Shroud of Christ?

Description

In the Shroud of Christ? from the PBS series Secrets of the Dead, scientist investigate the Turin Shroud, a linen cloth that bears the image of a man who some believe to be the Jesus of Nazareth. Some also believe that the cloth is actually the burial shroud he was wrapped in after the crucifixion.

In a central part of Turin Cathedral is an elaborate, baroque shrine housing one of the Catholic Church’s most precious and controversial artifacts: a 15-foot long piece of cloth known as the Turin Shroud. Its surface bears, in faint shades of brown, the unmistakable image of a man. For its dedicated believers, this image is that of Jesus Christ, burnt onto the cloth upon his miraculous resurrection from the dead. But the debate over the shroud’s origins has raged furiously since its first documented appearance in Lirey, France, in the 1350’s.

Then, in the summer of 2002, a team of textile restorers was invited to Turin to undertake an unprecedented renovation of the shroud, which called for the removal of the shroud’s backing cloth and all of its medieval patches. The results were staggering – brand new forensic evidence that the shroud is indeed 2,0000 years old, dating from the time of Christ. Is it the authentic burial shroud of Jesus Christ?