Shroud of Turin : Is this the face of Jesus Christ?

Could the face you see be the face of Jesus Christ?

Image Credits: wikipedia.org

Jesus Christ is without doubt the most influential man who has ever lived. Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, believed by Christians to be the messiah, the son of God and the second person in the Trinity. He’s also revered as a prophet in Islam and many sections of Jews consider Jesus Christ  to be influential to their belief. As most of you may know Jesus was crucified by the Romans.

The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud is a length of linen cloth bearing the image of a man who is alleged to be Jesus of Nazareth. The cloth itself is believed by some to be the burial shroud he was wrapped in when he was buried after crucifixion.

Turin Cathedral’s extraordinary linen cloth bears the imprint of the body of a bearded man who seems to have been beaten, crowned with thorns and pierced with nails through the wrist and feet. The long rectangular cloth of linen was apparently folded over his body, leaving images of both front and back figure. Only faint outlines are visible to the naked eye but photographic techniques reveals lash marks inflicted with a scourge – a type of flail- and the mark of a spear wound on the man’s side. One scientist reportedly found traces of rare pollen in the cloth that suggest that it had once been in Israel.

The shroud is without a doubt hundreds of years old. In 1502 it was in the possession of the Dukes of Savoy, it was moved to the Turin Cathedral in 1578.

Mysteries

One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Shroud is how the image was imprinted on the cloth. Most of the official investigators have denied the presence of paint or dye on the Shroud, as might be expected if it were the work of a forger. An exception was microanalyst  Walter McCrone  who claimed to find significant amounts of the pigment red and of tempera paint. However, the official  Shroud of Turin Research Project has refused to endorse his report.

And how was the imprint absorbed? Did strong sunshine create a natural photograph? Was the cloth somehow stained by a vapour from secretions of sweat and bodily oils combined with ritual burial spices aloe and myrrh? These are widespread speculations.

But attempts to create duplicates have created disputed results. Besides, as critics have pointed out, corpses do not sweat and give off feverish vapours. What’s even more odd is that the investigators claim that the image appears only on the surface of the cloth without penetrating the fibres.According to one popular theory the image was produced by some supernatural release of energy that scorched the linen. US Air-Force scientists have speculated that the figure was formed by a burst of radiation that lasted for about a microsecond, a side effect of the resurrection perhaps? However no satisfactory explanation as to how the image was formed has yet been found.

Image credits: Wikipedia.org

Even if the linen is fake mysteries still remain. Fake relics were abundant in the 14th century and manufacturing them was big business. But the figure on the shroud was much more naturalistic than any medieval painters were capable of. Also medieval painters always showed the crucified Christ with nails passing through the palms of his hands. A contemporary forger would surely have done the same . In reality to support the weight of a crucified body , the  nails had to pass through the wrists. The figure on the Shroud has wounds at the wrists.

Medieval Fake?

The more scientists studied the more convincing the shroud appeared making it the most famous relic in Christendom. But the  1998 Carbon-dating tests dated the cloth to be from the 12th century. At Least a thousand years after the death of Christ. The Turin Shroud was a medieval fake. Not everyone accepted the radiocarbon findings. There were constant critics to the test results. In The Jesus Conspiracy writers Hogler Kersten and Elmer Gruber claimed the evidence proved the shroud was genuine , but implied that Christ had been alive when laid at the tomb. To protect its central religious doctrine of the Resurrection, the Vatican had had the shroud dismissed as a fake.

The Catholic Church has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the shroud, but in 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. Pope John Paul II called the Shroud “a mirror of the Gospel”. Also sections of Muslims like the Ahmadiyya Muslims believe in the authenticity of the shroud. The Shroud of Turin Research Project concluded their findings by stating that

“We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved.”

Variety of methods have been proposed for the formation of the image, but the actual method used has not yet been conclusively identified. Despite numerous investigations and tests, the status of the Shroud of Turin remains murky, and the nature of the image and how it was fixed on the cloth remain puzzling. The shroud continues to be both intensely studied and controversial.