Stephen E. Jones

Shroud of Turin quotes: Unclassified quotes: June 2008

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The following are quotes added to my Shroud of Turin unclassified quotes in June 2008. See copyright conditions at end.

2008: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.

6/06/2008
"The techniques used in 1988 by three separate teams of scientists to date the Shroud of Turin to the middle 
ages, may have been inconclusive, a radiocarbon dating expert at Oxford University has told the BBC. 
According to the Church official in charge of the Shroud, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, director of Oxford's 
Radiocarbon Accelerator, whose specialty is the use of radiocarbon dating in archaeological research, told 
the BBC that radiocarbon dating techniques have developed since 1988, and that the Shroud's long history 
of travel, exposure to the elements and handling could have skewed the results. The BBC interview, that has 
yet to be broadcast, was discussed by Mgr. Giuseppe Ghiberti, president of the Diocesan Commission for 
the Shroud of Turin, at a conference in Novara Italy. Mgr. Ghiberti speculated that the Shroud's long 
history, including travels from Palestine to Europe, damage by fire in the 16th century, and much handling 
over the centuries could have influenced the outcome of the tests." (White, H., "Shroud Dating May Have 
Been Inaccurate," LifeSite News, February 5, 2008)

6/06/2008
"A British scientist is overseeing new tests on the Shroud of Turin that he says will show it dates 
to the time of Jesus of Nazareth. Professor Christopher Ramsey of Oxford wants to check the 
theory that some type of contamination of the cloth caused the carbon-dating tests run in 1988 to 
mistakenly peg the shroud as a medieval forgery. The 14-foot-long cloth bearing the image of a man 
is said to be the burial shroud of Jesus. However carbon dating 20 years ago indicated the cloth 
dated from A.D. 1260-1390. Ramsey's retest is based on the theory that the level of contamination 
on the cloth required to skew carbon-14 dating results is far less than had been thought back in the 
1980s, The Telegraph said Monday. The project will be covered in a BBC documentary that will 
reportedly include new supporting archaeological evidence. `This new theory only requires 2 
percent contamination to skew the results by 1,500 years,' said David Rolfe, the director of the 
documentary. `It springs from published data about the behavior of carbon-14 in the atmosphere 
which was unknown when the original tests were carried out 20 years ago.'" ("Age test of Shroud 
of Turin planned," PhysOrg.com, February 25, 2008)

6/06/2008
"The Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit has been working with a team from Performance Films Ltd 
making a documentary about the Shroud of Turin for the BBC. .... Another contributor to the film, John 
Jackson (Turin Shroud Center of Colorado) ... has developed a new hypothesis, which he believes may 
explain why the mediaeval date for the Shroud is incorrect. The hypothesis put forward in the film is that the 
linen of the Shroud might have been contaminated by carbon monoxide. Unlike most contaminants, carbon 
monoxide is naturally enriched in radiocarbon when found in the environment and would therefore in 
principle be able to alter the radiocarbon age significantly. A relatively small amount of carbon monoxide 
(roughly 2% of the carbon in the linen) could alter the age of the sample by a thousand years. This is the 
only contamination hypothesis which could affect the radiocarbon age of the Shroud enough to allow it to 
be 2000 years old." (Ramsey, C.B., "Shroud of Turin Version 77," Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, 23 
March, 2008)

6/06/2008
"The research continues because the effect of the specific storage conditions of the Turin Shroud have yet 
to be reproduced by John Jackson's team. It remains possible, though not at all likely, that in these specific 
conditions there are reactions which provide significant contamination. There are also other possible types 
of contaminant, and it it could be that one, or some combination of these, might mean that the Shroud is 
somewhat older than the radiocarbon date suggests. It is important to realise, however, that only if some 
enriched contaminant can be identified does it become credible that the date is wrong by 2000 years." (Ramsey, 
C.B., "Shroud of Turin Version 77," Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, 23 March, 2008)

6/06/2008
"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates 
allow and so further research is certainly needed. It is important that we continue to test the accuracy of the 
original radiocarbon tests as we are already doing. It is equally important that experts assess and reinterpret 
some of the other evidence. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the 
Shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information." (Ramsey, 
C.B., "Shroud of Turin Version 77," Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, 23 March, 2008)

6/06/2008
"Mr Jackson has developed a new hypothesis that could explain how a genuinely ancient piece of linen 
could produce a distorted younger date. I took this to Professor Christopher Ramsey, director of the Oxford 
Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. He agreed to collaborate with Mr Jackson in testing a series of linen samples 
that could determine if the case for the Shroud's authenticity could be re-opened. `With the radiocarbon 
measurements and with all of the other evidence which we have about the Shroud, there does seem to be a 
conflict in the interpretation of the different evidence,' Professor Ramsey tells the BBC. `And for that reason 
I think that everyone who has worked in this area, radiocarbon scientists and all of the other experts, need to 
have a critical look at the evidence that they've come up with in order for us to try to work out some kind of 
a coherent story that fits and tells us the truth of the history of this intriguing cloth." (Omaar, R., "Shroud 
mystery 'refuses to go away'," BBC, 21 March 2008)

6/06/2008
"The Shroud of Turin, the 14- by 4-foot linen believed by some to have been wrapped around Jesus after the 
crucifixion, might not be a fake after all, according to new research. The director of one of three laboratories 
that dismissed the shroud as a medieval artifact 20 years ago has called for the science community to 
reinvestigate the linen's authenticity. `With the radiocarbon measurements and with all of the other evidence 
which we have about the shroud, there does seem to be a conflict in the interpretation of the different 
evidence,' said Christopher Ramsey, director of England's Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, which 
carried out radiocarbon dating tests on the cloth in 1988." (Lorenzi, R., "Shroud of Turin's Authenticity 
Probed Anew," Discovery News, March 21, 2008)

6/06/2008
"COLORADO SPRINGS A physics professor here has resurrected the mystery of the Shroud of Turin, the fabled 
burial cloth of Christ that 20 years ago scientists declared a fake. .... Scientists at three laboratories using 
radiocarbon dating in 1988-89 determined the shroud was a medieval forgery, though they could not explain how 
the image was created. Now, John Jackson, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs physics lecturer has 
done something his colleagues consider nearly miraculous. Jackson, who is a leading researcher on the 14-foot-
long linen sheet, has persuaded the Oxford laboratory that dated the shroud to the 13th or 14th Century to revisit 
the question of its age. Professor Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator 
Unit, has agreed to test Jackson's hypothesis that contamination by carbon monoxide could throw off 
radiocarbon dating by more than a millennium. It is possible, Jackson said, that even minimal contamination of 
the shroud by environmental carbon monoxide could have skewed the dating by 1,300 years - making it not 
medieval but contemporaneous with Jesus's life. Jackson, who must prove a viable pathway for that 
contamination, is working with Oxford to test samples of linen under the various conditions the shroud has 
endured, such as outdoor exhibitions and exposure to extreme heat during a 1532 fire. `Science still has much to 
tell us about the shroud,' said Jackson, a devout Catholic. "If we are dealing with the burial cloth of Christ, it is 
the witness to the birth of Christianity. But my faith doesn't depend on that outcome." (Draper, E., "Lab agrees to 
test Shroud of Turin for new theory," Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2008)

