Truth Unites - Is the Shroud of Turin Authentic?

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Gavin Ortlund examines the evidence for and against the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, explains whether it can be identified as Jesus’ burial cloth, and clarifies what C.S. Lewis actually believed about it.Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Some people regard the shroud of Turin as the most fascinating physical object in the world. You pick up books on this topic and you see it being called the most studied object in terms of archaeology and religion. You can see that on screen or you'll see it called the most extraordinarily encoded image in all the world. We'll talk about what that means. But is this authentic? Is this the actual burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth as some people believe? In this video, let's examine what this is and then make two points. Number one, it's understandable that the Shrout of Turin affects people emotionally.

We can appreciate this experience of our imagination about the resurrection, getting lit on fire, and we'll even talk about that. Number two, we need to be wary of going beyond with the evidence warrants. Because as fascinating as this object is, I don't believe the evidence for its authenticity is strong enough to compel assent. And for this reason, it's actually a very helpful topic to reflect upon because it sort of a test case in the importance of not overreaching in apologetics. And so there's a broader lesson here, and that is it's okay to live with uncertainty. You don't have to know for sure. On some topics,

wonder and restraint can coexist. At the very end of this video, I will illustrate that with C.S. Lewis, and I'll tell you what C.S. Lewis believed about the Shrout of Turin. First, what is the Shrout of Turin? Let me put up an image. This is a huge linen cloth. It bears a, and a, and a on it is a faint image of both the front and the back of a man buried in a burial posture in it. It's over 14 feet long, and so the front and back views of the head nearly meet toward the middle. And don't worry if you can't really see that. I know that's a smaller image. I have no idea how that'll come on screen. We'll come back and show several pictures here. This is one that can just help you understand from a, it's a computer representation of how the shroud is believed to have

enveloped the man, and you can see how it's sort of wrapping over his head there. And it's only been in more recent times that we've come to understand some of the unique aspects of this image. In 1898, an Italian lawyer named Secundo Pia took the first photographs of the shroud, and it was discovered that the images can be seen more clearly in a black and white photographic negative. Now, if you look carefully in the middle of each of these frames, you can see the front and back of a man in a burial position. You can also see a lot of blotches because there was damaged onto the shroud in a 1532 fire, and there are also blood and water stains on the shroud as well. Nonetheless, you should be able to see a human figure there. And what is argued by shroud advocates is that the wounding and

bloodstains appear consistent with one with what you'd expect from a man who'd been crucified recently from the time of burial, and in particular with Jesus and what we know of his crucifixion, and not only that, that the body shows no signs of composition, which indicates that it was held in the shroud for a relatively short amount of time, probably less than 40 hours, some have argued. Now let's zoom in on the face, and right here you can see on the right there how the image can be clarified and enhanced with digital filters. So you can see the long nose, which appears damaged, if you look closely at the nose there, and the hair and beard and other various features, including many wounds and bloodstains. That's the case all over the body, but here

on the face as well. And what we need to understand right out of the gate is that these images on the shroud are very unusual. They have features that nobody quite knows how to explain. And we will come back to that, and what many people believe is that this is an image of Jesus and that when he was resurrected, that unique event created this unique image, sort of imprinting itself on the shroud. Now, before we go any further, let me pause to make this point, that it's understandable that this is going to affect us emotionally. If you're a Christian like me, then you love Jesus more than anything in this world. God has put that in your heart, and, you know, that's how I feel. It's like sunshine and poetry and oxygen is nothing compared to Jesus, just reminds you of Jesus.

The very word Jesus feels like the clouds are parting and the sun is shining, and that's what is in our heart. And so if you feel that way and you see an image that might be what Jesus actually looks like, it is going to hit you like a ton of bricks. And you don't need to be certain about anything before you have that experience. Just like if you got a letter from a long-lost love and you're only 50-50 on whether it's a forgery, or even if you only think there's a 10% chance, it's still going to have an emotional impact upon you. And this image is especially alluring in that it helps us think about the resurrected Christ in particular and the resurrection as a unique event.

