The Shroud of Turin: What's Your Opinion?

[Hugh_Farey]

Eleventh century Icons of the Mandylion are spitting images of the Shroud’s face.

I find myself unable to agree. The proposal is so extraordinary that I cannot believe Undead_rat really means what he says, So I will enumerate some particular details I the hope he might explain whether he really thinks the “famous early Mandylion Icon” could have made while the painter was able to “view his subject.”

I will suppose, with those who equate the Shroud with the Mandylion, that it was folded up so that only the face was visible, and perhaps that it was a little brighter than we see it today. But:

1. The Shroud is famously a pseudo-negative image. Its nose and forehead are dark and its eye-sockets are light. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.
2. The Shroud image is entirely monochrome. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.
3. The Shroud has prominent trickles of ‘blood’ on the forehead and down the sides of the hair. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.
4. The Shroud has no ears. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.
5. The Shroud has a bushy, rather than a narrow, moustache. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.
6. The Shroud does not have ringlets of hair flowing outwards from the cheeks on both sides. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.
7. The overall shape of the Shroud face is rectangular, not oval. Nobody painting a copy and able to “view his subject” could have failed to notice that.

It is true that both pictures are full face images of men with beards. Apart from that, it would be difficult to make them more different. Anybody who thinks any picture of the Mandylion is a “spitting image” of the Shroud really needs to answer these points.

 

[leonhardprintz]

In Luke 11:29-32 we also note Jesus’ use of the word “generation.” Of course the Sign of Jonah refers to the miracle of our Lord’s resurrection.

Yes, that is precise what the Sign of Jonah was, Christ rose again on the third day, leaving behind an empty tomb. There are no words at all about a relic being left behind. In fact He even rebukes St. Stephen who wanted to see His wound and put his finger in them before he believed.

His miraculous Image on His burial cloth is proof that … His corpse vanished into another dimension.

This isn’t part of dogma, no Church Father refers to the Resurrection in those terms, or terms equivalent to it. Its both extra-biblical and outside of Tradition.

I prefer the approach of Byzantine Iconography which actually has a ban on depicting the Resurrection itself because that event is not described in either the Bible, or in Tradition, but should be treated as a profound mystery.

Simply because the Church Fathers did not fully understand the Sign of Jonah,

The Catholic Church cannot make pronouncements on matters outside of Tradition when it comes to matters of faith or morals. The consensus of the Church Fathers are part of the deposit of faith. Therefore their opinions are our opinions, and if they haven’t commented on something either directly or indirectly, the Magisterium of the Church is incapable of moving beyond that.

What you’re claiming is outside of Tradition and the Bible. It may be held as a private opinion however. In which case I simple disagree with it. I limit my beliefs to the Church Fathers as interpreted by the Magisterium.

 

[rose321]

And this ought to be a sign to us that our Creator is willing to trick those who oppose Him, and we might ask ourselves if there is any other way that mankind might be getting tricked.

Respectfully, opinion only in pondering on his Spoken Words. Not to offend, but I do not accept or believe that our Heavenly Father is willing to trick us, in doing so, would Our Heavenly Father, not be a liar? a deceiver? himself in doing so? Father of Truth vs father of lies?

Our Heavenly Father speaks the truth does he not?

Our Heavenly Father since beginning of time, wants us not to be ignorant of such a one and he defines for us how to identify the one who seeks to trick us and deceive us, does he not within many Biblical verses?

Rev 12:9 ? >Is it not written>he will deceive the whole world… those who dwell on earth?

Rev 13:13? Is it not written? It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to the earth in sight of all: and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed…?

2 Thessalonians 2:9? >. Is it not written>.he will use every kind of power, including miracles, signs, lying wonder that serve the lie and counterfeit power…?

Matthew 24:24 > Is it not written…false Christ and false prophets…?

Matthew 8:44 For you are the children of your father of lies?

Mark 13: 22 > Is it not written> False Christ and false prophets …?

2 Corintian 11:14 > And do wonder for Satan himself masquerades as angel of Light?

2 Corinth 4:4 Is it not written he lies…?

Exodus 7:9-12 > Is it not written devil is able to perform miracles etc?

Jesus >>Matthew 12:38-45 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, And evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah>3 days 3 night…?