6/06/2008
"Ramsey also acknowledged the need to reconcile radiocarbon-dating results with other forensic and historical 
evidence, which indicate the shroud is much older than 600 to 700 years old. Scientists must arrive at a coherent 
story about the enigmatic shroud, Ramsey said. The shroud is either authentic or a hoax so ingenious that state-
of-the-art scientific analysis has yet to explain how it was done, said David Rolfe, director of a new documentary, 
`Shroud of Turin.' `The shroud is brilliant and unfathomable,' Rolfe said." (Draper, E., "Lab agrees to test 
Shroud of Turin for new theory," Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2008)

6/06/2008
"The Vatican owns the shroud and keeps it locked away in a special protective chamber of inert gases in the 
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. The Catholic Church makes no claims about the relic's 
authenticity. The first documented exhibition of the Shroud of Turin was in Lirey, France, around 1360, by its 
former owner, French knight Geoffrey de Charney. De Charney's descendants sold the relic to the House of 
Savoy, which later ascended to the Italian monarchy and moved to Turin. The shroud's last public display was in 
2000 in Turin. The next is set for 2010. Jackson led a research team in 1978 given unprecedented access to the 
shroud by the church. The Shroud of Turin Research Project determined the shroud was not painted, dyed or 
stained. It is not known how the Shroud's faint brown discolorations, which form a negative image of a man, came 
to mark the linen, Jackson said. It was only with the advent of photography, centuries after the shroud's first 
public appearances, that its clearer positive image could be seen. Jackson is working on a radiation hypothesis to 
explain the markings. His 1978 findings were enough to heighten curiosity about a relic that no modern artist or 
scientist could reproduce. Jackson's work is so critical, Rolfe said, `that I sometimes think it should be called the 
Shroud of Colorado Springs.'" (Draper, E., "Lab agrees to test Shroud of Turin for new theory," Chicago 
Tribune, May 20, 2008)

6/06/2008
"In 1988, the church allowed tiny samples of the shroud to be removed for radiocarbon dating by laboratories at 
Oxford, in Zurich and at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Researchers concluded the cloth was made 
between 1260 and 1390 and could not have been the burial cloth of Christ. But Jackson, his wife, Rebecca, and 
fellow researchers at his Turin Shroud Center of Colorado have assembled, with other scientists around the 
world, reams of documentary, genealogical and forensic evidence challenging the radiocarbon dates. Their 
evidence suggests the shroud is as old as Christianity. Forensic data shows the blood stains on the shroud are 
real. Jackson said blood stained the cloth before the body image appeared. This rules out scorching the cloth to 
produce the image because the blood was not degraded by heat. Forensic experts have documented that stains 
around the head are consistent with punctures by thorns. The scourge marks on the back are consistent with 
those made by a Roman whip called a flagrum. A large puncture wound to the man's side is consistent in shape 
and size with a Roman spear of the era. While medieval paintings and Christian iconography portray Jesus nailed 
to the cross through his palms and the front of the feet, archeologists have found the bones of a Roman 
crucifixion victim nailed through the wrists and heels. The shroud is consistent with the archeological find and 
not centuries of artwork. In 2002, renown textile restorer Mechthild Flury-Lemberg went to Turin to help preserve 
the shroud and found a style of stitching she had only seen once before - in the ruins of Masada, a Jewish 
settlement destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 74. The cloth's herringbone weave, while common in the 1st 
Century, was rare in the Middle Ages, she said." (Draper, E., "Lab agrees to test Shroud of Turin for new theory," 
Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2008)

6/06/2008
"Historical evidence also suggests that the shroud may be the Shroud of Constantinople, which was displayed in 
the 1100s but disappeared from that city, now called Instanbul, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Genealogical 
and literary researcher Alexei Lidov found that the Shroud of Turin's former owner, de Charny, was married to a 
direct descendant of a French crusader who sacked Constantinople. The Shroud of Turin also has been linked to 
the Sudarium, a face covering touted as another burial cloth of Jesus. The Sudarium has been on display in 
Oviedo, Spain, since the mid-600s. When researcher Mark Guscin compared the blood stains on the Sudarium 
and the Shroud of Turin, by laying one over the other, he found a match. Science has shown the shroud is 
remarkable, whatever its genesis, Jackson said. As for his hypothesis on shroud dating, he said that it's going to 
take months or years to test because of the project's complexity and limits on time and money. `The shroud 
doesn't rise or fall on this one hypothesis of mine,' Jackson said, `but it's part of a first-class adventure story in 
science and religion.' " (Draper, E., "Lab agrees to test Shroud of Turin for new theory," Chicago Tribune, May 
20, 2008)

7/06/2008
"The large Textile A formed a unique wrapping sheet. It was folded over twice to create an `envelope' 
that contained the corpse of the deceased. The two smaller textiles, probably items of dress, also lay 
inside the burial bundle. The textile assemblage reflects a very high level of fiber technology. It also 
suggests that the warrior was a person of high rank, perhaps a `chief' or other leader. Because the 
textiles had become very stiff and brittle, they had to undergo painstaking processes of conservation. 
The wrapping sheet, 23 by 7 feet, is made of linen yarn, woven in the basic tabby weave. Dark-brown 
patterned bands at both ends and elaborate warp and weft fringes embellish the cloth. The weaving of 
such a wide cloth would have required an enormous loom and an experienced team of three or four 
weavers working side by side." ("The Textiles," Cave of the Warrior, American Museum of Natural 
History, 1998)

15/06/2008
"The Shroud is larger and contains much more than the sudarium, but this cloth too is valuable and 
contributes to our knowledge about the death of Jesus. It confirms that he died in an upright position with 
his head tilted to one side, and it confirms that he died from asphyxiation. It shows that he was taken to the 
tomb with his face covered, and it shows that someone was pressing the cloth to his face. As a historical 
document, it confirms many of the details contained in the gospels. More importantly, it shows that the 
fourteenth century date for the Shroud obtained by the carbon dating must be mistaken. All the tests carried 
out on the sudarium show that it must have covered the same face as the Shroud did, and as the sudarium 
has been in Oviedo since 1075, the Shroud cannot possibly date from the fourteenth century. This, perhaps, 
is the most valuable testimony of the sudarium. All the arguments in its favour are purely scientific, not 
depending in any way on faith. The investigations have had a cold, twentieth century approach, and the 
results point to its being genuine." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 
1998, p.110)

18/06/2008
"At question is the exact meaning of the Greek word used for the linen in which Jesus' body was 
enfolded. Matthew tells us that Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus' body and wrapped it in a linen Shroud 
(see Mt 27:59-60). The Greek word usually translated as shroud is sindon. In the literature of the time, 
it usually refers to the type of winding sheet of which the Shroud of Turin is representative. The author 
of the first Gospel makes no mention as to what became of this cloth after the Resurrection. Mark, 
likewise, tells us that the body of Jesus was wrapped in a linen shroud, and again, the Greek word is 
sindon. Like Matthew, Mark does not mention the sindon after the Resurrection. Luke also 
records that Jesus' corpse was wrapped in a sindon. However, when Peter is described as finding the 
linen lying by itself after the Resurrection (see Lk 24:12), the word used is othonia, which is plural, 
and has occasioned nearly all translators to render it as `linen cloths' or `linen wraps.' John speaks of 
the body being wrapped also in othonia (see Jn 19:40). Then, when he recounts his arrival (or that of 
`the disciple whom Jesus loved') with Peter at the empty tomb, he says, `Then Simon Peter came, 
following [John], and 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' (Jn 20:6-7). The Greek word 
usually translated as `napkin' is sudarion." (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-
Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: 
Huntington IN, 1999, p.46)

