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

Geoffrey de Charney

Around 1350, a French knight, Geoffrey de Charney, from nearby Lirey, married Jeanne de Vergy, a great-great granddaughter of Othon De La Roche. Because the cloth had always remained civil property and not property of the church, we can imagine that the shroud might have been part of Jeanne’s dowry; or something like that, for in 1355, the shroud was exhibited in a church that Geoffrey built in Lirey. We can imaging but we don’t know. There is considerable confusion about just what happened. Geoffrey was reluctant to say just how he came to have the shroud. Skeptics have jumped on this to suggest that he didn’t have an explanation. Who can blame them. But absence of evidence is not evidence.