An amazingly detailed picture of a bearded man who had been beaten about the body, crowned with thorns & pierced with nails through the wrists & the feet," is how Newsweek magazine described the Shroud of Turin. For centuries, this unique burial cloth has generated intense controversy. Many scholars, historians, scientists and theologians have been convinced that it is the cloth in which Jesus Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion, and that by some unknown process his image was transferred onto it.

In 1889, something extraordinary happened. Technical progress had made it possible for the first photograph of the the Shroud to be taken. As the photographer, Secundo Pia, examined his first glass-plate negative, he almost dropped it in shocked excitement. What he saw was not an unrealistic and confusing photographic negative, but a clear positive image. Highlights and shadows were reversed from those on the cloth, & were far more lifelike & realistic, & the positive image of a man's face was clearly visible. Pia's sensational photograph showed that the actual image on the Shroud was a negative image!
How could a negative image be produced on a piece of cloth centuries before the invention of photography? Scores of specialists from all over the world began to earnestly study the mysterious Shroud. Attempts made by skilled painters showed that no artist was able, even when using a model, to convert a human face by the process of the mind into a negative image, & paint it. Leo Vala, a noted photographic expert who pioneered the development of 3-D-photography, recently told Amateur Photographic magazine,

"I can tell you that NO ONE could have faked that image. NO ONE could do it today, even with all the technology we have."

The educational magazine, National Geographic, reports that the face on the Shroud, hauntingly serene in death, would grace a masterpiece of art. The body, anatomically correct, bears the frightful marks of scourging, crucifixion, & piercing--perhaps by thorns & lance. It would appear to be a portrait, uncannily accurate when matched against the Gospel accounts, of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, many believe that this stretch of ivory-coloured linen is the very cloth that Joseph of Arimathea placed under and over the body of Jesus in the rock-cut tomb of Golgotha nearly 2.000 years ago. (See Mark 15:46).

In 1978, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) came into being. Scores of the World's top scientists, pathologists, textile experts, chemists, physicists & photographic specialists obtained permission to spend five days thoroughly examining the mysterious cloth in Turin, Italy.
National Geographic reported, "Perhaps never before had an object of art or archeology been subjected to such exhaustive examination. The scientists bombarded the relic with ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and examined it microscopically & took photo micrographs. With sticky tape & a vacuum device, bits of dust, pollen & other particles were captured for analysis." Their conclusions were startling.

confesses Dr, John Heller of Yale medical school, the blood expert of the team. Today he admits,

STURP team member, Dr. Robert Bucklin, chief pathologist of the Los Angeles city morgue, states:

One of the World's top investigative dentists, Dr. Max Frei of the University of Zurich, a specialist in tracing where a fabric has been, through microscopic pollen analysis, declares:

The STURP scientists concluded that the image on the Shroud could not be the work of a painter or artist, for it is too thin, & lies only on the very topmost surface of the threads, nor has it soaked into or left any deposits between the threads as would happen had it been painted. The scientists also agreed that the dark stains that permeated the image were human blood. But the question that haunts them & that has eluded their grasp is, what then could have created this mysterious image?
The general consensus is that the molecular composition of the image is similar to faint scorch of some kind, yet the scientists cannot determine by what means such a delicate image could have been made. It is now being suggested that an unknown energy force was applied to the lifeless body wrapped within the Shroud, & that a burst of extremely high intensity heat or light for an extremely short duration--probably milliseconds--somehow caused the Shroud to become a primitive polaroid film. Robert Dinager of the Los Alamos scientific laboratory in New Mexico stated,

For those who believe the Bible, the answer to this riddle is apparent: At the climactic moment that Jesus dead body was quickened to life, this "photograph" was left behind on His burial cloth as a silent witness of the greatest miracle that ever took place: The resurrection of Christ!

National Enquirer 20/11/79

The image of a coin placed over the right eye on the figure on the burial cloth actually shows the coin was minted near the time of Christ's death, according to Rev. Francis L. Filas, S.M., a top expert on the Shroud. With the assistance of coin expert Michael Marx, Father Filas has identified the image of a coin imprinted on the shroud as a coin minted only between A.D. 29 and 36. Christ died in A.D. 30. Placing coins on the eyes of the dead was an ancient burial custom in Christ's time, according to Father Filas, professor of theology at Loyola University of Chicago.

Using high quality, high contrast photos of the shroud, Father Filas and Michael Marx deciphered that the coin clearly features a tiny staff, called a "lituus," bordered by four Greek letters. That staff and the Greek letters were found only, on coins minted during Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judea, from A.D. 29 until A.D: 36.

"All coin experts agree that Pontius Pilate alone issued a coin with the staff on the back of it." Said FATHER Filas.

Marx, a coin expert for more than 35 years and owner of M. and R. Coins and Stamps in Oak Lawn, Ill. Concurs with the theologian.

"As a coin expert, I can confirm that the coin that appears on the cloth is one of the coins issued only during the last seven years that Pontias Pilate was governor of Judea--A.D. 29 to 36," he said.

"The markings on the coin date the shroud within that seven years period. The shroud is obviously real."

And Dr. Nancy Waggoner, curator of Greek coins at the American Numismatic Society, confirmed that the coins with the lituus on one side fall within the time of Pontius Pilate's governorship.

Electronic Telegraph

The Turin Shroud will be at the center of fresh controversy when a scientist details his claims to have isolated DNA from the "blood of Jesus." In his book, The DNA of God?, DR Leoncio Garza-Valdes, a former professor of microbiology, describes tests carried out by colleagues at the University of Texas which show that the "red" areas on the cloth, far from being paint, are ancient blood stains of a group consistent with a Jewish male. The book details the experiments which show that the "blood" on the shroud is ancient and contains XY chromosomes--which establishes it as human and male. The tests were conducted by a team headed by Dr Victor Tryon, director of the Center for Advanced DNA Technology at the University of Texas Health Science Center.
Gene segments from the stains showed that the blood came from a male with an AB blood type, common among Jewish people. Dr Garza-Valdes, a practicing Catholic, said that the placing of the blood traces strongly indicated that the body was that of Jesus.

"Not many people in the first century suffered all those lesions, the crucifixion wounds, the crown of thorns, the spear wound in the right side of the chest, the flagellations," he said.

A list of definitive results from research carried out this century: