(Simon Caldwell/Catholic Herald) Italian researchers have used a new X-ray technique to demonstrate that the Shroud of Turin dates from the time of Jesus Christ.
Scientists at the Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR) studied eight tiny samples of fabric from the shroud, a burial garment which bears the imprint of a man killed by crucifixion, using a method called wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS).
They were able to age flax cellulose – long chains of sugar molecules which slowly deteriorate over time – to show that the shroud is 2,000 years old, based on the conditions it was kept in.
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The study is the second published this year that dates the Turin Shroud to the time of Jesus – and the fourth study to reach the same conclusion in little more than a decade.
For a critique of the 1988 study that concluded the Shroud was a medieval forgery, please see the work of the CRC.
