Shroud of Turin Continues to Confound

The authenticity - or lack thereof - of the Shrouf of Turin has no bearing on my faith whatsoever. Whether the Shroud is indeed the cloth that Jesus Christ's body was wrapped in, or it is the Shroud for an unrelated anonymous corpse, or it is a complete forgery has no bearing on whether Jesus of Nazareth lived, died, and rose again. But it certainly this little piece of archeological evidence certainly has an interesting history in the scientific world, and continues to generate controversy wherever it goes.

A chemist who worked on testing of the Shroud of Turin says new analysis of the fiber indicates the cloth that some say was the burial linen of Jesus could be up to 3,000 years old... "I cannot disprove that this cloth was the burial shroud that was used on Jesus," Raymond N. Rogers, a retired chemist from the University of California-operated Los Alamos National Laboratory (search) in New Mexico, said in a telephone interview Friday from his home. "The chemistry says it was a real shroud, the blood spots on it are real blood, and the technology that was used to make that piece of cloth was exactly what Pliny the Elder reported fort his time," about 70 A.D., Rogers said, referring to the naturalist of ancient Roman times.

Who knows? Maybe this is true. Or maybe it is the greatest work of forgery in religious history. Either way, it is a story worth following, if only for the continued drama.