Honestly, I was not prepared to have such separation in the debate, both topics ended up going hand in hand. The reason for this is that my sources has made little distinction, and I therefore ended up making a post covering more than just Scripture. I will release my post soon, and it will be posted in both debate threads.
Do scientific, archeological, and extrabiblical historical evidence support the authenticity of Shro
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A defense of The Shroud of Turin
I will begin this debate by presenting my sources (where I got my arguments from). I only have one primary source, but also a second source supporting the Shroud and confirming the first source. Both are visual and can be found on YouTube. Hopefully this post will be easy to understand but keep in the back of your mind that English is not my first language.
If you are not familiar with the Shroud, PLEASE watch the first video, which I believe is put together by someone who watched 45 documentaries on the Shroud. The video will provide a good explanation of what the Shroud is, and many key arguments supporting the Shroud. Many arguments have been made against the Shroud which has been later shown to have very little strength in them, the second video addresses many of these arguments.
Evidence for the Shroud of Christ! Resurrection 2021 (youtube.com)
The Shroud of Turin w/ Dr. Wayne Phillips - Sacred Heart Church, Tampa - YouTube
I have decided to make my presentation in two parts. First, I will present some strong arguments for the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and secondly, I will try to answer the arguments presented against the Shroud. I will try to present answers in a way that is easy to understand, and not requiring much understanding from the readers.
The Shroud of Turin has historically been damaged by two fires, which has both left a strong mark on the Shroud in addition to leading to necessary repair of the Shroud. One of the main arguments against the authenticity of the Shroud is a carbon dating from 1988 (method of verifying age) done on the Shroud. This was done by secular scientists choosing to only take of a small part of the Shroud on only one location and testing it for themselves. The part that was tested was added after a repair following a fire, when the Shroud was already very old. The carbon dating placed the age of the Shroud in the Middle Ages, and the scientists called the Shroud a forgery.
Today we can know very much about the Shroud because of modern technology. We can now understand and see remarkable things in the Shroud, largely verifying the Scriptures. If you want a more in-depth explanation, you can watch the first video, but I present key arguments beneath. Nothing like the Shroud image has ever been found or reproduced. It is impossible to think that the Shroud could have been a forgery from the Middle Ages, when there is no idea how the Shroud could be reproduced even today. There is strong 3-dimensional information in the Shroud of Turin, greatly like the Jesus of the gospels.
Among the similarities is that the body in the Shroud of Turin was brutally scourged and crucified. The body also had a crown of thorns, and only Jesus was mocked as a king. The body is brutally tortured and hated, yet it is wrapped in fine linen. This could maybe be explained with Jesus being placed in a rich man`s tomb. The body was also anointed with myrrh and aloes.
The Shroud has a 1st century stitching pattern, and is 8x 2 cubits, being an ancient measuring system. The body in the Shroud had been under torture for a very long time (since the garden), and the long-term pressure caused the blood to stay red forever (not changing color as other crucified bodies).
The Shroud of Turin has many unique features placing it in the first century, and in Jerusalem specifically. There is pollen from 33 flowers on the Shroud which only grow in Israel and Turkey (both places the Shroud has been to). Multiple of the flowers are unique to Jerusalem. There are also imprints on the Shroud of flowers only existing in the area between Hebron and Jerusalem.
There has also been discovered that the man on the Shroud had roman coins lying on both of his eyes, greatly like coins from about year 30 AD, very likely printed by Pontius Pilate. These were very simple coins (maybe a penny of the time) and would not circulate outside of Israel. The coins placed in this way is likely a custom in Israel and can be found in some other graves also.
THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE SHROUD
This is at least the first arguments presented before the debate began, and I will address them in the same numerical order they were presented. Also, the authenticity of the Shroud is not necessarily dependent on various theories being true.
- Jesus was wrapped in 'strips of linen'.
In my Norwegian bibles it simply reads in the passages you quoted “The linen clothes” (directly translated). All artists in the Middle Ages and even today painted Jesus with a decent loincloth around the waist. Something else would be unthinkable.
Luke 23:54 explains that Jesus was buried very shortly before the sabbath, and that Joseph and Nicodemus therefore had great hurry when they buried him.
It is likely that they would have to wait until after the sabbath to come back and wrap the body in bandages. The Shroud of Turin would make a good explanation because the time needed to place it around the body was much shorter.