So since the resurrection is a one-off event, you know, I've done other videos. I'll put up this thumbnail on the screen and link to these various videos I reference here in the video description. You can go look at this up. That's a video I did on the nature of the nature of the video. the resurrection. And I talk about Jesus's resurrected body as creation 2.0. It's a physical and yet immortal body. Nothing like that has ever existed before. What is my favorite doctrine to think about? And so because we don't have any parallel cases for this, you know, other people were resuscitated,

we might say, but they didn't have the kind of experience of Easter morning. This is like the second major event in all created reality. And so because we have no parallel cases, it's fascinating to just wonder about what did this look like, how might it have gone, and how might it have impacted a physical object like a shroud? I mean, just imagine it happening. You know, early Sunday morning, hell is still partying, thinking they have one, and then the body is moving. And, you know, what was that first moment like? And I don't think we can know all of this with certainty, but it's so edifying to think about. And my point is just that the shroud of turn is going to make you think about all this. It's wonderful. But here's what I think we need to remember. And this is

the great news that I think Christians can come together on, and that is you don't need to have certainty about the shroud of Turin in order to have certainty about Jesus and his resurrection, because the evidence for that, number one, is very good, and I've done a video on that as well. You can see the thumb there, but even more than the evidence, the Holy Spirit can implant that knowledge on your heart so much so that you're overflowing with joy because you love Christ, even though you've never seen him. As Peter says, though you have not seen him, you love him, and it fills you with joy inexpressible.

So that, you know, you don't need to see Jesus's face in order to have that joy, to have that certainty in your heart. The best, the most important thing is that he's real and he rose from the dead. And you, whether or not you're certain that this is Jesus's face on this shroud, you know, he has a face. And that's the important thing to just like, sense. on that first, right? And to know one day, even if I'm not looking at Jesus's face on this shroud, one day I will. When I get to heaven, I can give him a hug and say, thank you for dying on

the cross for my sins. And that is not hanging in the balance here with whether we figure out the shroud of Turin or not. Think of it like this. If the shroud of Turin were conclusively proven a medieval forgery tomorrow morning, Christianity would lose nothing essential. If it were proven authentic with 100% confidence tomorrow morning, Christianity would gain illustration, not foundation. Either way, you're going to heaven if you know Jesus. So hopefully that depressurizes it a little bit so we can simply follow the evidence and say, either way, I just want to seek the truth. So let's do that. Second section of this video, why do I say that I don't think the evidence compels assent? Let me first clarify that this is not a Catholic versus Protestant issue. You can find

people on both sides, and then, of course, we've got other traditions. You find different positions, people for and against in various different traditions, and the Catholic Church neither endorses nor rejects this as an authentic relic of Jesus. In fact, I find this comment from Pope John Paul II back, I think it was like 1980. It might have been in the 90s. But I think this is a helpful comment, and it's kind of resonant with the spirit of my comments here. He said, the church urges that the shroud be studied without pre-established position. positions that take for granted results that are not such. She invites them to act with interior freedom and attentive respect for both scientific methodology and the sensibilities of believers.

I like the healthy posture of this sense of interior freedom, and this is for me how I've gone into this. I didn't really have a leaning. Honestly, I remember I've just never studied this before until I bought all these books. Christmas presents this year, and I've been working away, and I, you know, I really didn't have a need one way or the other. I really honestly just felt kind of open and honestly just kind of curious, like, hmm, I wonder what I'll decide here. And so, but what I want to emphasize here with this posture of kind of just following the evidence is the importance of caution and restraint on this topic.

And I think that's important for many reasons. One is that the Shrout of Turin involves numerous and highly technical fields of study. We're dealing with radiocarbon dating, which we'll talk about, and nuclear chemistry, textile analysis of ancient weaving techniques, forensic pathology and blood flow patterns, spectroscopy, that has to do with how substances interact with light to determine chemical composition, materials science, so how materials age and degrade and respond chemically over centuries, pollen studies, because some claim that pollen from Middle Eastern plants was found on the shroud. That's one of the issues. There's so much to this. Of course, first century

Jewish burial practices, lots of church history. This is about as vast a topic as you can get into. You could spend your life studying this. And the thing is, most of us are not experts in any of these fields, much less in all of them. So inevitably, to come to a judgment about this, you're having to rely upon the summaries of others doing complex work across multiple disciplines. And I worry that this circumstances not always appreciated. And to be completely honest with you, I'm really dismayed at the supreme confidence that sometimes this topic is spoken about with. Sometimes people act like it's just a total slam dunk, and I think this is problematic. And I want to honor the complexity of this myself, even in my own comments. And I'm not going to make real definitive judgments here.

