Shroud of Turin

Is the Shroud of Turin the Face of Christ?

Author:
Christopher J. E. Johnson
Published: Sept, 2012
[creationliberty.com]

The Shroud of Turin is a cloth discovered in the 14th century that is claimed by many people to be the cloth that Jesus Christ was buried in before his Ressurection. On the left is a negative image made of a photograph taken in 1898.

A college (Turin Shroud College of Colorado -- TSC) has even been developed from to specifically focus on the study of the shroud. On their website TSC states the following:

"The Turin Shroud Center of Colorado, among the world's foremost scientific Shroud research centers, has been led by the weight of empirical, historic and forensic evidence to the critical judgment that the Shroud of Turin is an authentic first century archeological witness directly related to the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth."
-Turin Shroud Center of Colorado, TSC Mission Statement, retrieved Sept 7, 2011, [http://www.shroudofturin.com/missionstatement.html]

The Shroud of Turin's DNA samples have claimed it to be from a human male, the carbon dates have claimed it to be from 2000 years ago (though I would argue against the validity of carbon dating), and they say you can see the injury from the crown of thorns on his head. A human male may have been crucified 2000 years ago and wrapped in this cloth, but I will argue this is NOT the cloth Jesus was buried in, and I can prove that from the Scriptures.

Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
-John 20:6-7

Again, the Shroud of Turin could be a cloth someone who was crucified under Roman government was buried in, but it is not Jesus Christ. It's a shame that so many people have wasted their time making colleges and spending, I would guess, millions and millions of dollars on preservation and research of this piece of cloth, when it has nothing to do with Christ's burial.

There are a few other problems with this shroud. For example, though it was tradition that Christ have a beard in Jewish society, if this was the cloth He was buried in, he would not have a full beard because of the prophecy of Isaiah:

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
-Isaiah 50:6

Also, according to Jewish tradition, it was a shame for men to have long hair as the women, but the shroud depicts Jesus with long hair, and this would be incorrect. Those that argue long hair argue from Nazarites in the Bible need to understand that Jesus was not a Nazarite. Jesus was a Nazarene because He was from Nazareth. Nazarene and a Nazarite are two different things. It was only a group of Nazarites that made a vow to grow their hair long in Numbers 6:1-21, and Jesus Christ made no such vow, nor needed to, because He is God.

I know this may sound a bit harsh, but if some of these relic-hunters would stop to read their Bible carefully, they could save themselves a lifetime of vain digging, money, and hassle, and be efficient preachers of the Gospel. If you want to spend the money to take a trip to Italy and see the Shroud of Turin, enjoy yourself and I hope you have a wonderful trip, but remember that the Shroud of Turin has mostly become another holy money-maker the Catholic church pulls out when they need extra funding.