The image on the Shroud of Turin shows rigor mortis (stiffening of the limbs of the corpse). The knees on the body were locked in a raised position.
- Jesus's head cloth
Jesus head cloth is referenced in John 20:7, it is correct that there was a head cloth placed on Jesus. But I still believe the Image on the Shroud is from Jesus Christ, it just aligns so well. I firmly believe that an image like that on the Shroud cannot be naturally created, but only supernaturally. I have already said that Joseph and Nicodemus were in a hurry because of the sabbath, and that it is only logical that they wrapped the entire body in the Shroud.
- Lazarus
Given the poverty of Lazarus, there is no reason why he would have had grave clothing like the Shroud of Turin. Jesus had wealthy friends which Lazarus did not. But I understand your point that this was very likely a Jewish custom of the time.
- 4 Packing the cloths with spices.
The Shroud shows that the body was anointed with myrrh and aloes. You can respond if you do not feel that this answers your question properly.
- Wacky Shroud theories and the bodily resurrection of Jesus
Yes, this is less of an argument against the Shroud itself. There may very well be strange theories surrounding the Shroud, but this is not a problem with the Shroud itself. I think it is logical that the Shroud was removed from Jesus in a supernatural manner, this because of how the blood would practically glue the Shroud together with the body and stick to it. But the Shroud shows intact blood and image, I do not know how this could have happened naturally.
- Alternative theory about the resurrection emitting loads of bright vacuum UV radiation from the body of Jesus searing the pattern into the shroud.
There is a very genuine body making the pattern on the Shroud. There is no way somebody could have fabricated this in the Middle Ages, because of modern science it is very easy to understand that this is a real person. The person made a unique image, and we cannot find cases of this happening any other places, and I honestly doubt it even can occur naturally. I firmly believe something supernatural happened when Jesus arose from the grave, simply because I see no other explanation.
I will respond to the scientific/historical points here, and have responded to the biblical ones in the other thread.
I will section this based on topic.
Types of sources
I will say that neither of your sources are primary sources. They quote from primary sources, sure, but primary sources would be the bible, the ancient artwork cited in the second video, or some of the scientific papers which these video cited. Those videos are secondary sources, or perhaps tertiary sources if you make that distinction (I don't, personally).
That's not an issue, I don't mind secondary sources, I'm just making a note.
Carbon dating & shroud repair
I'm not sure whether to really believe the 'repair job' theory, some of the literature is against it. (e.g. here, note it cites Jackson in favour even though the second video talks favourably about him elsewhere, Jackson does not believe the date of the carbon dating either but has a different theory for the mechanism).
In any case if it is a repair job it shows people in medieval times could make very convincing fakes, which doesn't bode well for the shroud.
But assuming the repair job exists and is where the video thinks it is, it looks like ~50% of the area used for carbon dating was original and ~50% was the repair. The process of carbon dating would involve mixing both halves together. Since 14C has a half-life several times longer than the relevant timespan (~5700 years), the reduction rate in carbon-14 can be modelled as roughly linear. So you'd expect the measured date to be the midpoint between the date of the original and repaired cloth cloths. If the repair was from the fire in 1532, we can use that to date it.
The carbon dating was done in 1988, and claimed a date of 1260-1390 (so 1325 as a midpoint). This gives us the fire at 456 years before the carbon dating, and the claimed carbon date at 663 years before. The measured date difference should be roughly a midpoint of the date difference of the two samples, i.e. 663=(456+x)/2. This yields a actual date difference of the original shroud of x=870 years, i.e. it dates to 1118 AD (let's round it to 1100 AD). This is not in the first century. I know in the second video they said it does average to that, but clearly the guy in that video is not very good at arithmetic.
On the motivations of investigators
The way you call the carbon-dating investigators "secular" makes it sound like you doubt their sincerity due to anti-Christian motivations they may have. But if that was the case, you would expect them to resist efforts to carbon-date other areas of the Shroud, where there is no 'repair'.
But in reality, the opposite is true: advocates of the Shroud of Turin's authenticity are less likely to want, say, a section from the imaged part of the Shroud carbon-dated. If anything, that makes me more doubt their sincerity, not those of the 'secular researchers'.
3D information
Let's have a look at the "strong 3d information". If you strip back the fancy camera angles and actually look at the image: https://www.shroud.com/78strp10.htm , the 3d information doesn't look all that good.
