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TOO MANY LUCKY COINCIDENCES AROUND THE TURIN SHROUD MAKE US SUSPECT WE ARE BEING FOOLED

PROBLEMS

Appearance of standing: The hair and beard of the Shroud man hang as if he were upright, not lying down, contradicting how a body would naturally settle under gravity.

Unruffled hair and beard: The hair is tidy, tapered, and mostly clean, with only specks of blood; it should have been flattened, matted, or disheveled if the man had been lying down.

Neck and beard gap: There is no visible connection between the collarbone/neck and the beard, suggesting the cloth did not touch the body realistically.

Unrealistic buttocks: The division between the buttocks is too wide for a body lying on a surface; there is no expected pooling of blood or evidence of body weight pressing down.

Uniform front and back images: Both front and back images are unnaturally uniform; the back should show less detail and more impression from the body’s weight and gravity.

Hands crossed over genitals: The hands remain perfectly crossed in place, which would be impossible if the body were simply lying on a sheet.

Absence of binding and creases: No evidence of the body being bound; the lack of creases suggests it wasn’t wrapped realistically around a corpse.

Inconsistent blood patterns: Blood flow and stains do not match what would be expected from a crucified, deceased individual, suggesting they were applied deliberately.

Far-fetched explanations: Theories like the “mattress projection” (body lying on a raised mattress) are highly implausible, emphasizing the artificiality of the image.

Surface discoloration, not a detailed record: The Shroud shows only superficial markings; fine anatomical details or natural distortions are missing, pointing to human creation rather than miraculous origin.

Overall theatrical display: The Shroud is optimized for visual impact (face clearer than body, tidy hair, dramatic proportions), suggesting it was designed to awe and terrify rather than serve as a burial cloth.

THE ARGUMENT

The Turin Shroud is the most famous relic in the world. Millions believe that it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ bearing his crucified and bloodied image. The cloth is kept at Turin in Italy. The cloth is an enigma. Many say it is a miracle. Despite centuries of study, investigators of the Shroud of Turin have had very limited contact with the actual cloth. Most research relies on photographs, small fiber samples, or indirect analyses, meaning the vast majority of conclusions are drawn without handling the artifact itself. In many ways, the Shroud’s fame is built on mediated study rather than direct examination.

Yet there are sound reasons for believing that the Shroud is a clever forgery.

It is possible that it is not. That is rather unlikely. One might suggest that it is a visualisation of the Man of Sorrows concept which influenced much medieval art. In that case, it is a possible representation of Isaiah 53.

It may be a forgery of the shroud of Jesus.

It may be a forgery not of the actual shroud but posing as a miraculous reimagining of it.

It may be a forgery of neither but passed off as the result of some occult practice. Was somebody trying to get demons to make a strange image of Jesus?

Wily Christians try to keep the conversation about it being the original shroud or a forgery. There are better options than it being the actual burial cloth.

Anyway, it is a single long narrow sheet that covered front and back of a supposed body including the head. It is interesting that in the rush to bury Jesus, we are asked to believe somebody got the right cloth to make a front and back print. And sure enough the top of the head that should be there is not there at all. Nothing like that at all from ancient times has ever turned up.

The idea from The Second Messiah that the man lay in the Shroud in a very soft mattress (page 205) so that it made the hair frame the face is patently wrong. It would have caused great distortion in the picture of the back of the head. It is very far-fetched.

The man would only have been in a mattress if he were meant to survive. The alternative idea of him lying in sand is wrong for it is not soft enough. If the man was laid out in a mattress or on sand when dead men like Jesus were put on stone shelves in tombs it is grounds for suspicion that the man was not Jesus. The hair proves the man on the cloth was not Jesus Christ.

The hair was laid out and tapered at the back and tidied up. So were those who buried the man anxious to have his hair right? They were not the burial party of the gospels who buried Jesus nearby for they were in a hurry as the day of rest was imminent. The Shroud man was buried by people who had plenty of time.

