Basic HTML Version
SUPREME?
THESHROUDOFTURIN
by
Lawson Briggs
1
hope you understand,"
France- the first known his-
said a current editor
torical record of its exis-
of
Scientific American,
tence-it quickly became
"tbat [our magazine} is
the subject of a lengthy
under new ownership now,
memorandum to the Pope
and we certainly wouldn't
from Henry ofArcis, bishop
have published that article
ofTroyes. Bishop Henry al-
today. It was nonsense.''
leged that the Lirey canons
He was referring to
Sci-
had "falsely and deceitfully,
entific American's
March
beíng consumed with the
1937 article on the shroud
passion of avarice and not
of Turin, believed by many
from any motive of devo-
to be the very cloth which
tion but only of gain, pro-
covered the body of Cbrist
cured for their church a
after it was taken down
certain cloth cunningly
from the cross.
painted , upon which by
Opinions are very heated
clever sleight of hand was
and dogmatic on the sub-
depicted the twofold image
ject of the shroud. ls it a
of one man, that is to say
miracle? A hoax? Is
it
genu-
the back and the front, they
ine? Among the religious,
falsely declaring and pre-
Protestants in general have
tending that this was the ac-
tended to voice skepticism;
tual shroud in which our
modern Catholics, belief.
Saviour Jesus Chiist was
Secular scholars, following
enfolded in the tomb."
their own dogma of de-
The actual painter, he
manding proof rather than
went on, had been discov-
mere speculation, have al-
ered by one of his predeces-
most unanimously judged it
sors and, being summoned
a religious hoax.
to the bishop's presence,
But Robert Wilcox , ._______________________, had candidly admitted the
forme r religion editor of the
Miami News,
carne to the
paioting to be "a work of human skill and not miiacu-
conclusion the relic is genuioe. In 1977 his book
Shroud
lously wrought or bestowed" (Jan Wilson,
The Turin
stirred anew the centuries-old authenticity debate.
Shroud,
p. 230).
To be fair, however, it is necessary to state that mod-
ln the Beginning?
ern investigators of the cloth and its image have found
Curiously enough, it was a Roman Catholic bishop who
no trace of paint on its surface or in its tibers. The source
first branded the shroud a fraud. Wheo, in the year 1356,
of the color of its faint markings has therefore been
the fourteen-by-three-and-a-half-foot piece of linen was
sought elsewhere. The 1937
Scientific American
article,
exhibited at the obscure church of Lirey in central
for instance, stated: "h is now established also that there
Wíd9 Wotld
The
PLAIN TRUTH December 1978
31