Forbidden History - Legend of the Turin Shroud

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

The Turin Shroud, which bears the image of the body of Christ, is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus and proof of his existence. In this episode, experts investigate whether this iconic relic is authentic or an elaborate hoax… Cast List: Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine Dominic Selwood: Historian, barrister, bestselling author, novelist and frequent contributor to national newspapers including The Independent, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph Professor Bruno Barberis: International Centre for the Study of the Shroud of Turin Joe Nickell: Paranormal investigator and author “Inquest on the Shroud of Turin” Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Barrie Schwortz: Official Documenting Photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project Dr. Matteo Borrini: Liverpool John Moores University Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Dr. Sheila K. Hoffman: Art Historian, Iconologist and Senior Lecturer, University of Massachusetts Stephen J. Mattingly: Professor of Microbiology, University of Texas Luigi Garlaschelli: Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of Pavia Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Preserved in Italy's Turin Cathedral is one of Christianity's most famous holy relics. The Turin Shroud. It's said to be the burial cloth in which Jesus was wrapped after his crucifixion over 2,000 years ago. The Shroud completely inspires those who believe in it,

because we have to remember, Jesus left no physical trace of himself on earth. He wrote nothing. There's no archaeological evidence, actually, that he existed. But if the shroud is real, then this is tangible proof that he did. The Turin Shrout might be the silver bullet that proves beyond a shadow of doubt the existence of Jesus Christ. Incredibly, it seems Jesus' image was somehow imprinted on the Turin Shroud when he was buried. Although the image is very faint, a negative is much clearer. Could this really be the face of Jesus after his death, crowned with thorns? Millions of Christian faithful believe so, as do some scientists.

I think we can be certain that this is the burial wrapping of Jesus. Skeptics disagree. Unfortunately, it's a pretty obvious fake from the Middle Ages. What is the truth? Is the Turin Shroud genuine, or can other amazing explanations solve the puzzle of its mysterious properties? It's not the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. It's the world's first photograph created by the world's greatest genius, Leonardo da Vinci. Turin Cathedral is home to one of the most famous Christian relics on the planet, the Turin Shroud. The Turin Shroud is so iconic because it represents

what might be the only physical, tangible proof of Jesus Christ. The shroud gives a face to a man whose legacy has dominated so much of human history. His physical anatomy is visible on this shroud, and that's incredibly powerful for many people. But is the Turin Shroud really the genuine burial cloth of Jesus? Today, the Turin Shroud is displayed to the public only on rare occasions. But a modern copy is on permanent display in the Church of the Holy Shroud near Turin Cathedral. Bruno Barbaris is the scientific coordinator of Turin's International Center for Study of the Shroud. We can see the most important thing, the double human image.

We can see the face, the chest, the hands and the legs. The blood image are clearly distinguishable due to the fact that they, are more red. In my opinion, the probability that it's not a fake, but is really the burial cloth of Jesus of Naderet is very, very high. Skeptics, however, are convinced that the Turin Shroud is not Jesus' genuine burial cloth,

partly because the first solid historical evidence of the Shroud's existence isn't until it appeared in France in the 1350s, nearly 1,400 years after Jesus' death. The Shroud shows up under very suspicious circumstances in the hands of a soldier of fortune named Geoffroy de Charnay. And he never was able to say quite precisely how he, a man of modest means, had acquired the most holy relic in Christianity.

Adding to doubts about the Shroud's authenticity, a French cleric of the time denounced it as a forgery. When the shroud was first exhibited in the 1350s, the local bishop complained and said that this was a bad thing, this was misleading people, and he said he even met the painter who had painted it. Despite this, the legend of the shroud as the true burial cloth of Jesus continued to grow over the centuries. A fire damaged it in 1532, causing burn marks and water stains. But nuns quickly patched it up, and in 1578 it was. was moved from France to Turin, where it's been treasured ever since. Yet, given the shroud's cryptic origins, today the Vatican is officially cautious about whether

the shroud is genuine or not. The church doesn't actually say itself that this is a literal image of Christ. They refer to it not as a relic, but as an icon, that it's a representation of Jesus. So if you want, the church itself seems to be keeping its options open. True believers and skeptics alike want to resolve the debate about the shroud once and for all. For over 40 years, both sides have turned to science to provide the definitive answer. The first large-scale scientific investigation of the shroud was carried out in the late 1970s by the Shroud of Turin Research Project.

