"The Passion" too violent? The "Shroud of Turin" shows it happened!

The Diocese of Charleston ^ | March 21, 2002 | Dr. William E. Rabil

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Shroud of Turin history presented in Upstate
Retired surgeon relays his nearly 40 years of research on the Shroud of Turin

By SHEILA OJENDYK

GREENVILLE — Dr. William E. Rabil has no doubt that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Rabil, a retired general surgeon from Winston-Salem, N.C., began studying the shroud in the late 1950s and has been lecturing about it for nearly 40 years. He made two slide presentations to parishioners at St. Mary Church on March 6.

Rabil began with a brief history of the shroud. After the crucifixion, the shroud was originally hidden in Jerusalem and was thought to have been moved to Edessa (Urfa, Turkey) after Jerusalem fell to the Romans in A.D. 70. In 944, the Byzantine Imperial Army invaded Edessa to recover the shroud and brought it to Constantinople (now Istanbul). Raiders from the Fourth Crusade invaded Istanbul in 1294 and took the shroud to Europe. It is believed to have been hidden by the Knights Templar until Geoffrey DeCharney exhibited it in Liren, France, in 1353. From that point forward, its history is fully documented. The shroud was moved to Turin, Italy, in 1578 and has remained there ever since. It is kept in a silver reliquary behind bullet-proof glass inside the Chapel of the Shroud.

The shroud was first photographed in 1898 by Italian photographer Secondo Pia. His first shot was a misfire, but his second shot caused him to fall to his knees. On the negative was the "positive image of Jesus Christ." The markings on the shroud are negative images, and it took the photographic reversal of light and dark to reveal the positive image of a man's body.

While the evidence cannot prove conclusively that the image on the shroud is Jesus, it is definitely the image of man between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet tall who weighed approximately 175 pounds. Forensic medical investigation confirms that the man died from crucifixion.

The body in the shroud was unclothed. All four books of the Gospel tell of Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus' garments.

The shroud was not wrapped around the body, as one might expect. The body was placed on top of the shroud with the feet at one end. The other end of the shroud was brought over the head and spread on top of the body, ending at the feet.

Jesus' torture and crucifixion were much bloodier than most paintings have ever depicted. The back of the body in the shroud shows multiple scourge marks from the nape of the neck to the feet. The Romans used a flagrum for scourging. A flagrum was a whip with bone or metal-tipped leather thongs that was specifically designed to tear flesh. One-hundred twenty scourge marks were counted on the body.

Blood had not been washed from the body in the shroud. The Sabbath was fast approaching when Jesus was taken down from the cross, and he had to be buried before sundown. The doctor emphasized that Jesus' body would have gone into rigor mortis almost immediately after death because of the trauma of crucifixion, which would have made washing very difficult. Jewish burial practices also precluded washing blood that was flowing at the time of death.

The face shows bruising on the nose; Jesus was struck on the nose by a high priest. The body had a mustache and beard, and there is evidence that facial hair had been plucked.

There were no broken bones, but some bones were displaced. There is evidence of spike wounds to both wrists and the feet. Forensic investigators have proved that the spikes were not pounded into Jesus' palms because the weight of an adult would have torn completely through all tissues, and he would have fallen off the cross. The spikes were pounded into his wrists, and the bones separated. One foot was nailed over the other.

According to Dr. John Heller in his book, Report on the Shroud of Turin (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1983), "There is a swelling of both shoulders, with abrasions indicating something heavy and rough had been carried across the man's shoulders within hours of death."

There is no pigment on the linen cloth of the shroud. If paint had been used, the wound pattern would have become obliterated. The blood stains on the back of the skull demonstrate the unique cohesive properties of blood. No other substance behaves the same way. Scientific testing has confirmed that the stains are blood and body fluids.

The forensic examination shows that the crown of thorns was actually a cap over the entire scalp. A painting done from the shroud image shows a thorn above Jesus' right eye.

Some photos of the shroud show the image of coins placed over both eyes, a Jewish burial custom. The image exactly matches that of a coin minted during the reign of Pontius Pilate between A.D. 29 and 33.

Botanical experts have examined fragments of the shroud and found spores and seeds from 27 plants that are indigenous to Jerusalem. Geological analysis of particles showed limestone indigenous to caves surrounding Jerusalem and suggested that the shroud was placed in a damp tomb or cave.

