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

The Notion of Mirrors

Mirrors, as we know them today, did not exist but the concept was understood. Mirrors at the time of the Roman Empire and well into the medieval era were simply pieces of highly polished stone or metal such as copper or silver; or they were still pools of water. Full length mirrors were rare. But it was understood that they reversed an image—what was on the left seemed to be on the right. Was the phrase, “saw my image on my garment like in a mirror,” an attempt to say that lighter and darker tones were reversed, as is the case with a negative? There is no way to know what the author intended. At best, we are speculating.

There perhaps is another interpretation for the reference to a mirror-like image. Though Greco-Roman statues were highly detailed and superbly realistic, portraiture, of either the face or a whole body, was not. It wasn’t until the European Renaissance, particularly among the Italian and Dutch masters, that the human form was represented realistically on canvas and other flat surfaces. But mirrors, even mirrors in antiquity provided photo-realistic images. Is this what Bardesane of Edessa meant?