The face of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin and a negative of the corresponding image. Dianelos Georgoudis, CC-BY-SA 3.0, here
In this article, I reproduce two articles about the Shroud of Turin from Vision2000, a defunct Catholic magazine from Austria. The two articles can be found here and here. Vision2000 permits reprinting of its articles.
A look into the face of Christ
New findings confirm the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin (Gertrud Wally)
Although the debate around the Shroud of Turin has died down in recent times, it seems to be becoming an increasingly important guide in a time of great confusion. Research done on the Shroud has produced remarkable findings that did not become widely known by the public. They greatly correct the vague or negative image of the Shroud that opponents in particular have of its authenticity.
In 1988, even highly scientific publications such as “Science” and “Nature” loudly proclaimed that the Shroud of Turin was merely a medieval artifact, at best an icon worthy of veneration. They claimed that radiocarbon dating of the specimens reveal that it originates from the Middle Ages.
Members of the international shroud research group, in particular Giulio Fanti and Robert Rucker, have recently come to astonishing conclusions. It has emerged that the irritating result dating to the Middle Ages of the radiocarbon dating is based neither on a false test piece nor on a criminal activity. The results are certainly correct, but their interpretation is a biased misinformation.
Bob Rucker (www.shroudresearch.net), an American shroud expert and nuclear scientist, has used theoretical models to prove that the carbon dating result points to a short, highly intense radiation coming from inside the body, which increased the radiocarbon content of the shroud fabric and thus falsified the radiocarbon dating resulting in a date from the Middle Ages.
The mistake made by the testing laboratories at the time was that they thought that the radiocarbon content of the fabric was the same everywhere. Fanti, Rucker and others have now pointed out this systematic error: the higher up the body the shroud was placed (the test pieces were from around the ankles), the more they would be exposed to radiation and the more C14 atoms would be found. The estimate would be 36 years off per centimeter. One could even obtain dates from the future. This unknown, ultra-short (0.3 milliseconds according to Giulio Fanti), high-energy (approx. 300,000 volts, Giulio Fanti) burst of radiation from the inside of the body would only discolor the outermost circumference of individual, not always adjacent flax fibres on the inside of the cloth with charged particles (0.2 µm), whereby the tips of the tissue would have acted similar to lightning rods.
This short, high-intensity radiation of charged particles (a “burst of energy” by protons, electrons, possibly a corona discharge, or infrared or UV radiation), which necessarily produces a negative image, would also explain other microscopic peculiarities of the shroud, such as the three-dimensional information contained in the image on the shroud. Such a burst of energy would be equivalent to an electrical discharge of around 50 lightning bolts. This energy would be needed to create an image similar to the shroud – and all this in a sealed tomb!
The scientists were also concerned with the question of how the traces of blood from the corpse were transferred to the shroud. However, it was possible to explain how traces of blood could be found in places on the shroud that were not in contact with the body. They came to the following hypothesis: the short, intense burst of energy from the body would have created a kind of pressure wave that would have propelled the blood onto the cloth (up to a distance of 4-5 cm).
The question of the bright red color of the bloodstains on the shroud could also be resolved on the basis of the findings about the brief, intense burst of energy. Italian scientists have proven in experiments that dried blood enriched with bilirubin demonstrably turns bright red when exposed to strong UV radiation. However, scientists are puzzled by the question of why such a burst of energy could occur in a dead person – and there is no purely scientific answer to this.
However, these findings completely rule out a manual, natural creation of the shroud image. The fact that the corpse must have disappeared in a flash after this burst of energy, but did not decompose, is also beyond the knowledge of science, but can be deduced from the body image, the fabric and the blood crusts (Aaron Arnaud Upinsky).
All serious shroud researchers such as Gulio Fanti, Robert Rucker, Emanuela Marinelli and others are of the opinion today that this brief burst of energy points far beyond science, namely to the unique, experimentally unrepeatable event of the resurrection. […] These are all findings that increasingly confirm the authenticity of the Shroud as the true Shroud of Christ and are a valuable aid in proclaiming and defending the faith – especially for our science-obsessed times.
But that is why the Shroud – like the man of the Shroud himself, Jesus – is also a sign that is spoken against. Many skeptical scientists still cling to the question of the identity of the man of the Shroud, although this question has already been examined in detail by Aaron Upinsky using methods of forensic science. However, many reject this explanation because the realization that the man of the shroud is the God-man Jesus of Nazareth would have consequences for their personal lives and many shy away from this.
For the faithful observer of the Shroud, however, knowledge of the wealth of information it contains enables a completely different approach to the Gospels, to the celebration of Holy Mass, to all celebrations that have the Paschal Mystery as their content, it gives deeper approach to the veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the veneration of the Holy Face, those aids given and desired by Jesus himself for a time that is becoming increasingly anti-Christian.
