Death certificate is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican scholar (more info)

A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.

Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.

The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next Spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.

However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.

Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.

That's a strawman argument you are spouting, IsCool. Read what I and others have written. None of us have asserted that the Shroud was the ONLY cloth associated with the burial of Jesus. In fact, I can specify at least three other pieces of cloth in addition to the Shroud used in the burial of the Man on the Shroud. The cloth bindings at the ankles and wrists, to keep the limbs from flopping, and the binding around the face to keep the mouth closed. These are written of and required parts of the funeral preparations in the Mishnah, the written book of rules for Judaism... as is a shroud. Why would these observant Jews ignore these requirements of Jewish tradition to suddenly take up Egyptian swaddling mummy bandaging which is nowhere mentioned in the Mishnah?

WoW...You guys are mind boggling...You can specify 4 pieces of cloth used in the buriel of Jesus while the Shroud of Turin shows only one...I gotta hear this story...

The Greek texts report that Nicodemus brought λιτρας εκατον (litras ekatov), litra hundred... libra 100= or 100 Roman pounds = 100 lb. (Although, I suspect that being a Jew, if Nicodemus bought the spices that day, he probably bartered for them in hebrew measurements... he may have already had them on hand... we just don't know.)

Why are you worried about that...The Shroud of Turin experts claim there are traces of plant pollen only produced in Jerusalem on the shroud but yet there isn't a single trace of any of the burial spices and aloes on the shroud...

Can you explain that one too???

At least then you would be spouting such whoppers as "Dead bodies don't bleed...Plus,,,all the blood was drained out...Where do you get the blood for the shroud???" Frederick T. Zugibe, M.D., Ph.D., Adjunct Associate Professor of Pathology, Columbia University, College of Physicians & Surgeons, N.Y. Chief Medical Examiner, Rockland County, N.Y. (Retired), would disagree with your conclusion that "dead bodies don't bleed.

So what??? There are tons of pathologist who know and will say and have said that dead bodies don't bleed...AND, I butchered enough deer, pigs and cows and rabbits and squirrels to know that dead bodies do no bleed once the heart stops pumping...

such as papers by Dr. John Heller, Dr. Alan Adler, Dr. Bruce Cameron, all world renowned experts on blood and blood fractions... all of whom agree that it is blood...

And there are even more experts who say that while the samples have some of the characteristics of blood, they are missing many of the components that are required for blood...

By the way, Dr. Zugibe would agree with you that Jesus' body was washed...

Of course, that's part of the Jewish burial custom...While at the same time, the blood especially on the hand of the figure in the shroud would have been cleaned...

The experts who have examined the shroud that disagree with your theory claim some of the blood on the hand could only get there from a heart that is pumping...So either Jesus wasn't dead when He was buried or He wasn't washed prior to burial...And neither one of those is accurate...

I follow the science and the research. You might want to review that before you dismiss what I have to say on this subject after the almost 40 years of study I have put into it.

Then you have to know that it is still no more than a theory...Whether the shroud is authentic or not has no bearing on my Christianity...There are so many false doctrines and outright lies out there that people try to justify with their tradition and interpretation of the scripture, that I'm only interested in the truth...And the shroud of turin hasn't yet made the grade to be absolute truth...

There are traces of the spices. Dr. Avanoam Danin, Professor of Botany of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the World's foremost expert on botany of the Eastren Mediterranian and Israel has identified several plant spices. As to why I'm "worried" about that, I'm not. You asked. I answered your question.

There are tons of pathologist who know and will say and have said that dead bodies don't bleed. . .

No, Iscool, there are not. Recently dead bodies will ooze and seep blood for some time. Any qualified forensic pathologist will confirm that. Quit making things up.

There are tons of pathologist who know and will say and have said that dead bodies don't bleed

Name them. Cite their work from peer reviewed scientific journals. Where are these "tons" you claim that refute world class forensic scientists, and specialists in the esoteric components of blood fraction who have done the actual test on the samples and had their work independently confirmed?You can't, because they don't exist or their work has been proved wrong by subsequent work that showed they used the wrong technique for old degraded blood.

and you will not find disagreement from me on any of that except your interest in the truth. . . you keep adding much to your interpretation of scripture that just is not there. You will not find me saying that the Shroud is definately the burial shroud of the man named Jesus. You will find me looking at the evidence critically and not dismissing it out of hand as do you because of your prejudices.

I’ve read all 107 posts in this thread and I haven’t seen anyone mention the side-strip sewn onto the Shroud. The theory is that it was cut from the Shroud and used to bind the body in the Shroud, and that is why John used a plural word in referring to the “linen wrappings”. It was later sewn back onto the Shroud for safekeeping apparently. What is your take on that?

There isn't one. The so called side strip does not exist. What was thought to be a side strip is merely a continuation of the Shroud itself with a long pleat that was sewn lengthwise at sometime in the medieval period. Close examination of the cloth shows no discontinuation of the cloth or the woof yarn at the pleat, it is merely looped up and the sewn flat by stitching. It is theorized this was done by the Nuns of Poor Clare in 1532 at the time the Holland cloth backing was put on to strengthen the Shroud when it was hung horizontally for display, and as a place to drape the Shroud over a rope (unlikely, as the Holland cloth would have sufficiently strengthened the Shroud-Swordmaker) or at some other time prior to the backing being added (much more likely - Swordmaker). 20th Century displays of the Shroud were accomplished by the expediency of building a plywood backing and pinning the Shroud to it with thumbtacks(!!!!).

In any case, there is no purported "side strip" to account for any strips of linen. The strips of linen are easily accounted for by Jewish burial tradition requiring the binding of the wrists, knees, ankles, and jaw shut with strips of cloth to keep the limbs from flopping akimbo and the mouth gaping open in death when rigor mortis passed. The Shroud, in its original condition was one single piece of cloth. Today, it has patches and a backing as well as "darned" repairs which were repaired by a technique called French Invisible Reweaving, which was done so expertly that the 1988 Carbon Dating sample was taken from a site that had been repaired using this technique and the sample unfortunately included approximately 50% contamination from the newer cotton threads added as part of the repair, skewing the test results and irreparably distorting the results, invalidating the entire C-14 test!

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