Herbert Messina-Ferrante provided some interesting information about the Turin shroud (May 5) but also made some observations that deserve further comment and clarification.

The article states, for example, that there is no reference to the shroud in any of the gospels or in any early Christian documents. In fact, both the gospels of Luke (24:12) and John (20:5, 6, 7) record that on entering Jesus's empty tomb, the disciples found the linen cloths that had been wrapped around His body lying by themselves in the tomb.

Also, reliable references to the shroud prior to its "official" discovery in the 1350s have been established, including that in the Hungarian Pray manuscript, which dates from 1192 and clearly depicts the shroud being folded around the figure of Christ. Furthermore, depictions of Christ's image in Byzantine artefacts dating back to 600 AD closely correspond to the facial image visible on the shroud. Ian Wilson, the noted shroud historian, provides strong evidence that the Turin shroud is one and the same as the Edessa cloth, references to which go back to the time of Christ.

Yet, as Dr Messina-Ferrante points out, the carbon dating exercise carried out in 1988 by three highly reputable institutions concluded that the shroud dates from between 1260 and 1390 and this led to a widespread belief that the shroud was a mediaeval forgery.

But the carbon dating results fly in the face of an overwhelming amount of other evidence that the Turin shroud may, in fact, be the real burial cloth of Jesus. How then can one reconcile the carbon dating results with the other evidence which contradicts them? Many shroud scholars believe that the answer, paradoxical as it may sound, is that while the carbon-dating results were indeed correct, the conclusions drawn from them were not.

The evidence from the Hungarian Pray manuscript and the Byzantine artefacts is already enough in itself to cast serious doubts on the validity of the conclusions reached from the carbon dating results. Reinforcing these doubts, Raymond Rogers, a scientist from the University of California, published an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 2005 which, on the basis of a chemical analysis of the cloth, showed that the age of the outer fringes of the shroud were substantially less than the age of the inner area on which the shroud image appears.

The fact is that the sample of the shroud that was subjected to carbon testing was taken from the outer fringes of the cloth rather than from the inner area. Rogers concluded that the outer fringes were added to the shroud at a later date to the original cloth and states that "the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud".

The laboratories that carried out the original carbon dating tests thus appear to have made a cardinal scientific error when they concluded that the small part of the shroud they studied was representative of the cloth as a whole. So much so that, in 2008, Christopher Ramsey, the current director of the Oxford radiocarbon-dating laboratory, admitted that the carbon dating tests the laboratory had carried out may be inaccurate and that he was treating seriously a theory suggesting that contamination had skewed the results.

Apart from the evidence outlined above, there are several other factors which support the authenticity of the shroud.

Firstly, most serious students of the shroud are in agreement that the image on the cloth could not have been made by human hands but that the image is that of a real person who was crucified and died precisely in the manner of Christ's crucifixion as described in the gospels. This view is held by many because the image on the shroud is far too complex to have been created by human beings and its duplication is indeed beyond the reach of modern science.

As was discovered in 1898 when photography was invented, the image which can be seen on the cloth is a negative image, which only appears in the positive when a negative photograph of the shroud is viewed. Furthermore, it was discovered in 1976 that the image had three-dimensional qualities that cannot be derived from ordinary photographs. Also, the details of the blood flows and wounds on the image of the shroud have been established to be medically precisely correct and contain details, such as an accurate depiction of the circulation of the blood within the body, which were only discovered well after the shroud's existence was officially documented.

These and several other similar details have led many to the conclusion that the image on the shroud is that of a real person who suffered death by crucifixion. However, this conclusion in itself raises many questions since, notwithstanding the many scientific investigations carried out into the shroud, there is still to date no clear indication as to how the image on the cloth was transferred from the deceased body to the cloth.

It seems highly unlikely that anybody would have volunteered to be crucified to create the image on the shroud because there was (and there still is) no known way of obtaining this image. So what would have been the point of anybody volunteering to be crucified to produce the image?

On the other hand, it would seem to be an amazing coincidence that the only time in history that the image of a deceased person was transferred to its burial cloth happened to be the image of a man who was not Jesus but who was crucified in precisely the same manner as Jesus! The only explanation put forward, which could fit the evidence but which is disputed by skeptics, is that the image was created by a burning process through a burst of energy that occurred when Christ's body came to life again after His death.

Although it can never be conclusively proven that the Turin shroud is the real burial cloth of Jesus, for many individuals the weight of the evidence places the authenticity of the cloth "beyond reasonable doubt". As scientific investigation into its intriguing properties continues, the shroud will, no doubt, throw up further surprises to both its supporters and its detractors. Many have little doubt as to the conclusions which will be drawn by unbiased and objective observers of the shroud as any such future scientific discoveries are made.