I just want to highlight one of the best arguments for the authenticity of the shroud. and then two of the biggest challenges against it. And while we get into this, I'm going to reference the syndologists a good amount. So let me just explain that the word syndonology is the formal study of the shroud from the Greek word that is used in Mark's Gospel. There, Joseph buried Christ and wrapped him in the linen shroud, Mark 1546. You can see there on screen. I love thinking about Joseph's.

burying Jesus and John tells us Nicodemus as well. I've argued for its historicity here in this video. All these videos will be linked in the video description. In my talk at the Credo conference last year, I reflected upon the theological and pastoral significance of Christ's burial. There is so much emotion involved in thinking that he actually stayed dead for a period of time. He didn't just die and then immediately resurrect. His lifeless body was put in a tomb. And by the way, this year's Credo conference is coming up, April 24th and 25 in Washington, D.C. A link in the video description for registration. We're going to talk about the beatific vision.

It's a great conference. Hope you will join us. Check out in the video description. Now, let's start with what is perhaps the best argument in favor of the shroud's authenticity, or at least something that is going to incline you to be open to that. And that is that the image on the shroud has no known. historical or experimental explanation that accounts for all of its physical properties. This image has some highly anomalous qualities, and it's very intriguing to try to figure out

how did that image get on the shroud. As we've mentioned, it's a negative image, meaning light and dark values are reversed, which was first discovered when the shroud was first photographed. I think I showed you that photograph earlier right at 1898. It's also superficial, and what that means is it affects only the very top fibers of the linen. It also appears to be directionless. And what that means is there's no brush strokes. So basically it's just, it's, it doesn't look like this is painted. There's no way that we can, we have no way of knowing any way you could have painted

something like this. And it doesn't have paint on it. So it's an extremely unusual kind of image. and it appears to even have three-dimensional information, where the intensity of the image roughly corresponds to the distance between the body and the cloth. Also, the blood stains that are present, arguably follow realistic patterns of gravity,

and it's real human blood. And some of these qualities are sometimes disputed, like the significance of the 3D information, but for the most part, this is just true that we can say, we don't know how this image was formed or could have been formed. And I think that's true to the evidence. Again, I'm trying to follow the evidence here. I don't want to, I'm going to give a caution against overstating things, but of course, the other thing is you don't want to understate things.

And the fact is this really is intriguing. And there's lots of theories, of course. So the way people try to explain it usually is the different kinds of theories on the one hand will be some kind of artistic process by which it was produced intentionally. Or some kind of, you know, of natural process, an actual body being buried in the shroud, and then some kind of natural process that would produce this. So for example, if it helps you think about it, there's certain plants that you can place inside a book. And if you leave it there for a while,

and you open the book, an image will have been imprinted upon the pages. And so people have produced various theories that are kind of like this based upon. But here's the deal. Decades of this. And there's still no consensus on how the shroud's image might have been formed.

No verified technique has been able to be discovered that can produce all these different properties at once. And the fact that some of these unique qualities have been discovered only very recently is also kind of striking. Here's how one book, arguing in favor of the shroud, addresses the theory of a medieval painting. How could an artist working in the Middle Ages have encoded on a piece of fabric image characteristics that are so unusual and complex that only late 20th century technology could begin to decipher them. There was a team of American scientists that conducted the first comprehensive hands-on examination of the shroud in 1978. It's called Sturp, standing for the Shroud of Turin Research Project.

And they conducted a wide range of physical and chemical tests. And there was a member of this group, who was himself a chemist, who said, if you were to give me a budget of $10 million and told me to make a replica of the shroud, I would not know how to do it. And that anecdotal comment kind of reflects the challenges of trying to explain how was this image formed. And we don't want to minimize that. But here are the cautions now. Uncertainty about the mechanism of image formation does not mean, therefore, authentic. That doesn't follow. And we need to acknowledge some major challenges to the authenticity of the shroud as well. And let me mention two issues, the radiocarbon dating, despite being highly contested, and then the history behind the shroud.

