I thought Shroud of Turin was a hoax. That's changed, expert says

"A theologian who once dismissed the Shroud of Turin as a hoax now says he's uncovered stunning evidence that made him a believer. The 14-foot linen cloth, faintly imprinted with the negative image of a crucified man, is believed by millions to be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. Dr Jeremiah Johnston, who earned his PhD at Oxford, told the Daily Mail he was long conditioned to view the relic as a medieval forgery,"

"It was not until Johnston began reading the many peer-reviewed studies on the Shroud, specifically one in 1978 that found the image is not from an artist, but a real human form of a scourged and crucified man. The Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) team used X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared photography, chemical analysis and microscopic tests to study the cloth's fibers, stains and image."

"'They found that this shroud is not man-made. There's no pigment, there's no dye, there's no paint,' Johnston said. 'They confirmed that the shroud cannot be traced back to a human origin.' STURP involved 33 American scientists from various institutions, including forensic scientists, biochemists and physicists, including Dr John Jackson and Dr Eric Jumper from the US Air Force Academy."

Jeremiah Johnston, an Oxford-trained theologian, moved from dismissing the Shroud of Turin as a medieval forgery to believing it after reviewing scientific studies. A 1988 radiocarbon test dated a corner of the linen to 1260–1390 AD, fostering skepticism. Later peer-reviewed work, notably a 1978 study and the multidisciplinary Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), applied X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared photography, chemical analysis and microscopy and reported an image of a scourged and crucified man without pigments, dyes or paint. NASA-derived VP-8 image analysis revealed three-dimensional information encoded in the image, and STURP involved forensic scientists, biochemists and physicists.

Read at Mail Online