18/06/2008
"We have two problems. According to John, the grave clothing of Jesus is described in plural. John 
also specifies that the body of his Lord was wrapped in two types of graveclothes: the othonia (linen 
cloths) and the sudarion (napkin). Some have said that othonia refers to strips like those in which 
the Egyptians wrapped their mummies. Many artists throughout the years have pictured Jesus as being 
buried this way. Others have said that othonia is to be understood as a `collective singular,' just like 
the English word `clothes' could refer to one article of clothing, or two or three or four. Certainly Luke 
uses both the singular sindon and the plural othonia to refer, evidently, to the same thing. Victor 
Tunkel of the University of London described in a lecture in 1983 how Jewish victims of violent death 
were usually buried in one-piece shrouds. Petrosillo and Marinelli cite the instance of a skeleton of an 
individual buried in such a way which was found in 1951 in Israel, at Khirbet Qumrum. They do not 
identify the century of the burial, however, or cite their source for this information. [Zugibe, F.T., "The 
Cross and the Shroud," McDonagh & Co: Cresskill NJ, 1981, p.233]" (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of 
Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," 
Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, pp.46-47)

18/06/2008
"However, what is to be made of St. John's assertion that Jesus' burial clothing was in two parts? Most 
scholars think that othonia refers to what we now know as the Shroud, or something similar. The 
sudarion was most likely a smaller cloth put over the face or tied around it to keep the mouth from falling 
open. Some have seen indications on the Shroud that the man's head was bound with a jaw-band. [Borkan, 
M., "Ecce Homo? Science and the Authenticity of the Turin Shroud," Vertices, Duke University Magazine 
of Science, Technology, and Medicine, Winter 1995, Vol. X, No. 2, p. 36] One such person was English 
bishop and Biblical scholar John A.T. Robinson, famous for his book Honest to God, who pointed out 
what appeared to him to be a dark band under the chin of the man on the Shroud. This feature looked `as if it 
is where the jawband has retracted a portion of the beard which would otherwise show up.' Moreover, he 
claimed that `the vertical strips on each side of the face between the cheeks and the [hair], otherwise solid, 
could similarly be caused by the band holding back the intervening hair. The band would then continue up 
in front of the ears and under the hair which grows from the front part of the beard, thus forcing it into 
prominence. It would then join over the crown of the head at the back, causing the `pinched' effect by which 
the head narrows to a point at the top.' [Robinson, J.A.T., "The Shroud of Turin and the Grave-Clothes of 
the Gospel," Proceedings, 1977 Conference of Research on the Shroud of Turin, March 23-24, 1977, 
Albuquerque, NM, Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, pp.27-28] Other observers, however, have 
concluded that the dark band that Robinson observed was simply a feature of the cloth and not the image." 
(Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's 
Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, p.47)

18/06/2008
"In the cathedral of Oviedo in Spain there is preserved a piece of cloth, two feet nine inches by one foot 
nine inches, called El Sudario, which is supposed to be the cloth which covered the face of the dead 
Christ. 109 [Robinson, J.A.T., "The Shroud of Turin and the Grave-Clothes of the Gospel," Proceedings, 
1977 Conference of Research on the Shroud of Turin, March 23-24, 1977, Albuquerque, NM, Holy Shroud 
Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, pp.27-28] Vatican archivist Giulio Ricci studied it in 1955 and noticed similarities 
between its bloodstains and the stains around the head of the man of the Shroud. [Ibid] In the 1980s it was 
studied by Dr. Alan Whanger, professor of psychiatry at Duke University, who along with his wife Mary 
developed the technique of the `polarized image.' This technique, originally used to compare works of art, 
involves the use of polarized filters to separate ordinary light into light waves in which the axes are aligned 
along a single plane, allowing for detailed comparisons of two images. Using this technique, the Whangers 
compared El Sudario with the Shroud and found `a remarkable correspondence' between the bloodstains 
on the two cloths. [Ibid. p. 28] The dorsal head wounds on the two cloths were compared, and the similarity 
of the two complex patterns was clear enough to suggest that the two cloths were in contact with the same 
body, presumably within a short time period. [Adler, A.D., "Updating Recent Studies on the Shroud of 
Turin," Archaeological Chemistry: Organic, Inorganic, and Biochemical Analysis, American Chemical 
Society: Washington DC, 1996, p. 226]" (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis 
of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, 1999, 
pp.47-48)

18/06/2008
"According to a history of El Sudario written in the 1100s, this cloth was kept in Jerusalem until shortly 
before the city was conquered by the Persians in the seventh century, when it was taken first to Alexandria 
and then to Spain, where it was kept in several locations before finding a home in the cathedral of Oviedo. It 
was mentioned in an eleventh-century list of relics kept there. ["The Sudarium of Oviedo," British Society 
for the Turin Shroud, #43, pp. 1-2. http://www.shroud.com/bsts4305.htm] Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist 
who, as we shall see in a later chapter, studied samples of pollen on the Shroud, found on El Sudario 
pollen from all the areas mentioned in the twelfth-century chronicle, and no place else. [Ibid. p.2] Max 
Guscin, of the British Society for the Turin Shroud, contended that the stains on El Sudario coincided 
exactly with the shape and form of the face of the man of the Shroud, and that the length of the nose is 
precisely eight centimeters on both cloths. [Ibid]" (Ruffin, C.B., "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-
Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington 
IN, 1999, p.48) 


18/06/2008
"Q. Doesn't the Shroud conflict with Scripture? a) John 20:5-7 mentions linens and at the very least 
implies there were a minimum of two cloths. Many have suggested that the linens were `strips,' however the 
Shroud is merely one piece of cloth. b) In 1 Corinthians 11:14, the Apostle Paul declares that long hair is a 
disgrace to men, yet the man of the Shroud apparently has shoulder-length hair. c) The prophet Isaiah 
declared that the Messiah would have `no form or comeliness ... no beauty that we should desire Him' 
(Isaiah 53:2). Yet most find the man of the Shroud to be majestic even in death. d) Another Messianic 
reference found in Isaiah declares that `his visage was so marred more than any man' (Isaiah 52:14). Why 
then is the face on the Shroud so distinct? e) Thomas the doubter is said to have declared that the nails 
were in the hands (John 20:25-27), yet these marks seem to be in the wrists. f) Also, John's eyewitness 
account of the empty tomb on Sunday contains no mention of an image (John 20:1-8). A. All of the other 
scriptural issues were dealt with heavily in Verdict. The answers to these apparent discrepancies are as 
follows: First, the Gospels use the following words to describe the Shroud: Sindon- burial sheet, winding 
sheet, shroud; sudarion-sweat cloth, face cloth, handkerchief; othonia linens. One way for the 
synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to be in harmony with John is if a burial method like the one 
depicted on the Shroud was used. John mentions a cloth that was described as `around his head' and about 
the face of Lazarus (John 20:7; 11:44). The word is sudarion, used in burial to bind the jaw against the 
effects of rigor mortis. There is evidence on the Shroud that a sudarion was used, though the 
whereabouts of any such cloth has long been unknown. The Shroud is a pure linen garment with some 
evidence that the head, hands, and feet were bound, most likely with other `linens.' The synoptics describe a 
linen sheet-a single cloth. Most likely, the sheet was more significant to the synoptic writers than other 
funerary cloths. Since the Jewish burial custom allowed the use of cloths to bind the hands and feet as well 
as the jaw, the total picture matches Jewish burial customs exactly and explains clearly why the synoptics 
only mention a sindon and John mentions othonia." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud 
and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.149-150. Emphasis original)