Jesus died after about three hours on the cross, which was considered fast for a man of his age and physical condition. Medical experts theorize that he was severely weakened by the brutal scourging. Death by crucifixion is very painful. The muscles of the arms, chest, and legs quickly go into spasm, and the victim dies of asphyxiation.

The shroud has been studied and tested carefully by surgeons, forensic scientists, nuclear scientists, radiologists, Biblical scholars, botanists, and historians. Experts have disagreed with each other and challenged each other's theories and tests. Nobody will ever prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Shroud of Turin was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ — but nobody can prove it wasn't either.

[dangus]

YOu do know that that is a 1911 edition you are citing, right?

[Swordmaker]

The linen clothing is just that clothing, and is in NO way, especially in that day, considered a burial cloth. I think it would be wise of you to take another look at the Shroud, upon observation you'll see it is not clothing. I might suggest you study the clothing of His day.

Which Bible did you find that in? The original Greek refers to "othonia", which are "grave cloths", not clothes. These grave cloths consisted of a "sindon" - a "shroud", and a "sudarion", - cloth used on the head, translated as "napkin." There may have been other binding cloths used to tie the arms and legs together in repose. None of these words imply in the least "clothing."

If you like, I can post the actual Gospel accounts in Koinic Greek (Anglicized for posting) that shows this. All other versions of the Bible are translations of this original Greek. This is the source material and the closest in meaning to what actually happened.

Joseph of Arimathea bought a SHROUD, a "sindon", not clothing. No scholarship has ever shown that Jewish burials included DRESSING the dead in clothes. Most poor people did get only a face covering cloth... but Jesus was treated as a RICH man by a RICH man and was buried in a Shroud.

[katana]

1350 was the approximate date of a fire which damaged the shroud (the scorch marks are readily visible). This can affect carbon dating since the test measures what remains of the half life of a carbon isotope in organic material (like linen). Burning of the material skews the results. In other words, carbon dating can neither prove nor disprove the age of this particular cloth.

The presence of pollen native to the Middle East, the cloth pattern matching what are known to be typical burial shrouds of first century Judea, the coins on the eyes matching those minted in Judea during the governorship of Pontius Pilate, and the condition of the corpse all indicate that the corpse was a (tall for the time) first century man who was beaten and nearly whipped to death, then crucified and prepared for burial in or near what is now Israel. The extensive and brutal scourging, wound in the side, head wounds from something that caused small punctures in the scalp, etc. are also hard to explain away as coincidence.

I'm not a Catholic and have never put much stock in "Holy Relics". You or anyone can choose to believe or not, but the circumstantial evidence is actually quite strong. Beyond that, it's a matter of faith.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

RightOnline; Thank you so much for sending me to the Shroud of Turin Thread. Wow!! I'm going to ping a few people from that thread too. I think they will be interested in this thread. Thanks again!!

From what we could see after viewing the movie for the second time, the only deviation was in the crucifixion scene and in where Mr. Gibson placed the nails. (It should have been in the wrists). Otherwise he followed the Gospels perfectly. He did put a human face on Jesus, which was *in our opinion* a good thing to do. (As to the critics saying the Jewish people were made to be "hooked nosed".. how racist was that? Peter had a bump on his nose, and he was a handsome and wonderful actor. Jesus didn't have a perfect nose either,.. but He was portrayed beautifully. We didn't really NOTICE noses.. we were too busy watching the movie and taking away the POSITIVE message(s). How "shallow" some people?) How sad.. we'll pray for them!!! We love what Jesus says about how easy it is to LOVE THOSE THAT YOU ALREADY LOVE.. BUT WHAT REWARD IS THERE IN THAT?

The Shroud of Turin is real, we have "no doubt" of it. I would love to see a documentary or a presentation by the STURP Team!

Also, on the thread you directed me to, I found this posted by Aske15!! In light of the release of "The Passion of the Christ" movie. This thread is so appropriate! WHEN WE SAW THE MOVIE FOR THE SECOND TIME LAST NIGHT AFTER READING ABOUT THE SHROUD OF TURIN.. WE KNEW MR. GIBSON HAD NOT EMBELLISHED. It was different the second time.

