As a Christian I am a firm believer in the Bible and the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. But like so many Catholic relics and absurd claims, it is actually blatantly obvious this Shroud of Turin is a fraud. (though I too believed the many claims because I wanted to believe them, until I gave it a closer look). The reason why so many people are fooled by this fraud is probably because they never get to see the whole picture. Most of the pictures I can find now show only the half which is the supposed front of Jesus body. From those that do show the whole shroud, front and back, such as the attached photo, it is difficult to make out the image, but on close examination one can see that the front and the back are connected at a point, with no allowance for the top, or crown of the head (This is actually what is displayed in the Vatican).
The creator of the shroud made a glaring mistake. If one actually can see the whole image, including the front and back of the supposed person, Jesus, they probably would not be so easily fooled. A cloth wrapped over the front and back of the body, folded over the head, would not have the front of the head, the face, attached immediately to the back of the head, which is the image appearing on this shroud. In real life a body is 3 dimensional, such that the face and forehead are separated from the back of the head by what is known as the crown of the head. On a typical adult body this would be a connecting strip at least 6″ long and almost 6″ wide, without the hair. That whole piece is missing on the shroud. Instead, there is the silhouette of the front of the body, connected immediately to a silhouette of the back of the body. That would only be possible if the body were flat and very thin – i.e. 2 dimensional instead of 3 dimensional. In fact, the same is true for the whole-body image as there is a lack of wraparound distortions necessary for a 3 dimensional body. Unless Jesus were run over by a steamroller, the shroud is a fraud.
Furthermore, objective scientists report the so-called blood stains are not blood at all but a plant-based medieval paint (red ocher and vermilion tempera paint). Contrary to the claims of the perpetrators of the fraud, the Carbon 14 dating was done by 3 different labs which were in close agreement, giving dates of a.d. 1260-1390, about the time of the reported forger’s confession (ca. a.d. 1355). All of this is of course refuted by the proponents of the authenticity of the shroud. But there are also many other facts being hidden, or lied about by the promoters. This is typical of the many Catholic claims about holy relics and holy sites, which are more often than not absurdities, praying on the gullibility of naïve believers. All of this only discredits the credibility of the historicity and authority of God’s inspired word, and does little to bring people to true saving faith in Christ as opposed to a ritualistic religion.
Some of the many sources debunking the so-called scientific claims for the shroud are:
- A 600-Year-Old Document Exposes a Historic Fraud: Someone Faked the Shroud of Turin Long before skeptics with labs, a scholar dismissed holy artifacts as clerical tricks. By Michael Natale, Published: Mar 17, 2026 4:26 PM EDT
- DNA analysis claiming new origins for the Shroud of Turin doesn’t hold up, experts say
A metagenomic study of this cloth, controversially purported to bear the imprint of the body of Jesus Christ, has little to say about the relic’s origins. By Stephanie Pappas edited by Jeanna Bryner April 9, 2026 (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-shroud-of-turin-dna-analysis-doesnt-show-relics-origins-experts-say/)
- Shroud of Turin Is a Fake, Bloodstains Suggest – By Charles Q. Choi, July 18, 2018. News (https://www.livescience.com/63093-shroud-of-turin-is-fake-bloodstains.html)
The claim that the shroud was what Jesus was buried in does not match the biblical description. A shroud is a single sheet of cloth draped over a body. Two of the biblical accounts of the burial, in Matthew 27:59, and John 19:40 and 20:5-7, use the Greek wordὀθόνιον (othonion) to denote the burial cloths in which Jesus body was wrapped. That word is rendered in Thayer’s Lexicon as “plural strips of linen cloth for swathing the dead, Luke 24:12 …John 19:40; John 20:5-7.” It is significant that it is in the plural form, not a linen cloth but linen cloths, translated in several versions as “linen wrappings” (NASB) or “strips of linen” (NIV, NKJV, GWT, NET), or just “linen cloths” (most versions) – all in the plural. If the shroud is the true burial cloth, these scripture passages are not true. However, John also makes it clear that this was done according to the Jewish burial customs of that time. The following gives a brief description of what that custom was:
“This preparation often involved washing the body, anointing it with oils and spices, and wrapping it in linen. The use of spices served both to honor the deceased and to mitigate the odor of decay, reflecting a deep respect for the body.” (https://biblehub.com/topical/j/jewish_burial_custom.htm)
This preparation began with the washing of the body. Logically that would have meant the removal of the blood first, which would have stopped the bleeding leaving at best only spots of coagulated blood. Even that would have been removed by the application of the oils and spices – so much for the DNA of the supposed blood stains on the shroud.
Furthermore, if it was a linen sheet of cloth (singular) as the shroud is, it would not have been wrapped around the body, but draped over it. But the custom was to wrap the bodies in strips of cloth. [1]Thus, the shroud theory contradicts John’s inspired, and actual eye-witness account, with no actual evidence to support such a claim.
