Restored Shroud Unveiled

There is no way this can be a shroud of our Lord. It says in the scriptures that they wrapped his body, not folded it in a sheet. Much as I'd like to be so, it ain't!

I hate to break this to you, but the Gospels were NOT WRITTEN IN ENGLISH. Here is my reply from another thread in which I replied to ALS about this very question:

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You think that because you read it in English that the original must be exactly what the translator meant when he found an English word that was close to the same thing in Greek. Amazing.

The Greek word sindon, meaning SHROUD, was used in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) when refering to the cloth that Joseph of Aramathea purchased and wrapped Jesus' body in. Sindon is SINGULAR, not plural.

Another Greek word was used in John to indicate the asssortment of cloths that were found. That word is othonia which is plural. In addition, John uses the term sudarion, singlar, which means either "napkin" or "kerchief" to indicate the seperate cloth laying aside from the other grave cloths.

ALS, I was posting from various translations to show you that the scholars who translated those passages from the earliest Greek manuscripts had, in that passage, found the SINGULAR form to be the most correct. Using a similar technique, I find that the word "wrapped" is variously translated as "wound", "wrapped", "folded", and "rolled", depending on which word the scholar preferred to translate the original Greek word.

Your ability to discern the meaning of one word from the original writers of the Gospels from a modern English translation without examining the original is truly amazing.

Your assertion that there were more than one cloth is a given. It is your assertion that these cloths were all "strips" that I am challenging. NOWHERE does it say that in any of the gospels about Jesus' burial.

It was common practice to bind the wrists to keep them from flopping down to the sides when rigor mortis passed. There is a Greek word, kerias, which can be variously translated as "bandages", "bonds", or "ties", which was used to describe the grave cloths of Lazarus... but these are considered the bindings on wrists, ankles, and jaw. It was common practice to tie a binding around the head and under the jaw to keep the mouth closed... hence the rolled up "napkin" or "kerchief", the sudarion, left in a different place from the other cloths, commented on as though this were something to be noted as important.

As for logical conclusions or assumptions, it IS logical to conclude that Lazarus was not bound like an Egyptian mummy because it was reported he WALKED out of the tomb under his own power. I challenge you to show me how even a living person wrapped as an Egyptian mummy (not as a Hollywood mummy) could walk.

Only YOU are assuming "strips" to fit your preconceived notions of how burials took place. I have quoted authoritative sources in the Gospels; I have shown you the Greek words and shown that there are alternate meanings, and yet you still continue in your ignorant rantings about "bindings" and "strips." You cannot place YOUR "wishes" in the place of facts. I am merely following the research and scholarship.

Oral Roberts, Jimmy Bakker and Benny Hinn had their counterparts in the 1400s and 1500s.

Anything for a bit of recognition and a buck...

It just now occurred to me as to why the shroud is a fake. If the cloth were laid UPON Jesus' face, the cloth would not have gotten into the crevices of his face, his eyelids, the outline of his hair, etc. Instead, it would probably have picked up his nose sweat, his cheek sweat, his forehead sweat, etc. It wouldn't be the complete view of his face. It would just be sweat marks.

Even if the cloth were wrapped tightly around his face, we still wouldn't be able to see the sides of his nose, as we see in the shroud.

Instead, the shroud looks like a painting. It captures his entire face. The highlights of the nose, the lighter skin around the under-eyes, every hair in his mustache and beard, his dark lashes... Why should a cloth laid upon someone's head show a visual image of their lashes? This is obviously a painting, albeit in reverse.

The main thing that has always bothered me, though, is the hair. The hair is of someone standing in an upright position. When someone is lying down, their hair does not fall in the same way as when they are standing up. The hair tends to fall backwards, towards the pillow or whatever. Instead, we see someone with their hair perfectly in place, looking exactly as it would if he were standing up. I've always been bothered by that.

I think, as of this moment, I have accepted the fact that the shroud is a painting. Perhaps some clever Renaissance man (Leonardo da Vinci?) or an unknown person created it. Whether they did it with the intent to deceive us into thinking it was Jesus' shroud, perhaps we'll never know.

