The Shroud of Turin

Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9

Will you believe the truth or your lying eyes. The Shroud of Turin has been a complexity of science and a beam in the eye of atheists for years. Without reciting the entire history of the relic I will give a short history of the cloth’s origins and supposed travels.

Under normal circumstances when a Jew, or Muslim for that matter dies the funeral plans are to get them into the ground as soon as possible. This is wise because both religions rose from desert regions and care for the dead was of extreme need of expediency. This having been said however, Jesus did not die an old man in bed. Part of the Roman method of crucifixion was to embarrass the accused as much as possible while sending a message to the populace that obeying Roman law might be a wise choice.

The final indignity being is to be left on the cross after death to decay or be devoured by dogs and such, until there wasn’t much left to throw into the dump as exemplified in The Dogs Beneath the Cross by John Dominic Crossan. By hook, crook, or a few denarius contributed by Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus was afforded a decent burial in a respectable tomb.

As the Gospel relates, on the third day when the women went to put spices on the body it wasn’t there which caused believers to scream resurrection and non-believers to call trick, and this debate has raged for two thousand years.

So what became of the shroud? First there were two cloths, the covering for the body and the one for the face. Now the shroud was laying there hap hazard but the facial cloth requires some notes. When there was a banquet back in the old Jewish days they had knives, forks, plates, etc, and napkins. When the master of the house left the table and left his napkin in the middle of his plate all wadded up it meant supper was over. But when he left it neatly folded on the table it was a message to the guests that dinner was not over, and he would return presently. The facial cloth was neatly folded, and laid separately. As if it was a message. I’ll be back!

We don’t know who collected the two articles from the tomb. What we do know is Jews then and now were, and are skittish about dead bodies or anything even remotely connected with one so souvenirs are out of the question. It only goes to follow that the shroud fell into obscurity until it surfaced in 1534 at the collegiate church of Lirey where it was displayed. There was a fire so it was moved by the House of Savoy who owned it to Turin, finally being deposited in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in 1683. The Savoys gave ownership to The Catholic Church in 1983 (This is my surprised face) where it has remained ever since.

The Church was very strict about access to the relic, ie no access except looking at it in a very controlled display once a year with no scientific study until 1978 when Walter McCrone was allowed to collect samples with some very holy Scotch Tape and concluded the image was the result of being painted using red ochre suspended in a gelatin medium, and the supposed blood stains had been painted on with vermilion pigment. This was all very fine except only one side of the threads were affected with no bleed over and no underlying cloth was stained. Now, I’m Just a Simple Ol’ Boy from Austin, but that’s a mighty steady hand if you ask me!

Then in 1988 radiocarbon analyses dated to shroud somewhere between 1260 and 1390. There was that fire back in 1532 and some hot metal dripped on the cloth. Nuns repaired what they could and stitched a border to protect it from further destruction. When the samples for the three laboratories was taken they were not taken from the image but closer to the edge, which is a little like dating the Mona Lisa from a clipping from the frame. Please note the image is on the inside of the shroud. Computer analysis can show the distance from where the cloth draped over the nose and this renders the precise 3-D image when photographed by imaging equipment used by NASA scientists to study the landscape of the moon! Something that paintings simply cannot do! Pollen on the shroud is Middle East, the blood has now been typed, not to mention our revised understanding of exactly how you nail a guy up to a railroad tie through the wrists and not the hands. That, and never forget that these scientists who micro-analyze carbon atoms are the same wonderful guys who gave us the vaccine!

It’s often said that the belief in such as the shroud is a matter of faith, but I beg to differ. Jesus said those who believe in the unseen are blessed. Such is the basic meaning of faith. Trying to understand the origins of the image on the shroud has led to quite a few theories. Because of the image being deposited only on the tops of the threads there is an idea that perhaps a blast of thermonuclear energy coming from the body so enshrouded lasting a milli-milli amount of time just long enough to leave an image and not burn up the burial cloth or destroy Jerusalem, and the surrounding area. So, to naysayers I say . . . kinda hard to deny the divinity of Jesus when you’re looking Him right in the face!