Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Dealing with Gaps

The problem for the historian is to see if there is a way to fill in the gap with records, and if this is not possible then to bridge the gap or alternatively show that the gap is false and the cloths are not one in the same. So far, bridging the gap seems most fruitful. In fact, it is conclusive enough to mitigate for the lack of records and to falsify any theory that might emerge to show that the two historical cloths are not one physical cloth.

To fully appreciate the possibility that the cloth of these cities of Eastern Christianity is one and the same shroud now in the hands of Western Christianity we need to ask if there is anything about the Turin shroud that would make us think that it is the Byzantine shroud? The best we can do is look at physical attributes of the existing cloth in Turin to see if they are consistent with what we know of the Edessa-Constantinople relic from historical records. However, we must be mindful in doing so, for historical records from antiquity are prone to inaccuracies, omissions and credulity. The historians and letter writers and artists of more than a millennium of history, the early to later Middle Ages, saw history through a worldview lens which we can at best only imagine. We must avoid the problems of credulity ourselves by guarding ourselves from too much literalism. But it would be totally unfair, as some have done, to dismiss the history of antiquity because it seems too legendary or because it doesn’t meet our modern day documentation standards.