Computer-generated sketch of boy Jesus based on Shroud of Turin (courtesy Retequattro-Mediaset
Posted on 12/24/2004 12:18:11 AM PST by JohnHuang2
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Computer-generated sketch of boy Jesus based on Shroud of Turin (courtesy Retequattro-Mediaset |
What did Jesus Christ of Nazareth look like as a boy?
While no one knows for certain, forensic experts are now using computer images from the Shroud of Turin along with historical data and other ancient images to make an educated guess.
In a documentary called "Jesus' Childhood" airing Sunday night on the Italian TV station Retequattro of the Mediaset Group, police artists use the same "aging" technology employed when searching for missing persons and criminals.
"In this case the experts went backwards. Now we have a hypothesis on how the man of the shroud might have looked at the age of 12," Mediaset said in a statement. "While some features, such as the color of the eyes and the hair's length, cut and color, are arbitrary, others come directly from the face impressed on the shroud."
The group points out the facial proportions between the nose and eyebrow, as well as the shape of the jaw are identical to those on the shroud, which is a piece of linen some believe to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus after he was crucified.
The resulting image shows a fair-skinned child with blond, wavy hair and dark eyes.
"We made a rigorous effort based on the Shroud of Turin, but it's clear that the data at our disposal were limited," police official Carlo Bui told the Italian paper Corriere della Sera. "Let's say we have made an excellent hypothesis."
The Bible itself gives little information as to the specifics of what Jesus looked like during his ministry.
It does say he was a descendant of King David, who may have been fair-skinned with a reddish tint to his face and hair. The Old Testament notes David as a youth "was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to." (I Samuel 2:16)
Others have argued Jesus was more olive or dark-skinned being from the Middle East.
The book of Isaiah gives what many believe to be a prophecy about Jesus' appearance as a human being, noting there wouldn't be any features out of the ordinary:
"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." (Isaiah 53:2)
When asked by Discovery News about the latest computer-generated image, Prof. James Charlesworth, an expert on Jesus research and the Gospel of John at Princeton Theological Seminary, said, "Too many Christians look down the well of history, seeking to see Jesus' face, and see the reflection of their own image. Those who follow Jesus find him attractive and thence always tend to portray him as a very attractive male, as in this new image."
"It shows clearly an Aryan Jesus, just like the Nazis proclaimed. Jesus was a Jew, looked like a Jew, and followed Jewish customs," he said.
As WorldNetDaily previously reported, the Shroud of Turin itself has been mired in controversy for centuries, with some maintaining the image on the linen is that of the crucified Jesus, while others reject it as an elaborate hoax.
In the 1980s, three international laboratories were selected to run the newly refined accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) method of carbon dating on the shroud, to help determine its time of origin. The labs, including one at the University of Arizona at Tucson, all concurred the shroud was dated 1260-1390 AD.
But many have since questioned the reliability of the carbon-dating process which fixed that time period.
In 2000, millions of people turned out to view the controversial fabric during a rare public display.
The New Testament does refer to linens in connection with Jesus' burial, recounted when Jesus' disciples went to his tomb:
Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. (John 20:3-7)
While some think the "napkin" that was on Jesus' head casts doubt on the whole shroud theory, others believe it helps validate the shroud as authentic.
A relic called the Sudarium of Oviedo is claimed by some to be the actual cloth around Jesus' head.
The cloth is impregnated with blood and lymph stains that match the blood type on the Shroud of Turin. The pattern and measurements of stains indicate the placement of the cloth over the face.
Juan Ignacio Moreno, a Spanish magistrate based in Burgos, Spain, asks a critical question:
"The scientific and medical studies on the Sudarium prove that it was the covering for the same man whose image is [on] the Shroud of Turin. We know that the Sudarium has been in Spain since the 600s. How, then, can the radio carbon dating claiming the shroud is only from the 13th century be accurate?"
That's exactly wrong. All the evidence suggests it is from the time period expected. As for the reverse-aged image, it's obviously a guess. The image on the shroud is of a Jewish rabbi, with beard. One would expect the boy to appear Jewish, as well. I suppose the image does. But to some it suggests another race.
Is that what they think Barabbas looked like, or Judas?
Interesting to see what forensics makes of the Shroud and Sudarium, and in time we'll have the ability to clone Jesus or whomever those DNA strands belong to. (Not that we should, but in the brave new world, we probably will.) Of course, it's all about faith. God looks like all of us. Or the reverse...each and every one of us was made in the image of God.
http://www.shroud.com/menu.htm may have the Life photo
There is growing suspicion the swatch used in the carbon 14 analysis may have been taken from a part of the Shroud that had been repaired by nuns after a fire. There is too much evidence for authenticity to simply accept the theory that the Shroud is from the 13th century. For example, the weave of the cloth is first century. Pollen on the cloth derives from the environs of Jerusalem in the first century. The patterns of blood match the sudarium of Ovieto--which had been venerated long before the 13th century. The coins that show up covering the eyes of the shroud date back to the first century. There are also paintings depicting the Holy Shroud which date back to before the 13th century.
