Posted on 07/28/2026 6:12:32 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The forensic evidence was bloody and grim. Thick clotted blood scored the bruised face of the corpse, from a multitude of deep, needle-sharp wounds.
More dried blood could be seen on the arms, feet and ankles, blood that had oozed from brutal injuries that punched through the bones.
These details, pieced together by successive teams of experts in criminal pathology, are captured in the oldest piece of murder evidence in the world: the Shroud of Turin.
The dead man, powerfully built and naked, must have suffered intense agonies... but he did not bleed to death.
Neither was he killed by the deep stab wound in his left side, close to his heart.
There were other wounds too, savage but not fatal – signs of a beating that began at his shoulders and left welts across his back and thighs.
All of these injuries contributed to his death, but the murder weapon was more gruesome still... gravity itself.
The victim was killed by his own body weight. His name, of course, was Jesus of Nazareth.
In his new book, The Shroud Rises, Australian researcher William West reaches a provocative conclusion: that the Shroud of Turin (pictured) does, beyond question, depict the face and body of Jesus Christ.
West (pictured) believes there to be ten irrefutable proofs that the Shroud is not a fake.
His death, by crucifixion at a public execution in Jerusalem around 33AD, must have been slow and unspeakably painful.
Slumped forward and suspended by his arms, he suffocated on the blood and pleural fluid that accumulated around his lungs.
After his body was taken down from the cross, it was wrapped in a linen cloth.
His blood, still wet, stained the cloth and then, so the faithful believe, the likeness of Christ's corpse was miraculously transferred onto the linen.
The earliest definite historical records show a cloth claiming to...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.com ...
Sorry, but I don’t trust claims of scientific experiments in literature reviews. Find me the scientifically peer reviewed analysis and I’ll take it seriously enough to take a closer look.
I don’t buy it either but people might want to be able to read his claim for themselves and dissect it.
The evidence is fake. He was not buried in that shroud. Give it up. Oh man...
My understanding is that the tests were done on patches to the original material.
I don’t know if any tests were done on the original fabric.
I doubt that most victims were stabbed in the side or had a crown of thorns.
Like I said. I searched for this in the scientific literature and nit doesn’t exist. It’s a nice story in English journals with interesting pictures on a website with hand waiving descriptions of how they were produced.
Just about the only claim of merit I saw was the 3d information claim. There’s nothing but images with claims about how they were produced and even if the 3d information claim has any merit it doesn’t begin to address the dozens of other features of the actual Shroud image that just are not explainable today.
Many say that including Barrie Schwortz who was there. But it’s also true that the results of the DNA tests themselves were lied about. That evidence was published perhaps a decade ago.
That is why none of us heard of it, it never made an impression as a claim, it wasn’t taken seriously.
So you want that passage to make a doctrine from a transitional book? That’s some weird hermeneutics, friend. What point were you trying to make?
You do know the purpose of the sign gifts, right?
Statistical reanalyses of the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin have challenged the original conclusion that the cloth dates to the 13th or 14th century. Researchers have identified significant heterogeneity in the data from the three laboratories (Oxford, Zurich, and Arizona), suggesting the results were skewed by uneven contamination or a spatial trend in the samples rather than a uniform age.
Key findings from recent studies include:
Statistical Heterogeneity: A 2019 analysis of raw data by Casabianca et al. and subsequent studies by Riani et al. showed that the 12 subsamples were not homogeneous, with ages systematically varying by position on the cloth. This spatial correlation implies that the average date is statistically invalid and does not represent the entire shroud.
Thomas needed to see the place where the nails and spear had been. And Jesus would let him put his hands inside the wound if that was what it took.
There is plenty of other evidence about Christ so this isn’t an essential piece, but for those who need a reason for the hope that is within them (which we are to be prepared to give to those who ask us for our reason), evidence is important.
My son was really relieved when I explained to him the significance of the account of the man born blind - specifically that it happened where everybody could see and that the Pharisees and Sadducees had no answer for those who knew the man from birth and knew him to be blind and also knew that he could now see. They had to resort to ad hominems. I explained that the healing happening right in the middle of the skeptics, where they could prove it wrong if it was wrong, shows that even the skeptics knew it was true. And the writings in the Talmud show the same thing; the leaders claimed that Jesus was a sorcerer - one who does real miracles by the power of Satan. That is an admission that they were real miracles and not just sleight-of-hand or fakery.
The Muslims have blind faith. When people check for the archaeological and historical evidence that should exist they lose their faith because the evidence all reveals it to be a lie. Not so with Christianity and the Bible. And that is important for those who want to test the spirits, as we are told to do. Blind faith is gullibility. Informed faith provides solid reasons that outlast whatever feelings inspired the blind faith.
The Shroud is not on the evidentiary level of Scripture. If it was a fake it would not change the accuracy of Scripture. But for those who like to weigh physical evidence, the Shroud is a mystery that nobody has been able to replicate. And that can be used by God to get skeptics or agnostics to look more closely at the whole body of evidence regarding Scripture.
I am not a cloning expert. It doesn’t matter, anyway, you can not clone the second person of the trinity. What parts do you doubt? The impressions? The pollen? The testing for dates that were just done? The weave which is a rare 1st century weave?
Don’t be sorry, you are the one who doesn’t seem to have an interest. What part is a joke? The hemoglobin? The pollen? The NASA scientists who concluded it was not man made in any for we know now? The reverse negative? The weave of the shroud being a little used weave from Israel?
Nicely put.
It is not obvious to me. And nothing in John implies fiction. Joseph ordered myrrh which would not impact the creation of the shroud. No fiction involved. Just not a relevant fact IMO.
And what makes you think the Shroud *can’t* be a sign. I question your hermeneutics if you think it’s impossible.
Wow, great reply!
It is relevant when we look at our societal rot. We have a crisis of faith, yet we are chasing down whether or not a piece of cloth is authentic. What if it isn’t? So what? What if it is? So what?
Did Jesus or any of the NT writers ask us to put our faith in a relic? Jesus resurrected after being put to death on a Roman cross, and was seen by over 500 people. Some went and had dinner with him.
The extra-biblical evidence is extraordinary. But this shitty cloth is all we hear about. Instead of ensuring we got the gospel CORRECT, and are actively getting the gospel back into our children.
It’s a distraction.
I think you missed the part where my comment was a response to chickenlips.
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