18/06/2008
"Second, John's use of othonia has led to a widely held belief that Jesus was wrapped like an Egyptian 
mummy. But such a procedure doesn't conform to what is known of first-century normal Jewish burial ritual. 
Nor does it match what was previously mentioned in the Word, to wit, that Joseph of Arimathea had 
purchased a winding sheet and wrapped Jesus in it (Mark 15:46). Even John used the word edesan, which 
is translated wound in the KJV but literally means `enfolded.' Enfolded would also match the burial custom. 
Being wrapped with strips of cloth would not. In other words, othonia in John should be understood to 
mean that Jesus' dead body was enveloped from head to feet in one burial cloth, not wrapped like a mummy 
with numerous strips of cloth." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," 
Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville TN, 1990, p.150) 

18/06/2008
"It is here that on the first Easter morning the momentous discovery was made: `It was very early on the first 
day of the week, and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been 
moved away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. 
`They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,' she said, `and we don't know where they have put him.' So Peter 
set out with the other disciple to go to the tomb. They ran together, but the other disciple, running faster 
than Peter, reached the tomb first; he bent down and saw the othonia lying there, but did not go in. Simon 
Peter, who was following, now came up, went right into the tomb, saw the othonia lying there, and also the 
soudarion that had been over his head; this was not with the othonia but rolled up in a place by itself. Then 
the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed. Till this moment they 
had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead. [Jn. 20:1-9.]' 7 [Paraphrase 
based on the Jerusalem Bible translation] The women had leapt to the obvious conclusion. In poor light, all 
they had been able to make out was that the body of Jesus had gone: someone therefore must have taken 
him away. Peter and John (traditionally identified as the `other disciple') were more analytical. John seems to 
have hesitated to go inside the dark entranceway, but he was able to make out the othonia, which suggests 
that these may have been lying on the ground. The more forthright Peter went right in and at this point 
espied the soudarion. Something about the arrangement of all these, whatever it was, convinced Peter and 
John that the extraordinary had happened, that the body of Jesus had left the tomb by no natural means. 
The question is, What in this group of cloths could have been the Shroud? If the othonia were linen bands, 
used to tie the wrists and feet, one possibility is that St. John saw these still knotted lying on the ground, 
apparently discarded. It was left for St. Peter, on actually going into the tomb, to find the soudarion rolled up 
in its, own place. In this interpretation the soudarion must indeed have been the Shroud, understandably an 
amazing sight in the sense that it would have conveyed forcibly that the body had left the cloth of its own 
free will. Another possibility is that all the cloths were lying flat on the bench exactly in the positions they 
would have assumed for the burial, but without the body. Only the soudarion, in this instance the chinband, 
was separate. This too would have been an awesome sight, conveying that the body had literally passed 
through the cloths to release itself from the bonds of death. Why the displaced soudarion? Perhaps it had 
been moved by one of the women, or by one of the mysterious young men in white described by all the 
Evangelists as receiving the startled tomb visitors. It is impossible to tell. What is certain is that the 
Evangelists were quite convinced it could not have been tomb-robbers at work. It also seems clear that the 
source of their conviction was something about the linens. While we cannot be sure from the scriptural 
evidence alone that the Shroud was among those linens, it is worth considering an observation made by Dr. 
John Robinson, former Bishop of Woolwich, now Mean of Chapel at Trinity College, Cambridge, and one of 
Britain's foremost scriptural scholars. To him the Shroud has the ring of authenticity precisely because it is 
not what one would immediately expect from the Gospels, and hence not what one would expect a forger to 
create to ensure acceptance. There are many more issues of the Shroud's relation to the Gospels that must 
remain for the present in the balance. There is, for instance, the issue of why the Gospels make no mention 
of any imprint having been left on the linens, surely an obvious addition to the list of Jesus' miracles. This 
we will come to when we consider the Shroud's history. But for our next review of the Shroud's claims to 
authenticity we must turn to some of the most recent work, the examination of actual samples of the Shroud 
by Italian scientists following the exposition of 1973." (Wilson I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club 
Associates: London, 1978, pp.44-45)

18/06/2008
"WE know from the Gospels that after the body of Jesus was taken down from the Cross, it was wrapped in 
a linen cloth. The Synoptic Gospels use the Greek word sindon to describe this Shroud (cf. Matt. 27:59; 
Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53). The Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, uses the word soudarion to refer to 
the cloth which covered the head of Jesus (John 20:7) and the plural othonia (John 19:40), often 
interpreted to mean `strips of linen,' `wrappings' or `linen bandages:' An entry in a biblical dictionary, 
however, states: `Nowhere in the account of Christ's burial is mention made of keiriai, strips of cloth, 
bandages, such as bound the hands and feet of Lazarus in the tomb' [Hartman, L.R., "Encyclopedic 
Dictionary of the Bible," McGraw-Hill: New York, 1963, p.287] (John 11:44). According to one biblical 
scholar, this is a relatively modern interpretation. `Frequently, in koine Greek, diminutive forms do not have a 
truly diminutive force ... and it is even questionable that othonion is a diminutive, for othone may 
designate the material and othonion may denote an article made of that material... .' [Brown, R.E., "The 
Gospel According to John: XIII-XXI," Doubleday: New York, 1970, p.942]" (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of 
Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, p.31. Emphasis original)

18/06/2008
"The Aramaic word soudara refers to a small sweat cloth such as a handkerchief or napkin. This term 
seems to be used in a broad sense in Sacred Scripture. In the book of Exodus, after Moses had come 
down from Mount Sinai with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, his face had become radiant, for he had 
spoken with God. Thereafter, he would cover his face with a veil. The Palestinian Targum (Aramaic 
paraphrase of the Old Testament) translates the Hebrew word for veil (masweh) as soudara. On the 
other hand, the book of Ruth mentions her being asleep at the feet of Boaz, wrapped in a mantle. Rather 
than using the Hebrew word mitpachat for mantle, the Targum pseudo- Jonathan uses the Aramaic 
soudara (Ruth 3:15), into which Boaz put six measures of barley the following morning. If the 
soudara were simply a handkerchief it would seem doubtful that it would be able to hold such a quantity 
of barley. In another context, in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet writes that the Lord instructed him to buy 
a linen girdle to wear (Jer. 13:1). The Hebrew word for linen girdle (ezor) is translated as soudara in 
the Syriac text. Eventually this Aramaic word was translated into the Greek soudarion and into the Latin 
sudarium." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, pp.31-
32) 

18/06/2008
"In the Old Testament the sindon was used for a variety of purposes other than for burial. Samson 
promised his companions `thirty linen tunics, [Hebrew: sedhinim, Greek: sindonas] and as many coats' 
if they would solve a riddle for him (Jdg. 14:12). Interestingly, the Latin manuscript Codex Vaticanus, in 
lieu of sindonas, uses the word othonia, thereby indicating that the words were considered 
synonymous. The book of Proverbs speaks of the ideal wife who makes fine linen (sindonas) and sells it 
(Prov. 31:24). The word sindon is also used in the New Testament to refer to the cloth worn by the 
young man who followed Jesus from a distance after His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. `There was a 
young man following him, who was covered by nothing but a linen cloth. As they seized him he left the 
cloth behind and ran off naked' (Mark 14:51-52)." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for 
Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, p.32)

