The Burden of Proof

At some point in this investigation, the question changed.
It stopped being, is it real?
and started becoming, why do we see what we see?

Because when you talk to scientists, theologians, and historians — everyone studying this cloth — they all swear they’re looking at the same data.
But they’re not.
They’re looking through different lenses.

Bias is a strange thing.
It never feels like bias when it’s yours.
You think you’re following the facts, being objective, reasonable, open.
But it’s quieter than that.
It hides in what you choose to question, and what you don’t.

And when it comes to the Shroud of Turin, the biases aren’t subtle.
For some, it’s proof of the resurrection.
For others, it’s a medieval forgery; a reminder that faith can be fooled.
Both sides think they’re following the evidence.
Both can’t be right.

So in this episode, we’re not just testing the cloth.
We’re testing ourselves.
Because the truth isn’t just in the data... it’s in how we interpret it.

SPONSOR
This series is made possible by our sponsor, GTI Tours. Learn more about experiencing the land of the Bible at gtitours.org/shroud.

For listeners of The Shroud, your trip comes with two exclusive gifts: Journey through Jerusalem, a nine-session teaching series exploring the city through history, archaeology, and Scripture; AND a private evening during your trip set aside just for The Shroud listeners - gathering with local guides over coffee or tea for conversations that bring the Bible to life.

Go to gtitours.org/shroud and select “shroud” in the registration dropdown

HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a review and rating. It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow. And, take a moment today to share this podcast on your social channels.

FEATURED GUESTS

• Reverend Dr. Cris Rogers - Anglican Priest
• Dr. Giulio Fanti - Mechanical Engineer & Shroud Researcher specializing in forensic and scientific analysis of the Shroud of Turin
• Brian Mincher - Texas Trial Attorney & Legal Analyst

The Shroud is a production of Compel Studio. ​​Hosted by Lee Shelton. Produced by Lee Shelton and Kathleen Terrill.

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Follow Compel Studio for more updates and Behind the Scenes content.
Check out our Instagram @compel.studio
Visit our website Compel.Studio

Special thanks also to Magic Mind. You can support the show and boost your focus by visiting magicmind.com/SFW976BV.

Want even more? Join our Discord group for behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and a lot more. discord.gg/Xh8xYMCKQv

The Age of Almost Certainty

In 1988, three of the world’s most respected laboratories tested the Shroud of Turin, and the results shocked the world. “Medieval,” the scientists declared. Case closed.

But what if the story wasn’t that simple?

This episode revisits the most famous scientific test ever performed on a religious relic: the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin. Through newly released data, hidden correspondence, and firsthand accounts, we uncover the human story behind the science. The pressure. The politics. The possibility that a single sample, cut from the wrong corner, changed history.

Featuring physicists, historians, and nuclear engineers, The Age of Almost Certainty examines how truth, belief, and human confidence collide inside a laboratory, and how a few centimeters of ancient linen still divide science and faith thirty-five years later.

SPONSOR
This series is made possible by our sponsor, GTI Tours. Learn more about experiencing the land of the Bible at gtitours.org/shroud.

For listeners of The Shroud, your trip comes with two exclusive gifts: Journey through Jerusalem, a nine-session teaching series exploring the city through history, archaeology, and Scripture; AND a private evening during your trip set aside just for The Shroud listeners - gathering with local guides over coffee or tea for conversations that bring the Bible to life.

Go to gtitours.org/shroud and select “shroud” in the registration dropdown

HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a review and rating. It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow. And, take a moment today to share this podcast on your social channels.

FEATURED GUESTS

• Andrea Nicolotti - Professor of Christian history and relic studies
• Joe Marino – Sindonologist and author
• Russell Mozingo - Nuclear Engineer
• Tristan Casabianca - Historian & Shroud research scholar

The Shroud is a production of Compel Studio. ​​Hosted by Lee Shelton. Produced by Lee Shelton and Kathleen Terrill.

FOLLOW
Follow Compel Studio for more updates and Behind the Scenes content.
Check out our Instagram @compel.studio
Visit our website Compel.Studio

Special thanks also to Magic Mind. You can support the show and boost your focus by visiting magicmind.com/SFW976BV.

Want even more? Join our Discord group for behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and a lot more. discord.gg/Xh8xYMCKQv

BONUS: The Hunt for God’s Relics

In 1938, Adolf Hitler seized the legendary Spear of Destiny, a relic said to hold the power of Christ himself. But it was not the only sacred object he wanted. As Nazi forces swept across Europe, Vatican officials launched a secret mission to protect the Shroud of Turin from the Third Reich. In this bonus episode, Lee unravels the little-known story of how a handful of monks in a mountain monastery risked everything to keep one of Christianity’s most sacred relics out of Hitler’s grasp.

