the same blood type.
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April 7, 2025 at 12:47 pm
Paul, how is it contrary to 1st century Jewish burial practices? The Bible itself tells us Jesus was wrapped in a shroud during burial. And what Biblical scholars indicate it’s a fake. More importantly, what are their reasons for thinking it’s fake?
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April 7, 2025 at 12:50 pm
UPS, you don’t have to embed it. Just provide the URL.
I must admit that I am very skeptical of these claims. I have spent a lot of time researching the shroud over the years. While I’ve heard a number of disputed claims regarding purported objects seen on the shroud (coins over the eyes, teeth and roots, etc.), I have never heard anyone claim to see teffilin straps, chains, etc.
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April 7, 2025 at 12:53 pm
Scalia,
What are your sources for Jewish males’ hair length in the first century? It’s my understanding that shoulder-length hair was not uncommon for Jewish men. As for art, my understanding is that the earliest art depicting the head of Jesus is from the mid-3rd century in Roman catacombs. That’s 200 years after Jesus, and thus not reliable historical information about Jesus’ appearance at all. For example, the catacomb images present Jesus as beardless and in a Roman toga. Would you use these images to argue that Jesus was beardless? This art only tells us how people who were in no position to know what Jesus looked like thought Jesus looked like, 200 years after the fact.
As for attempts at reproducing the image, some of the people you cite didn’t even attempt to produce the image. Others were able to produce an image of some sort, but not an image bearing all of the characteristics of the image on the Shroud. It won’t do to replicate just a few characteristics and call it a day. That’s like those who say life on planet X must be possible because it contains water. A whole lot of other characteristics are necessary for life other than water. The same is true of the Shroud. To demonstrate that the image can be produced naturally, one must show how a process available to someone in the 1300s could produce an image bearing all of the characteristics of the image on the Shroud of Turin.
I’ll examine each person you cite. I’ll include articles critiquing their ideas/work, as well as summarize some of the problems:
Luigi Garlaschelli:
https://shroud.com/pdfs/thibault-lg.pdf
https://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2009/10/italian-scientist-says-he-has.html
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/17364/mexican-expert-on-shroud-points-out-flaws-of-supposed-duplicate
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/17323/experts-question-scientists-claim-of-reproducing-shroud-of-turin
https://www.uccronline.it/eng/2018/07/28/shroud-of-turin-silence-from-borrini-and-garlaschelli-on-rebuttals-to-their-study/
Paul Vignon:
He should not be on your list. He believed the shroud to be authentic, not a fake. His contribution was to propose a theory (vapograph theory) as to how the genuine image was produced. He thought the image was created by ammonia from Jesus’ body (ammonia is a natural byproduct of the breakdown of urea in sweat.
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/ssi06part7.pdf
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33164668
Walter McCrone:
He did not even attempt to recreate the image on the shroud, so he should not be on your list either. He simply argued that the image was painted because he found traces of red ochre and vermillion pigments on the shroud (even on non-image areas). Virtually every shroud researcher disputes his claims/conclusions.
http://factsplusfacts.com/resources/McCrone001.htm
http://www.factsplusfacts.com/shroud-of-turin-painting.htm
http://www.factsplusfacts.com/christianitymccrone.htm
http://www.factsplusfacts.com/christianitydarcis.htm
https://www.shroud.com/piczek.htm
https://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2012/05/you-state-that-there-is-no-paint-dye-or.html
Nicholas Allen:
Allen proposed that a medieval forger invented photography to produce the image
https://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2016/08/medieval-photography-nicholas-allen.html
https://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2020/11/stephen-e.html
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/orvieto.pdf
https://shroud.typepad.com/topics/2009/02/nicholas-allens-ridiculous-photography-idea.html
Your evidence against the shroud is very poor, and fails to address the many lines of evidence in support of its authenticity (and for the record, I’m not saying there is no evidence at all to question its authenticity, but rather than the evidence in its favor far outweighs the evidence against it). In the same way we should not accept the authenticity of the Shroud without a thorough examination, we should not dismiss it without a thorough investigation either. I changed my mind on the shroud after investigating the evidence. Hopefully you will at least be willing to listen to my episodes on the topic and reconsider your position based on the evidence.
I agree that a first century linen itself does not prove the authenticity of the image on it. In fact, I just talked about this in my latest episode.
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April 8, 2025 at 3:07 pm
Jason,
Here’s the website url
https://www.istitutorappresentazionespazio.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=56&lang=en
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April 9, 2025 at 12:22 am
Okay, Jason, I tip my hat to you on your research. I have not studied any of the pro/con scientific assertions in any detail. Decades ago, the news reported that multiple tests were run on the age of the shroud, and all of them essentially came within the same timeframe, which, if correct, proved the shroud to be a forgery. Some time later, I heard on the news where someone was able to replicate a negative image on a shroud with methods known in the medieval period. Since I wasn’t a relic chaser anyway, the matter was neither here nor there to me.
When you posted here, I didn’t have any names at my fingertips, so I pulled them from the internet (from those claiming that they had discredited the claim that the image on the shroud was the result of a miracle).