They think Jesus looked like John Rhys-Davies trying to expel a particularly petrified #2?
From a post by Shroudie earlier this year:
_____________________________________________________
Many believe that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth of Jesus. Numerous scholars including scientists, forensic pathologists, image specialists, historians and archeologists believe that is genuine burial cloth of a man crucified by Romans during the first century. Add the conspectus of its history and the biblical accounts of Jesus' scourging and crucifixion, and it is reasonable to infer that the enigmatic images are of Jesus.
The evidence, from science and history, that it is genuine, is quite compelling. The evidence that it is a hoax, a fake or a work of art is almost non-existent. The once much believed carbon 14 dating that found for a medieval provenance was fully discredited when it was realized that what was tested was a medieval repair; a discrete reweaving of new material into the cloth’s edge from which the carbon 14 sample was taken. Other polemic explanations surfaced in recent years. One is that a bioplastic coating evolved on the surface of the fibers thus introducing newer material. Another is that a scorching fire in 1532 might have changed the isotope composition of the cloth. These, though still widely touted in press reports and television documentaries, are doubtful from a scientific standpoint.
The chemical nature of the images is profoundly clear. They are not painted or produced by any form of externally applied pigment, dye or colorant. Nor, are they the product of some form of medieval proto-photographic method as has been widely reported. Numerous chemical examinations make this clear.
Cellulose fibers that make up the threads of the Shroud's cloth are coated with a thin carbohydrate layer of starch fractions, various sugars and other impurities. This chemical layer, which is about as thick as the transparent scratch-resistant coatings used for eye glasses, is essentially colorless. However, in some places, the layer has undergone a chemical change that appears straw-yellow. This chemical change is similar to the change that takes place when sugar is heated to make caramel or when proteins react with sugar giving beer its color.
From a purely chemical point of view, a mechanical application of a protein or reactive amine might have caused the chemical product that forms the image. But to do so would have required extraordinary technology that does not even exist today. That does not mean, however, that the images were formed miraculously.
Ray Rogers, a Fellow of the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a chemist who has scientifically examined the Shroud in Turin and studied the object for more than 27 years, summarizes nicely:
"There is absolutely no doubt that the image color exists in a thin layer on the surface of image fibers. The layer is amorphous, and it seems to have an index of refraction relatively close to that of the linen fiber. The layer is quite brittle, and many flakes of the color have flaked off of the fibers. Colorless cellulose can be seen where image color has flaked off. The flakes can be seen and identified on the adhesive of sampling tapes. The flakes have the chemical properties of the intact image color on the fibers.
"Non-image areas show an impurity coating on the surfaces of the linen fibers. It is slightly thicker than the colored image layer, as would be expected. When a material is dehydrated it shrinks. When the impurity layer reacted to produce the color, it got thinner."
Among researchers that believe that the Shroud is real, there are two schools of thought. One is that the images were formed by some perfectly natural phenomenon. The other is that some energetic stimulus, perhaps as a byproduct of a resurrection miracle, catalyzed or otherwise chemically induced the images. Both tentative explanations are still unsatisfying as no testable and reasonable hypothesis has yet been proposed.
The blood on the Shroud is real human blood. There is no question about that. Numerous scientists including Paul Heller, who was Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Physics at Yale University and the Director of the New England Institute; Alan D. Adler, who was Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Western Connecticut University; Victor V. Tyron, Director of the Center for Advanced DNA Technology at the University of Texas Health Science Center and others conducted an entire repertoire of tests. Immunological, fluorescence and spectrographic tests, as well as Rh and ABO typing of blood antigens prove it is real human blood beyond any doubt. Raymond Rogers and Anna Arnoldi of the Department of Molecular Sciences at the University of Milan concur.
Highly reputed forensic medicine experts concur. Fred Zugibe, Adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons and once Chief Medical Examiner, Rockland County, New York; James Malcolm Cameron, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the London Hospital Medical School Professor James Malcolm Cameron and Robert Bucklin, Forensic Pathologist, once Head of the Forensic Medical Division of the Los Angeles Medical Examiner Office and Coroner of Las Vegas support the conclusion. They all conclude that the stains were formed by real human bleeding from real wounds on a real human body, in rigor mortis, that came into direct contact with the cloth. Many of the stains have the distinctive forensic signature of clotting with red corpuscles about the edge of the clot and a clear yellowish halo of serum.
There is a preponderance of other scientific evidence. Joseph Kohlbeck, Resident Scientist at the Hercules Aerospace Center in Salt Lake, Utah, and Richard Levi-Setti of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago found that dirt particles embedded in the Shroud were a rare form of calcite, travertine aragonite, found only near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.
Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading authority on the flora of Israel, along with Uri Baruch, a pollen specialist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, in a peer reviewed report published by the Missouri Botanical Society in St Louis report that the combination of pollen spores lodged in the Shroud’s surface, as well as floral images mysteriously “imprinted” on the face of the cloth, could only have come from plants growing in a restricted area around Jerusalem. How floral images came to be on the cloth is as big a mystery as are the body images.
Fascinating historical evidence gives credence to the entire picture. There is the peculiar 6th century the illatio (Præfatio) in the Mozarabic Rite from Spain which refers to images on a Jesus’ burial linen. There is further evidence of the idea of an image on the cloth from Pope Stephen III (reigned 752 to 757 CE) who writes “On this cloth, marvelous as it is to see . . . the glorious image of the Lord's face, and the length of his entire and most noble body, has been divinely transferred.”
In 944, a cloth known as the Image of Edessa, known to have been in that city since 544 CE, is transferred to Constantinople. At that time, Gregory Referendarius, the archdeacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, preached a sermon in which he describes the Edessa cloth with a full length image and bloodstains from a side wound. There is ample evidence that this cloth vanished from Constantinople in 1204 during the sacking of the city by French knights of the Fourth Crusade. What happened between 1204, or 1207 when the cloth was described as being in Athens, and 1356 when the Shroud was displayed in Lirey, France, is a mystery.
Images of Jesus that evolved in the Middle East around the middle of the 6th century, offer significant clues. Defects in the cloth and unique characteristics of the images suddenly became part the iconography of Jesus. The most telling image may be from a 6th century icon at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai that replicates many characteristics of the facial image we see on the Shroud.
Yet, for many reasons, people find it hard to believe that the Shroud is authentic. Among these:
1) History: It is hard to imagine that a relic of Jesus survived for nearly can 2000 years. Furthermore, we are conditioned by the lessons of history to believe that a relic with a footprint in medieval Europe must be fake.
2) Incredulity: We assume, dichotomously, if the Shroud is not fake then the images we see on the cloth must have been miraculously produced as a byproduct of a resurrection event. This overwhelms modern sensibilities. Sensational theories in polemic writings—theories such as dematerialization or radiation coming from the body of Jesus—only magnifies our incredulity.
3) Alternatives: We may be persuaded by alternate presentations: Walter McCrone attempted to show that it was a painting. Bishop Henri de Poitiers of Troyes conducted an inquest in the 14th century and discovered that an artist had confessed to painting the Shroud? Leonardo da Vinci created the Shroud's image (in his own image) despite the fact that he was born a century after its documented appearance in Lirey, France in 1356.
4) Convictions: Firm religious beliefs or our view of history persuades us that the Shroud cannot be real. Biblical literalism, which does not account for the Shroud, is an example. John Dominic Crossan's argument that Jesus was not buried and that his body likely left on the cross to be devoured by crows and dogs or thrown into a charnel pit is also an example.
Crossan, a significant historian and Jesus Seminar Fellow, whose understanding of the 1st century is formidable, wrote of the Shroud:
"My best understanding is that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval relic-forgery. I wonder whether it was done from a crucified dead body or from a crucified living body. That is the rather horrible question once you accept it as a forgery."
Crossan, who is meticulous and organized in his analysis, introduces an interesting paradox. As his comments imply, he is certainly aware of the most undisputed observations about the Shroud.
Others takes a more open-minded approach. Barrie Schwortz, who has been studying the Shroud since 1978 wrote:
"I've been privileged to be involved in this project (studying the Shroud). And it's science that brought me to the understanding. ... I'm Jewish. That makes me a neutral person; I'm not proselytizing. I believe given the facts you should decide this for yourself. ... Many of the scientists studying the Shroud ... are Jewish and leaning, in the end, toward the authenticity of the cloth. We might have an actual artifact of the historical Jesus."
For more information see the material at http://shroudstory.com
Shroudie
1 posted on 04/07/2004 10:52:31 AM PDT by shroudie
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Check your facts, pal. It's called Google.
Frankly, I thought it looked more like a Jesús Mendoza, but what do I know.
More than me...you know who Jesús Mendoza is :)
Sigh............................no, it wasn't. I wish you people who say such things would actually get off your duffs and LEARN something before perpetuating falsehoods.
I think Jesus looked a little like his mother, and a little like his Father, of whose appearance we know little.
ping to swordmaker
Ron Silver is more European, I say he would look like ...
Gosh, I cant think of the actor's name now! :)
He was in TRUE LIES, the camera man? That had the hidden gun?
Although Jesus was Jewish, his race was probably Semite, which was and remains the prominent race in the Western Middle East (i.e. what is now Syria, Jordon, Lebanon, and Israel, and the North Central and Northwestern areas of Africa. I suspect that Jesus looked more like your basic so-called Palestinian or even Kadafy- like, than Ron Silver, who obvious descends from European Jews.
Why do you say the Shroud is a fake?
The image doesn't look like what a Middle-Eastern Jewish young person would have probably looked like at that time.
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