Replies

They don’t say it wasn’t washed, they don’t say anything at all.

The proper preparation of a body under Jewish custom was a time consuming and involved task. The body had to be in the tomb before sundown. Washing the body would have necessitated fetching and carrying water from the community well to either Golgotha or to the tomb. The few who did this were already carrying 100 lbs of spices, the linens for the burial, and then the body.

The point is that you are assuming something as being scriptural that isn't. There are many who believe that the washing and anointing of the body is in the Bible and use it as a reason the Shroud could not be that of Jesus. That is a confabulation.

Your claim that "they don't say anything at all," is wrong on the face of it because they do. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John indicate that there was time pressure to do what they did as quickly as possible because it was the Day of Preparation. They say they merely wrapped the body in Linen with the spices, rolled the stone in front of the access and went away. Nothing was said about completing the rituals.

Luke adds to the story that the women prepared aromatic oils after the body was laid in the tomb... before the start of the sabbath at sundown... which limits the time even more as no work, including "preparing aromatic oils," can be done on the sabbath. The women had time to acquire the oils, walk home, and prepare them, all after the tomb was closed and before sundown. Luke recounts how the women were going to anoint the body with their prepared oils on Sunday morning and were concerned with who would help them roll the stone away so they could get in.

But it doesn’t make sense that they would wrap the body in fine expensive linen without at least wiping the body down,

Again you are inserting into the gospels things that are not there.

It does make sense when you know that for Jews, especially Jews of the time, that "Life was in the blood." Custom ruled that in the event of a traumatic death, where blood was released, anything with the blood of the victim on it that could be retrieved was to be buried with the victim. According to custom, the victim of a violent death with blood on his body would not be washed. That is why in the Movie "The Passion of the Christ," immediately after the crucifixion and the removal of the body, Mary is collecting the dirt below the cross into a bowl. The soiled shroud would have not been an issue as the soiling came from the blood of the victim and would have had to stay with the body.

Science and scholarship are not going to prove that the Shroud of Turin is the shroud that covered the dead body of Jesus of Nazareth. They can only prove that something is not in agreement with the known facts of crucifixion, that crucifixion in particular and the known body of knowledge practices and customs about it. So far, except for the 1988 Carbon 14 dating which has now been itself invalidated, science and scholarship have not falsified the Shroud.

Happy Easter, Swordmaker, I came across this while looking for other things.

"It does make sense when you know that for Jews, especially Jews of the time, that "Life was in the blood." Custom ruled that in the event of a traumatic death, where blood was released, anything with the blood of the victim on it that could be retrieved was to be buried with the victim. According to custom, the victim of a violent death with blood on his body would not be washed. That is why in the Movie "The Passion of the Christ," immediately after the crucifixion and the removal of the body, Mary is collecting the dirt below the cross into a bowl. The soiled shroud would have not been an issue as the soiling came from the blood of the victim and would have had to stay with the body."

Can you give more details on the burial customs re: blood?

That's the first I've heard of such.

Cheers!

...oh, and Happy Easter.

The floral and botanical evidence from pollen grains (scientific evidence) has placed the shroud in the Near East:
"Hundreds of images of plant parts, such as flowers, flowering buds, fruits, stems, and leaves were found on high-grade photographs made from negatives by Enrie of 1931. These photographs were enlarged to life size and many were photographically enhanced to show these faint images more clearly. These images are mainly clustered around the head area but also extend down the sides of the upper body and onto the abdomen. They were observed initially by Dr. A. and Mrs. M. Whanger, and were confirmed more recently by me. While the images are of slightly wilted flowers rather tightly clustered together, many of them are quite identifiable even though they are faint, partial, and of low contrast. Experimental studies with corona discharge by physicist O. Scheuermann produced images from flowers similar to the images found on the Shroud. Nearly thirty species have been identified visually from the Shroud images. This correlates significantly with the studies by forensic microscopist Dr. Max Frei, who took sticky tape samples from the Shroud in 1973 and 1978. He found many pollen grains on these tapes, and tentatively identified some fifty-eight genera or species, mostly from plants growing in the Near East. Gundelia tournefortii L., a thorn, is one of the plants whose images I identified near the anatomical right side of the head image. Dr. Uri Baruch, palynologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority who made his M.SC. and Ph.D. dissertations on the flora of Israel, analyzed most of Frei's 1973 sticky tape pollen specimens and ten of the twenty-five 1978 sticky tapes. He examined 165 pollen grains, of which 45 (27.3%) were Gundelia tournefortii. The images of the plant and the presence of so many of its pollen grains on the Shroud prove that blooming plants were placed on the Shroud, as the pollen grains could not have been deposited by wind. G. tournefortii blooms in Israel from February (in the semi-desert warm parts) to May (in Jerusalem), hence testifying the time these plants could have been placed on the Shroud. G. tournefortii grows only in the Near East; therefore, the Shroud could have come only from the Near East.

Images of Zygophyllum dumosum Boiss, an endemic plant of Israel, Jordan, and Sinai, do not need any verification of pollen grains, although they are present in Frei's list. Two kinds of leaf images as well as flower images of this plant were identified on the Shroud. The unique leaf pattern development, visible on the Shroud, will be illustrated. Other species of Zygophyllum do not have this morphology. These plant images are observed on both the Enrie (1931), Miller (1978), Pia (1898) photographs, and I saw the large leaf with my own eyes armed with binoculars when visiting Turin June 5, 1998. All these indicate that the Zygophyllum images are not photographic artifacts. The northernmost place on earth where this plant could have been collected fresh is 15-30 km between the Sea Level sign on the road to Jericho and the Jordan River.

The authenticity of the Near East as the source of the Shroud of Turin is completely verified to me as a botanist through the images and pollen grains of Gundelia tournefortii and the images of Zygophyllum dumosum leaves. Other important botanical findings, such as the images of some 200 fruits of two-three species of Pistacia and the reed Arundo donax, will be described and illustrated by photographs. Using my data base of more than 90,000 sites of plant distribution, the place that best fits the assemblage of the plant species whose images and often pollen grains have been identified on the Shroud is 10-20 km east and west of Jerusalem. The common blooming time of most of these species is spring = March and April."
- THE ORIGIN OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN FROM THE NEAR EAST AS EVIDENCED BY PLANT IMAGES AND BY POLLEN GRAINS: http://www.shroud.com/danin2.htm