The Turin Shroud – the truth is in the picture

I have often wondered why the subject of the Turin Shroud is raised every few years. That it continues to exercise the minds and time of academics and Church historians leads to the suspicion that there is something to be gained by reviving interest in the mystery whenever it seems to be flagging: grants for additional research is provided, and books are published, and the wheels turn again, albeit painfully slowly.

Much of the evidence is, indeed, puzzling. Carbon dating can be confusing, including that of pollens detected on the cloth that may place it in locations around the middle east, including Turkey, and that, too, can be dated to a more ancient time than the middle ages.

That the Shroud does not seem to rate a mention in documents prior to the 13th century does not bother the faithful: it could have been secured anywhere prior to then.

But it is not to carbon analysis that is the point of its failure to pass the test of authenticity; the evidence is before our modern eyes. To appreciate the point is to discuss how a body in biblical times was wrapped, and how it is depicted on the Shroud.

The cloth used for burial was approximately 4 metres long. It would have been laid flat and the possibly anointed corpse placed on its back upon it, the feet toward one end, the head toward the centre, and the arms suitably arranged. Then the remainder of the cloth would have been drawn over the body completely so that the two ends met, and then all wrapped. The long cloth was the shroud, and this is how the Turin Shroud is purported to have been used upon the body of Jesus. But we should look at the image on the Shroud, closely.

Notice that the head, the full frontal face is two dimensional, the crown depicted almost as in a photograph. And then observe the skull-top on the other half of the Shroud: the two halves are touching. Further, were we to place two bodies with their heads touching, a photograph would be like the Shroud. But wrap one actual body this way, and there is not a chance that it would come out in the way depicted. Whoever created the image on the Shroud was a “two-dimensional” artist; the body image was first drawn from a front perspective, and then the posterior tacked on without considering how it really was. To prove my hypothesis, I tested it using a live model

My model’s head from chin to forehead’s peak was 20 cms, the same as it was in rear perspective from the peak to the top of the shoulders. In the Shroud, the two crowns are in contact, an impacting mirror image. From my model on the sheet, the two crowns were 18cms apart. To put it another way, measuring my model’s height, she was 163cms. But her image on the sheet measured 344cms which accounted for her height twice, plus the distance across the crown. The image on the Shroud is simply twice the figure’s height, an impossibility if it been of a body in a cloth. The artist had ignored the depth of the crown.

Others before me have drawn attention to this inconsistency. I believe the evidence I have presented proves that the image on the Shroud of Turin could not have come from contact with a human body. Therefore I am led to believe that a conspiracy exists to perpetuate a myth, that here are interest groups who feel a need to keep the matter alive, from whichever side they argue.

The history of the cloth itself will remain interesting. There are aspects surrounding its life yet to be resolved: who created it, for what purpose? Where was it during its times of disappearance? Forensic analysis can continue to unravel a fascinating story, but, I firmly believe, if openness and honesty is to prevail, there should be an end to questions of its being in contact with the body of Jesus, or indeed, with that of any other human. Our own eyes and common sense tell us conclusively: it cannot be.