Burial shroud

From : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8415377.stm.

"A team of archaeologists and scientists says they have for the first time found pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus in a tomb in Jerusalem. The researchers, from Hebrew University and institutions in Canada and the US, said the shroud was very different from the controversial Turin Shroud.

Some people believe the Turin Shroud to have been Christ's burial cloth, but others believe it is a fake.

The newly found cloth has a simpler weave than Turin's, the scientists say. The body of a man wrapped in fragments of the shroud was found in a tomb dating from the time of Jesus near the Old City of Jerusalem.
The tomb is part of a cemetery called the Field of Blood, where Judas Iscariot is said to have committed suicide. The researchers believe the man was a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy who died of leprosy, the earliest proven case.They say he was wrapped in a cloth made of a simple two-way weave, very different to the complex weave of the Turin Shroud.

The researchers believe that the fragments are typical of the burial cloths used at the time of Jesus.

As a result, they conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from 1st-Century Jerusalem."

I think there is an important verb in the text : "The researches believe". If it is a first time find, how can they know the fragments "are typical of the burial cloths used at the time of Jesus" and how can they "conclude" that the Turin shroud did not originate in 1st-century Jerusalem.

I am not going to write that I think the shroud of Turin is a medieval fake. I am not going to say it is real. I simply do not know. But I know there are extensive hidden agendas on both sides of the dispute, and I know the opponents feel a desperate need to prove that the shroud is a fake. In as far as I can judge, the Roman catholic church never felt the desperate need to prove that the shroud is real.

And, as long as there is no definitive proof one way or the other, it remains a question of "beliefs".