SPONSOR
This series is made possible by our sponsor, GTI Tours. Learn more about experiencing the land of the Bible at gtitours.org/shroud.

For listeners of The Shroud, your trip comes with two exclusive gifts: Journey through Jerusalem, a nine-session teaching series exploring the city through history, archaeology, and Scripture; AND a private evening during your trip set aside just for The Shroud listeners - gathering with local guides over coffee or tea for conversations that bring the Bible to life.

Go to gtitours.org/shroud and select “shroud” in the registration dropdown

HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a review and rating. It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow. And, take a moment today to share this podcast on your social channels.

The Shroud is a production of Compel Studio. ​​Hosted by Lee Shelton. Produced by Lee Shelton and Kathleen Terrill.

FOLLOW
Follow Compel Studio for more updates and Behind the Scenes content.
Check out our Instagram @compel.studio
Visit our website Compel.Studio

Special thanks also to Magic Mind. You can support the show and boost your focus by visiting magicmind.com/SFW976BV.

Want even more? Join our Discord group for behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and a lot more. discord.gg/Xh8xYMCKQv

Science Meets the Sacred

In 1898, an amateur photographer named Secondo Pia developed the first photograph of the Shroud of Turin and saw something that shouldn’t have been possible. What followed was a century-long struggle between faith and science.

This episode traces that journey: from the silence that followed Pia’s discovery, to the surgeons and scientists who tried to decode the image, to the five nights in 1978 when modern technology met one of history’s most mysterious relics. Decades later, physicist Eric Jumper would stand before an audience and state the truth: science had uncovered data, but not answers. And the question of what lies on that linen was still very much alive.

SPONSOR
This series is made possible by our sponsor, GTI Tours. Learn more about experiencing the land of the Bible at gtitours.org/shroud.

For listeners of The Shroud, your trip comes with two exclusive gifts: Journey through Jerusalem, a nine-session teaching series exploring the city through history, archaeology, and Scripture; AND a private evening during your trip set aside just for The Shroud listeners - gathering with local guides over coffee or tea for conversations that bring the Bible to life.

Go to gtitours.org/shroud and select “shroud” in the registration dropdown

HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a review and rating. It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow. And, take a moment today to share this podcast on your social channels.

FEATURED GUESTS

• Emanuela Marinelli – Shroud researcher and author
• Gilbert Lavoie – Physician and Shroud researcher
• Joe Marino – Sindonologist and author
• Andrea Nicolotti - Professor of Christian history and relic studies
• Daniel Shelton - my dad
• Archival Audio: Dr. Eric Jumper, Elizabethtown College, 1986 (used with attribution under fair use)

The Shroud is a production of Compel Studio. ​​Hosted by Lee Shelton. Produced by Lee Shelton and Kathleen Terrill.

FOLLOW
Follow Compel Studio for more updates and Behind the Scenes content.
Check out our Instagram @compel.studio
Visit our website Compel.Studio

Special thanks also to Magic Mind. You can support the show and boost your focus by visiting magicmind.com/SFW976BV.

Want even more? Join our Discord group for behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and a lot more. discord.gg/Xh8xYMCKQv

Archival Audio: Dr. Eric Jumper, Elizabethtown College Lecture (1986). Used for educational and historical commentary under fair-use principles (17 U.S.C. §107). Source: publicly available YouTube recording. All rights remain with the original copyright holder.

The Lost Years

History goes quiet. A cloth that might have wrapped a dead body disappears from the record for centuries. When it reappears it is wrapped in new names, new miracles, and new politics. How did a single piece of linen gather so many stories and so much power between the first century and medieval Europe?

In episode two of The Shroud, host Lee Shelton follows the trail through silence and legend. We examine the gap historians call the missing years, weighing early Syriac traditions, Byzantine chronicles, medieval inventories, and the narratives that grew around the Image of Edessa. With scholars, archivists, and liturgical experts on the record, this episode asks whether history, devotion, or invention explains how a cloth becomes a relic.

With insights from Andrea Nicolotti, Reverend Dr. Cris Rogers, David Perry, and Emanuela Marinelli, we ask hard questions:

• What do the earliest noncanonical and Syriac texts say about a cloth or image tied to Jesus?
• Could the Mandylion and the Shroud be two names for the same object folded and retold across centuries?
• How did politics, liturgy, and pilgrimage shape what people believed about a cloth they never saw?