Healed through His wounds
What the Shroud of Turin tells us about the suffering and death of Christ (By Gertrud Wally)
Anyone who regularly attends the Holy Week liturgy will have heard the story of Christ’s Passion many times before. Is there not a danger of passing over it? The scientific study of the Shroud of Turin shows what a terrible ordeal the Lord had to endure.
Since the beginnings of Christianity, faithful Christians have tried to immerse themselves in, and reflect on the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, it was not until the 20th century that scientific research began on the Shroud of Turin and its complementary relic, the Sudarium of Oviedo, that an increasingly objective approach to the physical and psychological suffering of the Lord, who unresistingly endured unspeakably brutal torture in order to “redeem us from the bondage of sin…”, became possible.
There were even volunteers in the 20th century who re-enacted the crucifixion (up to a certain point)… albeit without providing the scientific data that can be seen on the Shroud of Turin. The reason is simply that all attempts of crucifixion disregarded the Gospels and therefore totally ignored the agony on the Mount of Olives. But it is precisely Christ’s agony that is the key to the surprisingly quick death that astonished even Pontius Pilate.
Today, doctors believe that the high level of physical and psychological stress on the Mount of Olives caused a spasm of the coronary vessels, a thrombosis and finally a myocardial infarction, which admittedly only had a fatal outcome several hours later. According to some mystics, such as Marguerite Marie Alacoque, Sr. Faustina Kowalska and others, Christ, the God-man, foresaw not only His personal suffering during these agonizing hours on the Mount of Olives, but above all what would happen to the Church, His mystical body; He foresaw all the divisions and profanations. All this had to break His heart in the truest sense of the word – after a bitter struggle for the will of the Father.
Jesus was severely mistreated for the first time in the house of Caiaphas: beatings, blows with a stick to the face and head, a beard torn out in places, perhaps also a Jewish scourging with rods and ox-straps, the marks of which are said to be visible on His lower legs and ankles.
As is well known, Pilate hesitated to condemn Jesus to death and wanted to release Him after an exemplary Roman scourging. These scourging wounds, illegally 159 on the front of the chest, thigh and lower leg and 213 on the back, lumbar region, thigh and lower leg, were caused by the Roman “knotted scourge” (flagrum taxillatum), in which pairs of lead pellets on three leather straps attached to a handle rained down on the defenceless victim.
It is known from modern-day torture reports that as few as 100 lashes can lead to death. Some forensic experts are of the opinion that the Roman scourging, which weakened the body, especially the lungs, like 30 knockout blows, was a decisive factor in blood and water flowing from the chest during the post-mortem opening of the heart by a soldier.
The crown of thorns seems to have been invented only for Jesus by the non-Jewish executioners. For nowhere else in the first century before the destruction of Jerusalem is there any mention of the crowning with thorns and crucifixion of a king of the Jews. The Shroud of Turin shows over 51 bloody punctures on the victim’s scalp from the up to 3 cm long thorns of the Paliurus spina-christi and others such as the “Jerusalem thorn” (Paliurus spina-christi), the “Christ’s thorn jujube” (Ziziphus spina-christi) or the “tumble thistle” (Gundelia tournefortii).
But what Jesus had to endure by “carrying the cross” and the subsequent shameful crucifixion has only recently been researched. Whether Christ had to carry the whole cross – as many mystics saw it – or “only” the 45 kg patibulum (crossbeam) to the place of execution is still a matter of debate among scholars. However, as the entire cross would have weighed around 130 kg, it seems rather unlikely that a weakened and battered body could have carried such a load.
The victim may have suffered severe blunt trauma to the neck and shoulder girdle from the very first fall. The Shroud of Turin indicates severe injuries to the cervical spine (C5 and C6) and an injured, sunken right eye (enophthalmos). The entire nerve plexus of the face and upper limbs appears to have been affected by the falls.
The right hand appears to be paralyzed (outstretched fingers), the right shoulder dislocated, which could also have been caused by nailing to the wood of the cross. The left hand with a lesion of the ulnar nerve, also indicates nerve root damage to the 8th cervical nerve root or an injury to the “nervus ulnaris” (ulnar nerve). Due to these injuries, the Shroud of Turin is at odds with the “blessing hands” of the crucified man often depicted in art history, with bent ring and little finger and slightly outstretched middle finger.
Severe falls could also have caused damage to the first thoracic vertebra and thus the agonizing shortness of breath, which can also be seen in the Sudarium of Oviedo.
Jesus’ head, tilted forward on the cross and turned slightly to the right, also bears witness to a spasmodically stiffened neck musculature (hardening of the “musculus sternocleidomastoideus”, the large muscle which turns the head).