Barry Schwartz was a photographic expert on the primarily American team. We did a myriad of different types of photography, but we also did spectral analyses, X-ray and X-ray fluorescence and reflectance analysis. So we had all of these different pieces of equipment at that moment in time. They were state-of-the-art, and ironically, the single question we went to answer, how is the image form? We were unable to answer. We knew of no mechanism that could make an image with the chemistry and physics

that we found on the shroud. And because of that, I came to accept that this was most likely the burial shroud of the historic Jesus. Since Schwartz's team examined the Turin Shroud in the late 1970s, many others have done scientific studies of their own. Some have agreed that it's likely to be authentic, but many others have declared the Shroud to be a medieval fake. So now we have all these scientific proofs that the Shroud is real,

along with the scientific proofs that it isn't. The debate rages, but this is one of the most central artifacts in Christianity, if it's real. One of the most recent scientific studies, published in 2018 by forensic anthropologist Dr. Mateo Barini, employed blood-stained pattern analysis, a technique often used in criminal investigations. In the first part of his recreated experiment, Dr. Barini is comparing the blood-stained pattern analysis, blood pattern on the Turin shroud to how Jesus would have bled if he was crucified on a traditionally shaped cross. So now your arm is extended like the classical crucifixion position. So with the arm completely horizontal.

So now the bleeding with the arm completely extended. So there is just a bleeding that is going down following the low of gravity, going down, going down, 90 degrees. However, what we see in the Turin Shrout is not this. Instead, the blood from Jesus's wrists as seen on the Turin Shrout didn't drip at a 90 degree angle to his arms, but dripped along the length of his arms. But this doesn't necessarily mean the Turin Shroud is a fake. We have a very particular image of Christ on the cross, and that's because of centuries of medieval and Renaissance art that have fixed. this vision in our mind. But actually, Roman crucifixions equally took place on X-shaped crosses,

T-shaped crosses, or simply even nailing the victim to a tree that was still living. So Christ's crucifixion actually could have taken any one of these forms. Scientific testing could support the authenticity of the Turin shroud if Jesus' hands were nailed high above his head. But what about evidence suggesting the shroud is a medieval forgery? And if it is a fake, Who would have had the motive and skill to create something so convincing that has fooled millions of people for centuries? The Turin shroud may be Christianity's most famous holy relic, but is it the genuine burial cloth of Jesus? Or is it a remarkable fake that continues to fool millions of people after centuries? For over 40 years, scientists have searched for the definitive answer.

The single best scientific data point we have on the shroud is carbon dating that was done in 1988. It was done immensely scientifically and independently and overseen by the British Museum. Strips of the cloth were sent to Oxford to Arizona and to Zurich, and they all tested independently of each other. And the results that came back with a 95% certainty were that the linen dated from between 1260 and 1390. So if the carbon dating was accurate, the Turin Shroud is a medieval fake dating to the 13th or 14th centuries. However, believers in the Shroud have suggested the study was flawed, even though most experts accept the dating results. One Shroud researcher in particular, Lynn Picknet, believes it's a medieval forgery and claims to have identified the person who faked it so convincingly.