That said, from my additional reading, no single test widely regarded as definitive and credible by the scientific community has conclusively dated the Shroud of Turin to around 2,000 years old—roughly the time of Jesus, circa AD 30. However, some studies have suggested an older age, including that ballpark, though they come with caveats that prevent them from being universally accepted. I realize that the curators of the shroud want to preserve it for posterity, but the whole thing can be put to rest by definitive tests on a section of the shroud that doesn’t affect the image thereon. And despite our disagreement here, I think we can both agree that if the shroud is shown to be from the medieval period, or from any period after the first century, it’s clearly not what folks have claimed it to be.
Now, you acknowledge that there is evidence against its authenticity, but that is outweighed by the evidence in its favor. And since you’ve shown yourself to be an enthusiast here, you probably engage said counter-evidence in your podcast. Nonetheless, here goes:
John 19:40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.
The custom of the Jews was to bury bodies in linen cloths, not shrouds.
John 20:6-7 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.
Jesus had a cloth over His face, with multiple linen cloths wrapping His body.
John 11:44 The man who had died (Lazarus) came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Jesus was buried as Lazarus was buried—according to Jewish custom. And archaeological finds, like the tombs in the Jerusalem area (e.g., the Akeldama “Field of Blood” tombs), support this. Skeletons from the Second Temple period (circa 1st century BC to AD 70) have been found with fragments of linen wrappings—often narrow strips—rather than large, intact sheets. And note, it was a face cloth over Jesus’ face, not a shroud. It seems the point of the tomb narrative is to show that what Jesus was wrapped in remained, only His body was missing. Why would the Bible leave out the shroud when we’re told about what else He was wrapped in? There is, thus, no biblical evidence for a shroud. In fact, we have direct evidence otherwise.
With respect to Jewish men’s hair length, the primary evidence is, of course, the Bible. Ezekiel 44:20 prohibits long hair on priests, and 1 Corinthians 11:14 says that long hair on a man is a disgrace. The notable exception is, of course, the command to grow one’s hair long under a Nazarite vow. However, as your former teacher, Bro. Segraves, pointed out, the fact that men were commanded to allow their hair to grow long is a clear indication that long hair was not customary for Jewish men. Thus, long hair was the exception, not the rule. Indeed, once the vow was complete, all men were required to shave their heads (Num. 6:18). Keeping one’s hair long was, thus, not an option.
Moreover, Roman depictions of Jewish men (e.g., The Arch of Titus) show them with beards and short hair. Roman coins after the first Jewish-Roman War (AD 66-73) depict Jewish men with short hair and beards. And these cannot be dismissed as reflecting Roman cultural tastes because Roman men were generally clean-shaven. Also see Biblical Archaeology’s The Only Ancient Jewish Male Hair Ever Found. This is a brief account of what was found in a 1st-century tomb. The man’s hair was 3-4 inches long.
Now, is all this conclusive proof that all men in Judea had short hair? Of course not. But the evidence we have appears to be stacked on one end, not evenly distributed.
No definitive evidence pins down the Shroud’s age. The Bible explicitly details Jesus’ burial with linen strips, not a single shroud. Plus, the long-haired figure on the cloth aligns more with medieval art and culture than the typical 1st-century Judean look.
There are other objections, but I won’t catalogue them all. Apologists will argue that we’re currently ignorant of how the image on the shroud was produced. But we’re still ignorant on how the pyramids were built. And until recently, we were ignorant of the recipe the Romans used to make concrete. At times, we must accept that not all answers are within our grasp and that those who came before us might have possessed understanding we’ve yet to uncover.
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July 21, 2025 at 9:21 am
As a follow-up:
The Gospel accounts offer varying levels of detail about the burial garments of Jesus, but when read together, they form a coherent picture. Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe Jesus being wrapped in a linen cloth—using the Greek word sindōn, which typically refers to a single, large sheet. These accounts emphasize the initial act of burial, likely summarizing the process rather than detailing every element.
However, Luke 24:12 and John’s Gospel provide more forensic detail. Luke refers to linen cloths (othonia), a plural term that suggests strips of linen rather than a single shroud. John 19:40 confirms this, stating that Jesus was wrapped in linen strips with spices, according to Jewish burial customs. John 20:5–7 adds that Peter and the beloved disciple saw the linen strips lying in the tomb, along with a face cloth (soudarion) that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head and was now folded separately. This mirrors the description of Lazarus in John 11:44, where his hands and feet were bound with strips and his face wrapped in a cloth—again, no mention of a shroud.
The absence of any mention of a large burial shroud in the resurrection narratives is striking, especially in John’s detailed account. If such a shroud had existed—particularly one bearing an image of Jesus—it is reasonable to expect that it would have been noted, preserved, or referenced by the early Christian community. Yet, no such references appear in the New Testament or in the writings of the early Church Fathers. The first known public appearance of what is now called the Shroud of Turin occurs only in the 14th century, with no documented history before that time.
Taken together, the biblical and historical evidence strongly supports the conclusion that Jesus was buried according to Jewish custom: wrapped in linen strips with a separate face cloth. The references to a sindōn in the Synoptic Gospels likely refer to the general act of burial or an initial covering, not a single, image-bearing shroud. The silence of the early Church on such a relic further suggests that the idea of a miraculous shroud is a later development, not part of the original apostolic witness.
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