(multimedia)It’s possibly the greatest “What if …” in the world. What if the Shroud of Turin really is the burial cloth Jesus was wrapped in . . . and the faint imprint on it, the image of a man who has been tortured and crucified, really is Christ himself?
The last time the Shroud was on view, for six weeks in 2010, more than two million people saw it, even though in 1988, after a carbon dating test, it was declared a medieval fake – dating from between 1260 and 1390.
The story was supposed to be over. But tell that to the throngs who waited hours for the chance to spend seconds before it in reverent silence.
And tell that to scholars who think the carbon dating results were just plain wrong, among them art historian Thomas de Wesselow.
De Wesselow – an agnostic, originally a skeptic about the Shroud – has just published a provocative new book about in which he concludes it’s genuine.
He compared it to artwork depicting the Crucifixion created since the Middle Ages, referring to the Station of the Cross at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City: “If you look at the hands on the cross, the nails go through the center of the palms,” he showed Teichner. “That part of the hand is not strong enough to bear the weight of the body.”
Meanwhile, the image on the Shroud shows the nail wounds going through the wrists. “That’s how they would have done it in Roman times,” said De Wesselow, supporting the idea that the Shroud is much older than the middle ages.
He said the Shroud illustrates signs of the events of Good Friday through Easter Sunday. “You start off with the flagellation, and that’s very clearly presented on the Shroud, with these very, very distinct marks of the flagrum,” he said. “You can then see the crown of thorns. He then is beaten and you can see on his face underneath his eyes there’s a swelling. His nose looks as if it’s been broken.” There is also the mark of a puncture of a spear, with “dribbles of blood coming down.”
CBS News has the full article
