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Shroud of Turin’s Authenticity No Longer Disputable?
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2 responses to “Shroud of Turin’s Authenticity No Longer Disputable?”
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Thank you, Bill, for calling attention to this interview with the French historian Jean-Christian Petitfils, whose recently published Le Saint Suaire de Turin: Témoin de la Passion de Jésus-Christ (August, 2022) is a rigorous analysis of the historical, scientific, artistic, and scriptural evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. I have been following Shroud research since the 1970s, and the is the best general book on the subject.
For example, it offers the most cogent explanation of the artifact’s itinerary (a knotty historical problem) from its appearance in Edessa in 387-388 (its whereabouts from 33AD to this date remain a mystery); to its arrival in Constantinople in 944, where, along with other relics of the Passion, it was fervently conserved in the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos, part of the Sacred Palace, until 1241; when it was sent to France as a “gift” to Saint Louis, by the hard pressed Latin Emperor Baudouin II, and placed in the Sainte-Chapelle, along with 21 other relics; where it remained until it was bestowed as a gift in 1347 (its paramount significance not being recognized) by Philip VI to his eminent warrior and vassal Goeffroy de Charny, ten becoming the object of popular devotion and pilgrimage. From this point on, the Shroud emerges from historical obscurity (transfer to House of Savoy 1453 and to the Holy See in 1983).
Moreover, Petitfils provides a rigorous survey and analysis of the scientific studies of the Shroud (pp. 196-346), including those that provide convincing evidence for rejecting the highly flawed Carbon 14 dating of 1988. This section alone makes the translation of the book into English an essential task. At the heart of the matter remains the unexplained means by which the image was transferred from the body of the Man of the Shroud to the cloth itself. As Petitfils states (my translation),
“In the night of the Tomb, the Shroud was the privileged witness, the ‘silent but astonishingly eloquent witness,’ according to the formula of Saint John-Paul II, of this immense and holy mystery. The image itself remains an enigma: many hypotheses have been proposed, . . . but we still do not know with certainly how it was formed. Worse yet, in spite of all the scientific equipment in our possession, we are incapable today of reproducing it identically” (pp. 437-38). -
Vito,
I was hoping I would draw you out with this post. Thanks for the detailed and erudite comments. Agreed, this book needs translating into English. You are up to the job, but translation is a difficult and pretty much thankless task, which is why we must thank and honor all who take it upon themselves.
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, in the Anglosphere, to go untranslated is to go unread.
Happy Easter!
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