The Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin  ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA,Inc

The Shroud of Turin

Introduction to the Shroud
The Shroud is a linen cloth with a herringbone weave of a type that was in use among the Essenes during the 1st century. It measures exactly 2 cubits (.91 meter) (3 ft 7 in) by 8 cubits (3.66 meters) (14 ft, 3 inches). Such cloths were used as a burial cloth. The Shroud contains a negative/mirror image of a man crucified according to Roman custom but who was separately scourged over his entire body and was crowned with thorns. The man is just under 6 ft. (1.8 m) tall, very tall in an age where the average man was under 5’ 6” (1.68 m). The man weighed about 185 lbs. (84 kg). The man has long hair pulled back into a pony tail and a long beard. The long hair and beard could denote a Nasserite as it was the custom of Israelites under a Nasserite vow to neither cut their hair nor trim their beard. The individual on the Shroud has been identified as of Semitic origin. He has been crucified according to Roman custom; however, he has also worn a crown of thorns and has endured a separate scourging over his entire body below his neck. A full body scourging is usually fatal. There are no other documented cases where an individual has endured both a full body scourging, a crucifixion, as well as a crowning with thorns (The signature of Jesus the Nazarene). He has also experienced a stab wound on his left side between the 5th and 6th rib that occurred after death. (the Shroud is also a mirror image formed by a very short (billionth of a second) very powererful very high frequency light that singed the linen on the shroud in direct portion to the distance of the shroud from the body.) to correctly view the image of the man look at the image in a mirror.

The picture shown in this document (following the Sorrowful Mysteries) is a negative of the negative image on the Shroud. That makes it a positive image allowing all the wounds to be visible. The image you see is as if looking at Jesus in a mirror. Again to correct it hold the image up to a mirror the you will see Jesus as if you were facing Him.

The shroud is the most studied historical artifact in the world. The image is a negative.

Negative Facial Image                                             Original Facial Image

The negative image shows the blood on the forehead forming an epsilon while the original image shows the same blood stain as the letter E: the mirror image what appeared on Jesus’ forehead.

The shroud itself has suffered burns and water damage over the years and has been repaired and restored multiple times.

Early History
There are a variety of versions of the early history of the shroud prior to 1349. The most plausible begins with King Akbar of Edessa writing a letter to Jesus asking him to come to Edessa. The king had leprosy and had been told that Jesus could cure leprosy. He sent the letter by his fastest runner with the added request that if Jesus could not come would the runner at least draw a picture of Jesus so that he could see what He looked like. The runner arrived on the day we call Palm Sunday and Jesus was occupied. After Pentecost the Apostles decided that they would send the Apostle Thaddeus also known as Jude to the king in Edessa. In response to the king’s request for a picture Jude would take the shroud, folded to show just the original facial image as shown in the figure above.

King Akbar was cured of his leprosy and became Christian along with the whole “city state”. Edessa was in fact the earliest center of Christianity, while Akbar lived. When Akbar died his son reverted to paganism and the priests folded the shroud and hid it in an earthen ware jar in a secret room in the city wall. The room was then sealed. The shroud remained in the wall for 400 years because the new king killed those who hid the shroud for not disclosing its location so that he could destroy it.

There was severe flooding in Edessa in 544 and much damage was done to the city wall. After the flooding subsided repairs began on the wall. While masons were scraping the damaged mortar off the wall some fell into the wall instead of off the wall. An examination was made and several earthenware jars were discovered. One of the jars contained the shroud. Christianity was by this time flourishing again in Edessa. The priests knew that the shroud had been hidden somewhere in centuries past. They were delighted to be in possession of it again. It was incorporated into the liturgy.

Word began to spread and from that point forward pictures of Jesus show him with a beard. Sometime later the emperor in Constantinople decided that a small city like Edessa should not have such a valuable relic. It should be in a large important city like Constantinople. Thus in 944 he sent an army to besiege Edessa until the people in Edessa agreed with him: which they eventually did after they got hungry enough.

A special display mechanism was made for the shroud that would allow the shroud to be raised up to show the face of Christ at an appropriate time during special liturgies. When the 4th crusade started one of the crusaders wrote a letter home that described seeing the shroud during a liturgy. As we know the crusaders got trounced in Jerusalem and on their way home in 1204 they decided to take their frustrations out on Constantinople and thereby liberate numerous relics and riches. After the sacking, the Patriarch of Constantinople wrote to the pope asking for his relics back, especially the shroud. The pope asked the leaders of the crusade what had happened to the shroud and was told that it had not been seen. It was believed that Otto de la Roche had the shroud and he bequeathed it to the Knights Templar. Then in 1357 Geofrroi de Charny mysteriously procured the shroud.

