Doubt about shroud turns to faith

Shroud of Turin believer Barrie Schwortz.

It is fitting that the daddy of all reputed religious relics is a shroud. For the Shroud of Turin is itself enveloped - in eternal controversy over its authenticity. And if you think it odd that the man who has become the shroud's modern advocate is Jewish - well so does he.

American photographer Barrie Schwortz brings to Auckland next week the first replica of the shroud, a linen cloth that bears the image of a man who appears to have been crucified. Believers consider it to be Jesus' burial shroud. Sceptics dismiss it as a medieval hoax.

Schwortz is a believer. But he wasn't always - he was raised in an orthodox Jewish family, and Jews don't believe Jesus was the son of God.

In 1978 he was invited to photograph the investigations of a non-partisan group of scientists embarking on an unprecedented five-day study of the shroud, in its home in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.

"I was convinced that I was going to get to Turin and take a close look and see the paint and the brushstrokes and come home," Schwortz says.

He and the scientists assembled in Turin and the shroud was brought in and laid on a table. "And I leaned over it, probably with my nose just a few centimetres from the cloth, and I looked at it. And after about a minute or so I stood up and I thought, 'well, I'm going to have to rethink my thinking on this, because it's obviously not a painting'.

"Up close it's almost invisible. One needs to stand back probably 3m before you can get a sense of where the image is and it becomes coherent to you because it is so subtle."

Still, it took about 18 years before Schwortz became convinced that this piece of cloth "could well be" a relic of Jesus.

"Now that's not a religious comment, but more an archaeological one, if you will, or just one of common sense.

"And yet, the irony of my life is how much time I spend, as a Jew, trying to educate Christians that this could well be a relic of Jesus."

Schwortz runs a website - www.shroud.com - that has become an international focal point for the debate over the shroud's authenticity. He also lectures on the topic, and next week he comes to Auckland to open his exhibition The History and Science of The Shroud of Turin.

Its centrepiece is an actual-size replica of the shroud, from the photographs he took in 1978. It took him four months to create, and this is its first showing.

Schwortz says his goal is just to open people's minds. "I don't tell people that they should accept this as a symbol of their faith and fall on their knees. Although some people do that. And some people study the shroud and hear my talks and walk away and say, 'ah, it's a fake'. And that's fine."

Schwortz thinks the image could have been transferred on to the cloth by a natural chemical decomposition process in the days after the crucifixion. He doesn't accept the results of radiocarbon dating of a small section of the shroud in 1988 in which three scientific laboratories independently concluded the cloth was created in medieval times.

"They only took one sample, from one little corner and divided that in thirds. Good science requires multiple samples from multiple sites. That's no way to date anything.

"I mean, if someone wanted to date a vehicle, and they took the paint from one fender, what if that fender had been repaired from a crash, and would be newer paint - would that tell us how old the vehicle was? No. That's the best analogy I can think of for what happened with the shroud."

Dr Rodger Sparks is a sceptic. The leader of the Rafter Radiocarbon Laboratory at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science in Lower Hutt, Sparks is an expert on radiocarbon and supports the conclusion that the cloth was a medieval creation.

"What fascinates me about the shroud [is] the variety and ingenuity of some of the explanations to explain away the radiocarbon data. You have a whole list and you can choose the one which suits your particular temperament.

"From my point of view, and based on what I know of radiocarbon and what I know of the people who actually did those measurements - I know many of them personally - I remain sceptical of the [radiocarbon] sceptics, if I can put it that way."

The two men agree on one point - that no amount of evidence would make a sworn sceptic believe or a believer doubt.

Schwortz: "Even if we had Jesus' mugshot photo, DNA and fingerprints there would still be sceptics."

Sparks: "The shroud is one of those things that will not go away, no matter what evidence you bring up or whatever. There is always going to be an 'oh yes, but ... "'

The History and Science of The Shroud of Turin opens on Friday at the Aotea Centre and closes on May 24.