Very few people would have had the motive and talent besides one of the greatest artists, scientists, and inventors of all time. Leonardo da Vinci. We can't be certain who commissioned Leonardo to fake the shroud, but almost certainly it was someone in the Vatican, perhaps even the Pope, because in those days they were very corrupt. And basically, they wanted the ultimate Christian relic

that would pull in the punters and line their pockets. From the late medieval ages, there was a significant commercial value in having holy relics because you would draw pilgrims not only to your church but to your city, and that was a significant source of income. We know Leonardo was given a room in the Vatican,

a secret room. We don't know much about what happened in there, but whatever it was, it involved a machine made of mirrors, And it is said that whatever went on in that room, the German mirror makers that were employed ran out screaming that it was sorcery and it seemed to involve huge flashes of light. Lynn believes that Leonardo da Vinci had the equipment and skills, even in the 15th century, to experiment with photography. She claims the Turin Trout is actually the world's first photograph.

I personally have no doubt that Leonardo had the technological know-how and means to fake the Turin Shroud. Leonardo invented so many innovative things that have only come to mass production. Helicopters, flying machines, all sorts of technological devices that were hundreds of years ahead of their time. And he was working with camera technology. He built a camera obscura, which he called... artificial eye with a little hole in one wall and you projected images through it onto the inner wall. What you had to do is you put a cloth in the camera obscura coated with light sensitive chemicals. Chemicals that were readily available in Leonardo's day, for example, egg

white and urine, and basically the light hits it and the image forms. But developing a photograph using a camera obscura can take several days, so it's very unlikely Leonardo da Vinci got someone to stand still for so long in front of the pinhole. Instead, Lin believes that Leonardo used the body of a corpse and the cast of a Jesus-like face to create his photographic image of Jesus on the shroud. The idea that Leonardo da Vinci could have effectively created a Renaissance era photograph of Jesus isn't quite as outlandish as it may seem, because for one thing, the idea of the camera obscure was known 500 years before Leonardo.

And we know from his drawing of the Vitruvian man that he was fascinated by the way that human bodies move and so on. So it might have been that the Turin Shroud was one of Leonardo's more bizarre experiments. Leonardo had no compunction about doing terrible things to corpses in his anatomical research He would have experimented until he got it right. He would have crucified a corpse. Then Lynn believes Leonardo da Vinci illuminated his cast of a Jesus-like face and the crucified corpse, projecting their images through a crystal lens onto the light-sensitive cloth in the camera obscura.

After a couple of days, you take the cloth out and you wash it in cold water. And you're left with the light bits. The dark bits just wash away. So you've got a negative image, essentially. And there you have it, the shroud of Jesus. And then you paint blood on. And you've got it. And the pilgrims come in and they go, wow.

It's an extraordinary idea. Can it really be substantiated that Leonardo da Vinci crucified a corpse in order to create Christianity's best-known holy relic, Lynn Picknet is committed to trying to prove this theory beyond doubt. Yet there's still the possibility that the Turin Shroud is genuine, and to this day, scientists continue carrying out experiments to try to verify its authenticity. Preserved in Turin Cathedral is one of Christianity's most renowned holy relics.

The Turin Shroud, Said to be Jesus' burial cloth, bloodstained pattern analysis has hinted that some of the bloodstains on it could be physiologically accurate. Skeptics, however, believe it's a medieval forgery, perhaps even an early photograph taken by Leonardo da Vinci. But although radio-carbon tests have dated the shroud to the 13th or 14th centuries, some people have identified inaccuracies in the scientific process used. So one prominent line of argument is that soot from the fire that the shroud suffered

impregnated the fibers and that has thrown off the carbon dating. Well, it's a theory that you can put forward. But the scientists who conducted the carbon dating have addressed these issues and say, absolutely not, their tests take account of these factors. I have friends that are pro- shroud. I felt when the carbon dating was done, I felt genuinely sorry for them because I knew they were They were briefly, only briefly, they were devastated. And then they came up with several hopeful theories,

and they were back off and running again. One long-standing Turin-Shroud researcher, who doubts the reliability of the carbon-dating results, is Stephen Mattingly, recently retired after more than 30 years of working as a professor of microbiology at the University of Texas. When the radio-carbon date came out, But that kind of convinced me at the time that it was medieval.

