The potential apologetic value of the Shroud of Turin can be likened to the Nazareth house that early Byzantine tradition identified as the house where Joseph and Mary lived.:
https://www.livescience.com/49997-jesus-house-possibly-found-nazareth.html
This tradition was not taken seriously until Prof. Dark's demonstration that the house was occupied precisely in the first century AD. Fragments of ancient household wares were found inside. If the early Byzantine tradition were mistaken, I doubt that the house's origin could be traced to the time Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth. This is an exciting and potentially confirmatory coincidence.
I encouraged a retired architect in my church Bible study to volunteer for a dig at Bethsaida (where some of Jesus' disciples lived) and his amateur archaeological career has proven so successful that he was featured on the science program "Nova" last year. He was invited by an Israeli archaeologist to help work on the problem of opening up a large empty space behind a wall of this first-century Nazareth house to see if anything of archaeological interest is there. Their problem is how to do this with a minimum level of damage to the house. So far, my friend has declined the offer.
A new Carbon-14 test is needed on a patch of the Shroud that has not been subjected to a Medieval reweaving with cotton. Other scientific tests date the Shroud within the range of Jesus' lifetime, but Carbon-14 dating is more accurate. If new C-14 dating can confirm a first-century origin for the Shroud, then it is likely genuine, a revered relic of the early Jerusalem church. As with the alleged Jesus house in Nazareth, a first-century date for the Shroud would in my view be too coincidental to be insignificant. A Medieval provenance would be expected for a French forgery.
No, I have not summarized all the video evidence for the Shroud's authenticity. It amuses me that rsr does not deem the quest for sacred truth worth watching a pretty long video. On his reckoning, a skeptic would be right to dismiss the claims of Christ on the grounds that it takes too long to read the New Testament or even the Gospels. As for me, I would watch or read just about anything if I thought this would open the door for effective personal evangelism. And as I have said, the Shroud, ADCs, and NDEs have proven effective evangelistic tools for me. What I actually believe is that Baptists here don't really care about what is required for effective evangelism as much as they think they do--and that is what I'll tell others about lessons I've learned from this site.
Meanwhile, here is a list of evidential aspects of Shroud research demonstrating that it should be taken seriously:
(a) a rare blood type AB that is also found of the Oviedo soudarium, Jesus' alleged burial face cloth known to have been brought from Jerusalem in the 600s.
(b) a shared blood spatter pattern consistent with crucifixion on both the Shroud and the soudarium, suggesting that both once wrapped the same crucified body
(c) abundant forensic evidence that the Shroud image was made with an actually crucified corpse
(d) proof that the style of the Shroud complies with actual strict Jewish fabric regulations and measurements that fit Jesus' era, but not the Medieval period
(e) an inability of the best scientists to explain how a Shroud forgery might have been made, except that the image was produced by some type of radiation (but not from heat). The problematic inconsistencies in Gospel resurrection narratives provide value for the tantalizing suggestion that this radiation was produced by the actual resurrection event. The very fact that skeptics are intrigued by this possibility makes it relevant to Christian witness and apologetics.
pollen on the Shroud unique to the Jerusalem area and Turkey, but not to the Europe
