"The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and instructive relic of Jesus Christ in existence... or it is one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever, products of the human mind and hand on record."
In this part two of my blog, we seek evidence of authenticity of the Shroud of Turin from the cloth itself.
THE CLOTH ITSELF: Cloth characteristics point to it coming from first-century Palestine. Gilbert Raes (1973) of the Ghent Institute of Textile Technology in Belgium, discovered from two small pieces which he was allowed to cut from the Shroud (in 1973) that it has a 3:1 herringbone cloth pattern, with a twill (diagonal) weave. This unusual weave has been seen in pieces of linen from Palmyra in eastern Syria, made during the 1st–3rd centuries AD.
Mechthild Flury-Lemburg, former curator of Switzerland’s Abegg Foundation Textile Museum, has explained how this pattern was expensive to make and denoted “an extraordinary quality.” Here, on the loom one horizontal thread (“weft”) was passed under three vertical threads (“warp”) and then over one, and so on, creating its distinctive diagonal, zigzag pattern.
An expensive linen cloth such as this placed on a crucified victim would indicate a degree of wealth, respect, family ties, or ranking not usually associated with common criminals, whose bodies were usually left on the cross or on the ground, for birds of prey or scavenging animals; and crucified Jews were sometimes burned in a common pit or dumped in Gehenna, the smouldering, stinking rubbish dump outside Jerusalem.
POLLENS ON THE SHROUD POINT TO IT COMING FROM THE JERUSALEM AREA. Zurich pathologist Max Frei, also a botanist and a recognized authority on Mediterranean flora, studied pollen samples that had been tape-lifted from the Shroud surface in 1973 and 1978); and he identified 57 pollen species, microscopic grains that can last for millions of years. Many of these pollens are found in the area of Jerusalem, with a lesser number found around Edessa and Constantinople, the places where the Shroud had been, or elsewhere in the Mediterranean area. Frei found only 17 pollen species that grew in France or Italy, while nearly all of the rest had a non-European origin. It is considered that this alone is strong evidence that the Shroud originally came from Jerusalem.
THE BODY IN THE CLOTH: The body that had been laid to rest in the Shroud was that of an adult male, naked, with beard, moustache, long hair falling to the shoulders. The height of the body is estimated at between 5 ft. 9 in. and 5 ft. 11 inches, (175-180 cm), weight at 165-180 lb. (75-81 kg), aged from 30 to 45 years.
Carleton Coon, an American anthropologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. described the "Shroud Man" as "of a physical type found in modern times among Sephardic Jews and noble Arabs, more Iranian than Semitic. The body is well proportioned and muscular, with no observable defects."
Death had occurred several hours before the deposition of the corpse, which was laid out on half of the Shroud, the other half then being drawn over the head to cover the body. It is clear that the cloth was in contact with the body for at least a few hours, but not more than two to three days, assuming that decomposition was progressing at the normal rate. Both frontal and dorsal images have the marks of many small drops of a postmortem serous fluid exuded from the pores. There is, however, no evidence of initial decomposition of the body.
Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus and “a rich man,” obtained permission from Pilate to take Jesus’ body, and he “wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb” (Matt 27:57–60). Jesus’ wealthy benefactor would explain how the Shroud man got wrapped in an expensive herringbone linen burial cloth.
The Gospels tell us that Nicodemus, another well-to-do follower of Jesus (cf. John 3:1–21), brought “a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds” to the crucifixion site for his burial (John 19:39). Turin forensic physician Baima Bollone (1983) and Middle Eastern archaeologist Eugenia Nitowski (1986) found traces of aloe and myrrh on their Shroud cloth samples.
More to follow about the Man Himself........
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