So first, in 1988, three independent accredited radiocarbon laboratories dated samples from the shroud, and the results, which reported a medieval age, were published in nature by the scientists who conducted the test. That's a peer-reviewed scientific journal. and these studies concluded with about 95% confidence that the material dated to somewhere between 1260 AD and 1390 AD. Now, what's interesting about that is that it corresponds closely with when the first documented historical evidence for the shroud surfaces, more on the history in a moment. Here's how one recent, very solid book on this topic puts it. The radiocarbon examination of 1988, which was conducted with the best methodology and in the best laboratories then available, dated the fabric to the late Middle Ages. The result was incompatible with the authenticity of the relic, but in perfect agreement with the surviving historical documents. Now, oh boy, this is very disputed.

You get into this, there's a lot of energy in this topic. and there's been lots of various explanations for why that radiocarbon dating might be wrong, like contamination, reweaving, sample bias. A common idea is that the test was performed on a repair to the linen. However, no alternative explanation has reached a consensus and won out over the others because none really have any conclusive evidence in their favor. The University of Arizona in 2010 re-examined fabric left over from the 1988 test and concluded our sample was taken from the main part of the shroud. There is no evidence to the contrary. We find no evidence to support the contention that the C-14C samples actually used for measurements are dyed, treated, or

otherwise manipulated. And you can get into this, and this book by Nicolati has a lot of discussion of the radiocarbon dating. And I think what I would say to summarize from my study on this topic is that there's a danger here of the amount of energy directed toward questioning this date sometimes has the feeling of a rushed discredit mentality. And the worry here is motivated reasoning. Put a question like this,

is the radiocarbon dating challenged because sound reasons are already had, or are reasons being sought because questioning the radiocarbon dating is the outcome that you're hoping for. See what I'm putting out here? And this is particularly, this particularly stings when those questioning the radiocarbon dating results are often not themselves experts in that specific area of work. Here's how one theologian puts this, and he is himself a Catholic, a French-Dominican priest, the disputes over the carbon-14 dating do not come from individuals who are competent in the subject of dating. What Nicolatti's book highlights is kind of the sociology involved in this field of

syndenology. And he's pointing out that a lot of mainstream scientists just don't get invested in this. They just kind of ignore it. And some of those arguing in favor of the shroud are very motivated. And so the result is that on certain points, there's kind of a gap between public perception based upon popularizers and advocates versus the actual accredited researchers working. Here's how he puts it. Almost all the material that has been produced is the work of those who are predisposed toward a particular outcome and thus are readily satisfied with conjecture about an object that they have never examined. Now, let's double click on that word conjecture there. And that's going to take us into the question of the history of the shroud. The documented history of the

shroud, as I mentioned, dates back to the 14th century in Europe. And prior to that time, it's very contested how to understand whether it has a history, and if so, what is it? So Ian Wilson has written this book. He wrote an older book, and this is an updated book, but this is often cited by those who are in favor of the authenticity of the shroud as a possible sort of historical trail prior to the 14th century. He suggests that the shroud may be identified with the image of Edessa, which is a famous relic referenced early in church history, and then transferred from there to Constantinople for many, many centuries prior to showing up in France in the 14th century. So his proposed historical outline, as you can see on screen here,

follows through that trail. Those last three cities are two cities in France and then Europe, Italy, where it currently is. But what I want to highlight is what's in red there, all of that remains conjectural rather than documented. Okay. And that's the vast majority of its history, if indeed it is authentic. And this is the criticism that sometimes comes up against this kind of narrative, is that it relies heavily on inferences from circumstantial and incomplete evidence. At the end of the day, we just don't have anything clear and conclusive that goes back for those first 1,300 years of the history of this object, if indeed it is from the first century, and that's a significant gap in the historical evidence. Here's how one scholar summarizes that.

