9. The Shroud’s Image Corresponds Perfectly with the Human Body
Forged relics during the Middle Ages were familiar enough to be considered routine, but they were cheap imitations that had no hope of comparing to what would have been the real thing. For example, if a man came to a village declaring that he had the bones of John the Baptist, in his bag might be nothing more than what were chicken bones. However, the people who paid to see them would not be allowed close enough to know that they were not human bones. Furthermore, if someone did raise questions about the authenticity of the relic, the purveyor could make up an excuse, such as claiming that at the time of John the Baptist, people had a smaller stature, so their bones were more modest, which would account for the animal skeleton.
What is astounding is that while the Shroud of Turin may have been a fake, one thing that it was not is a cheap fake. It corresponds perfectly with the proportions of a man, so much so that even the bloodstains that appear on the shroud look precisely where they should. The precision is so remarkable that it corresponds exactly with how a human body would have been wrapped during the first century in Palestine.