Have you seen the "eyes"?

The scientists who have examined the cloth do not agree with your assessment.

First of all, there is no pigment. The image is merely linen fibers that have apparently aged more than non-image fibers. The blood stains are human type AB Negative.

To assume a medievel artist "painted" the shroud makes it just as much of a mystery as if it were the Shroud of Jesus Christ. The image is contrary to all medievel artistic tradition (a hoaxer would not need to create such detail for the gullible believers of the period), includes historical and medical data that was unknown at the time (in fact much of it was only learned when scholars investigated the shroud), and finally is not merely "reversed" but is an actual photographic negative. The image has encoded into it THREE DIMENSIONAL DATA that no painting or even modern photograph carries.

Who could this unknown genius have been. To know so much history, photographic technique, three dimensional encoding, anatomy, the physiology of crucifixion, etc., would mean that he would stand out in his culture... but no one fits the bill.

Clearly, details the shroud shows could not have come in contact with the cloth. Several physicists have postulated that the image was created by a flash of energy emanating from the body. Whatever formed the image of the man on the shroud is vertically collimated, with equal force going straight up and straight down. No artist has been able to duplicate the image on the shroud.

The theory, proposed by two "debunking" authors, that Leonardo DaVinci "painted" the shroud is impossible. Leonardo was born 97 years after the shroud was first displayed in Lirey, France. In fact, there are extant artifact with KNOWN provenance that are apparently copies of the face on the cloth from as early as the 6th Century... meaning the shroud evidently predates the medievel as well as the Renaisance periods.

Thanks for the heads up!

May I suggest you go to

http://www.shroud.com

And read the peer reviewed and other articles documenting the research done by scientists and other scholars on the Shroud. Don't think that the site is populated by Christian believers... the site's webmaster, Barrie Schworz, is Jewish and many of the sceintists and scholars are agnostic and even a couple ofthem are avowed atheists.

You will find all of your concerns have already been addressed in the last century of so. Every answer found has only deepened the mystery of the Shroud of Turin.

In addition, you may want to do a search here on FR. Over the years, there have been many informative threads regarding the Shroud. I learned more about It here than any other site.

Personally, I believe It's real.

Here's one:

'Shroud of Turin' presentation update

The Shroud is not one of those things easily dismissed. Unlike your typical fraud, the more one knows about this cloth, the more possible it appears to be what devotees claim...Jesus' burial shroud.

An example--in spite of loads of evidence pointing to a First Century Palestine origin, one bit of major evidence disagrees, namely the Carbon 14 date. This seems particularly damning--as it indicates a 15th Century origin... It SEEMS conclusive, until one finds out that mummy wrappings, and even statues--taken from sealed tombs with a known provable age, also had Carbon dating showing them as much younger than they were known for certain to be. It seems that on certain items, particularly cloth, microscopic bacteria can grow over time in a coral-like fashion...and therefore the Carbon dating can indicate a younger age than actual,since really the bacteria on the surface is being checked, NOT the actual item.

This provides a plausible explanation why the Carbon dating on the shroud could well be way off....and why all the other lines of evidence may actually be the right ones, that indeed this piece of ancient linen may well have seen and even touched the resurection of Christ.

You don't get it! The only way the image could have happened as evidenced is by a burst of unknown power. Such as the human shadows left in Hiroshima.

The more recent explanation of the spurious C-14 date is that the sample was taken from an area that had been rewoven with a medievel technique called "blind reweaving" and is composed of both ancient linen (and its microorganism remains) and 16th Century linen.

Analysis of the microphotographs of the sample pieces actually show that anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of the samples are woven with a thread with an opposite twist than the original threads of the Shroud. This would indicate the linen was 'spun' on a wheel or other device in the opposite direction than the maker used on all the other threads. Very doubtful.

Not so strangely, the variation in dates reported by the three C-14 labs coincides almost exactly with the percentage of old/not-so-old fibers in their sample! Combined with the now known problem of the bioplastic residue of centuries of bacteria living and dying on the shroud, the results have been thrown completely out of the ball park.

