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3. From where did this cloth originate?

1. The work of Dr. Max Frei, a criminologist from Switzerland, confirmed that there were pollen on the shroud from flowers not only from France and Italy but also from the Jerusalem area and Anatolia. This means that the shroud had a pre-fourteenth century existence and had an itinerary that included Jerusalem and Anatolia.

2. Dr. and Mrs. Alan Whanger discovered faint floral images on the shroud. This work was confirmed by Professor Avinoam Danin from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an expert on the flowers of Israel. Not only do these flowers come from the Jerusalem area, but also they flower in the spring of the year Passover, Easter.

3. What did the carbon dating study of 1988 tell us of the shroud’s origin in time? It concluded that the cloth was medieval, but that is only the beginning of the story. The scientific protocol called for six samples. However, through no fault of the scientists, they only received one sample (divided into 3 pieces). The scientific protocol was not followed; therefore, the study was not reliable. Most important, in 1996, a piece left over from the carbon dating sample was checked chemically against the non-image area of the shroud and was found to be chemically different from the rest of the shroud. This means that the sample used for carbon dating was not representative of the rest of the cloth. As a result, the carbon dating study was unfortunately of no value. For confirmation of the above, everyone can check the scientific literature for themselves. For further information and the scientific references, refer to Resurrected.

4. Archeological evidence suggests that the shroud is from the first century. The scourge marks on the shroud show the same pattern of injury that would have been caused by a first century Roman flagrum. (see scourge marks above)

5. The cloth first appeared in the West in the fourteenth century. Before that time, the shroud was in the East. There are accounts that tell us of an image of Jesus on a cloth “not made by hands.” Some of these stories can be traced all the way back to the first century.

For more information on the history of the shroud, read Resurrected, chapter 3, Blood and the Shroud by Ian Wilson, New York: Touchstone, 1998 and “Flora of the Shroud of Turin” by A. Danin et al, Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 1999.