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The controversy (Wikipedia)
The origin of the relic is hotly disputed. Those who believe it to have been used in Christ's burial have coined the term sindonology to describe its study (from Greek s??d??—sindon, the word used in the Gospel of Mark to describe the cloth that Joseph of Arimathea bought to use as Jesus' burial cloth). The term is generally not used by skeptics of the mystical origins of the relic.
It may be impossible to ever fully resolve the controversy over the cloth because some believers are willing to accept supernatural explanations for the creation of the image, which lack falsifiability, while most skeptics do not consider any supernatural explanations to be acceptable. Three independent radiocarbon datings of the shroud (all working from the same controversial sample) date it between 1260 and 1390.
[Regarding the carbon 14 testing, read on]
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© 2004 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York