Later examination of the Shroud itself shows that the area the sample was taken from AGAINST AGREED PROTOCOL was an area of heavy reworking.

Someone explain to me why the image is the well-porportioned face of a man looking straight on. If the cloth were wrapped around the head, wouldn't the image be distorted when layed flat?

"wouldn't the image be distorted when layed flat?"

Yes, if the image was made by transference. However, subsequent tests show this is a 3-D image depicted on a 2-D media, which is something the scientists could not explain. Furthermore, when the shroud was scanned using 3-D imaging it rendered a proportionate 3-D image.

One theory holds that the shroud itself was supported at the sides by the sprigs and branches of herbs and blocks of spices that were brought to anoint the body. This work, according to the Gospels, had not yet been done as the Sabath was about to fall. The women were coming Sunday morning to complete this untasteful (and unclean) task.

Beyond that, there IS some distortion because of the draping of the cloth and the rigor mortis of the body.

Thank you for the post!! For a detailed discussion on this topic, click here:

MAN OF THE SHROUD

The Shroud of Turin is a centuries old linen cloth that bears the image of a crucified man. A man that millions believe to be Jesus of Nazareth. Is it really the cloth that wrapped his crucified body, or is it simply a medieval forgery, a hoax perpetrated by some clever artist? Modern, twentieth century science has completed hundreds of thousands of hours of detailed study and intense research on the Shroud. It is, in fact, the single most studied artifact in human history, and we know more about it today than we ever have before. And yet, the controversy still rages.

Arguments against the Shroud's authenticity are prima facia, supported by carbon 14 dating and a prevailing view of the way things are in the world. On the other hand, the case for authenticity is a compelling preponderance of scientific and historic evidence. So daunting is the evidence that we can only wonder if, as postmodernists suggest, "no such thing as objective truth exists, that historic reality is an inherently enigmatic and endlessly negotiable bundle of free-floating perceptions."1 The alternative is to consider, as C. S. Lewis contends: rare exceptions to nature are possible.

For an excellent book on this subject, I highly recommend:

Resurrection of the Shroud by Mark Antonacci, a lawyer and comitted agnostic. In his book, Mr. Antonacci scientifically challenges earlier radiocarbon testing and presents new evidence in determining the Shroud's true age. In addition, he provides the first scientific explanation and demonstration of the cause of the image of the man on the Shroud.

Based on extensive research of both the author's twenty years of analysis and the findings of scientists commissioned by the author, this work provides scientific and concrete evidence that the Shroud of Turin was, indeed, used to wrap the body of the historical Jesus Christ.

Also, negative polarity imagery brings the prints of Christ's body into incredibly sharp relief. As was said, if this was man made then the Dark Ages guys that were said to have made had to be super geniuses beyond all belief to allow it to appear for a technological format that was not to appear for a thousand more years.

Thank you for your reply...it's nice to see some people can understand that everything in the world was not writen in English and are not blinded by: the Bible is this way word for word, regardless of translations from Aramaic and Greek to Latin, to French, proto English and then modern English. The problem, as usual, is that most Americans are ignorant of anything but their local dialect of English and are incapable of understanding that some ideas and words from one language to another are not translatable.

To face this evidence is to face the question of how the images were created. Are the images the byproduct of a resurrection event? Are they miraculous images? This is a problematic question for Christians and many non-Christians, as well. Most shroud researchers, to their credit, avoid metaphysical or supernatural interpretations and stress the point that science and objective history cannot provide such explanations for the images.

The
Resurrection
Problem
and the
Shroud of Turin

Searching for Sister Ann's Bishop Who Thinks Ann is Nuts

An Episcopalian's Perspective

-- AN ONLINE ESSAY --

By Daniel R. Porter

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Part 4: The Newer Evidence

It is useful, here, to take a look at a brief outline of some of the most compelling evidence. Some of this evidence is very new and some of it is newly verified by recent studies. Some of it we will delve into in greater detail.