2 Thess 2:8 Is it not written? And then the lawless one will be believed whom the lord will consume with his breath…?

Within the Spoken Word of our Heavenly Father, identifies, exposes what to look for?
What is the character image of Satan?
Lying , deceiving is Satan’s primary weapon?
Satan can transform himself, masquerading like he is an angel of God, get others to believe he is God?
Works many lying wonders, signs, miracles, even can bring fire down from the heavens?
He will deceive the whole world?
He is most powerful?
He sets out to tempt, mix truths with lies?
He is the greatest trickster of all?
He sets out to destroy the goodness our heavenly Father has created?
He has children whom he has deceived in following his word? Matthew 8:44?

Peace in pondering who the real trickster is?

 

[rose321]

Respectfully opinion only.
Written is it not? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Peace

 

[abucs]

Hello Hugh,

I have seen documentaries of the shroud ‘conclude’ that the flow of blood which ultimately ends up as pools on the shroud only makes sense if it indeed wrapped a 3D shape such as a body or a statue.

I am sorry that I can’t remember very much of this, one of the obvious cases would be the blood stains that appear to the sides of the face image. If you wrap the shroud around a 3D image of course when you flatten it out again the blood stains would not match up to the image.

Any thoughts about whether the shroud wrapped a 3D object and the claims that there are at least two image processes (or applications) on the shroud - the image and the blood stains.

And of course any comment on how this could be done?

From memory there is no image under the blood stains which suggests the blood image was created / applied first.

 

[rose321]

No, they didn’t. The Bible says Jesus was nailed in his hands. After Emperor Constantine outlawed crucifixion as a means of execution, the details of crucifixion would have been lost to memory within a generation or two.

Respectfully opinion only in pondering having lots of questions and in examining what is given.

How do we know it was Jesus face etc number one and not someone else?

How do we know then also who’s blood is on the shroud?

And what about the commandment, thou shall not, idolatry create an image?
It is written is it not? Speaks of the lawless ones?
Find it odd for our Heavenly Father to transgress his own commandments in doing so?

Interesting also the face on the shroud identically matches man made images or pictures, paintings drawn of Jesus, years or generations later >>after Jesus died?

Constantine made Christianity no longer a crime, punishable by death > crucifixion, not till>>> 315 Ad, so to say crucifixion would of been lost from of memory a generation or two later, would not be correct would it?

And crucifixion did not end in 315 Ad did it? Using crucifixion as a form of punishment, continued after Constantine 315 AD made Christianity no longer a crime, did it not?

Billions today still speak of crucifixion do they not, a memory never forgotten?
Historically recorded having quiet a history on crucifixion etc, do we not?

Hundreds, thousands upon thousands were put to death by crucifixion, Apostles also not just St Peter either, families, friends many in all walks of life, etc were put to death by crucifixion and Jesus was not the first was he to suffer this inhumane punishment known as crucifixion, was he?

Sorry, do not agree that crucifixion by the time of Constantine 315 Ad was lost to memory , but continued till the time of Constantine 315 AD and crucifixion continued after wards as one form of Roman punishment, did it not?

Constantine in 315 AD>>>>> only made Christianity no longer a crime to practice openly, punishable by death, or put in prison, but Constantine did not end crucifixion did he as a form of punishment?

No one knows who it is or whose blood it is also, right, this has not been proven correct, but assuming>>>> because it matches a man made painting of Jesus, done by those long long after Jesus died and his Apostles, created their own image of him, right etc? By those who never knew him personally, or seen him right?

Peace

 

[undead_rat]

Respectfully, opinion only in pondering on his Spoken Words. Not to offend, but I do not accept or believe that our Heavenly Father is willing to trick us. . .

Our Lord’s miraculous Image on His burial Shroud is not any kind of “trick.” The faithful who love Him have always revered this sacred object and have not doubted that its Image is that of Jesus, “made without hands.” One chooses to believe, and then one finds the wonderful gift of Jesus’ Image which reinforces that belief.
Our Creator prefers that the choice to believe in Him comes first.

There exist those in this world who have deliberately chosen to reject Jesus, such as Prof. Edward Hall of the Oxford C-14 lab. Our Creator does not force belief in Himself on these. That is why He has presented this miracle in a way that His enemies may so easily dismiss it. The Shroud’s mysterious appearance in France in the 14th century was arranged by God, as was its C-14 data that the atheist professor so eagerly took to indicate 14th century date rather than proof that Jesus’ corpse vanished.

I should be ashamed of myself for doing this, but I have to confess that I find it somewhat amusing to see the frustration of the atheist skeptics like Joe Nickell over the continued belief in the Shroud by the faithful. It is so “obvious” to him that the Shroud cannot be real.

Our Creator is willing to trick those who have rejected Him. In this regard I believe that He has another trick in store for those who hate Him. That trick is defined in Psalm 9:15-16:

The nations have fallen into the pit they dug;
they are caught by the feet in the snare they set themselves.
YHWH has made Himself known, has given judgment;
He has trapped the wicked in the work of their own hands.

This pit that the nations have fallen into is their mistake of building forbidden weapons of retaliation: nuclear armed ICBMs. Each nation is unable to bring itself to stand down its evil devices and will wind up being destroyed by nuclear weapons as a result. The outcome is clearly described in Isaiah 66:15-16 and Jeremiah 25:32-33. Jesus Himself warns of this in Luke 21:34-35:
that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap. For it will come down on every living man of he face of the earth.

A global nuclear war is in humanity’s immediate future. It will occur in this 21st century. Few foresee it, and even fewer understand it as the Great Day of the Lord and Christ’s 2nd coming. That is why Jesus said that His return would be like a thief in the night. God does not trick the faithful. We take His warnings seriously and follow His Law. For those who reject Him, it is another matter.

 

[otrrl]

My faith does not rely on a piece of cloth. Even if it is the burial shroud of Jesus, so what? He also must have sat on something like a chair and there might have been other artifacts of his hidden life but so what? This world and everything in it will pass away.

In the Mass I receive the Eucharist and I don’t need or want any idols. I don’t have to go to Rome or Turin or Jerusalem (or Fatima, for that matter) to do that. Shrines and shrouds and the like are for affluent people, which I’m not. Best wishes and love.

 

[leonhardprintz]

Okay undead_rat now you’re drawing equality between belief in the shroud being genuine and a pious faith in God, that’s exactly the kind of hyperbole that’s off putting to me.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Hi abucs,

There’s a lot to discuss here. But here goes about the ‘blood’.

The blood has caused a great deal of confusion even among authenticists, and been the cause of many disputed invented pathologies. The simplest answer is to admit it doesn’t make any sense and was probably dribbled on to the cloth with a pipette. However, obviously, this is unacceptable to authenticists, so here is a résumé of what they have attempted.

1. Is it blood? If a forensic scientist sees some suspicious looking red stains on the carpet, he first carries out a test to find out if the stain is blood or not, and then tries to characterise its blood-group, DNA, etc. Unfortunately, although there has been some tentative identification of actual red blood cells, it has been difficult if not impossible to identify whole blood. This has led to a number of more or less unlikely, and more or less contradictory hypotheses. Pierre Barbet thought that almost all Jesus’s blood had dried, but then ‘remoistened’ in order to leave its precise prints on the cloth. Fred Zugibe showed that at least some blood could ooze from a dead body. Some people have said that a body scourged as badly as that would have been so drenched with blood that it must have been washed before he was buried, and others that the bloodflows down the arms must have been present before he was buried, and so the body must not have been washed. Alan Adler claimed that a mixture of yellow bilirubin and brown methemoglobin would somehow produce pink stains on the cloth, while Ray Rogers claimed that a coating of Saponaria (soap-wort) saponin would keep red hemoglobin intact, and recently Giulio Fanti has decided that the blood was either mixed or augmented with red pigment. Pierluigi Baima Bollone has identified the blood as AB, but without carrying out a presumptive test for blood in the first place, some scientists have claimed that other organic materials also produce false positve AB results. All in all, it would be wholly untrue to suggest that there is any authenticist consensus about the constitution of the blood.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