18/06/2008
"It would seem, then, that the Greek word soudarion as used by John is equivalent to sindon and 
othonia for the other wrappings used in burial. To complicate matters a little more, Luke, who had 
previously used the word sindon before the Resurrection (Luke 23:53), refers to the othonia found in 
the tomb after the Resurrection (Luke 24:12). The word othonia, therefore, can refer to collective cloths of 
various sizes. Evidence to support this theory can be found in a fourth century inventory made by a Roman 
government official who was making his way from upper Egypt to Antioch around the year 320 A.D. Under 
the heading of othonia he listed a number of linens, including four sindones and two types of 
handkerchiefs. [Humber, T., "The Sacred Shroud," Pocket Books: NY, 1978, p.68]" (Guerrera, V., "The 
Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, pp.32-33)

19/06/2008
Mt 27:59-60 NIV "Joseph [of Arimathea] took the body, wrapped [enetulizen] it in a clean linen cloth 
[sindoni], and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front 
of the entrance to the tomb and went away."
Mk 15:46 NIV "So Joseph [of Arimathea] bought some linen cloth [sindona], took down the body, 
wrapped [eneilesen] it in the linen [sindoni], and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a 
stone against the entrance of the tomb."
Lk 23:52-53; 24:12 NIV "52 Going to Pilate, he [Joseph of Arimathea] asked for Jesus' body. 53 Then he 
took it down, wrapped [enetulizen] it in linen cloth [sindoni] and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, 
one in which no one had yet been laid.   12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he 
saw the strips of linen [othonia] lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had 
happened."
Jn 19:40; 20:5-8 NIV "40 Taking Jesus' body, the two of them [Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus] 
wrapped [edesan] it, with the spices, in strips of linen [othoniois]. This was in accordance with Jewish 
burial customs.   5 He [John] bent over and looked in at the strips of linen [othonia] lying there but did 
not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of 
linen [othonia] lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth [soudarion] that had been around Jesus' head. 
The cloth was folded up [entetuligmenon] by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple 
[John], who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed."

21/06/2008
"eneileo contracted eneilo; fut. eneileso, from en (1722), in, and heileo (1507), to roll. To 
roll or wrap up in, used trans. followed by the dat. of the thing (Mark 15:46; Sept.: 1 Sam. 21:9). Syn.: 
entulisso (1794), to roll in; sustello (4958), to wrap or wind up; sustrepho (4962), to twist 
together, collect, gather. Ant.: anaptusso (380), to unroll a scroll or volume; apokulio or 
apokulizo (617), to roll away, such as a sepulcher stone." (Zodhiates, S., "The Complete Word Study 
Dictionary: New Testament," [1992], AMG Publishers: Chattanooga TN, 1994, p.588. My transliteration)

21/06/2008
"entulisso, [...] entulitto; fut. entulixo, from en (1722), in, and tulisso (n.f.), to twist, roll up or [...] 
wrap around. To roll up in, wrap in, to fold or wrap together (John 20:7). Used trans. with the dat. of thing 
(Matt. 27:59; Luke 23:53). Syn.: sustrepho (4962), to twist together; heilisso (1507), to coil or wrap, roll 
together. Ant.: anaptusso (380), to unroll." (Zodhiates, S., "The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New 
Testament," [1992], AMG Publishers: Chattanooga TN, 1994, pp.595-596. My transliteration) 

21/06/2008
"sindon; gen. sindonos, fem. noun. Linen cloth, a sheet or wrapping of linen, probably square or 
oblong in form, worn by the Orientals at night (Mark 14:51, 52). Used also for wrapping dead bodies (Matt. 
27:59; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; Sept.: Judg. 14:12, 13; Prov. 31:24). Syn.: othonion (3608), usually found in 
the pl., strips with which the body of the Lord was bound after the sindon was removed." (Zodhiates, S., 
"The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament," [1992], AMG Publishers: Chattanooga TN, 1994, 
pp.1290-1291. My transliteration)

21/06/2008
"othonion; gen. othoniou, neut. noun, a diminutive of othone (3607), a linen cloth, sheet. A smaller 
linen cloth, bandage. In the NT, used only of material in which dead bodies were swathed for burial (Luke 
24:12; John 19:40; 20:5-7; Sept.: Judg. 14:13). Syn.: sindon (4616), bleached linen, sheet for wrapping; 
bussos (1040), fine, white linen." (Zodhiates, S., "The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament," 
[1992], AMG Publishers: Chattanooga TN, 1994, p.1028. My transliteration)

21/06/2008
"en-tulisso: 1 aor. enetuliza; pf. pass. ptcp. enetuligmenos; to roll in, wrap in: tina sindoni, Mt. 
xxvii. 59 (ev s. Tr, [en] s. WH) ; Lk. xxiii. 53 ; Ev. Nicod. c. 11 fin. to roll up, wrap together: pass. Jn. 
xx. 7. (Arstph. Plut. 692; nub. 387; Athen. 3 p. 106 sq.)" (Thayer, J.H., "A Greek-English Lexicon of the New 
Testament: Being Grimm's Wilke's Clovis Novi Testamenti Translated Revised and Enlarged," T & T. Clark: 
Edinburgh, Fourth edition, 1901, Reprinted, 1961, p.219. My transliteration)

21/06/2008
"othonion, ou, to, (dimin. of othone, q. v.), a piece of linen, small linen cloth: plur. strips of linen 
cloth for swathing the dead, Lk. xxiv. 12 [T om. L Tr br. WH reject the vs.] ; Jn. xix. 40; xx. 5-7. (In Grk. writ. of 
ships' sails made of linen, bandages for wounds, and other articles; Sept. for cadiyn, Judg. xiv. 13; for 
pishteh or pash, Hos. ii. 5 (7), 9 (11).)" (Thayer, J.H., "A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: 
Being Grimm's Wilke's Clovis Novi Testamenti Translated Revised and Enlarged," T & T. Clark: Edinburgh, 
Fourth edition, 1901, Reprinted, 1961, p.439. My transliteration)

21/06/2008
"sindon, -onos, e), (of uncertain origin; Skr. sindhu [Egypt. `schenti' or `sent'; cf. Vanicek, 
Fremdworter, s. v.] ; Sept. for cadiyn, Judg. xiv. 12 sq. ; Prov. xxix. 42 (xxxi. 24)), fine cloth (Lat. 
sindon), i.e. 1. linen cloth, esp. that which was fine and costly, in which the bodies of the dead were 
wrapped: Mt. xxvii. 59; Mk. xv. 46 ; Lk. xxiii. 53, (cf. Hdt. 2, 86 who says of the Egyptians, kateilissousi pan 
to soma sindonas bussines [see Wilkinson's note in Rawlinson's Herod. 3d ed. 1. c.]). 2. thing made of 
fine cloth: so of a light and loose garment worn at night over the naked body, Mk. xiv. 51 sq. [others 
suppose a sheet rather than a shirt to be referred to; A: V. linen cloth; cf. B.D. Am. ed. s. v. Sheets]. 
(Besides Hdt., the writers Soph., Thuc., Strabo, Leian., al., use the word.)" (Thayer, J.H., "A Greek-English 
Lexicon of the New Testament: Being Grimm's Wilke's Clovis Novi Testamenti Translated Revised and 
Enlarged," T & T. Clark: Edinburgh, Fourth edition, 1901, Reprinted, 1961, p.576. My transliteration)