Textile analysis suggests that the cloth originated in first century Israel and that it was produced on a Syrian or Egyptian loom used during the time of the Roman occupation of Palestine. It appears to be identical to unique linen cloth found at the Masada fortress.
Pollen spore deposits and floral "imprints" place the Shroud in the environs of Jerusalem, likely in springtime. Certain pollen spores also place the Shroud in areas of Turkey that include Constantinople and the early Christian community of Edessa.
Spectrographic chemical analysis of travertine aragonite calcium, found on the Shroud's fabric, strongly suggests that it was once in direct physical contact with one of Jerusalem's limestone caves or tombs.
Detailed forensic evidence shows that a towel sized cloth, the Sudarium of Oviedo - which has been in Spain since the 8th century CE - once covered the same human head as the Shroud.
Numerous portraits of Jesus in icons and on Byzantine coins appear to be artistically derived from the face image on the Shroud of Turin. The earliest of these was created in the mid-sixth century CE and is located at St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai wilderness.
Three-dimensionally encoded information along with photographic-like negativity of the images virtually eliminates the possibility that the Shroud was created in medieval times. These physical characteristics are not found in art or any known forgeries. Anyone with a personal computer and over-the-counter graphics software can confirm these astounding qualities.
Medical forensic analysis of the body image - some of it only clearly visible with photographic and computer image enhancement - is so realistic that only a modern day pathologist can explain it. This includes contusions that are specifically consistent with flogging with a Roman flagrum whip. The body is in a state of rigor mortis and shows no decomposition. Some of the medically correct imagery is supported by recent archeological finds that would not have been known in medieval times.
Bloodstains, which have been proven to be real human blood, show the proper medical characteristics of serum separation and clotting that could only occur if the blood flowed from "real" wounds of a human body in contact with the cloth. Yet there is no evidence of unwrapping.
The images are composed of microscopic lengths of oxidized and dehydrated fibers that are part of the thread of the cloth. These darkened strands of cellulous fiber are called pixels because they form the Shroud image in much the same way that an image is formed on a computer screen or a half-tone printed photograph. No known artistic technique, or any known natural process, could have produced these microscopic pixels.

To face this evidence is to face the question of how the images were created. Are the images the byproduct of a resurrection event? Are they miraculous images? This is a problematic question for Christians and many non-Christians, as well. Most shroud researchers, to their credit, avoid metaphysical or supernatural interpretations and stress the point that science and objective history cannot provide such explanations for the images. But, as I stated earlier, it is hard for me, (and probably many people), to not speculate beyond such scholarly methodical restraint.

It is hard to be totally objective in facing the evidence. Bias plays a role. What we may believe about the resurrection colors how we perceive the evidence - whether we believe it was a real, physical, bodily event as Tom Wright argues; a metaphor for God's promise as we might find among Jesus Seminar thinkers including Marcus Borg; or a myth devoid of any traditional meaning as John Shelby Spong would have it. Resurrection thinking even affects whether or not we will look at the evidence. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

If there is a downside to enlightenment thinking today, it is that it has become so prevalent that we are not open to some possibilities. Yet a founding principle of the enlightenment was to be open to possibilities. There is a feeling among some 'enlightened' scholars that the enlightenment has run its course. Tom Wright has called it bankrupt in that it now seems to owe more in the way of explanations than it can produce. What were once conclusions, derived by science and logic, have become our assumptions. The great philosopher of empirical skepticism, David Hume, some two hundred and fifty years ago, challenged very effectively (but never disproved) the possibilities of miracles when he wrote:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.

Today's enlightened person (myself included) might simply state a derived conclusion as the assumption: "Miracles don't happen." We must get beyond such thinking and the Shroud does just that for us.

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VIEW ESSAY AS PDF FILE

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Dan Porter is an Episcopalian and a member of Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York City. He may be contacted by email at porter@shroudstory.com or by mail at 20 McIntyre Street, Bronxville, NY 10708.

Faith.... plus there is NO other explanation! Read and there are MUCH clearer pictures than this. Happy Trails.