God Bless all of you! VH&W ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's an excerpt from the CRC on the work the STURP team:

"Professor Morano, of the electronic Microscope Centre of Vercelli and of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of Turin, is the first to have studied the ultrastructural aspects of a thread of the Shroud by means of an electronic scanning microscope. Progress on the classical electronic transmitting microscope has been considerable. This quite recent technique consists in exploring the sample by means of an electronic beam focused on a very limited point and scanning it according to a trajectory like that used for a television picture. Now an examination, carried out in this three-dimensional perspective, on a thread of linen a hundred years old shows flattened and completely smooth fibres, whereas the fibres from a thread of the Shroud show a cylindrical and dirty ("sporco") aspect, encrusted with every sort of foreign body: spores, pollen grains.... exactly like the fibres of a two thousand year old cloth shrouding an Egyptian mummy in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. A further decisive proof of the Shroud's authenticity."

Also from the CRC: THE DATING OF THE IMAGE BY MEANS OF PALEOGRAPHY THE IMAGE DATED TO WITHIN TWO YEARS

Our historical investigation finds striking confirmation through paleography, which dates the image to within two years. Our late lamented friend, Father Filas, sent us the complete file of this discovery, which, to his credit, he brought to completion though not having initiated it himself. This fact needs to be recalled, for it all began with a consensus of American scientists, vouched for by the preliminary work of the STURP team at Albuquerque in 1977 and by Jumper's communication to the Congress of Turin in 1978. But it all ended in such a persecution of Father Filas starting from the meeting at Los Alamos in 1979, that to this day his file is as good as banned worldwide.

Why? For one reason only, which is totally alien to science: because we have here a dating of the image, and not just of the cloth, dating it to almost the actual year of the Event itself. It is the stamp or seal of Pontius Pilate, giving a date to which no scientist can raise any objection.

PILATE'S LEPTON

It is the three-dimensional analysis which gave birth to this hypothesis, but even a look at an ordinary photograph will clearly reveal a kind of disc placed over each eyelid, dark on the positive and light on the negative. An enlargement of this imprint, on the right eyelid, enabled Father Filas to recognize the imprint of a coin struck under Pontius Pilate: the same size, same cut, the same effigy, the astrologer's staff, the same inscription recognizable, from four quite legible letters, as a certain coin duly catalogued for the years 16, 17 and 18 of Tiberius Caesar, which would be the years 29, 30 and 31 of our era.

AN ANOMALY THAT DOES NOT DECEIVE

Confirmed by three-dimensional analysis, the discovery was found to be definitively corroborated by its very fruitfulness, for it led to some unexpected progress in numismatic science. Four Greek letters, Y CAI, are in fact all that are needed to reconstruct the inscription TIBEPIO [Y KAI] CAPOC, "of Tiberius Caesar". But there is an anomaly: on the Holy Shroud a Latin C replaces the initial Greek K of KAICAPOC, which figures on all the coin collections known up to 1980.

Thereafter, to those who accused Father Filas of letting his imagination run away with him or of taking his desires for reality, he answered that, not being a numismatist, he had so little desire to see a coin of Pilate's that "before I accidentally stumbled on this, he wrote to me, I would not have known a Pilate coin from a hole in the wall".

He was obliged, therefore, to consult the numismatic specialists, and it was then that his discovery proved to be so little the work of his imagination that it was responsible for a positive progress in the study of numismatics itself. It revealed that the anomaly observed on the Holy Shroud and already recognized as being of common usage in inscriptions but hitherto unknown in numismatics, existed identically on other collection coins struck under Pontius Pilate, which no one had noticed before.

We have here a document dated within a year or two by the express Will of Him Who caused this Image to be imprinted on the cloth. For one would have expected to see shards of broken pottery used for covering the eyes, as was the Jewish custom, but it would not have been possible to read a date from them. Whereas the little coin proclaims: it is "under Pontius Pilate" that this Man suffered.

[anonymous_user]

If it happens to be the actual shroud, and proves itself to be so, then that could be pretty neat. Don't fear that there actually may be a true testable artifact from the crucufixion of Christ, just to fear it.

Pretty neat. Agreed. I worry about people that pin their Faith to artifacts, and then should their validity be disproved...

"Let him not deceive himself by trusting what is worthless, for he will get nothing in return." Job 15:31

[dangus]

I just realized it HAS been contradicted by the shroud. the shroud has a blood phenotype of AB. A self-fertilized ova (which is how the virginal births occur) would be either O, A or B but to have both A and B would mean that he recieved a chromosome with a genotype of A from one parent, and B from the other.

Thus raising an interesting issue: If the shroud is authentic, it means that Jesus either
A. received a genotype as a distinct act of *physical* creation,
or,
B. recieved TWO sets of chromosomes from Mary.