21/06/2008
"soudarion -on, to, (a Lat. word, sudarium, fr. sudor, sweat; cf. B. 18 (16)), a handkerchief, i. e. a 
cloth for wiping the perspiration from the face and for cleaning the nose: Lk. xix. 20; Acts xix. 12; also used in 
swathing the head of a corpse [A. V. napkin], Jn. xi. 44; xx. 7. [Cf. BB.DD. s. v. Handkerchief.]" (Thayer, 
J.H., "A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Being Grimm's Wilke's Clovis Novi Testamenti 
Translated Revised and Enlarged," T & T. Clark: Edinburgh, Fourth edition, 1901, Reprinted, 1961, p.581. My 
transliteration)

22/06/2008
"This does not seem probable, however, as John clearly states that the sudarium in the empty tomb was 
lying separate from the linen wrappings. No matter how the body came out of the tomb, there is no reason 
why anybody should fold up the sudarium and put it in a separate place, if it had been with the Shroud over 
the body. Some have tried to see a theological meaning in the fact that the sudarium was lying separate from 
the linen cloths. ... It is true that there is a high symbolic content in John's gospel, but at this point it looks 
much more like an exact detail remembered by an eyewitness than a passage with a symbolic meaning. Even 
if the sudarium was placed on Jesus' head on top of the Shroud, the blood stains are definitely from before 
this." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, p.34)

22/06/2008
"All this points to one thing - the sudarium was used to cover Jesus' face before he was buried, from the 
moment when he died to the moment he was laid out in the tomb. It was probably then that the sudarium 
was taken off his face, folded up and put to one side, and the clean linen cloth was used to quickly wrap the 
body before the sun went down and the Sabbath started. This coincides with Jewish custom and ritual. One 
of the rules of the Sanhedrin for the burial of the dead was that if the face of the dead person was any way 
disfigured, it should be covered with a cloth to avoid people seeing the unpleasant sight. This would 
certainly have been the case with Jesus, whose face was covered in blood from the crown of thorns and 
swollen from falling and being struck. The sudarium must have been placed over his face before his body 
had been taken down from the cross, left there while it was being transported to the tomb and there taken 
off, folded up and left to one side, when the body was placed in the larger linen cloth. The cloth was placed 
on Jesus' face, then folded over itself, although not in the middle. This is why there are four groups of the 
same stains. The cloth was then wrapped round the left side of Jesus' head, and fastened to his hair at the 
back with some kind of hairpin. This is evident from the blood stains which coincide with the blood on the 
nape of the neck on the Shroud. The cloth was only wrapped around the left-hand side of the head because 
Jesus' right cheek was almost touching his right shoulder. This suggests that the cloth was placed over the 
face when the body was still on the cross. The experiments with the stains show that the body was then left 
on the cross for about one hour before being taken down. It was then laid on the ground a further forty-five 
minutes before being carried to the tomb. The chronology of the two cloths is thus clear: the smaller linen 
cloth was only in contact with Jesus' face for the short period of time from the death on the cross until the 
body was placed in the larger cloth and left in the tomb." (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth 
Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.35-38) 

22/06/2008
"As for the image itself, what meets the eye is intelligible, but how it was formed is a matter of vigorous 
debate. We shall need to review, although necessarily in a superficial way, the scientific analyses of the 
Shroud's image (detailed discussions, by writers competent in these matters, are available elsewhere). The 
battery of sophisticated and expensive tests conducted in 1978 by the Shroud of Turin Research Project 
(STURP) has yielded a few significant conclusions, and these have been admirably presented by L. A. 
Schwalbe and R. N. Rogers. [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., `Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: 
Summary of the 1978 Investigation,' Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, 1982, pp.3-49] ... But 
although much remains unclear, considerably more is known now than was known when the Shroud was 
shown on television in 1973. Most important, perhaps, is the consensus that the image was not painted on 
the cloth. This is now conceded by virtually every observer, even those who believe that the image is 
somehow the result of human artifice. Painters outline a figure before painting it, but there is no tell-tale 
outline on the Shroud. Nor is there a hint of the directionality that brush-marks would produce. Finally, there 
is no clear evidence of any pigment on the Shroud, although here there is some disagreement. The STURP 
team, using microscopic, chemical laser microprobes, concluded that the Shroud shows no trace of `any of 
the expected dyes, stains, pigments, or painting media.' [Schwalbe & Rogers, p.27] .... In his recently 
published Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell ... excludes the possibility that the image was 
painted, and concedes that "ferric oxide contributes less than about 10 percent to the overall image 
intensity." [p.133]" (Drews, R., " In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," 
Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD, 1984, pp.16-17)

22/06/2008
"If the image on the Shroud does not (except possibly to a very small degree) consist of a pigment, stain, or 
dye, of what does it consist? Another welcome development within the last five years has been a general 
agreement about the nature of the image. Both Nickell's associates and the STURP scientists who have 
studied it have concluded that the light brown or sepia color of the image fibers is the result of the 
accelerated degradation of those fibers. [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and Chemistry of the 
Shroud of Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, 
1982, pp.3-49, pp.24ff; Nickell, J., "Inquest on the Shroud of Turin," Prometheus Books: Buffalo NY, 1983, 
pp.135-136] How the degradation came about remains a puzzle, but at least the immediate `cause' of the 
image has been explained. Linen, like paper or other tissues made from plants, consists of cellulose, and 
cellulose is subject to various chemical changes that discolor it, turning the white color to some shade 
between yellow and brown. Thus, a typical fiber of the Shroud in the image area appears sepia, even though 
no sepia dye or pigment was applied to the cloth. On such a typical fiber, only the topmost fibrils have 
suffered discoloration, and one may therefore safely conclude that whatever it was that produced the image 
must have affected only the surface fibrils; the process did not penetrate to the reverse side of the cloth." 
(Drews, R., " In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: 
Lanham MD, 1984, p.17)

22/06/2008
"The main question still unanswered is, what caused the degradation of the surface fibrils in the image area? 
A traditional belief that has been rephrased in scientific terminology associates the image with Jesus' 
resurrection: the infusion of life into Jesus' dead body resulted in `a very short burst of high-energy 
radiation.' [Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 
1981, p.91] The STURP scientists are not inclined to accept this particular explanation, since their 
experiments along those lines either destroyed the test fabric or, at best, resulted in images that penetrated 
to the reverse side of the cloths. [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of 
Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, 1982, pp.3-
49, p.27] But since scientists cannot effect a resurrection, it is not necessarily significant that they are 
unable to duplicate one of its supposed side-effects." (Drews, R., " In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New 
Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD, 1984, pp.16-18)

