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

Two Cloths?

Others  had mentioned seeing two cloths and not without some attendant confusion. Around 1150, an English pilgrim tells of seeing a gold container in which the mantile (long robe) which having been touched to Christ’s face had an image of it. He also mentions a sudarium that had been over his head. Nicholas Soemundarson, an Icelandic cleric wrote in his native tongue of seeing two cloths with blood. In 1171, Archbishop William of Tyre saw the sindon of Christ. In 1200, Antonius of Novgorod speaks of seeing two cloths. In 1201, Nicholas Mesarites, the overseer of the treasures in the Pharos Chapel describes two cloths.

the Burial sindones of Christ: these are of linen. They are of cheap and easy to find material, and defying destruction since they wrapped the uncircumscribed, fragrant‑with‑myrrh, naked body after the Passion.  . . . In this place He rises again and the sudarium and the burial sindons can prove it . . .

It is hard to tell which is which. Skeptics tend to throw their hands up in confusion and use the confusion itself as evidence. It is hard not to blame them. True believers in its authenticity—and you can see it in web site after web site—get selective. We shouldn’t do either of these things. But what we can see, in the full conspectus, through the fog, is evidence of full-length cloth, a tetradiplon, a himation, image bearing, seemingly a full body.