To me, what that most remind me of was the Chocpix bars from red nose day years ago. These were, of course; of normal images, and are not designed to be 3d representations.
But if you are wanting shade to reflect depth, then similar to attenuating UV light, you can achieve this by adding an attenuating medium for visible light, like fog, then drawing that foggy picture.
Also, in any case, it's not exactly difficult in principle for someone to draw a darker hue depending on depth if that's your intention. Maybe some medieval artist just liked drawing that way; it's the kind of creative idea that appeals to a lot of people.
Shroud dimensions
On the 8x2 cubits thing, it's worth looking at the alternative measurements as a reference. The actual dimensions of the Shroud is 442x123cm.
If the shroud was a forgery made in medieval France, the two relevant units of length for that period are the pied and the toise.
This is how it looks in those units:
Cubit = 54 cm
pied = 32.26 cm
Toise = 193.56 cm
Length 442 cm, 8.2 cubits, 13.7 pied, 2.3 toise
Width 113 cm, 2.1 cubits, 3.5 pied, 0.58 toise
The cubits fit slightly better, but I wouldn't say vastly so. Perhaps it's meant to be 2x0.5 toise?
Also, one simple explanation for this is the maker of Shroud wanted a 4:1 aspect ratio. But why would you want a 4:1 aspect ratio for a body? Wouldn't you cut it to measure depending on body shape? It makes more sense to have an integer aspect ratio if you're using it to make a piece or artwork rather than a genuine Shroud to wrap around a body.
Of course, if the shroud was indeed repaired down the side as per the carbon dating discussion, you don't know the original width anyway. Originally, it could have been 3 metres wide for all you know.
Blood colour
When you talk about blood being red, you are referring to the process known as hemolysis, as you can see from the slide which mentions that.
Here is an overview of hemolysis and what causes it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6425048/
Note that the causes include how the blood samples are handled: thic could easily be caused by however the medieval artist handled the blood. Even in laboratory conditions, according to the article, 98% of blood samples with hemolysis are due to how they are handled. And you hardly expect a medieval artist to have handled the blood in laboratory conditions.
Also note that "torture" isn't the only or even primary causes of hemolysis within the body. Other causes include allergic reactions and toxins. I haven't found confirmation anywhere of exactly how much "torture" is required to get hemolysis; it could be that the process of medieval pig slaughter or something similar may be enough to get that reaction.
Flowers & Coins
If you look on the blog here: https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/does-pollen-prove-the-shroud-authentic/ , it shows a pollen scientist sceptical of the postive identification of the pollen. The issue is that it is very difficult to identify pollen to the level of detail the researches claim the could get, and more general groups of pollen would not give you that geographic infomation.
In any case, if that is true, so what? It would just mean the cloth had been in Israel once. If people really did believe it might be the burial cloth of Jesus it would make sense that they might try to bring it to Jesus's tomb on a visit so they can see it in its original context, picking up pollen while they're there.
The as for the imprints of the flowers, if you look at the images: 
it looks to me more like image noise they're overinterpreting. I don't think you can even get flowers from that never mind a specific species of flower.
Also, as your second video says at 31:34 , the image is only at the very surface of the shroud fibres. This means the image likely wouldn't penetrate through petals of a flower, so it they were genuine flower imprints generated from the imaging mechanism they would cast a total shadow in that area, making them clearer than the image of "Jesus". This obviously isn't the case in the shroud image.
The same can be said of the roman coins.
It's clearly just image noise; and even moreso than the petals. It's so bad that I genuinely can't tell which part is supposed to be a coin, all images I've seen of it look like they're circling empty air, so there's no image for this one. I'm quite baffled anyone would see any coins there to be honest, unless I'm looking at the wrong place.
And of course, as before (moseso since the coins are solid metal) they would completely obliterate the image in that area if they were genuine.
Supernatural shroud removal
The bandages around Jesus did not need to be removed in a supernatural manner. Have you not ripped off a bloody bandage before? It doesn't take superhuman strength. Yes, doing so will damage the bloodstains and perhaps the bandages themselves, but that's just more evidence that the shroud is not genuine.
The (lack of) side-effects of other dead-raisings and similar instances
In the other thread I've mentioned the fact that other biblical raisings from the dead have not shown any effects associated with radiation, in this I'll add: raisings from the dead since then haven't either. People were raised from the dead after the swiss brethren prayed for them during the reformation, people are raised from the dead after being prayed for today (usually in Africa). I have never heard a report in such a case of blue light or radiation burns associated with UV resurrection radiation, neither have I heard reports of shrouds, bandages, or clothing being coloured when this happened.