22/06/2008
"A somewhat broader theory is that the Shroud's image is the result of a scorch, either by direct contact or 
by radiation across a distance of one or two centimeters. The arguments supporting some kind of `scorch' 
hypothesis are fairly impressive. To the naked eye, in both color and character the image resembles the 
outer edge of those portions of the cloth that definitely were scorched by a fire in 1532. Second, 
laboratory analyses have shown that the known scorches share with the image certain optical properties, 
and `ultraviolet and visible light reflectance tests showed that the image and the fire scorches reflected light 
in a similar way.' [Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud," Servant Books: Ann Arbor 
MI, 1981, p.117] Finally, an experiment done in 1961 by Mr. Geoffrey Ashe, in Maidstone, England, showed 
that a scorch can produce an image that not only reproduces details as small as an eighth of an inch, but 
that also, when photographed, yields a positive image on the photographic negative. [Ashe, G., "What Sort 
of Picture?" Sindon, 1966, pp. 15-19] The `scorch' theory has several variations (even the `burst of 
radiation' at the moment of resurrection would be a scorch). One version, proposed and examined from time 
to time, is that a stone or metal statue was heated to a moderate temperature, and that the Shroud was then 
pressed upon it or tented over it. Experiments by Eric Jumper and John Jackson, however, `have shown that 
three-dimensional hot-statue hypotheses are rather unlikely.'  [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and 
Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Reprinted from Analytica Chimica 
Acta, Vol. 135, 1982, pp.3-49, p.28] Just as the word `photographic' describes a process in which light 
creates an image, the word `thermographic' would be appropriate when an image is created by heat. Any 
hypothesis of a scorchwhether resulting from a burst of energy or from some human procedure-entails what 
we might call a kind of thermography. Of the various scorches that might have produced the Shroud's image, 
radiation seems more likely than direct contact, and a relatively slow process more likely than a sudden 
burst. As Schwalbe and Rogers have summarized the research on scorches, `at this time, the most likely 
scorch hypothesis is that the Shroud image is a light 'air' scorch produced at temperatures lower than those 
sufficient to carbonize the material.' [Ibid, p.27]" (Drews, R., " In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on 
Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD, 1984, pp.18-19. Emphasis original) 

22/06/2008
"In the Laboratory of the Sorbonne A group of scientists at the Sorbonne in Paris became interested. 
Unlikely to be influenced by religious considerations or by popular belief, they were very skeptical until 
they saw the photograph of the Shroud, provided by Secondo Pia on glass plates both in positive and 
negative. This was serious! Here surely was a subject worthy of careful investigation. Paul Vignon, a young 
instructor of Science, was the moving spirit of the group. He was assisted by E. Herouard and M. Robert of 
the faculty of the Sorbonne, and by Rene Colson, tutor of Physics at the Ecole Polytechnique. Most 
remarkable of all was the fact that Yves Delage took an active part in the investigation. He was an agnostic 
with a strong prejudice against anything that savored of the miraculous or the supernatural, but he was also 
a first-rate scientist of international reputation and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. It was on 
his advice that Vignon undertook the inquiry, and it was in his laboratory and with his assistance that much 
of the work was done. After a year and a half the investigation came to an end with a resounding climax. 
These hard-headed scientists were convinced of the authenticity of the Shroud. More than that, they 
believed that they had discovered the process by which the imprints were produced in the form of a 
negative. They decided to bring their findings before the Academy, heedless of the explosive nature of the 
subject they were handling. What was still more startling, it was Yves Delage who proposed to put the case 
before his fellow Academicians." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," 
[1954], Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, pp.17-18. Emphasis original)

22/06/2008
"Before the French Academy Paris, then, scene of so much chivalry and reckless adventure, was to 
witness something new. An eminent scientist and an avowed agnostic was to defend the genuineness of 
this unlikely relic of the Saviour before the highest tribunal of Science in France, at that time composed 
mainly of religious skeptics and free-thinkers. Only once before was the hall of the Academy so crowded 
and so hushed with the rapt attention of the audience the day when Pasteur made his report on the vaccine 
for the cure of rabies. Interest in Delage's lecture was all the more intense because strong opposition to the 
authenticity of the Shroud had formed in Catholic circles under the leadership of the noted historian Canon 
Ulysse Chevalier. On the basis of certain documents exhumed from the dust of archives and libraries, 
Chevalier maintained that the two figures on the Shroud were painted with fraudulent intent about the 
middle of the fourteenth century. This thesis was accepted by practically all Catholic scholars who had 
taken a position on the question. Now Science was to pronounce its verdict through one of its most 
distinguished spokesmen. It was April 21, 1902, not the least notable date in the history of the Shroud." 
(Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," [1954], Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus 
NY, Third printing, 1961, p.18. Emphasis original)

22/06/2008
"Not Even Leonardo The Shroud is not a painting at all, said Delage, either of the fourteenth or of any 
other century. No matter what the documents in question may say, that hypothesis is absurd. Here is the 
proof before our eyes-the Shroud itself reproduced with perfect fidelity in these two photographs. They 
show that the two figures are negatives. The idea of a negative was unknown before the era of 
photography, and se no artist before that time could even have thought of painting a picture like that on the 
Shroud. Not only that, but these two figures, though outlined by a rather faint stain on the cloth, are as 
exact as a negative formed by light on a photographic plate. That is why the positive version reveals such a 
clear and natural portrait, anatomically correct, with true perspective, and with an aesthetic character that 
one would never have expected. Above all, the face, which appears rather unsightly as it is on the Shroud, 
becomes so admirable in its expression when the lights and shades are reversed, that in the opinion of 
artists it is unsurpassed by the best work of the Renaissance. In the hypothesis that this is a painting, 
continued Delage, you must imagine an artist who conceived the idea of a negative centuries before the 
invention of photography. Then you must imagine that this incredible genius knew how to place the lights 
and shades so that the photographic inversion of his hand-designed negative reveals this unrivaled portrait 
with its haunting, complex expression. The artist himself could not have seen this positive image while he 
did his work, since he would be doing everything in reverse. And he would have to do everything with 
perfect precision, for it is well known how little is needed to alter a beautiful countenance and make it a 
caricature, especially when its beauty is due to the expression. There would, of course, be no conceivable 
reason why the hypothetical artist should want to do a negative. Presumably, he would be painting for his 
contemporaries, not for the Academy of Sciences or for the parties of the present dispute; nor could he 
foresee the invention of photography, the only means that could reverse his negative into a positive. He 
would be taking infinite pains to conceal forever a masterful portrait in an apparently crude sketch. He would 
also have used materials and applied a technique unknown before the photograph of the Shroud inspired 
some clumsy imitations. There is not the slightest trace of any pigments here, nor the least sign of any 
preparation of the cloth to receive the twofold image. There is nothing but the delicate stain completely 
absorbed by the fabric, and it is of this stain that that perfect negative is formed. Yes, the painting 
hypothesis is absurd, no matter what any written documents may say to the contrary. In this conclusion the 
members of the Academy agreed with Delage. After examining the two glass plates provided by Secondo 
Pia, they admitted that the images on the Shroud could not be the work of any artist." (Wuenschel, E.A., 
"Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," [1954], Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 
1961, pp.18-20. Emphasis original)

22/06/2008
"The Imprints of Christ Delage goes on with his report. In reality, the two figures on the Shroud are the 
imprints of a human corpse, produced by the action of natural forces which work unerringly, given the right 
conditions. And it can be none other than the body of Christ that caused these imprints. There are the marks 
of the wounds which, taken altogether, are universally recognized as the exclusive emblems of Christ. There 
was also the same extraordinary manner of burial, without washing or other preparation of the body. And 
there are approximately the same limits of time within which these imprints were produced-not less than 
twenty-four hours and not more than a few days, otherwise the corruption of the body would have 
destroyed the cloth." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," [1954], Holy 
Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, p.20. Emphasis original)