Come to think of it, that issue is raised even if the Shroud is NOT authentic, simply by our knowledge of genotype.

[PleaseNoMore]

I want to thank you for your very interesting and informed posts. I have learned a lot about the shroud simply by reading them. I also appreciate your understanding of biblical texts in their original context. So many don't take the time to do so.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Go here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38765319358d.htm

And then look at post 25 for more recent SCIENTIFIC data. But pay SPECICIAL NOTICE TO THE LAST PART OF post 25!

(I might add that the "painted on" theory is a bunch of bunk, in that they say it would have needed to be painted from 15 ft away. Nice try though! :o)

[happydogdesign]

Sorry, my unicorn hunting license expired, but hope you bag a big one! Don't trip over the crop circles, and say hello to Bigfoot and Elvis for me.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Is it a cap? Or a wreath type? Thanks!

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Thank you SO MUCH!! I had not heard of the Sudarium.

I'm learning so much!! Please PING me on anything else like this, or any further information you have. I'm pinging you on some sad information I just found out regarding the Shroud.

God Bless!!

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

After seeing the negatives of the Shroud and reading about how many times Jesus actually WAS torn apart during the Scourging before His crucifixion (in otherwords, Mel Gibson didn't embellish) the second time we saw the movie was even MORE moving for us then the first time. (The Shroud showed 120 lashes on Jesus's back and calves ALONE!) The Shroud showed the abrasions on His shoulders and how both shoulders were swollen. His right eye was swollen. The nail holes....

You see, we always knew that Jesus was crucified for us and died. We have always been believers. We were blessed to be raised that way. We have a deep and abideing LOVE for Jesus Christ. We did before we saw the movie. We had our "faith".. and yes, it would have sustained us.

But like many we are changed forever and for the better for having seen this movie. Even some Ministers who have walked away from this movie.. feel changed. On a deeper more spiritual, emotional level. Praise God!!

We know in life, that we NEVER STOP GROWING until we die.

In the movie, Jesus says "Loving someone back who you love is easy.. what reward is there in that?" In the same vein...

Perhaps "imagining" what He went through was always easy..easier....

Perhaps seeing it is hard,.. but my faith has been deepened for seeing it. For "feeling it" on some level, though not even CLOSE to what our Father endured.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

After seeing the negatives of the Shroud and reading about how many times Jesus actually WAS torn apart during the Scourging before His crucifixion (in otherwords, Mel Gibson didn't embellish) the second time we saw the movie was even MORE moving for us then the first time. (The Shroud showed 120 lashes on Jesus's back and calves ALONE!) The Shroud showed the abrasions on His shoulders and how both shoulders were swollen. His right eye was swollen. The nail holes....

You see, we always knew that Jesus was crucified for us and died. We have always been believers. We were blessed to be raised that way. We have a deep and abideing LOVE for Jesus Christ. We did before we saw the movie. We had our "faith".. and yes, it would have sustained us.

But like many we are changed forever and for the better for having seen this movie. Even some Ministers who have walked away from this movie.. feel changed. On a deeper more spiritual, emotional level. Praise God!!

We know in life, that we NEVER STOP GROWING until we die.

In the movie, Jesus says "Loving someone back who you love is easy.. what reward is there in that?" In the same vein...

Perhaps "imagining" what He went through was always easy..easier....

Perhaps seeing it is hard,.. but my faith has been deepened for seeing it. For "feeling it" on some level, though not even CLOSE to what our Father endured.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Please add me to your Shroud list!!!

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Thanks SuziQ. I love looking at the face on the Shroud!

[Cboldt]

Your comments, your expression of gratitude and submission, are moving.

I kept saying under my breath throughout the movie:

"Thank you Jesus".. "Thank you". "Oh no".. "Oh Jesus.. I'm so sorry"..and then again.. "Thank you Jesus" and "I love you Jesus"!

And at the end.. when HE LIVED AGAIN.. I said softly "PRAISE GOD"!!!

Amen. AMEN!

[HiTech RedNeck]

A. received a genotype as a distinct act of *physical* creation,

This sounds like the case. That would have to be for Jesus to be a He and not a She.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Look here!

http://www.shroudstory.com/sudarium.htm

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

The Shroud is LINEN...and the face cloth you wrote about is called the Sudarium.

http://www.shroudstory.com/sudarium.htm

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Ps. I do study the Bible. It isn't quite as limited as some would think. Once you read it.. try to study the REGIONS.