Will Judean Desert Find Shed Light On Shroud Of Turin?

“Amazing to think that any piece of cloth has endured...”

6,000 years, is this the oldest piece of fabric that has been found? I seem to recall some fairly old pieces from the frozen Siberian finds, and from the Andes ancient cultures, but I thought they were only 2 to 3 thousand years old. Anyone have more precise information?

The problem is the Bible clearly states Jesus’ body was cleaned and annointed prior to being wrapped for burial, as is Jewish law.

Uh, no, it doesn't.

Matthew:

Matthew 27, Darby Translation

Mark:

Mark 15, Darby Translation

1 And the sabbath being [now] past, Mary of Magdala, and Mary the [mother] of James, and Salome, bought aromatic spices that they might come and embalm him. 2 And very early on the first [day] of the week they come to the sepulchre, the sun having risen. 3 And they said to one another, Who shall roll us away the stone out of the door of the sepulchre? - Mark 16, Darby Translation.

Luke:

55 And women, who had come along with him out of Galilee, having followed, saw the sepulchre and how his body was placed. 56 And having returned they prepared aromatic spices and ointments, and remained quiet on the sabbath, according to the commandment. - Luke 23, Darby Translation.

1 But on the morrow of the sabbath, very early indeed in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the aromatic spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. 3 And when they had entered they found not the body of the Lord Jesus. - Luke 24, Darby Translation

John:

John 19, Darby Translation

The four Gospels are in agreement: Jesus' body was not washed and anointed before the burial because the Sabbath was rapidly approaching. There was only a very limited time to prepare the body because the men who took him down from the cross had to get ready for the holy day.

Jesus died on the cross at about the ninth hour (3PM). Sundown was about 3 hours away. Joseph of Arimathea and his helpers had just three hours to go to Pilate, seek an audience, convince him to give them the body, go buy the linen cloth, the Myrrh and Aloes, and then return to Golgotha to convince the Roman soldiers they had permission to remove the body.

They then had to pull the nails, take the body down, and carry it to the nearby tomb. They quickly placed the body in the tomb, bound the jaw closed, put some coins on the eyes to keep them closed, bound the wrists and ankles with strips of cloth to keep them from flopping, stuffed the hundred weight of spices around the body, pulled the shroud up and over the body, closed the tomb and went home, possibly all the way across town, to wash and anoint themselves in a complicated ritual purification before sun down and the start of the sabbath. That is a lot to accomplish in a mere three hours. There simply is not time enough to prepare the body properly according to Jewish custom.

The women who discovered the empty tomb were coming with aromatic spices and oils to finish the cleaning and preparation of the body, "according to Jewish custom," which had NOT been finished on Friday. It had only been started.

Even if his wounds continued to ooze some after being wrapped in the linen, they would have shown up as blots on the fabric, not trickles.

The trickled blood traces across the small of the back on the Shroud's image are actually disassociated serum (seen as a yellowed stain fringe around the blood stain) and blood with a very high level of bilirubin and methemoglobin, a byproduct of severe trauma. Its ability to clot had been destroyed by the bilirubin and oxidized methemoglobin. In addition, moving the body from the vertical position on the cross to the supine position on the Shroud, would allow pooled, non-clotted blood in the pleural cavity to escape from the large wound on the side.

One side effect of this high bilirubin content is that the blood remains red even after drying.

The SOT is clearly a fraud. I know this will upset some as the urge to believe in something extraordinary is strong, but all you are doing is allowing yourself to be duped by some middle age priests intent on producing an “artifact” to bring money and notoriety to their Church/congregation. At that time, hundreds of churches were claiming to have some kind of sacred, religious artifact whether it was part of the true cross or Mary Magdalene’s lap cloth. If you didn’t have anything like this you were going to be left behind as the competition to outdo the other churches was strong.

Another theory that fails when the facts of the Shroud's history are known.

While what you say about Icons and Relics is quite true, it is also quite a bit exaggerated. For example, the claim that there are enough pieces of the True Cross in churches in Europe to make several barns is untrue. An inventory which measured the dimensions of the claimed pieces of the True Shroud has shown that there is only enough material to make up about 2/3rds of the patibulum, the horizontal cross piece. Yes, there are many frauds. However, other relics are probably what they purport to be.

In such a gullible time as the middle ages, a shroud as sublime as the Shroud of Turin would not have been required. A bed sheet with red paint would have served the purpose to bring in the sous of pilgrims.

In this instance, Geoffrey de Charney, the knight in who's possession the Shroud appeared in 1352, was not a charlatan. Although Shroud debunkers in the past century have impugned him by making the assumption, because it suited their arguments, that he was a conspirator in the creation of the Shroud for profit, they totally ignore how uncharacteristic such a scam would be to his nature.

Geoffrey de Charney was the knight who was accorded the highest honors in France. He was the Standard Bearer of the King of France, chosen by King Phillip to carry his flag, to fight by the King's side in battle, and to be the King's last line of defense. De Charney was also the author of the French Code of Chivalry which established the proper conduct of knighthood throughout Europe and defined the chivalrous actions required of all knights.. especially honesty, piety, and charity.

De Charney did not profit from his ownership of the Shroud. In fact, Geoffrey built the church at Lirey to house the Shroud with his own funds, endowed it with a Rente to support the church and its Canons throughout his lifetime, and provided that the Rente would continue after his death, a provision that, 25 years later, resulted in the near bankruptcy of his family. His daughter and heir, Margaret de Charney, made a decision to finally accept donations at the chapel in Lirey to keep it going. That was only partially successful in bringing in enough money to keep the church going. She finally agreed to sell the Shroud to the Savoy family of Italy, who later became the royal family of Italy. The Savoy's owned the Shroud until it was willed to the Pope on the death of Umberto II, the exiled King of Italy, who died in 1983.

According to this, the oldest known cloth is about 9,000 years old.

Before carbon dating, we thought cloth was 7000 years old. We've gradually pushed that date back. Now we've found a half-fossilized scrap of cloth stuck to a piece of antler near the headwaters of the Tigris River. It is 9000 years old.

Wilford, J. N., Site in Turkey Yields Oldest Cloth Ever Found. New York Times, Science Times, Tue., July 13, 1993, pp. B5, B8.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. It’s obviously one of the world’s great mysteries, who if anyone is holding back continued scientific testing and analysis?

Re: Who is blocking research?

Mostly it is the Custodian of the Shroud.

That’s too bad, but being a sacred relic that brings great attention to them, I can understand why. Hopefully one day we’ll finally learn its true history, thanks again for sharing your expertise on the matter.

They don’t say it wasn’t washed, they don’t say anything at all. But it doesn’t make sense that they would wrap the body in fine expensive linen without at least wiping the body down, which would take all of ten minutes with a sponge and water. Othwerwise the linen would have been spoiled and need to be replaced after annointing.

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 Shroud of Jericho may shed light on the Shroud of Turin... PING!

If you want on or off the Shroud of Turin Ping List, Freepmail me.

History Note: The lady who founded/funded the Textile Museum lived in Seymour, Indiana ~ a place I've mentioned many times before.

There's a branch of the Rockefeller family that's pretty much always lived in "Flatrock".

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

Thanks HMBA. Note: this topic is from June 2008.

Interesting ~ by examining pollen and blooms it appears possible the very day the photo was snapped can be computed INDEPENDENTLY of calendric history.

This is one of the worst hit-and-run comments on a SOT thread ever seen. If there is a worse “I’m against worshipping icons; you guys are idiots” comment, then I don’t know when....

Buddy, do a little reading on the subject.

Thanks for the ping!