In addition, in the several biblical and extrabiblical dead raisings besides Jesus, if Jesus's shroud survived you might expect one of theirs to survive, and I'm not aware of any e.g. imaged Lazarus bandages floating around.
Further, if you take some of the natural explanations for the shroud instead (like Ray Roger's Maillard reaction theory), they sound like all you have to do is wrap a dead body in a sheet for a few days and you get a image like the Shroud of Turin. If that's the case, undertakers would have noticed and documented this effect by now. Also, it would mean that this probably happened for many crucifixion victims in the ancient world; so you'd have the question of whether it was the body of a different person even if ancient. It would also make it very easy to fake, for obvious reasons.
Following the theory that the shrouds' image is due to Jesus teleporting out of the shroud instead of the resurrection itself, I'm not aware of any archaeological evidence in Philip's case, either (due to his teleportation in Acts 8:39-40 ). I'm not aware of any other cases of teleportation outside of the bible, but since it's recorded happening multiple times in the bible I assume it's happened somewhere else since. Wherever it was, I'm not aware of people going around with imaged clothing in the same way people go around with the Shroud of Turin as a result of such teleportations.
You could say (as the people in your videos do) that Jesus's shroud was selectively preserved by God (as opposed to other such imaging instances) in order to confirm people's faith. But if that was the reason, you would expect God to put something about such imaging in the Bible, to give something to compare the Shroud to. He didn't.
Historical evidence of forgery
The second video makes a big deal out of the fact that John Paul II endorsed the Shroud. While I'm not a Calvinist, if anything I would have a higher regard for the fact that John Calvin regarded it as a forgery. But really a more relevant opinion would be that of a bishop at the time the shroud undisputedly appeared on the historical record, who said it was a forgery and his predecessor successfully found the forger.
In the second video, the guy calls this "hearsay of hearsay", talks about the bishop being ridiculed by his contemporaries for this opinion, and suggests he fabricated this claim because he was jealous of the people displaying the shroud.
First, I couldn't find which contemporaries supposedly ridiculed the bishop for this opinion, are you sure they exist?
Secondly, jealousy is rarely a motive for something as big as fabricating evidence on its own. It can make some biased against someone else, but if they are going to actively fabricate evidence they need some additional motivation. In this case, it's not clear what that would be, the existence of the Shroud was not harming the bishop's own influence.
And there is a question of if he was jealous of the shroud, why not other similar works? The middle ages was chock-a-block full of relics and forgeries of relics; if the bishop wanted to go after relics he could have gone after a whole lot of other ones. It seems to me the reason went after that one was because he specifically had evidence against it.
Also, if he wasn't beyond a bit of skulduggery, he could have just forged a relic himself, rather than using fabricated evidence to debunk someone else's. That would have eased his jealousy while at the same time giving himself a material benefit.
Conclusion
On balance, scientific, archaeological and extrabiblical evidence do not support the Shroud of Turin. When it appears to, it is generally a misunderstanding or pareidolia mixed with confirmation bias.
Nov 26, 2025
0
#5
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a69543170/jesus-tomb-garden-church?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
A little off topic but found it interesting.
Mar 24, 2026
0
#6
https://www.popsci.com/science/ancient-sling-bullet-insult/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Again, a bit off topic but interesting......
Proverbs 27:17:
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."
This is a debate thread between myself and @PraiseJesusForever on the question: "Do scientific, archeological, and extrabiblical historical evidence support the authenticity of Shroud of Turin?"
Feel free to chip in. While this debate is chiefly between @PraiseJesusForever and myself, we may bring up others' comments if we find them relevant.
In my opinion that, on balance; scientific, archeological, and extrabiblical historical evidence do not support the authenticity of Shroud of Turin, @PraiseJesusForever believes they do.
We will go back and forth, one at a time, only editing our comments for spelling and grammar; and backing up our positions with evidence.
@PraiseJesusForever will start with their opening post, which I will respond to.
This is a partner thread of the "Is the Shroud of Turin's authenticity consistent with the Bible?" thread on the "Strictly Bible" club.
the thread: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/is-the-shroud-of-turins-authenticity-consistent-with-the-bible