The Mystery of His Shroud
Funerals in Bible times were very public affairs. There was a great display of public mourning by members of the family and friends. They expressed their feelings in their clothing, which would be ripped, covered in dirt and ashes, in their hair which would be left unwashed and filled with ashes except for the men who would shave off their hair, the women would stop wearing perfume, and all the family would fast.
They would follow the funeral procession with great cries, calling out, “Alas! Alas! My brother!”, or the name of the person who had died. Sometimes they sang long funeral dirges to a rhythm of three beats followed by two – the Book of Lamentations is an example of such a dirge about the ransacking of Jerusalem and the killing of its inhabitants. A large funeral would have some professional singers who led the dirges. It would usually be women who would give the lead in the funeral singing.
This ritual mourning would last for seven days. The home would be ritually unclean, and no food could be cooked there. Neighbours brought some bread and what was called “a cup of consolation”. These funeral arrangements are very similar to what is found today in the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.
The funeral took place only hours after death. In the heat, a dead body would decompose quickly and there would be strong odours. Martha knew that if Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb after four days there would be a dreadful stench. Cremation was unknown. Coffins were not used, but the body was wrapped in a burial sheet of linen and laid on a shelf in a tomb cut into the soft rock.
Separate strips of cloth were used to bind shut the jaw to keep it closed as rigor mortis set in, and about the head to keep the eyes closed which were often weighted by coins. John’s gospel speaks of the separate head cloth. The image on the shroud of Turin possibly shows the jaw cloth, and upon the eyes were coins identified with a lepton of Pontius Pilate minted between A.D. 29-32. Interestingly, there is a six inches wide strip of the same material stitched to the side of the Shroud of Turin, of identical herringbone weave, with similar strain, and this may have been the head cloth that John talks about, but later stitched to the main cloth to keep the two holy relics together.
The body was washed then embalmed with spices, myrrh, and aloes to reduce the odour. This was how Lazarus was buried, and when Jesus called him to come from the tomb, he came out with the linen shroud still about him and Jesus told people to take off the linen cloths. The shroud went underneath the body, over the head and down to the feet again. The body was not wrapped like the Egyptians wrapped mummies.
Now from the bloodstains of the Shroud of Turin it would appear that the body of Jesus had not been washed, as was the custom. But the Code of the Jewish Law, which deals with burial customs, specifically mentions that in the case of a criminal executed by the Government the blood must not be washed off, but must remain as a sign of his criminal punishment. This was also how Jesus was buried in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea.
Recently, discoveries from an Essene cemetery from the time of Christ reveal bodies wrapped in a single linen sheet from head to toe lengthways of similar size to the Shroud of Turin: 14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches (4. x 1.1m).
Many tombs, especially of the wealthy, lasted a family for generations, and the phrase “to sleep with one’s fathers” was an example of such practices. After a year, the body would have dried out completely and the dry bones would be gathered into a box called an ossuary. There is a necropolis – “city of the dead” – in the Kidron Valley outside the walls of Jerusalem.
There are four references to the grave clothes of Jesus in the Gospels: three about his body being wrapped in the shroud and the fourth about the shroud in the tomb left behind after the resurrection.
“And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock.” Matthew 27:59-60
“And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking Him down from the cross, wrapped Him in the linen shroud, and laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock.” Mark 15:46
“Then Joseph took down the body of Jesus and wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid Him in a rock-hewn tomb.” Luke 24:53
After the resurrection report, Peter and John ran to the tomb: “Then Simon Peter came, following John, and he went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.” John 20:6-7
Professor Gary Habermas, in his book “Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus” (Nelson 1984), examines all the non-biblical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, including an assessment of the Shroud of Turin. His approach as a Biblical scholar brings an understanding of early Jewish customs to bear on what can be seen on the Shroud.
Other scientists have the task of proving the authenticity of the linen, the blood stains, and that remarkable image on the shroud composed of oxidised, dehydrated and conjugated fibrils of cloth similar to a scorch from sudden intense heat. Medical pathologists have concluded that the body that had left its imprint was a man who had been crucified, but the unusual kind of wounds are parallel to the unusual and unnatural things that were done to Jesus.
Both men, Jesus and the man whose body had been wrapped in the Shroud, suffered many HEAD injuries, with over 100 punctures to the scalp made by sharp objects, consistent with thorns being forced onto the head.