With respect to the dating, there is much ado about how the C-14 dating was completely unreliable, with many objections raised, some of which sound credible. However, the solution is only too obvious – do the dating again avoiding all the supposed mistakes, and come up with the more credible dating. This is of course not allowed by the Catholic hierarchy – even though it would only require a small sample be taken, as it was originally – a rather obvious attempt to coverup what would be actual evidence which could end that debate once-for-all.
The theoretical explanations about how this “negative” was made, invoking a burst of electromagnetic radiation, or nuclear energy supposedly associated with Jesus’ resurrection sounds impressive to the scientifically illiterate reader. But it has no basis in any kind of evidence-based fact. God, Jesus, Elijah, and even apparently Peter and Paul raised people from the dead and it did not involve any such bursts of nuclear energy, nor does the Bible indicate any such a thing was involved. Rather such is a very speculative attempt to explain in natural human terms what is in fact very much a spiritual, supernatural phenomenon.[2] Experientially all known cases of any kind of nuclear events producing such powerful radiation have been catastrophically destructive – there would have been no cloth left intact, let alone a complete shroud.
Many if not most hoaxes and frauds today, and throughout history, depend upon the recorded opinions and testimony of supposed authorities on the given subject matter with ostensibly impressive credentials. For example, the article “Nuclear engineer says latest research confirms first-century date of Shroud of Turin” cites the opinion of a supposed Nuclear engineer Robert Rucker, and a Paola Conti-Puorger (who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering and a postgraduate degree in shroud studies and is custodian of the permanent exhibit of the shroud at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Ann Arbor, Michigan), as such authoritative sources – and indeed such credentials are impressive. It is Rucker’s theory that the image on the shroud was produced by “radiation emitted from Jesus’ body at the resurrection”, which he argues produced the image. But he also argues that it invalidates the dates derived from C-14 analysis. In that article the other authority figure, Dr. Conti-Puorger makes the following argument: “It is like contemplating the Gospel and seeing it very alive. Like the Eucharist, Christ’s body and blood are there. This is a living presence. It’s not a relic,” (Nuclear engineer says latest research confirms first-century date of Shroud of Turin – EWTN Great Britain). This equates the image on the Shroud of Turin to the Catholic belief in the Eucharist – that when they take communion it actually is or becomes the flesh and blood of Christ they are ingesting. That indeed is on the same level scientifically speaking as the magic of the shroud, just as real and “living”.
Unfortunately, while the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a reality supported by real evidence, such claims reduce it to matters of religious faith only (like the Eucharist doctrine), with no real supporting empirical evidence. Catholicism is largely a system of religion which is primarily faith-based. Catholic tradition and Ecclesiastical authority (Papal declarations) are two essential legs of the tri-lateral authority system, the third being the Bible (as opposed to the Protestant belief known as “sola scriptura”). However, the Bible is being interpreted by the other two, and includes the Apocryphal and some Pseudepigraphal books (such as the book of Enoch).
It is also a tell-tale sign when the promoters of such theories and truth claims use attention grabbing hyperbole such as “This is terrifying”, a very trendy word appearing again and again especially in social media posts and You Tube videos. As in this case, “THIS IS TERRIFYING! Genetic test on Jesus shroud reveals Genetic traces from China, India, Africa and Jerusalem”, an article which is largely just a resurfacing of old news as if it was startling new information which just surfaced and is terrifying and completely unexpected by the discoverers – give me a break!
The lesson here is that when such over the top hyperbolic language is used, it’s attention-getting clickbait sensationalism, reader beware – its Fake News. Whether it’s about the Shroud of Turin, Noah’s Ark, or Space Aliens, Extraterrestrials, Nephilim, the discerning observer should recognize such tactics for what they are. It should raise a flag, causing the reader to at least be very skeptical, thinking critically, examining and evaluating the truth claims, before accepting them as truth.
More on this in the article “The Nature of Current Deceptions”, available at https://end-times-revisited.com/.
[1] Granted, there is however confusion in the literature about the custom. According to some sources the shroud method began in the early 1st century AD with a Rabbi named Rabban Gamliel the Elder, a Nasi of the Jewish Sanhedrin, whose lifetime was reportedly concurrent with that of Jesus, dying in AD 52.
[2] Dr. Ruckers explanation verbatim is as follows: “The required information, discussed above, was carried from the body to the cloth by radiation (charged particles or infrared, visible, or ultraviolet light) which deposited it on the cloth when it was absorbed. (See paper 6 on the RESEARCH page.) This radiation probably caused a static discharge from the high points of the fibers which could have discolored them by electrical heating and/or ozone production”. This theory is very speculative, like science fiction, and if even testable has not been experimentally tested – like many theories there is no empirical evidence to support it. It has little resemblance to the production of a negative of a photo, which requires a specially treated photosensitive paper or “film” to begin with, and chemical processes to then reproduce images on that paper, or film. This shroud is an entirely different phenomenon.
end times revisited 