by WorldTribune Staff, August 22, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
Using a new technique involving wide-angle X-rays, a team of Italian scientists have determined the Shroud of Turin does date back to the time of Jesus' life.
The large piece of cloth, which has been preserved in the royal chapel of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Turin since 1578, is believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
First displayed before the public in the 1350s, the Shroud of Turin was presented as the burial cloth Joesph of Arimathea used to wrap the broken body of Jesus Christ after crucifixion and death on the Cross.
According to Matthew 27: 59-60, “Then Joseph [of Arimathea] took the body and wrapped it in a new linen cloth. He put Jesus’ body in a new tomb that he had dug in a wall of rock. Then he closed the tomb by rolling a very large stone to cover the entrance. After he did this, he went away.”
Researchers at the Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council concluded that the material used to make the cloth being kept at the Turin cathedral was manufactured around the time Jesus walked the Earth – about 2,000 years ago.
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The scientists used wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) to determine the cloth's age.
“The technique measures the natural aging of flax cellulose and converts it to time since manufacture,” the Daily Mail reported. “The team studied eight small samples of fabric from the Shroud of Turin, putting them under an X-ray to uncover tiny details of the linen’s structure and cellulose patterns.”
Temperature and humidity factors led the scientists to believe the shroud had been kept in temperatures that averaged 72.5 degrees Fahrenheit and 55 percent humidity for 13 centuries before being brought to Europe.
Scientists compared the cellulose breakdown in the shroud to other fabrics dating back to 1st-century Israel and found them to be a match.
Breitbart's Dylan Gwinn noted: "Controversy has raged over the shroud since its unveiling, and despite the breakthrough findings of the Italian researchers, that’s unlikely to end. However, it’s getting harder and harder for critics to explain away this cloth that we now know was manufactured in the Middle East at the time of Jesus’s life and just happens to contain bloodstains corresponding to the Passion narrative in the Bible."