The FACE shows bruising and the BODY shows evidence of whipping with over 100 lashes being counted on the Shroud.
The SHOULDERS show evidence of bruising as if shortly before death they bore a rough and heavy object, and both KNEES show the skin broken, bruised and bleeding consistent with a heavy fall onto stones.
FEET and WRISTS show evidence of crucifixion with the bleeding nail prints quite obvious. Artists for nineteen centuries have shown the nails in the palms of the hands and it is only in the 20th century that archeologists have been able to prove that the nails went through the wrists rather then the palms, which would have torn away under the weight of the body. And the Shroud has for more than a thousand years been different from all the artists of their day, by showing the wound marks in the wrists!
The ANKLES and LEGS are on interest by what is not shown; namely that when people were crucified the normal custom was to break the ankles or legs to hasten death. But when the soldiers came to break the bones of Jesus they saw he was already dead, so did not break his ankles or legs but instead stabbed a spear into his side, and blood and a watery fluid flowed down. This side wound and the stains of two different fluids are visible.
The man in the Shroud also did not have his ankles or legs broken, but in his SIDE is the post mortem wound from which the stains of blood and a watery fluid have come. Both were buried hurriedly and remarkably, the body of Jesus would show no sign of decomposition, and neither does the image on the Shroud which shows the body left the Shroud after only a short period of time, and did so with some kind of light or heat which scorched the cloth.
The BLOODSTAINS run down the arms from the wrist in a V shape which indicate that the dying person had to move up and down, pushing on his nailed ankles, and hauling on the nailed wrists in order to breathe.
There are no contradictory signs on the Shroud which are not compatible with the death of Jesus as we have it recorded. The odds of all these similarities, especially the ones of an unusual nature, and the absence of normal features in crucifixion, occurring with two men, in the same place, and roughly the same time, are enormous. Even the fact that two criminals, in the area of Jerusalem, at roughly the same time, executed by crucifixion, their bodies unwashed, were hastily buried, but wrapped in a fine expensive linen shroud, which covered the bodies for only a day or two or three is a phenomenal act of coincidence.
All the scientific evidence has proved that the Shroud is not a fake, but it cannot prove it was the Shroud which enwrapped the body of Jesus. That is beyond proof. But the similarities, the dating, and every piece of evidence points to the fact that it could have been the Shroud of which the Bible speaks.
In 1978 when those 40 scientists from around the world unpacked their 72 crates of highly technical laboratory equipment and set about testing the Shroud of Turin, most of them believed they could expose it as a mediaeval fake. Yet every test indicates that it is no forgery, is of ancient date, came from the area of Jerusalem, cannot be reproduced by any known means, bears traces of real blood and dirt, and casts a startling three dimensional human likeness when subjected to photographic image analysis.
One forensic pathologist who analysed the Shroud concluded from his trained study of the causes of death for court cases:
“This is a 5’11” male Caucasian, bearded, with hair pulled back, weighing about 178 pounds. The lesions are as follows: beginning at the head there are blood flows from numerous puncture wounds on the top and back of the scalp and forehead. The man has been beaten about the face, there is a swelling over one cheek, and he has undoubted one black eye. His nose tip is abraded, as would occur in a fall.
There is a wound in the left wrist, the right one being covered by the left hand. On the back and on the front there are scourge marks. There is a swelling of both shoulders with abrasions indicating that something heavy and rough had been carried across the man’s shoulders within hours of death. On the right flank, a long narrow blade of some type entered in an upward direction, pierced the diaphragm, and penetrated into the thoracic cavity through the lung into the heart. This was a post-mortem event. Finally, a spike had been driven through both feet.” “Report on the Shroud of Turin”, John H. Heller
Nothing about the Shroud of Turin contradicts the Gospel accounts. The stigmata of the Shroud did not follow the examples of art or legend but do, as has been archaeologically demonstrated, closely follow the fact of death. They are medically accurate evidence of a genuine crucifixion.
Believers in Jesus Christ do not need the evidence of the Shroud of Turin. Atheists will not be convinced by it. But many in-between find in the continuing discoveries evidence that helps them make a rational decision about the death of Christ. From this point personal faith in commitment to Jesus must take over. Our salvation does not rest upon relics of any kind. No thing provides the basis of our belief. But our personal experience of the Risen Lord makes all proofs unnecessary and all signs but evidence of what we already know.
Jesus said, “You believe because you have seen me. Happy are those who have not seen, yet believe.”
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.