And it was some kind of fake. But since I thought about it and got involved in the research and thought about it scientifically, I realize now that it is the actual shroud of Jesus. According to Mattingly, the shroud was dated inaccurately to medieval times, not only because of the medieval fire, but also because airborne bacteria accumulated on the shroud over the centuries. The common contaminant, bacillus, subtilus, are in the air everywhere. Each day they're adding new carbon, radioactive carbon.

So the contamination issue is something we can't deal with as far as the Shrouturon is concerned. Most significantly, Mattingly believes that not only did airborne bacteria affect the carbon dating of the shroud, skin bacteria also created the mysterious image of Jesus on the shroud. Mattingly says that to create a really strong image on cloth, you need huge numbers of bacteria. And he says that's exactly what happened as a result of Jesus' crucifixion. His bloody death provided the perfect conditions for bacteria to multiply on his skin. We know that they added a crown of thorns early on,

and anybody that's ever had a wound in the head knows that it bleeds forever. There are reports of over 100 scourge marks on the body, front and back, that would also bleed. So we have an individual that essentially is bleeding continuously, and there are consequences to that. Most importantly, the fact that Jesus' own skin bacteria began to grow. They had all the nutrients they needed, and they were doubled every 30 minutes. So when the shroud was removed, it left the excess bacteria from his skin on the shroud.

And that's what created this wonderful image. But skeptics find it difficult to believe bacteria on Jesus' body could have created the image on the Turin shroud. And they point to the Bible for supporting evidence. The synoptic Gospels, those that see things the same way, Matthew, Mark and Luke, they do speak about Jesus' body being wrapped in a shroud. But John, which many think is the most accurate gospel, actually doesn't. It talks about linen strips and even a separate headpiece.

But perhaps the most fascinating thing about the Gospels is what they don't say. If there had been an image on the shroud, you would expect them to have recorded that. According to Mattingly, however, Jesus' image on the shroud may simply have have needed time to develop after the shroud was removed from his body. Mattingly is convinced that the image on the Turin shroud was created by bacteria multiplying on Jesus' skin during his bloody death. As a Christian, he finds Jesus' image on the shroud reassuring. I have no trouble being a Christian and a scientist, but the truth has to be through science.

I think we can be certain that this is the burial wrapping of Jesus. We talk about wanting to see his face in our prayers, and here it is. Here is his face. What does Jesus look like? We know what he looks like. We know how tall he was. We know many things about him because of the shroud. Could Stephen Mattingly's remarkable theory be true?

Did bacteria from Jesus' body really create the image on the Turin shroud? Some skeptics believe Jesus' physical representation on the shroud isn't realistic, suggesting that the shroud may be a medieval fake. To help solve the mystery, some look for clues in the history of Roman crucifixions. Christianity's most famous holy relic, the Turin Shroud, is said to be Jesus' burial cloth, bearing the bloody imprints of his crucified body. But is it in fact a medieval forgery? The history of Roman crucifixions offers a clue.

People who were crucified were normally crucified as seditionaries. They'd committed treason against the Roman state. And so normally they were left to just hang there, being pecked at by the birds and eaten by animals, and their body would have rotted on the cross. So the idea of somebody being taken down from the cross and being given a lovely burial with a shroud, highly unlikely. Scientific evidence also provides important clues about whether the Turin Shroud is genuine.

Bloodstained pattern analysis has shown Jesus' wrist wounds are realistic if he was crucified with his hands high above his head. But what about other bloodstains on the shroud? In particular, the Bible mentions a wound caused by a Roman soldier who stabbed Jesus in the chest. How could the belt of blood on the back of Jesus' body, on the Turin Shroud have been caused by the spear wound. It's been said by some that the belt of blood could have been created if Jesus continued to bleed after he was taken down dead from the cross and was lying flat in his tomb.

