The Turin Shroud is hailed by many as the burial cloth of Jesus Christ because of a mysterious image of a crucified man that it bears. Whether you believe or not that it is inexplicable comes down to what scientists you choose to listen to.
Be cautioned that most of them are working not directly with the cloth but pictures of it and some fibres and samples.
When you consider the rule that you must accept a supernatural explanation only when all the natural ones are impossible, it is clear you have to side with the sceptics until absolute proof comes.
The picture is certainly not a miracle as such errors - as the man’s hair hanging down as if he was standing up show.
The shroud image seems to be down to the same process that causes a leaf in an old book to transfer its image to the pages on each side of it. Was Jesus a plant? Did somebody paint it with plant matter to cause the mystery image when the cloth was washed?
Flowers on the cloth would be very odd. We know we are expected to ask if there was a body in it but flowers? Maybe the flowers are what should be getting our attention most.
FROM, The shroud debate rages on. Joe Marino answers The Skeptical Inquirer Shroud University
SI: "Accompanying the unscientific pollen evidence were claims that faint plant images have been 'tentatively' identified on the shroud. The floral images were reported by a psychiatrist who has taken up image analysis and made other discredited claims about the shroud image." Marino: The images were, in fact, reported in 1983 by a German physicist named Oswald Scheuermann, who then contacted the psychiatrist, who has an extensive background in photography (Whanger and Whanger, The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure in Discovery, Franklin, TN: Providence House Publishers, 1998, pg. 71). Floral images are also acknowledged by a research archaeologist Paul Maloney of the Association of Scientists and Scholars International for the Shroud of Turin, Ltd. (ASSIST Newsletter June 1990, pg. 5) and by the authors of the paper given in August 1999, who include Dr. Avinoam Danin and Dr. Uri Baruch of the Israel Antiquities Authority (Flora of the Shroud of Turin, St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press, pg. 16ff). As far as "other discredited claims about the shroud image," the author does not give any citations. While many people may disagree with the psychiatrist's claims, disagreement does not amount to discrediting.
ARGUMENT: Pressed flowers in books leave marks through very ordinary physical and chemical processes: moisture, plant pigments, and slight decay transfer color onto the paper. Over time, you get a flattened silhouette or stain where the flower was. It’s essentially a contact imprint plus staining. The image on the Shroud of Turin is quite different and much more unusual.
REPLY: But it is centuries old and a very light image. While all traces of whatever made it might not vanish, what remains is going to be unclear and indefinite. The pressed flowers may give pointers and that is enough.
ARGUMENT: The Turin Shroud may be hundreds of years old but it will still leave traces of its true origin, perhaps paint, if it is a fake.
REPLY: Those who want to say it is paranormal or a miracle won't assume that the paint or whatever, if any, could be a miracle. Plus the problem is not that there are no traces - it is that what is found on it is very confusing and misleading if taken too seriously as pointing in one direction.
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