The blood would have been washed out of the hair by the heavy rain gushing out of the heavens when Jesus was on the cross. The gospels say there was climatic upheaval at that time such as earthquakes and darkness so we can safely infer that if we asked the gospellers if there was rain they would say there was. The blood blots around the head are not watery from the rain at all which adds weight to the cloth being a forgery. The hair would have been tossed by the wind. It is just too tidy.

The Catholic scholar, Fr Raymond Brown, was a serious doubter of the Shroud. Brown wrote that since the buttocks are faint and the navel and genitals are hidden it appears that the Shroud is a forgery (page 150, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine). The artist would not like to represent Jesus as a sexual being and the fan base for the cloth wouldn't either.

There was, and still is, a clear reluctance in Christian circles to think about Jesus' circumcised penis. It reminds them that he was a Jew. The Shroud appeared in a time of rabid hatred for Jewish tradition, Jewish people and Jewish faith. There was a strong dark motive for hiding his genitals despite the fact that they would only be comprised of a ghostly unclear image anyway.

He refers to another authority, "Wild notes that the body image in the Shroud is portrayed as relaxed in death, but in a relaxed position a man’s joined hands will not cover his genitals if he lies on his back. Either the body has to be tilted forward and the arms stretched downward, or the elbows have to be propped up on the side and the wrists drawn together to hold the hands in place over the genital area. In the Shroud image also, the right arm is exceedingly long and the fingers of the right hand almost disproportionate, in order to allow the modest covering” (page 152). This too makes Brown suspicious. To pose as such, the man must have been alive.

Brown notes that the face is clearest because that is what people would most want to see.

I would suggest that if you see something that is riddled with puzzles and mystery don't let this blind you to the obvious. Consider how some of the main things, the unusually clear face and the odd modest position for a supposedly dead man speak to you the loudest. Hear them. Shroud fans want you to be carried away by wonder so you do not see the flaws.

CONCLUSION

The effort to regard the cloth as miraculous and real means adopting too many strange coincidences. There are enough to show that there is too much of a wish to believe, rather than any reliable assessing behind the scenes.

APPENDIX:

If the Turin Shroud were real and we had no notion of a resurrection we would spend very little time discussing it. At the end of the day, it is all about the resurrection narrative not the truth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1985
Free Inquiry, Spring 1998, Vol 18, No 2, Article by Joe Nickell, Council for Secular Humanism, Amherst New York
From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls, Walter Vandereycken and Ron van Deth, Athlone Press, London, 1996
Holy Faces, Secret Places, Ian Wilson, Corgi, London, 1992
Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1987
Jesus Lived in India, Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994 Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Sceptical Inquirer 9/10 2001 Vol 25, No 5, Article by Joe Nickell, CSIOCP, Amherst New York Relics, The Society for Irish Church Missions, Bachelor’s Walk, Dublin
The Blood and The Shroud, Ian Wilson, Orion, London, 1999
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Divine Deception, Keith Laidler, Headline, London, 2000 The DNA of God?, Leoncio A Garza-Valdes, Doubleday, 1999
The Historical Evidence for Jesus, G A Wells, Prometheus Books, New York, 1988
The Holy Shroud and Four Visions, Rev Patrick O Connell and Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
The Image on the Shroud, Nello Ballosino, St Paul’s, London, 1998
The Jesus Conspiracy, Holger Kersten amd Elmar R Gruber, Element, Dorset, 1995
The Jesus Relics, From the Holy Grail to the Turin Shroud, Joe Nickell, The History Press, Gloucestershire, 2008
The Second Messiah, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, Arrow, London, 1998
The Shroud, The 2000 Year Old Mystery Solved, Ian Wilson, Bantam Press, London, 2010
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal, Lynne Kelly, Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2004
The Shroud of Turin!! Is it Genuine or is it a Forgery? Dr Johnson C Philip, Dr Saneesh Cherian, Edited by Gregory Anderson. Creative Commons. Copyright Philip Communication. First Edition 2014.
The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press, London, 1998
The Turin Shroud, Ian Wilson, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1979 Turin Shroud, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, BCA, London, 1994
Verdict on the Shroud, Kenneth E Stevenson and Gary R Habermas, Servant Publications, Ann Arbour, Michigan, 1981