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Pictures of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin?

Picture of Jesus, Christ Pantocrator, St Catherine's Sinai, 6th Century There are no descriptions of Jesus' appearance in the New Testament. Nor are there any reputable descriptions in any known early Church sources. St. Augustine of Hippo made a point of this when he wrote his monumental works in the fifth century. Yet, starting in the sixth century a new picture, a new common appearance for Jesus emerged in eastern art. We see it today in all manner of pictures of Jesus: icons, paintings, mosaics and Byzantine coins. This common picture quality seems to have started in the Middle East about the same time that the Image of Edessa was discovered. Prior to this time, pictures of Jesus were mostly of a young, beardless man, often with short hair, often in story-like settings in which he was depicted as a shepherd.

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin

Abruptly, throughout the Middle East, and eventually throughout eastern Mediterranean Europe, pictures of Jesus became full frontal portraits with distinctive facial characteristics. Jesus now had shoulder length hair, an elongated thin nose, and a forked beard. Numerous other characteristics appeared in these pictures, and some of them were seemingly strange and of no particular artistic merit. Many portraits had two wisps of hair that dropped at an angle from a central parting of the hair. Many pictures showed Jesus with large "owlish" eyes. Paul Vignon, a French scholar, who first categorized these facial attributes in 1930, also described a square cornered U shape between the eyebrows, a downward pointing triangle on the bridge of the nose, a raised right eyebrow, accents on both cheeks with the accent on the right cheek being somewhat lower, an enlarged left nostril, an accent line below the nose, a gap in the beard below the lower lip, and hair on one side of the head that was shorter than on the other side.

Jennifer Speake who wrote a chapter, "Jesus in Art," in J. R. Porter's Jesus Christ: the Jesus of History, the Christ of Faith, observed:

Famous relics that claim to bear the true imprint of Christ's features include the controversial Shroud of Turin and the Holy Mandylion of Edessa; the iconography of both of these promoted the now conventional image of Jesus as a bearded man.

Keep in mind that many historians consider that the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Mandylion of Edessa to be one in the same. And keep in mind, too, that this iconography started some six centuries before the carbon-14-determined date for the Shroud.

Now with modern image analysis we can clearly see that the pictures of Jesus in numerous works of art are most probably sourced from a single image; the Shroud of Turin. Some most notable and telling portraits include:

	Christ Pantocrator, an icon at St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai (550 C.E.)
	Byzantine Justinian II solidus, a coin (695)
	Icon of Christ at St. Ambrose, (now in Milan) (700s)
	Christ Enthroned, a mosaic in the narthex of Hagia Sophia Cathedral (850 - 900)
	Christ Pantocrator, a dome mosaic in a church in Daphni (1050 - 1100)
	Christ the Merciful, a mosaic icon now in a Berlin museum (1000s)
	Christ Pantocrator, an apse mosaic in Cefalu Cathedral, Sicily (1148)

The Chrysanthemum image found on the Shroud is particularly significant. What makes this so is not just the prominence and clarity of the image on the Shroud, but the fact that this flower is depicted accurately, as to its likeness and relationship to the face, on some early icons and coins. This includes the Pantocrator icon at St. Catherine's Monastery and the seventh century Justinian solidus coin.

Picture of Jesus In the 1930's, French Shroud scholar Paul Vignon described a series of common characteristics visible in many early artistic pictures of Jesus. The Vignon marking, as they are known, all appear on the Shroud suggesting that it is the source of later pictures of Jesus:

	A square U-shape between the eyebrows.
	A downward pointing triangle or V-shape just below the U-shape, on the bridge of the nose.
	Two wisps of hair going downward and then to the right.
	A raised right eyebrow.
	Large, seemingly "owlish" eyes. This may be the result of coins placed over the eyes.
	An accent on the left cheek and an accent on the right cheek that is somewhat lower.
	A forked beard. This may the result of a chin band tied around the head to keep the mouth closed.
	An enlarged left nostril.
	An accent line below the nose and a dark line just below the lower lip.
	A gap in the beard below the lower lip.
	Hair on one side of the head that is shorter than on the other side.

SHROUD STORY

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin

They would have to admit that Jesus is real and that the Shroud of Turin is his gift to us who believe in and love him.

"St. Augustine of Hippo made a point of this when he wrote his monumental works in the fifth century."

Isn't that about the time the Catholic church got started?

ref. historian Peter de Rosa

Nor are there any reputable descriptions in any known early Church sources. St. Augustine of Hippo made a point of this when he wrote his monumental works in the fifth century. Yet, starting in the sixth century a new picture, a new common appearance for Jesus emerged in eastern art.

The Mandylion of Edessa was discovered hidden in a niche in the city walls of Edessa in A.D. 544. It was said to be a likeness of the face of Christ. Ian Wilson made an interesting attempt to connect the Mandylion with the Shroud of Turin.

Coincidentally, there is an old legend, recorded by the 4th century Church historian Eusebius that Jesus himself wrote a letter to the Toparch of Edessa, Abgar.