1. Is it above or below the image? This rests on a single observation by Alan Adler and John Heller that the cell walls of ‘image-bearing’ fibres looked ‘corroded’, while the cell walls of ‘non-image-bearing’ fibres, and the cell-walls of ‘blood fibres’ did not. This relates to their hypothesis that the image was formed by the decomposition of the cell walls. Ray Rogers came to the conclusion that the image had nothing to do with the cell walls, but was the result of a reaction with a coating on the threads. He did not address the alleged ‘corrosion’ at all. I suggest that a bas relief spread with a appropriate pigment could easily have had ‘blood’ dribbled onto it before the cloth was laid on top. Another possibility is that, since the blood soaked through the cloth but the image didn’t, there are vastly more blood fibres which could not have been affected by the image than blood fibres which could have been, so that it would be statisitically inevitable to disover that there was no ‘image’ on the vast majority of ‘blood’ fibres. All in all, it would be wholly untrue to suggest that there is any clear demonstration that the blood stains appeared on the cloth before the image.
2. Are the blood flows realistic? A cut on the head does not result in delicate little tickles of blood over the ‘matted’ (?) tresses of a long haired man. It mats the hair into a gory mass. Pierre Lavoie has speculated that the blood flows were soaked into the cloth while it was wrapped closely around the body, and then the cloth was either re-arranged, or miraculously re-arranged itself, to a more loose drape, for the image to arrive. This would mean that the ‘hair-flows’ were actually down the cheeks, but became out of register as the cloth was re-arranged so that the image of the hair appeared on top of them. However this hypothesis does not address any of the rest of the body, such as the back of the body and sides of the legs, which should also appear to have blood marks from the scourges well outside the outline of rthe body. All the blood flows take the form of sigmoid or zigzag trickles, whether from the head, down the arms, from the side wound or across the ‘blood-belt’. Blood does not flow in this way. It streams. Garlaschelli showed that it could not flow down an arm unless it was almost vertical (leading to excited newspaper headlines that Jesus was crucified on a Y-shaped cross). They also showed that if the blood from the side wound emerged while the body was vertical it would have flowed straight down, but that if it oozed out as part of the deposition or entombment it would have flowed in a different direction. Other pathologists have said that since the head, arm and side wounds were all quite high on the body, there was very little chance that any blood would have flowed out after it was dead. Although, as Zugibe showed by experiment and observation, there is some oozing of blood after death, it is very well known that blood clots very fast, and that in general “dead men don’t bleed”. All in all, it would be wholly untrue to suggest that the blood flows are easily relatable to real traumatic sources.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Respectfully opinion only in pondering having lots of questions and in examining what is given.

Hi Rose,
Your questions are a little incoherent, being more of the stream-of-consciousness type than a systematic inquiry, but I’ll do my best!

1. “How do we know it was Jesus face etc number one and not someone else?” Whether the Shroud is real or fake, it is almost certainly a picture of Jesus. If 1st century in origin, Jesus is almost the only famous crucified Jew we know of, and there is no evidence to suggest that someone else’s shroud was adopted as Jesus’s after it was found to have an image on it. If medieval, although there have been suggestions that it could originally have been meant to be Jaques de Molay, the head of the Templars, after his execution, they have not gained general credence.
2. “How do we know then also who’s blood is on the shroud?” We have no way of identifying Jesus’s blood. If it were ever possible to establish his DNA, that could be more indicative.
3. “And what about the commandment, thou shall not, idolatry create an image?” It is not generally thought that leaving an image on a cloth ‘naturally’, constitutes breaking the commandment, but anyway, these were commandments from God to his people, not to himself. Christianity (unlike Islam) has never paid much heed to the literal commandment anyway, understanding it more to mean that we were to abstain from worshipping images, rather than simply using them as conduits to God.
4. “Interesting also the face on the shroud identically matches man made images or pictures, paintings drawn of Jesus, years or generations later.” The idea that Jesus always looks the same has been widely accepted, but is patently untrue. Basically anybody with long hair and a beard is thought to look exactly like Jesus regardless of the hundreds of different people who could be described as such.
5. “To say crucifixion would of been lost from of memory a generation or two later, would not be correct would it?” It is true that by the 14th century very few people in Western Europe would have seen a crucifixion. However continuing artistic tradition, coupled to the description in the bible, gave artists a good idea of what they thought it would look like. The Shroud does not show anything that could not have been thought of by a medieval artist.

 

[Sursum-Corda]

I believe the Shroud of Turin is the genuine burial shroud of Jesus.

The tests that were done on it vary greatly in interpretation both for and against its authenticity.