More than a thousand years of qualified silence renders utterly unlikely, if not impossible, the hypothesis that the Shrout of Turin was kept safe since the apostolic era and preserved over the centuries. Now, there are replies to this. You know, this book talks a lot, puts a lot of emphasis upon the numismatic evidence, which has to do with coins. So some claim that coins were placed on the eyes of the figure in the linen, and coins are much easier to date. So you find people saying, oh, no, it couldn't possibly be from the 14th century and this kind of thing. But this is often seen as problematic. The majority of scientists and shroud researchers don't see verifiable coin impressions on the shroud. And there are other, this is very contested. All of this

is contested. And my goal in this video is not so much to sort of settle things. I am myself not an expert in all these fields. I'm just studying it. I'm curious, but I'm trying to think more pastorally and apologetically about how to work through something like this. I should mention there's a 22 study that used wide angle x-ray scattering to suggest a possible first century date for the shroud, but that hasn't really altered the broader scientific consensus because the method of dating is experimental. And so, you know, even the authors are saying of that article, we need further testing before this could be sort of conclusive or something like that. All these points are fiercely debated. But suffice to say this, the historical evidence and the carbon dating

constitute remaining challenges that simply don't have a satisfying or agreed upon or clear solution. Now, at the same time, nothing I've said here disproves the authenticity of the shroud. That would be very difficult to do, and that would take a lot more work. I've given a brief flyover of some of the big challenges. But even just from that, hopefully what I can, what I'm, what I, what I, what's really on my heart with this video, what I really want to highlight in terms of my goal here, is to caution against the overconfidence that is often present on a topic like this. That really is at odds with the literature when you're reading the literature on this and results in producing in the general public an uncritical acceptance that was not, we're not there yet, you know, that that isn't warranted

by the data. That's getting ahead of the evidence. And a possible danger here is that doing that can actually weaken our overall case for the truth of Christianity as a whole religion. Because our credibility is reduced on other issues if we speak with overconfidence on this one issue. What I really want to put the focus is on things like the existence of God and the resurrection of Christ, these things that are more interior and central to our faith, These are the points that we should emphasize because they have such solid reasons for them. And I, by the way, I have a book coming out in September of 2006 called Why Christianity Makes Sense. I'm going to throw up the table of contents.

I'm so excited about this book. It appeals to the heart and it works through a case, starting with no background knowledge, assuming no interest, saying, just at the beginning, here's why you should be curious about religion, working through God, Jesus, the Bible, faith. How do you actually become a Christian? Pascal's Wager, stuff like that. So excited about that book. Hope it will serve you, so just keep your eyes peeled for that.

But in that book and elsewhere, I really want to put the focus on the main parts of our faith. And I think that's something that's helpful to remember when we're thinking about a topic like this. Final comment. Sometimes it is claimed that C.S. Lewis embraced the authenticity of the Shrew. because someone sent him a picture of it, and he had it framed and hung on his bedroom wall in his Oxford home, and it remained there until he died.

But I want to read to you what he actually said about it, and I think this is a good, summative statement that reflects the kind of posture that I would love to encourage on a topic like this. He wrote a letter to the Anglican nun who sent it to him and said this. Thank you so much for the head of our Lord from the shroud. it has grown upon me wonderfully. I don't commit myself to the genuineness. One can never be quite certain.

But the great value is to make one realize that he was a man and once even a dead man. There is so much difference between a doctrine and a realization. You see, C.S. Lewis sees this as a devotional reminder of Christ's real humanity first and foremost, but remains open and non-committal on its genuineness and even says, I don't see how you could be certain. And I think that's a healthy posture for us where on the one hand, you just don't need to be certain, right? Remember Pope John Paul's reference to interior freedom?

You can leave things open when you're not sure, that's fine. But on the other hand, you can let it be a reminder to you of what you are certain about. Jesus was a real man. He had a real face like that picture with the mustache and the beard and the nose. you know, and he really died and he really was buried in a linen and he really was risen from the dead. And whether or not that's his face you're looking at on this shroud, if you trust in him and surrender your life to him and follow him in this world, you will see his face. And you can be more certain of that than you are anything in all reality. And that's a happy thing to land on.

Hope this video is helpful. Let me know what you think in the comments.