>> Another problem, this one involving the shroud of Turin - If Jesus’ beard had been plucked out, as we know it was and as you yourself agreed to, then if the shroud of Turin shows the image of Christ, then why does it have a beard? <<
Actually, now that you mention it, there's a huge chunk of his beard missing in the middle of his chin. I think I always took it for visual noise, and/or a severe dimple. Indeed, many paintings seem to interpret this as a severe dimple.
The shroud. Notice the way the white parts of negative form sort of an "n" shape around a dark center of his chin? That must have hurt!
Much later painting, showing a deeply cleft beard, which is typical in paintings of Jesus.
Uh, no. When people back then plucked a beard to humiliate someone, they pulled it out. They didn't just give the guy a French Fork.
Methinks the image on the shroud of Turin was created by somebody using their own medieval contemporary ideas of what Jesus looked like - drawn, most likely, from the "much later paintings" for which you have provided us an example.