But in my view the preponderance of evidence points to it being the genuine article

 

[Hugh_Farey]

I believe the Shroud of Turin is the genuine burial shroud of Jesus.
The tests that were done on it vary greatly in interpretation both for and against its authenticity.
But in my view the preponderance of evidence points to it being the genuine article

I respect your belief. Thousands of people of the major Abrahamic religions agree with you.

 

[toddy]

Yes.
Wrapping clothes produce 3-D image, so this is a 2-D painting in deed. There were hundreds thousands crucified saints, so the odd for the image of Jesus is about 1/300,000 in general. It was not found inside Jesus’ tomb, so likely not image of Jesus.

 

[undead_rat]

Interesting also the face on the shroud identically matches man made images or pictures, paintings drawn of Jesus, years or generations later >>after Jesus died?

because it matches a man made painting of Jesus, done by those long long after Jesus died and his Apostles, created their own image of him, right etc? By those who never knew him personally, or seen him right?

What we now know as the Shroud of Turin was originally called the Image of Edessa. After the opening of Jesus’ tomb, the Image bearing Shroud was found and was immediately spirited out of Israel by the disciple Thaeddeus to the city of Edessa which was outside of both Jewish and Roman rule. There the Shroud was safe from destruction by the Jewish religious authorities. The Shroud was then hidden in that city’s west gate for about 500 years. After being recovered, replications of the Shroud’s facial image were carried throughout the Christian world by monks. The most famous of these is the 6th century icon of Christ in St. Catherine’s Monastery.

 

[rose321]

Our Creator is willing to trick those who have rejected Him. In this regard I believe that He has another trick in store for those who hate Him. That trick is defined in Psalm 9:15-16:

Respectfully opinion only, not to offend, topic titled about>>The Shroud of the Turin, whats your Opinion>>>> opinion given my Love, deep devotion to our Heavenly Father>>> does not depend on what is called a>> burial shroud of whom we do not know is or is not of Jesus, do we?
Rather depends on His Spoken Word given, >>>Happy are those who have not seen yet believe. Peace

 

[undead_rat]

Respectfully opinion only, not to offend, topic titled about>>The Shroud of the Turin, whats your Opinion>>>> opinion given my Love, deep devotion to our Heavenly Father>>> does not depend on what is called a>> burial shroud of whom we do not know is or is not of Jesus, do we?
Rather depends on His Spoken Word given, >>>Happy are those who have not seen yet believe.

We most certainly do know that the miraculous Image on the Shroud is that of Jesus. In this century of atheism and skepticism our Lord’s miracle shines as a bright light to His followers and contradicts those who say that He never existed, that Christianity was made up out of pagan philosophies, or that the Romans invented it. We even have books trying to prove that God does not exist at all.

The Shroud of Turin–Holy Mandylion–Image of Edessa was given to us for a purpose. It is the Sign of Jonah that Jesus promised would be available for, not just a few, but for an entire generation of people, and it is living miraculous proof that Jesus lived, died by crucifixion, was laid in a tomb, and that His corpse vanished out of this world. That miraculous disappearance should rightly be taken as proof of His resurrection.

Of course our Lord’s holy teachings and his Church are the most important and most valuable things that we have, but as material objects go, nothing in this world is more important or more sacred that Jesus’ holy Image on His burial cloth.

 

[Sursum-Corda]

How do you know where it was found?
It could have been found anywhere.
What matters is that for centuries Catholics believe this item is the burial shroud of Jesus Himself.
The scientific investigation on the object has gone all over the place with contradictory claims.
If you sift through this stuff, sufficient evidence emerges on the balance of probabilities that the Shroud is an authentic relic from the death of Jesus.

 

[JimG]

I recall a comment that a Redemptorist priest made one day long before the carbon-14 dating test. He had a priest friend who was obsessed with the Shroud and was convinced that it was authentic. He himself had a non-committal attitude. He told his friend, “What if it is real? So what? It will not affect our Faith one bit. What if it is not real? Our Faith will stay the same.”

I can understand that there are Catholics who are totally convinced of the authenticity of the Shroud, just like there are Catholics who are believers in a particular private revelation. What surprises me is that there are those who are equally obsessed in the other direction, with wanting to prove the shroud a fake. There are those who believe in the Medugorge apparations. I don’t, but I don’t become obsessed with trying to prove them wrong.