The resurrection of Jesus has long been called the central ‘mystery of faith,’ but scientists have claimed to have found evidence that may prove the biblical event.

Paolo Di Lazzaro, an Italian physicist and chief researcher at the ENEA Research Centre in Frascati in Italy, spent five years attempting to reproduce the body image seen on the Shroud of Turin.

The relic is believed to be the burial cloth that wrapped Jesus after he died on the cross and is said to bear his image left after the resurrection. Di Lazzaro and his team attempted to recreate the image using powerful ultraviolet lasers. 

Researchers fired intense bursts of ultraviolet light at clean linen fabric similar to the shroud, altering the chemical structure of the outer fibers and turning them faintly yellow.

Despite successfully creating small areas of shroud-like discoloration, the team found that recreating the full body image was beyond modern technology.

Their calculations showed that producing a life-sized image would require an enormous burst of ultraviolet energy delivered in an extremely short time, far more than current laser systems can generate.

The findings were recently discussed on the Shaw Ryan Show, where biblical scholar Jeremiah Johnston said Di Lazzaro estimated the process would require extraordinary energy.

He said: ‘Paolo told me it would take 34,000 billion watts of energy traveling in one 40th of a billionth of a second to change the chemical makeup of a fine linen shroud to leave that image. ‘And he said, “We don’t have that power on Earth.’”

The Shroud of Turin is a 14-foot-long piece of linen featuring a faint image of the front and back of a man who Christians believe to be Jesus.

The cloth was first presented to the public in the 1350s, when it was exhibited in a small collegiate church in Lirey, a village in northern France. Some believe it to be a medieval fake.

Di Lazzaro published the study in 2010, saying that his laboratory had more than three decades of experience studying how ultraviolet radiation interacts with different materials, including metals, plastics and fabrics. 

Their work has shown that ultraviolet light affects only the outermost surface of materials, rather than penetrating deep inside.

When ultraviolet energy strikes linen, it is absorbed by the very top molecular layers of the fibers. 

This changes the chemical structure only at the surface, without burning or heating the fabric. 

Scientists believe this surface-level reaction is important because the image on the Shroud of Turin is known to be extremely shallow, affecting only the outer fibers.

Beginning in 2005, the team carried out repeated tests using linen cloth woven between 1930 and 1950 that had never been washed or chemically treated, ensuring the material behaved in a predictable way. 

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