Or maybe it was painted by da Vinci? -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N382dggI4C0&feature=related

[Juditha:] hi  This good ,new evidence for the shroud of turin,ive always beleived the shroud to be the  wrapped around jesus christ,i just feel it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9_v5A4a2w

Juditha, I've been away from ths site for a long time, but will now return for a spell.  One reason why is your gift to the site--the most compelling research documentary I have ever seen on the relationship between religion and science!  The sophistication of the critical analysis of the new evidence is spell-biinding.   

Among other things, it establishes that the shroud was not created by a painter, sculptor, or embalmer, that the blood is real and of rare type AB, that this rare blood type is identical to that on the not later than 4th century Spanish "face cloth of Jesus," that the blood flow pattern on the face cloth and the shroud are strikingly similar, that the Spanish face cloth and the shroud once covered the same body, that the method of crucifixion implied by the shroud is distinctively early Roman and nothing like all the later artistic portrayals, that the shroud conforms nicely to the composition and shape of first century Jewish burial shrouds, and much, much more.

The video  effectively challenges the Carbon-14 dating of the shroud to 1535 and reveals that a far superior method of this dating might open  the door for a first century origin of the shroud and face cloth.  I'm skeptical of this dream coming true, but the video makes this a very exciting falsifiable possibility.  If the shroud is traceable to the first century, then I'm convinced there is good reason to identify it as the authentic shroud of Christ.  In my next planned post, I will offer my theory for the journey of this shroud from Jesus' tomb to the France of the 16th century.

Don

Paul, can I safely infer from your question that you have not watched the video?

Suppose the Shroud of Turin passes the improved dating test.  How would it have found its way from medieval Constantinople to France?  The Gnostic scrolls discovered at Nag Hamadi in Egypt are surpassed only by the Dead Sea scrolls in 20th century Judeo-Christian archaeological importance.  The most important scroll is the Coptic translation of the first century collection of 114 saying of Jesus called the Gospel of Thomas, a document scholars trace to Edessa, a city in eastern Syria.  The apostle Thomas did not compose this Gospel, but he may well have brought the oral traditions represented in it to Edessa and his burial place is tradtionally located there.  Around the 6th century, a large cloth portrait of Jesus was found concealed within Edessa's walls, apparently because an enemy attack forced Christians to flee the city.  This cloth's concealment suggests that it was highly prized.  It is possible that this cloth portrait was in fact the Shroud of Turin (i. e. of Jesus) brought to Edessa by the Apostle Thomas.

Bets,

If the shroud is a fake, then the best interpretation of the evidence suggests that someone was murdered, indeed crucified to create it.  But even then the thinness and sharpness of the image suggests some sort of radiation (not the fire that singed parts of it).  It would be nice to believe, as believers in the shroud often do, that Jesus' resurrection caused the radiation.  But might the shroud be useful as an object of veneration, even if it is a fake?  Yes, for two reasons: (1) It will always probably be a mystery, at least in this sense: after a century of scientific research, there is no satisfactory way to explain its origin.  (2) It was used weekly to commenorate Jesus' resurrection in rituals in ancient Constantinople.

Good question, Matthew.  Now if the monks in charge of the chapel at Aksum, Ethiopia would let scientists date their ark of the covemant to test its authenticity!