From that point forward its whereabouts are fully documented. The King Akbar version of events is preferred because:

1. The letter from the king is part of the apocrypha. ^[1]
2. It is known that Thaddeus aka Jude went to Edessa.
3. There is pollen from both Edessa and Constantinople on the shroud.
4. The shift in the paintings of Jesus occurred with the recovery of the shroud from the jar:
5. "In the late sixth century, the portrayal of Jesus as a mature and bearded man suddenly achieved ascendancy over all other depictions of him, and two eminent scholars, completely without any reference to the Turin Shroud, concluded that this ascendant portrayal derived from an archetype image. Hans Belting, an eminent modern art historian, believes that this archetype was selected from “a convenient repertory” of extant Jesus images and that its unremarkable origin was concealed behind legends of miraculously-produced acheiropoietos [not made by the hand of man] images. On the other hand, the estimable eighteenth-century historian, Edward Gibbon, believes that this archetype was itself a recently discovered acheiropoietos image which was propagated by Christians, desirous of establishing a standard likeness for Jesus, “in the camps and cities of the Eastern empire”. This archetype is identifiable through artistic and textual evidence." ^[2]
6. The letter from the crusader describing the shroud in Constantinople is real.
7. "In 1203, a Flemish knight named Robert de Clari, fighting with the Fourth Crusade then camped in Constantinople, noted that a church within the city’s Blachernae Palace put on a very special exhibition every Friday. On display wasn’t just the holy image of the face of Jesus, but the actual cloth in which Christ had been buried. In 1205 de Clari composed a more detailed account: 'There was a Church which was call[ed] My Lady Saint Mary of Blachernae, where there was the shroud (syndoines) in which Our Lord had been wrapped, which every Friday, raised itself upright so that one could see the form (figure) of Our Lord on it, and no one either Greek or French, ever knew what became of this shroud (syndoines) when the city was taken [by the Crusaders].'" ^[3]
8. The letter from the Patriarch of Constantinople to the pope is real.
9. There is water damage on the shroud from the storage in the earthenware jar.

Markings
There have been a number of events over time that caused additional markings on the shroud:

• Stitching the edge back onto the shroud
• Fold lines
• Water damage from storage in an earthenware jar
• Fire damage as recorded in the Pray Codex
• Fire damage from the Chambery fire of 1532
• Water damage from the Chambery fire
• Samples removed for destructive carbon dating

There are in addition to the original body markings:

• Blood
• Scourging marks
• Head wounds from the crown of thorns
• Nail wounds in the hands and feet
• Lance wound in the side
• Dirt over the knees

Stitching
The earliest foreign marking is from where a strip of cloth was removed from the side of the shroud and used to bind Jesus’ body into the shroud:

The strip was very professionally sewn back onto the shroud with a stitch that has only been used by Essenes from Masada (37 BC) until the end of the 1st century ^{[4], [5]} . It is on the shroud and runs the full length of the linen just 4 inches (102 mm) from the edge. The tradition is that Mary the Mother of Jesus sewed the strip back onto the shroud and would have done it before her nephew Thaddeus took the shroud to Edessa shortly after Pentecost.

The Shroud of Turin  ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA,Inc

Fold Lines
From the time of the Apostles the shroud was folded to allow the face to be the only visible image on the shroud. This is thought to be in deference to sensibilities in that it is a burial cloth. To center the face on the cloth, each side was folded back about 9 inches (228 mm) from the edge. This left the shroud about 25 inches (635 mm) wide. The shroud was then folded in half at the middle and then folded repeatedly from the top and bottom until only the face remained. Having so folded the cloth the outside edges where the cloth was repeatedly handled caused the markings to be rubbed away. The markings on the shroud are very similar to a scorch in that they are on the very surface of the fabric. Thus, the image can be rubbed off with too much handling.

Water Damage
There is no physical evidence remaining of the source of the water damage but the hypotheses of the storage in an earthenware jar that collected water is easy to test and produces results that match the markings on the shroud:

Step 1 Fold the shroud as shown above                             Step 2 Continue folding as shown

Step 3- Gather the cloth as shown above     Step 4- Place in an earthenware jar as shown

Step 5 Compare to the marks on the shroud

The Shroud of Turin  ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA,Inc

Fire Damage as shown on the Pray Codex
There is in the National Library of Budapest a manuscript referred to as the “Pray Codex” named for Jesuit priest György Pray, who discovered it in 1770. It is the oldest example of Hungarian literature in existence and was produced circa 1192-1195 CE. ^[6] The Pray Codex is not a great work of art. However, it is an important marker in the history of the Shroud for it establishes the existence of the Shroud years before the earliest date allowed by the controversial 1988 carbon dating.

