[clyde260]

I want to believe, and wish this were the real deal, but here is my dilema:

The first thing we learned in navigation class is that maps are flat, and the earth is round. Take a round ball say, and unpeel it and try and lay it flat. Can't do it?

If the shroud really got it's image by resting on a round head, when laid flat the image on the cloth would be distorted right?

[Alberta's Child]

If the shroud really got it's image by resting on a round head, when laid flat the image on the cloth would be distorted right?

Not exactly. Think of it this way -- if the image was caused by some kind of radiological phenomenon associated with a "resurrection" process, then the influence of round objects on flat surfaces would be diminished -- because a burst of radiation (or something similar) would emanate outwards and impact anything in its path. This, I suspect, is why some parts of the image are darker (in the original) or lighter (in the negative that you see at the top of this thread) -- the image is "strongest" in places where the cloth would have been in direct contact with the body (the tip of the nose, the eyebrows, and the chin, for example) and "weakest" at the points where there would have been some physical separation between the cloth and the body.

[WVNan]

My problem with sceptics is the fact that they have rarely read the complete library of evidence. It is frustrating to try and convince someone of something of which they know nothing. I don't know anyone who "worships" the Shroud. But I do think that it's important in the fact that it has given us our only true image of what our Lord looked like. The images painted of Christ by those who had never seen the Shroud (established by timing & history) were completely different from images painted by those who had access to the Shroud (Constantinople). Our images of Christ as having the common points listed above are fairly accurate.

One point where most get it wrong is the hair. Interestingly, the image on the Shroud shows a "pigtail" down the back of the man. From studying the image it appears that the hair was remarkably the same as Orthodox Jewish men still wear. Orthodox religious people tend to change very little over time.

Again, I tell everyone who is sceptic to read "The Blood & The Shroud" by Ian Wilson, then come back and argue your point.

[NYer]

If the shroud really got it's image by resting on a round head, when laid flat the image on the cloth would be distorted right?

I posted a series of links at the beginning of this thread, and recommend you visit them at some point. However, to address your mapping question.

* * * * *

In 1976, research physicists Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper along with The Rev Dr. Kenneth Stevenson, Giles Charter, and Peter Shumacher, examined a photograph of the Shroud in the Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer at the Sandia Scientific Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. To their complete surprise it produced a 3D image. The photograph of the Shroud, unlike any photograph of a drawing or painting, was "dimensionally encoded."

Peter Shumacher, the inventor of the NASA VP-8 Image Analyzer, describes the discovery of the 3D image. 

He had has just finished installing a system for Dr. John Jackson of the Sandia Scientific Laboratories:

Jackson placed an image of the Shroud of Turin onto the light table of the system. He focused the video camera of the system on the image. When the pseudo-three-dimensional image display ("isometric display") was activated, a "true-three-dimensional image" appeared on the monitor. At least, there were main traits of real three-dimensional structuring in the image displayed. The nose ramped in relief. The facial features were contoured properly. Body shapes of the arms, legs, and chest, had the basic human form. The result from the VP-8 had never occurred with any of the images I had studied, nor had I heard of it happening during any image studies done by others.

I had never heard of the Shroud of Turin before that moment. I had no idea what I was looking at. However, the results were unlike anything I have processed through the VP-8 Analyzer, before or since. Only the Shroud of Turin has produced these results from a VP-8 Image Analyzer isometric projection study.

[Swordmaker]

If the shroud really got it's image by resting on a round head, when laid flat the image on the cloth would be distorted right?

It is, slightly, distorted. The cloth actually lay much flatter than just draping over the body .... there was also a "hundred weight" of spices and herbs packed around the body, awaiting use in the ritual washing and proper burial that would be done after the Sabat passed.

[polemikos]

The image is vertically collimated.

http://shroudstory.com/essay/part18.htm

[gal522]

This was addressed in a documentary I saw about the Shroud some time ago.

Scientists believe the image was burned (for want of a better word) onto the shroud when the person underneath it was STANDING UP, not lying down. The hair is perfectly flat, unlike the way it would be if the body was lying on its back. So speculation is Jesus was risen from the dead and then the image was imprinted.