What the Bible Says about the Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin does not fit the biblical description of the burial clothes of Christ. According to the Bible, the body of Jesus was wrapped in a linen cloth, but His head was wrapped in a napkin (John 20:7). This was the standard burial practice of the Jews (John 19:40) as evidenced by the fact that Lazarus was also buried with a linen cloth around his body and a napkin around his head (John 11:44). The Shroud of Turin cannot be the burial cloth of Jesus because it contradicts the biblical description of His burial.

This is why Baptists and Protestants have consistently denied the validity of all of the more than forty shrouds that the Catholics have peddled as the burial clothes of Jesus. We have historical records of non-Catholics arguing against the validity of these forty-something shrouds (and other relics like the thousands of supposed pieces of the cross, the gallons and gallons worth of vials of the blood of Jesus, the dozens of original crowns of thorns, and even several gallons worth of vials of milk from the virgin Mary). For example, John Calvin had this to say about the shrouds in his 1543 book, Treatise on Relics:

"In all the places where they pretend to have the graveclothes, they show a large piece of linen by which the whole body, including the head, was covered, and, accordingly, the figure exhibited is that of an entire body. But the Evangelist John relates that Christ was buried, 'as is the manner of the Jews to bury.' What that manner was may be learned, not only from the Jews, by whom it is still observed, but also from their books, which explain what the ancient practice was. It was this: The body was wrapped up by itself as far as the shoulders, and then the head by itself was bound round with a napkin, tied by the four corners, into a knot. And this is expressed by the Evangelist, when he says that Peter saw the linen clothes in which the body had been wrapped lying in one place, and the napkin which had been wrapped about the head lying in another."

The Shroud of Turin and the other relics were created during the Middle Ages as fund raisers for Catholic churches. People were conned into buying things like splinters of the cross and vials of Mary's milk or into paying fees for the privilege to see, touch, or kiss things like the various shrouds. It was a means of conning the gullible and ignorant out of their money, and the relics are still being used for that same purpose today.

The Shroud of Turin is big business. There have been several millions of dollars in profit collected by the sale of replicas and books in addition to the admission fees to the various museums, exhibits, and events. Any book "proving" the validity of the shroud is guaranteed to turn a tidy little profit, and it is even more likely to be successful if the author includes a personal "miracle" account about how the shroud has impacted his life. People have not changed. Many are still just as gullible and ignorant of the Bible today as their fathers were in the Middle Ages. Please do not let yourself fall prey to this deception.