The actual cause of the “L” shaped burns is unknown but we know it occurred before the publication of the manuscript in 1192 since the burns are shown in the image contained in the manuscript. Using the following fold pattern:

We can take the corresponding layers of the shroud to view layers of the burn:

The Pray Codex portrays the burial of Jesus:

Damage from Chambery Fire
The Chambery Fire in 1532 occurred when the candles during a funeral melted the silver lining on a casket and the molten silver fell onto the lid of the reliquary holding the shroud. The lid caught fire and part of it fell into the reliquary.

The shroud was folded as shown here:

When the hypothetical situation was tried experimentally the results as compared to the original are as follows:

When the fire was extinguished there was a minimum of water damage:

The red areas indicating the extent of the water damage from putting out the fire.

Sample Removal
During the scientific investigation that began in 1978 the removal of a sample for carbon dating was authorized:

Carbon dating sample removal
The Shroud of Turin  ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA,Inc

Wounds
Facial Wounds
There is swelling to his right cheek, just below the eye. There is also swelling in the shape of a half moon just above the mouth on the right side. The bridge of the nose is very swollen and the navel septum has deviated away from the central line. One nostril has become wider than the other. The beard has been pulled out at the center of the chin and below the right side of his mouth. (Is 50:6).

Scourging
The scourging was done by two men each using a flagellum. The lead balls were designed to bruise and at the same time to tear the skin. The leather strips were each a different length so that the lead balls could not land on each other: each would strike the body.

While Jewish law restricted the number of blows in a scourging to 39 (Deut 25:3), Roman law had no such restriction. The objective of the soldiers was to mark his entire body below his head. Looking at Jesus on the Shroud we can see that they succeeded. A member of the team that studied the shroud in 1978 counted the markings: 135 lashes. The shroud image as shown in this document is in black and white, it is yellow and brown on the original. But consider the purple bruising on his body that resulted from each of the strokes of the flagellum! With each stroke, 6 lead balls traveling in excess of a hundred miles (161 Kilometers) an hour strike his body! ^[7] Anywhere, below his neck, that was not bleeding was bruised.

Flagellum

The scourging would cause penetration of the skin (bleeding) with trauma to the nerves, muscles, and skin; reducing the victim to an exhausted condition with shivering, severe sweating, frequent seizures, and a craving for water. Those who died from scourging died from traumatic shock that was accelerated by blows of the lead balls to the chest. Traumatic shock causes the rupture of the alveoli in the lungs. Direct blows to the chest physically damages the alveoli thereby accelerating the progress of traumatic shock. If you compare the ventral and dorsal images of the Shroud, you should notice that there were fewer blows to the chest. That was required to keep Jesus alive as requested by Pilate.

A detail examination of the Shroud of Turin shows the marks from the scourging are very distinct. They are not obscured by blood. It has thus been established that Jesus’ body was washed prior to burial and that the bloodshed from the scourging was washed off: Jesus could not have been scourged on Friday! ^{[8], [9]}

Crowing with Thorns
The soldiers formed a crude crown (actually more like a cap) from thorns and placed it on Jesus’ head. The thorns were of the Zizyphus Spina species and were approximately one inch (25 mm) in length.

Christ Thorn Zizyphus Spina

The cap of thorns digs into both the trigeminal nerves (which carry facial pain sensation to the brain) and the greater occipital nerves (causing extreme headaches) especially as he was struck with reeds contributing to traumatic shock:

Trigeminal nerves                                       Greater occipital nerves

Head wounds bleed profusely. The wounds from the crown of thorns were still leaking blood after Jesus died 8 hours later. That would indicate that the thorns were continually being pushed into the nerves as He turned his head or leaned back while on the cross.

Crucifixion

Anatomy of Hand                                                    Position & direction of Nail

Nails used in crucifixion

While Dr. Frederick T. Zugibe, M.D., Ph.D was studying the shroud, he had a patient come in after accidently having a large needle driven though her hand. He was amazed that not only did it exit exactly where the exit wound was on the shroud; it also entered exactly where Padre Pio and St Francis of Assisi had the entry wounds on their hands. When x-rayed it showed that no bones were broken and as nails would easily have held the weight of the body on the cross.