Some forensic doctors are of the opinion that it was not the scourging but a severe fall with the cross that caused a lung injury and a hemothorax (accumulation of blood in the chest cavity). But then Jesus would no longer have been able to speak audibly and would have been unconscious at the end, let alone be able to let out a loud cry.
The fact that the arms crossed over the abdomen appear too long suggests that they were overstretched or dislocated as a result of the heavy falls or hanging on the cross. Despite rigor mortis and without bandages (!), they remain in a crossed position. Normally they would inevitably fall apart without bandages. Added to this is the fact that the right hand was as if hooked by the bent and stiff fingers of the left hand.
According to forensic experts, the fact that Jesus did not faint from the pain when his clothes were torn off his bleeding, maltreated body, is a sign that “He wanted it that way…”
The nailing of the hands through the Destot’s space in the wrist damaged both the “nervus ulinaris” (ulnar nerve) and the “nervus medianus” (median nerve), causing the thumbs to fold. They are therefore not visible on the shroud.
When the feet were nailed, the right foot was first nailed to the stipes (shaft of the cross) in the area of the first and second metatarsal bones with a nail that was probably 10 cm long. A second bleeding nail wound is located between the navicular bone and cuboid bone in the area of the right heel. It appears that an approx. 25 cm long nail fixed the left foot in the area of the ankle joint above the right foot and thus pierced both feet. From the position of the stiffened feet it is clear that there was no foot support (suppedaneum). (Otherwise the entire sole of the right foot would not be visible on the shroud loosely laid over the corpse).
However, none of the wounds caused by nails damaged any bones, as can also be read in the Gospel according to John.
Jesus’ agony on the cross was abruptly ended by a loud cry. However, this cry – long ignored by scientists and theologians – suggests the manner of Christ’s death, which was generally interpreted until recent times as suffocation in connection with a cardiovascular, orthostatic collapse. However, this contradicts the Gospels, which report Jesus’ death in full consciousness.
But where did the blood and water that came in such quantities from the heart wound come from?
We know from the Gospels that Jesus’ “bones were not crushed, but that one of the soldiers opened his side with a lance.” Forensic experts assume that the heart was pierced near the sixth rib on the right. It was the proof of death required by Pontius Pilate and not a coup de grace. The gaping edges of the heart wound are also an indication that the crucified man was already dead.
It is post-mortem blood and serum that gushed out of the corpse when the heart was opened. This in turn indicates a heart rupture (rupture of the heart wall) with pericardial tamponade, an accumulation of fluid in the pericardium and a preceding myocardial infarction, which had already started on the Mount of Olives… In the case of pericardial tamponade, the blood flowing into the pericardium causes a sharp pain, followed by a strong cry. Death then follows immediately.
Thus Christ, who suffered a cardiac death at the exact moment when the paschal lambs were slaughtered, died an atoning death in the sense of the Old Testament. For in the case of the paschal lambs, the blood that flowed out when they were slaughtered had an atoning function. In the case of Jesus, however, the atoning blood flowing into the pericardium only becomes visible through the opening with the lance.
But just as the curtain of the temple is “torn in two” when Jesus dies, revealing a glimpse into the innermost part of the Holy of Holies, so the open heart of Jesus gives us a glimpse of the love of God who, through this act of redemption, has “freed us from the bondage of sin” and “shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins” so that we can be “healed and sanctified” as a result.
Strangely enough, every year on Holy Saturday of the Orthodox Church, at around 2 p.m., a miraculous event occurs in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem that could be linked to the creation of the image on the Shroud. Orthodox believers are firmly convinced that this miraculous event has a connection to the resurrection of Christ.
One or more flashes of lightning pass suddenly through the dark aedicule, the small building containing the burial chamber in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, igniting the patriarch’s candle. These “miraculous flames” or “holy fire” are accompanied by plasma, a gas that is highly ionized.
According to Giulio Fanti, during the duration of the Holy Fire, the ionization of the surrounding atmosphere in the Holy Sepulchre would be increased from 140 to 6040 negative ions/cm3. At the beginning, the Holy Fire would possibly have effects similar to the effects of the “energy surge” in the tomb at the time of the resurrection, e.g. it does not burn a substance, but only discolors it slightly brownish.
This article also appeared in Betendes Gottesvolk Nr.265, 1/2016
Literature used
Dossier Sindone. Von Maria Margherita Peracchino (Hrsg.), Gli eBook di L’Indro 2015, 2,99 Euro
Sindone. Primo secolo dopo Cristo! Von Fanti Giulio, Pierandrea Malfi, ed. Segno 2014, 17 Euro
Medical News from scientific analysis of the Turin Shroud. Von M.Bevilacqua, M. D’Arienzo, EDP Sciences, 2015
Er sah und glaubte. Von Gertrud Wally, Bernardusverlag Aachen, 2010, 14,80 Euro