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

Poker Holes

There are also some burn marks. Since 1532, when the shroud was nearly destroyed by a fire in a church in the French town of  Chambéry, the shroud has been marred by significant scorch marks and gaping burn holes.  But all of the burn marks are not from that church fire. There are others that we know are much older than those caused by the 1532 fire that are relevant to our historical search.

These holes arranged in four L-shaped patterns of four holes each are often called the poker holes because some have speculated that they were created in antiquity by someone thrusting a hot poker through the shroud to see if it was genuine. An ordeal by fire? Was it an appeal to God for proof stemming from a superstitious belief that God would interfere to save the shroud from damage or a belief that real relics didn’t burn? If so, whoever did the testing must have been disappointed to see that the cloth burned. Wouldn’t he have stopped after the first thrust of the poker when it burned its way into the cloth? It all seems very fanciful. There is no basis whatsoever for imagining that this is how the holes were made. It is more probable that the burn holes were caused by a careless thurifer who accidentally sprinkled some granules of burning incense onto the shroud or by splashed burning oil from an oil lamp or by embers from a nearby brazier.