These dates may be good times to visit Holy Shroud, located in the Royal Duomo Chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin (Italy). Presumably, this is the shroud in which the body of Christ was wrapped after his death. Nowadays it is not so well known, as many consider it to be a fake. But what does science say about this?
Several scientific studies have been conducted on the Shroud. There are those who analyze genetic remains is present in it. And also, of course, some that use radiocarbon dating to verify age. It was this dating in the 1980s that indicated that the sheet must have been manufactured. between 1250 and 1390. This would not make any sense, since if this was truly the shroud of the Messiah, it would have to have been made in a year at most 33 years after Christ.
But it is other scientific research, in combination with the Bible itself, that in recent years has been able to describe a hypothesis as to why the Shroud could be real. It’s hard to say for sure, but perhaps that’s why he remains so interesting despite everything.
History of the Holy Shroud
Presumably, the Shroud is shroud which was wrapped around the body of Jesus Christ after his death. It is not known for certain what happened to him in the following centuries. Only in 1353 did it appear in the church of the French city Lireycovered in old blood stains and the blackened silhouette of a male body.
Was this the body of Christ? How did his silhouette end up here? A few decades later, in 1389, Bishop Pierre d’Arcy He wrote a letter to the Pope denouncing that the Shroud was nothing more than a fake. In it, he claimed to have received the confession of a forger who had hand-painted a silhouette of Christ, but he never mentioned his name. It is still unknown who he was referring to and whether the confession he spoke of was real.
Since then, the Shroud has traveled throughout the world, adored by defenders and rejected by detractors who claim that it is falsification.
The mystery seemed to clear up in 1989 when radiocarbon dating showed that linen was woven. shortly before the meeting in France. Perhaps it was a fake, with the help of which someone was supposed to make a big profit in the Middle Ages. But defenders of the veracity of the shroud story disagreed and pointed out that the fabric could have had more modern patches.
Since then, many other studies have been carried out, which have concluded that although falsification is most likely, it cannot be completely certain, since there are hypotheses about its authenticity that could be confirmed by science.
An earthquake that could paint the shroud
Radiocarbon dating, which was used in 1989 to calculate the age of the shroud, is a very common method in archaeology. It is based on the fact that living things have the same proportion of two isotopes of carbon: C-12, which corresponds to its stable form, and C-14, which has radioactive.
Like all isotopes Both are made of the same element, both have the same number of protons in the nucleus, but a different number of neutrons, so C-14 is slightly heavier.
Returning to the proportions of living things, when they die, the radioactive isotope decays, so that by seeing the amount that is left of it, the age of the living thing can be calculated. This is useful for remains that were once made of living matter, such as fossils or natural tissues.
However, C-14 can also be formed when cosmic ray neutrons interact with nitrogen present in the air. As a result of this reaction, radioactive isotopes are formed, which become part of Carbon cycle and together with them they enter the structures of living beings.
Hypothesis of some geologists
All of the above indicates that neutron bombardment on the casing could change its C-14 levels. This hypothesis gained greater strength after a group of scientists from the Politecnico di Turin demonstrated in 2014 that big earthquake could coincide with the crucifixion of Christ. In the Bible, St. Matthew mentions that “the earth shook, the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened.” This definitely sounds like a description of an earthquake. These natural phenomena can cause a sudden release of many neutrons from the earth’s crust. Authors of the study they modeled it exposing rock fragments to high pressure inside the press.
If this happened, two things could happen. On the one hand, neutrons interact with nitrogen atoms present in wool, creating new isotopes of C-14. On the other hand, it was this bombardment with electrons that painted the silhouette of Christ on the Shroud. There is a phenomenon known as neutron radiography, whereby these particles act like X-rays, capturing the pattern of the structures they pass through on photographic film, which in this case is the shell itself.
What does genetics say about the Shroud?
Another study was published in 2015 in which samples Human and plant DNA extracted from the Holy Shroud. The results are interesting, but not very informative.
There were several plant taxa native to the Mediterranean, as well as species from Asia, Middle East or America. As for human DNA, samples have been taken from many people of different nationalities. Those from places like Western Eurasia, Western Europe, Middle East, Arabian Peninsula or Indian subcontinent. This only proves that the Shroud has traveled a lot over the centuries. The oldest DNA may have degraded, so perhaps the one we are most interested in is no longer there.
At that time, the authors of this study indicated that they could not confirm the authenticity or falsity of the Shroud with their results. Science only shows that the shroud was used many times and that a large number of people tried to do business with it. The Church itself, after analyzes in the 80s, accepted the falsification hypothesis as true. We will never know if this shroud will one day envelop that revolutionary who gave his life on the cross. Of course, there is no evidence to definitively prove this.
Source: Hiper Textual
