The Shroud of Turin continues to draw fierce debate, unwavering fascination, and relentless scrutiny. Is it really the burial cloth of Jesus Christ? Or is it, as some skeptics argue, a medieval hoax? The truth might just be more unsettling for the enemy than anyone is prepared to admit.
Over 102 scientific disciplines have poured more than 600,000 hours of research into the Shroud—and the evidence is mounting. Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, biblical scholar and shroud researcher, told CBN News, “The great majority of them have concluded the shroud is indeed 2,000 years old.” He added, “No one was crucified the way Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on Apr. 3, A.D. 33. We know the exact date. It’s the best established fact of the ancient world.”
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Using wide-angle X-ray scattering, the Institute of Crystallography in Italy recently confirmed the linen’s age to be around 2,000 years, directly aligning with the Gospel accounts. “We believe it to be the very burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth,” Johnston said. “Not based on feeling… but based on the evidence.”
But it’s not just the age that baffles scientists, it’s the image. A 5-foot-11 Jewish man, scourged, crucified, pierced, bearing the wounds of Roman execution. And yet, no paint, no pigment, no known artistic technique accounts for the image. Light scientist Paul Dazo calculated it would take an unimaginable burst of 34 trillion watts of energy, released in a quarter of a billionth of a second, to produce the image. That kind of energy should have incinerated the cloth. It didn’t. The image is only two to three microns deep.
L.A. Marzulli, longtime supernatural researcher, points to a potential divine cause: the holy fire. This phenomenon, appearing annually for nearly 1,700 years at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, is unlike any known flame. “We have this on film,” Marzulli said. “The holy fire would appear on the slab where Jesus lay… It’s this bluish white flame.”
He explained how the flame behaves differently from ordinary fire. “One candle burns right through the linen. Holy fire scorches it.” That difference may hold the key to understanding how the Shroud’s image was made. “We think the holy fire is the mechanism that creates the image,” Marzulli said.
Even skeptics have been shaken by the fire. Historical accounts tell of Muslim caliphs trying to prevent its effect, swapping out wicks for lead, snuffing out flames, only for the holy fire to reignite lamps again and again.
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As Marzulli puts it, the evidence continues to mount—not just scientific, but supernatural. He, along with physicists like the late Dame Isabel Piczek, believes “space and time itself were suspended at the very moment of resurrection and the image was seared into the linen by divine supernatural energy.”
This isn’t just historical curiosity, it’s prophetic confirmation.
Daniel 12:4 says, “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Today’s advances in technology, coupled with global awareness of the Shroud, suggest we are living in that time.
And it’s not just about proving Jesus existed. The real threat to Satan’s kingdom is this: that Jesus rose. The Shroud is a physical, forensic reminder of the Resurrection. The same power that lit up that tomb still breaks chains today.
This is why critics like comedian Bill Maher and others mock it so aggressively. The darkness fights hardest against the light it fears most.
But no amount of ridicule can undo what happened that morning. The veil was torn. Death was defeated. And the world was changed forever.
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As deception and spiritual blindness spread across the globe in these last days, the Shroud stands not just as an artifact, but as a witness. A witness that Jesus lived. He died. And He rose.
And the devil knows it.
James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.