But is this possible? Overall, blood pattern analysis cannot recreate the wide belt of blood on the back of the Turin Shroud, supposedly caused by the spear wound to the front of Jesus' body. his body. In my personal opinion, I think that the Shroud of Turin was made in the medieval time where the majority of people were illiterated, so we're not able to read the Bible and the Gospels, so was like a painting to educate people. If the Turin Shroud was created as a painting to enlighten medieval Christians, this could

explain another surprising feature of the Shroud. While the average height of a man in Palestine 2,000 years ago was about 5 feet 5 inches, Jesus as he appears on the shroud is much taller between 5 feet 10 and 6 feet 1. When you look at the shroud image, immediately you're struck by this very long, thin figure that's very unnatural in its elongation. And having studied Christian iconography, I recognize that this was just French Gothic art. It was the most obvious explanation, and that fit, you see, with its origin in France, in the Gothic period. It's conceivable that Jesus' elongated body on the Turin shroud just indicates he was unusually tall.

But the suggestion that the shroud is a Gothic medieval painting designed to educate the faithful is a strong possibility. If the Turin Shroud is actually a painting, in theory it should be possible to replicate it, recreating on cloth a very similar image of Jesus. But can a convincing full-scale replica of the Turin Shroud be created today? There is no evidence that this is the actual burial shroud of Christ. In fact, it happens that most of the evidence points towards it being a medieval creation. The Turin Shrout is not genuine. It is a very impressive, highly accomplished, rather wonderful piece of medieval art.

If the Turin Shroud is truly a piece of medieval art designed to educate the Christian faithful, then it should be possible to create a convincing, full-scale replica of it. it. Luigi Garleskelli, former professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia in Italy, has tried to do this. But before attempting to create a realistic replica of the shroud, Garla Skelly first ruled out how it wasn't made. If we think that it was a Medieval artist to make the shroud, probably the first attempt he did was to see what the print of a real body leaves on a linen cloth. So we tried actually this.

We covered a volunteer with a red paint and we put a sheet flat on him. It's distorted the face completely awful. So this is not how the shrap was made. It's not the contact print of a real body. Instead, Garla Skelly tried to recreate the shroud using a technique known as bar relief, rubbing the outside of a sheet

to reveal the contours of the body wrapped within. We have a volunteer under the sheet, and we have rubbed with a dry pigment, the cloth. So we have followed the shape of the body. It's not distorted. This is more shroud-like. Unlike the rest of the body, A real face still appears distorted using the bar relief technique.

So the face of Jesus in this image was created using a contoured flat plaster mold. So this is a very simple technique available in the middle age. This is the only way you can have a face undistorted. Garla Skelly is using blue pigment to highlight the fact that the color doesn't matter. matter. He says the faint image of Jesus on the shroud is a kind of ghost image of reddish acidic impurities left behind by the original colored pigment that has completely faded away over the centuries. Now we will have to artificially age this image because the shroud had centuries to do

so but we want to do that in an hour so we will put into an oven at 160 degrees Celsius. to simulate the aging. After an hour in the oven, the image is washed to remove the pigment. Only the pigment's acidic impurities now remain on the cloth, which is then iron dry. Now the pigment is gone, and this is the image

on the surface of the linen, nothing behind. And the final test would be to take the negative of this image and see if it looks like that of the shroud. of the shroud. So just a quick test with a cell phone. Yeah, this is the negative. It looks like the shroud of Turin. After adding his homemade facial replica to a similarly aged bar relief of the Volunteer's body, Garla Skelly then painted on bloodstains in order to create a full-scale duplicate of the Turin shroud. Personally, I find Professor Garla Scully's vast release

analysis, extremely convincing. The image that resulted from this technique is one that closely resembles what we see on the shroud. So really a remarkable job. Others aren't convinced by Garla Skelly's recreation and say that it doesn't prove the Turin Shroud was painted. In particular, Shroud researcher Lynn Picknet remains convinced that the Turin Shroud

is the world's first photograph. created by Leonardo da Vinci. And she claims to have found further evidence to prove it. The shroud has often been said to behave like a photograph. When seen in photographic negative, it almost leaps into life, into focus. It's quite astonishing. Lynn's theory that the Turin shroud is the world's first photograph is very contentious. But she has carried out experiments that indicate it is possible.

