8. The Turin Shroud is thought to be the imprint of the dead and mutilated Christ.
By far, the most famous relic in the world, the Turin Shroud is a linen cloth bearing the faint trace of a man with what appear to be crucifixion wounds. You may be wondering why it’s made an appearance on this list, but think about it for a second. If the rumours are true, the Turin Shroud is the imprint of a man who was flogged, nailed to a cross, and left to sweat and bleed under a searing desert sun, before being dumped in a cave. In other words, it’s the imprint of a dead guy’s bodily juices.
Noting this is in no way sacrilegious (apart from calling it gross): Christ, after all, was both fully man and fully God according to the Nicene Creed. Moreover, the Turin Shroud was exposed as a shabby fake over 30 years ago. Radiocarbon tests on the shroud in 1988 dated it to between 1260 and 1390 AD and, far from being evidence of a later miracle, it’s not even anatomically correct. Maybe God’s just playing a trick on us all, but try telling that to the 2.5 million people who went to see it in 2010.
