It's been a long-running debate: Is the Shroud of Turin a fake? A new entrant in the "no" category emerges from the pages of the journal Meccanica, where Italian researchers suggest that an 8.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked Jerusalem in 33AD both formed the image and distorted the results of radiocarbon dating that was done on the shroud in 1988, which indicated it was just 728 years old. The Telegraph reports that scientists have previously floated neutron radiation as the way the shroud, said to be the burial cloth of Jesus, came to purportedly bear his image; similarly, Heritage Daily reports neutron radiation has been suggested as interfering with the dating of the shroud. But no legitimate source of such radiation had been identified. But Professor Alberto Carpinteri's research into piezonuclear fission reactions has led him to believe the earthquake would have produced high-frequency pressure waves in the Earth's crust that would have caused those neutrons to be emitted; the particles then "induced the image formation on the Shroud's linen fibers" by interacting with the nitrogen atoms in the fabric, explains Carpinteri. Further, he says the radiation would have raised the shroud's level of carbon-14 isotopes, giving it an artificially youthful age when carbon-14 dating was done on it. But skeptics abound, reports LiveScience. Asks one, why is "the material here ... affected, but other archaeological and geological material in the ground is not?" Study: Shroud of Turin Created by Huge Earthquake - Italian researchers believe that also explains the radiocarbon dating results
When Moses met God on Mt. Sinai his face glowed so brightly that people asked him to cover his face. Evidently it was very bright. Whether one believes that God's glory(the light that surrounds Him) is blindingly bright or not can be inserted here. Did the Son of the living God shine that brightly in the tomb as He was resurrected? IMO, He did. Whether the shroud is real or not does not matter to me. The fact that He arose is what is vitally important to all mankind. That He came back and appeared to many and later rose into the heavens in front of many witnesses with the promise to return matters most. Not whether some strip of cloth bears witness to an event.
It is interesting that the more they study it, the less they can explain it. It could be authentic, but who knows. They can't explain the Grand Canyon either. I think God amuses himself some by giving us mysteries. Just a reminder that he is God and we are not. Or maybe they are puzzles for us to solve.
