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In our earlier paper we assumed the likelihood that two large covering sheets may have been used by Joseph and Nicodemus, the first during transport of a very dirty body covered with blood and sweat, but a second being used after application of the embalming agents which were bandages soaked in a solution of myrrh and aloes.
If correct, then the first cloth was the one most likely to have received the image of Jesus body because the embalming procedure would effectively have prevented body contact with the cloth. However if radiation was required to transfer the image then direct contact between cloth and body surface may not have been necessary. If so, then probably there was only one covering sheet, otherwise the bloodstains would have been on the first cloth and the body image on the second.
Conclusions: The evidence for the Shroud of Turin being the burial sheet for some male person who had been severely whipped then crucified in a manner corresponding exactly with the description of Jesus' crucifixion is too strong to ignore. If it is to be pronounced a fake then it must be shown that there is a way by which the faking procedure could have been carried out--and it should be possible to demonstrate that procedure.
Nobody has succeeded in doing this, not even if we do not insist upon them duplicating the 3-D effect obtained with the VP-8 Image Analyzer.
There are a number of possible explanations for the carbon dating debacle--which is obviously wrong though we do not know by how much. Microbial contamination may account for the whole of the 1200 to 1300 year discrepancy if the shroud is the covering sheet used in Jesus' entombment. But if some kind of radiation methodology was involved in dematerializing the body of Jesus, then it is possible that it also reset the carbon-14 clock (carbon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere as the product of neutron bombardment of nitrogen-14, neutron capture being followed by proton expulsion to yield carbon-14; nitrogen is a normal constituent of human tissue). Further work is needed to reduce the uncertainties.
References
1. Wilson, I. and Schwortz, B. The Turin Shroud. The Illustrated Evidence. (Michael O'Mara Books Limited, London, 2000)
2. Phillips, T.J. Letter to the Editor. Nature, (16th February, 1989)
3. Trenn, T. The Shroud of Turin. Resetting the Carbon-14 Clock. Facets of Faith and Science, Vol. 3. (van der Meer, Ontario, 1996)
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