By projecting an illuminated cast of a girl's head onto a cloth in a camera obscura, just like the one she believes was used by Leonardo da Vinci, she was able to create a recognizably shroud-like image of the girl's face. As for the face that Leonardo used when he created the Turin shroud, Lynn believes very controversially that Leonardo used his own face to represent Jesus. Leonardo would have thought, yeah, well, you're not going to get Jesus. Obviously, you're going to get my face. Leonardo was a heretic.

He had very passionate beliefs and they weren't Christian. In fact, there's every reason to believe that he hated Christianity and therefore faking the Churrin Shroud was an act of rebellion. It just would have appealed to him. Lynn's entire theory about Leonardo da Vinci, however, is considered very far-fetched by most observers. The claim that Leonardo da Vinci made the Shroud of Turin, it's just not credible. I love this theory that Leonardo da Vinci somehow created the Turin Shroud. He was an amazing visionary man, but even he couldn't have created something before he was born.

The problem is that Leonardo wasn't born. until 1452, whereas the first generally accepted historical account of the shroud places it in France 100 years earlier. However, Lynn claims that the Turin shroud isn't the same shroud as the one displayed in the 1350s. She says it's significant that this earlier shroud was soon denounced by the local bishop as an artistic forgery. Unfortunately, it was a blatant painting. So clearly what happened was the church liked the idea of having the shroud, the ultimate Christian relic, Jesus' own image and blood. But they didn't want that one.

According to Lynn, the original unconvincing shroud was secretly switched by the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, when it was taken from France to Italy. Leonardo's new much more realistic shroud was then displayed in its place in order to attract as many pilgrims as possible. Despite critics who say this is a fanciful and highly unlikely story, Lynn claims to have found further evidence that Leonardo da Vinci really did create the Turin shroud. She's found clues in the Salvatore Mundi, the famous picture of Jesus, said to have been

painted by Leonardo. If you split the Salvatore Mundi down the middle and you have that, that's a lot of one side and on the other side you have a picture of the shroud of Turin what you get is astonishing every single tiny feature lines up exactly the Savvatore Mundi strange though it may seem is actually also Leonardo but there's more Salvatore Mundi is holding a globe a crystal globe and people have said well of course the name means savior of the world so that's it he's got the world in his hand, but it's actually a crystal. And what did Leonardo use to create the image of the shroud,

a camera obscura in which he put a lens made of crystal? This is his nearest thing to a confession he created the Turing Shroud. Whatever the truth is about this amazing theory, the debate about the Turin Shroud will surely continue for years. Is it the world's first photograph? Is it a medieval painting? Or is it the genuine burial cloth of Jesus, imprinted perhaps by bacteria,

with the image of his crucified body? Although carbon dating has provided compelling scientific evidence, suggesting that the Turin Shroud is not genuine, believers continue to dispute the study's accuracy. I just think this tells us that believers will always find fault with any amount of evidence that they're presented with. I think that for some people, the idea that the shroud is the real thing

that wrap Jesus Christ's body is too beautiful, to be impossible. You could say that the Turing Shroud shows that we're a world divided between believers and non-believers, between those who want proof, scientific, rational proof if you want, and those who believe that faith is important, For them believing that it is, the image of Jesus, is enough.

That sense of wonder is enough for them. In a way, the shroud brings out wonderfully that conflict that we all have between the rational and the romantic. It's wonderful to believe that the shroud might be real. It's a little tedious to have signs tell one it isn't. But we all have within us that need for both. That spark of the imagination is always there. And for so long as humans have that, the shroud will have its supporters. And so, regardless of the scientific evidence indicating whether it is or isn't the genuine

burial cloth of Jesus, for millions of people, the Turin shroud will undoubtedly long remain one of the world's most revered and iconic religious treasures.