Similar Hand Wound

Jesus was nailed to the cross though his hands and feet. The nail was driven into his hands at an angle so that it entered low on his palm and exited on the back of his wrist. (The same way you would put a nail in the wall to hold a heavy picture.) A nail driven as shown above into the “Z” area of the hand will separate the small bones in the hand without breaking them (Nm 9:12) ^[10] and a nail driven at that angle would have prevented tearing since it exits at the back of the wrist as shown on the shroud. The large square iron nails driven through each hand into the cross, as shown above, will damage the sensory branches of the median nerve resulting in one of the most exquisite pains ever experienced: known medically as causalgia. A single nail was driven through both of his feet, with his left leg slightly bent so that his left foot was on top of his right. The hours on the cross, with pressure of the weight of the body on the nails through the hands and feet would cause episodes of excruciating agony every time Jesus moved. These episodes, the unrelenting pains of the chest wall from the scourging, and the excruciating headaches exacerbated every time the back of his head touched the cross driving the thorns into the occipital nerve would greatly worsen the state of traumatic shock.

Side wound

The Shroud of Turin  ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA,Inc

When the soldier, the centurion Longinus, ^[11] came to Jesus, now lying in the arms of his mother; rather than break his legs as ordered (which would not be lethal to a man already removed from the cross), the centurion stabbed Jesus in his side and into his heart ^[12] (see Pierced By a Lance in this document for discussion)

Repairs and Restorations
The first repair done on the shroud was sewing the side strip back onto the shroud. It was done sometime in the 1st century by an Essene seamstress. Since the shroud was taken to Edessa after Pentecost it may have been done right after the resurrection.

Sometime around 1300 the frayed ends on the strip that had been removed to bind the body into the shroud were repaired. The handiwork was so well done it was not detected until chemical analysis revealed the foreign threads.

Shortly after the Chambery fire, in 1534, Poor Clair nuns sewed patches to cover the holes from the fire and thus prevent further damage

A modern day restoration was done in 2002 to the consternation of scientist afraid of contamination to the historical fabric.

Testing and Analyses
Extensive scientific testing and analysis was done on the shroud. The results of which are presented here in alphabetical order:

Anthropological
The individual whose image is on the shroud was found to be a Sephardic Jew.

Biological
The blood type of the individual wrapped in the shroud is AB+. DNA testing was not possible as blood frequently does not contain a complete set of DNA and the shroud has had too many people handling it over nearly 2000 years. That is, there is too much contamination to know whose DNA was found.

Carbon Dating
Initial results published in 1983 showed the shroud to date to the early 1300s. It was shown to be flawed in 2002 when chemical analysis showed the samples used for carbon dating were contaminated by foreign fibers.

“Art historian Thomas de Wesselow wrote this about the carbon dating of the Shroud: ‘The carbon dating of the Shroud will probably go down in history as one of the greatest fiascos in the history of science. It would make an excellent case study for any sociologist interested in exploring the ways in which science is affected by professional biases, prejudices and ambitions, not to mention religious (and irreligious) beliefs.’" ^[13] By calling it a fiasco, he may have understated his case. Grave Injustice explains how the carbon dating labs sabotaged the protocols for the carbon dating process and eliminated the plans for concurrent scientific examination by the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). ^[14] STURP conducted the only comprehensive scientific examination of the Shroud in 1978. STURP proposed a new series of tests to the Vatican in 1982, which included carbon dating by seven laboratories including Oxford, Tucson and Zurich and four others. Harry Gove was director of one of the seven labs: Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory at the University of Rochester. … He wrote a memoir that included vivid description of the efforts by the C14 labs to exclude STURP from any further examination in the process. [In it], he clearly documented a conflict of interest. Michael Tite was selected to referee the activities of the three C14 labs at the same time he was seeking an appointment at one of them (Oxford). ^[15]

There are five individuals who played central roles in debunking the carbon dating tests: Sue Benford, Joe Marino, Barrie Schwortz, Ray Rogers (with several scientist-associates) and Pam Moon. Sue Benford and Joe Marino were a husband and wife team who first developed the hypothesis that the corner of the Shroud had been subject to repairs by a method of invisible reweaving, obtained expert advice that they were correct and then reported the same to Shroud conference in Orvieto, Italy. Schwortz published the results on the Shroud.com webpage and received an angry telephone call from Ray Rogers who angrily asked what he was doing publishing something from the "lunatic fringe" and that he could prove them wrong in "five minutes." Schwortz told Rogers that if he could do it, he would publish it on Shroud.com. Rogers did not call back in five minutes, it was several hours. His report was just two words: "They're right." Rogers, who was suffering from end stage cancer, devoted the last three and a half years of his life to research and examination of fibers from the Shroud, including some from the sample area. He passed away in 2005. There was controversy and skeptics who denied the validity of Ray's work. In 2014, Pam Moon obtained the copy of a picture of the Oxford sample and obtained expert opinions that verified the work of Rogers. The C14 tests were thoroughly rebutted – not for the quality of the C14 tests but because the samples were taken from the ‘worst possible place.’” ^[16]