This is where the trail goes cold, and where the work of piecing together story, record, and motive becomes detective work. The questions we raise here will shape everything that follows.

SPONSOR
This series is made possible by our sponsor, GTI Tours. Learn more about experiencing the land of the Bible at gtitours.org/shroud.

For listeners of The Shroud, your trip comes with two exclusive gifts: Journey through Jerusalem, a nine-session teaching series exploring the city through history, archaeology, and Scripture; AND a private evening during your trip set aside just for The Shroud listeners - gathering with local guides over coffee or tea for conversations that bring the Bible to life.

Go to gtitours.org/shroud and select “shroud” in the registration dropdown.

HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a review and rating. It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow. And, take a moment today to share this podcast on your social channels.

FEATURED GUESTS

• Andrea Nicolotti - Professor of Christian history and relic studies
• Reverend Dr. Cris Rogers - Anglican Priest
• David Perry - Journalist, Historian and archival researcher
• Emanuela Marinelli - Shroud researcher and author

The Shroud is a production of Compel Studio. ​​Hosted by Lee Shelton. Produced by Lee Shelton and Kathleen Terrill.

FOLLOW
Follow Compel Studio for more updates and Behind the Scenes content.
Check out our Instagram @compel.studio
Visit our website Compel.Studio

Special thanks also to Magic Mind. You can support the show and boost your focus by visiting magicmind.com/SFW976BV.

Want even more? Join our Discord group for behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and a lot more. discord.gg/Xh8xYMCKQv

A Burial Like No Other

Darkness falls. A crucified body is rushed to the tomb before sunset. Friends and followers gather linen, spices, and courage. But how exactly was Jesus buried, and what does that tell us about the cloth that would later ignite centuries of debate?

In the opening episode of The Shroud, host Lee Shelton begins the investigation at the very start: the burial. Drawing from Gospel accounts, first-century Jewish customs, and the testimony of early Christian writings, this episode explores what happened in those hurried hours after the crucifixion.

With insights from Dr. Craig Evans, Emanuela Marinelli, Andrea Nicolotti, Jerrell Jobe, and David Johnson, we ask hard questions:

• What do the Gospels really say about the burial cloths of Jesus?
• How did Jewish law and Roman rule shape the burial practices of the time?
• Could the Shroud of Turin fit the historical and cultural context of the first century?

This is where the story begins, with a body, a burial, and a cloth that still stirs fierce controversy two thousand years later.

SPONSOR
This series is made possible by our sponsor, GTI Tours. Learn more about experiencing the land of the Bible at gtitours.org/shroud.

For listeners of The Shroud, your trip comes with two exclusive gifts: Journey through Jerusalem, a nine-session teaching series exploring the city through history, archaeology, and Scripture; AND a private evening during your trip set aside just for The Shroud listeners - gathering with local guides over coffee or tea for conversations that bring the Bible to life.

Go to gtitours.org/shroud and select “shroud” in the registration dropdown

HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a review and rating. It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow. And, take a moment today to share this podcast on your social channels.

FEATURED GUESTS

• Dr. Craig Evans – New Testament scholar
• Emanuela Marinelli – Shroud researcher and author
• Andrea Nicolotti – Professor of Christian History and Churches
• Jerrell Jobe – Archaeology & Biblical History/Biblical Lands Guide
• David Johnson – Biblical scholar and commentator

The Shroud is a production of Compel Studio. ​​Hosted by Lee Shelton. Produced by Lee Shelton and Kathleen Terrill.

FOLLOW
Follow Compel Studio for more updates and Behind the Scenes content.
Check out our Instagram @compel.studio
Visit our website Compel.Studio

Special thanks also to Magic Mind. You can support the show and boost your focus by visiting magicmind.com/SFW976BV.

Want even more? Join our discord group for behind the scenes content, Q&As , and a lot more. https://discord.gg/Xh8xYMCKQv

A mysterious image. A centuries-old debate. A piece of linen that may—or may not—hold the face of Christ. Join us on a gripping journalistic journey as we unravel the history, legends, and scientific intrigue surrounding the Shroud of Turin. Through interviews with experts, skeptics, and true believers, we chase down clues, challenge assumptions, and seek answers to one compelling question: Could this cloth be tangible evidence of history’s greatest miracle—or its most enduring hoax?

Coming soon.