Sunday June 15th. 2008

The "Man of the Shroud" has a beard, a moustache and shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. He is muscular, and tall  roughly to 6 ft 2 in. For a man of the first century (the time of Jesus' death),  this was above average height.

Reddish brown stains, including blood, are found on the cloth, showing various wounds that correlate with the yellowish image, the pathology of crucifixion, and the Biblical description of the death of Jesus

• one wrist bears a large, round wound, apparently from piercing. The second wrist is hidden by the folding of the hands
• There is an upward gouge in the side penetrating into the thoracic cavity, a post-mortem event as indicated by separate components of red blood cells and finally serum draining from the lesion
• small punctures around the forehead and scalp
• scores of linear wounds on the torso and legs claimed to be consistent with the distinctive dumbbell wounds of a Roman scourge (flagrum)
• swelling of the face from severe beatings
• streams of blood down both arms that include blood dripping from the main flow in response to gravity at an angle that would occur during crucifixion
• no evidence of either leg being fractured
• large puncture wounds in the feet as if pierced by a single spike.

The Image analysis by scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory found that rather than being like a photographic negative, the image unexpectedly has the property of decoding into a 3-D image of the man when the darker parts of the image are interpreted to be those features of the man that were closest to the shroud and the lighter areas of the image those features that were farthest. This is not a property that occurs in photography and researchers could not replicate the effect when they attempted to transfer similar images using techniques of block print, engravings, a hot statue, and bas-relief.

The full figure is very clear. The marks on the folded cloth, where it was burned from the molten silver coming from the cask during the fire that almost destroyed the Shroud, are quite distinctive

Is this the true picture of the dead crucified Christ immediately before his resurrection?

A Hoaxer?

If the Shroud were the work of a hoaxer, he must have been the most brilliant man that ever lived. The Church, for obvious reasons, will not make any decision about the Shroud, but as an object of piety it has given millions a greater appreciation of the sufferings of Christ. When the next Carbon Dating tests are permitted,  the Church will make certain that the fibres are from the actual shroud and not the patchwork which is of a much later date and of different fibres. Perhaps, one day all the investigative evidence will  

leave little doubt that the Shroud of Turin was the winding sheet in which our Saviour was wrapped after his crucifixion.The whole history of the Shroud is fascinating and has been the subject of several excellent BBC programmes. It is well worthwhile reading the full history of the Shroud,  for your will it find both interesting and intriguing, and you  will be able to make your own decision about one of the world’s yet unsolved mysteries.

The Shroud is responsible for the devotion to honour the sacred suffering face of Christ. A face that conveys the depths of a person’s anguish, and Christ did suffer intensely in his Passion for us.