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"Altogether, then, concludes Delage, in the imprints on the Shroud and in the Gospels we have an 
accumulation of evidence that compels us to admit that it was Christ Who left this portrait of Himself upon 
His winding-sheet, and He left it in the form of a negative that is photographic in its exactness. We know of 
no other person in history, tradition or legend in whom there might have. been fulfilled all the conditions 
required for the production of this image. `And if this man was not Christ, was he then some malefactor 
executed for his crimes? How reconcile this with the admirable expression of nobility which you see upon 
this countenance?'" (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," [1954], Holy 
Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, p.22)

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"The Bigoted Secretary These circumstances gave rise to misunderstandings and false rumors. It was 
spread abroad that the Academy had refused to approve Delage's report. The situation was aggravated by 
the bigoted action of M. Berthelot, the permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences. He was a leader of 
the free-thought school in France and hostile to anything that might promote the interests of religion. 
Knowing beforehand the results of the investigation at the Sorbonne, he tried to prevent Delage from 
presenting his report to the Academy. He was overruled by the president. Now he abused his authority as 
secretary by excluding from the journal of the Academy that part of the lecture in which Delage set forth the 
reasons for holding that the two figures on the Shroud are the imprints of Christ. Thus he made it appear all 
the more that the Academy had rejected Delage's defense of the authenticity of the Shroud. The Press made 
the most of the situation with grotesque distortions of the facts and a campaign of abuse, favored by the 
intellectual and religious climate of the time, and by the fact that practically all Catholic scholars had 
accepted Chevalier's thesis. Delage was the principal target because of his prestige as a scientist and an 
Academician. He was derided for having belied his position as an agnostic, and was accused of having 
deliberately betrayed the spirit of Science." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of 
Turin," [1954], Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, pp.25-26. Emphasis original)

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"The Triumphant Rebuttal Delage answered in an open letter to Charles Richet, director of the Revue 
Scientifique. To set matters straight, he gave a calm, dignified statement of the facts and included in his 
letter that part of his lecture which Berthelot had banned from the journal of the Academy. Then he 
resolutely reaffirmed his conviction of the authenticity of the Shroud and disdainfully repelled the 
accusation that this was incompatible with his integrity as a scientist: `I recognize Christ as a historical 
personage, and I see no reason why anyone should be scandalized by the fact that there still exist material 
traces of his earthly life.' Finally, he pointed out the real reason for the violent, venomous attack that had 
been launched against him. It was not zeal for the honor of Science, but because there was question of a 
relic of Christ which, if proven to be genuine, had the most momentous consequences: `If our proofs have 
not been received by certain persons as they deserve to be, it is only because a religious question has been 
needlessly injected into a problem which in itself is purely scientific, with the result that feelings have run 
high and reason has been led astray. If, instead of Christ, there were question of some person like a Sargon, 
an Achilles, or one of the Pharaohs, no one would have thought of making any objection.' So it was rather 
the vociferous critics who failed to show anything like a scientific spirit. Delage, on the other hand, could 
confidently assert: `I have been faithful to the true spirit of Science in treating this question, intent only on 
the truth, not concerned in the least whether the truth would affect the interests of any religious party. 
There are those, however, who have let themselves be swayed by this consideration and have betrayed the 
scientific method.' That was the last word on the subject by that great scientist and honest agnostic. He 
never had to retract any part of his courageous defense of the Shroud. On the contrary, he was to be 
splendidly vindicated by later developments. Not the least ironical feature of the whole situation was that an 
unbeliever defended the Shroud in the name of Science against a solid front of Catholic scholars, who were 
obsessed by the idea that the question could be decided only by historical documents, and that it had in 
fact been decided against the Shroud by the documents produced by Chevalier." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-
Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," [1954], Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, 
pp.26-27. Emphasis original)

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"The Brief for the Defense At the time when Delage's open letter appeared, Paul Vignon published his 
book Le Linceul du Christ, which went into a second edition within a month. It was a full exposition of 
every point presented by Delage before the Academy. Science, Scripture, Archaeology, History, Art-each 
received lucid and competent treatment in relation to the problem of the Shroud. Every objection was 
honestly faced and unsolved difficulties were sincerely acknowledged, but Vignon received no better 
treatment than Delage. If anything, he fared even worse. The opponents left Delage more or less in peace 
after his vigorous counter-thrust. They pounced all the more savagely upon his young colleague, who did 
not have the position or the prestige of the Academician and chief of the Science department of the 
Sorbonne." (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," [1954], Holy Shroud 
Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, pp.26-27. Emphasis original)

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"The Biased Verdict Apart from ridicule and abuse, just what did the opposition have to offer against the 
case as presented by Vignon and Delage? Arbitrary assumptions and baseless hypotheses contrary to the 
established facts. These were not scientists meeting scientists on their own ground. They were historians, 
theologians, exegetes, journalists, who had ventured into a field in which they had no special competence. 
Many of them did not even understand the elementary nature of photography. None of them grasped the 
peculiar significance of the photograph of the Shroud. That was clear from the theories they proposed to 
explain the fact that the negative photograph of the Shroud yielded a positive image of the two figures. 
Neither did they show any profound understanding of the principles of physics, chemistry and physiology 
involved in the explanation of the imprints. The few scientists who aligned themselves with the opposition 
illustrated what Delage meant when he said that the intrusion of a religious question into this scientific 
problem had led reason astray and caused a betrayal of the scientific method. Logically and scientifically, 
the case for the authenticity of the Shroud remained completely intact, but it was literally shouted out of 
court. The learned dons, fascinated by those precious documents, solemnly awarded the verdict to the 
opposition. Every encyclopedia and reference work dutifully registered the verdict and consigned the 
Shroud to the limbo of spurious relics. Chevalier had triumphed over Vignon and Delage. But there was to 
be another day in court, when the Shroud would testify in its own behalf and the final verdict would be 
rendered by more competent judges. (Wuenschel, E.A., "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," 
[1954], Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961, pp.27-28. Emphasis original)

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"It was near the turn of the twentieth century that scientists first began to take an interest in the Shroud of 
Turin. This resulted from the first photographs ever taken of the Shroud, by an Italian photographer named 
Secondo Pia, in I898. In 1900, Yves Delage, a professor of anatomy at the Sorbonne and a director of the 
Museum of Natural History, showed his assistant, Paul Vignon, the Pia photographs and encouraged him to 
begin an investigation of the Shroud. Delage was an agnostic whose range of scientific interest and 
expertise included many fields. The photos disturbed Vignon so much that he agreed to undertake the 
investigation. This would be the beginning of a lifetime of investigation of the Shroud for Vignon, whose 
knowledge of biology and art would lend itself perfectly to this study. Delage lent Vignon his supervision 
and assistance for this investigation and put his laboratory at Vignon's disposal. From 1900 to 1902, Vignon 
and Delage, assisted by three other scientists, undertook their investigation, conferring at every stage and 
agreeing on their conclusions. Though the investigation did not have access to the Shroud itself, it yielded 
some startling results, and Delage was emboldened to give a full-scale report to no less an audience than the 
French Academy of Science, the foremost scientific body in the world at the time. Aware of the subject of 
the report, a capacity crowd of academics and members of the general public gathered on April 21, 1902, for 
the regular meeting of the academy to hear Delage speak. ... Delage's talk would last about half an hour as he 
reviewed the findings of the investigation. Among the findings, the scientists determined that the images 
were those of a dead human male. They found that the images could not have resulted from painting but 
involved direct and indirect contact between the cloth and the body. The investigators went so far as to 
identify the body as being that of the historical Jesus and to declare the Shroud his burial garment. ... In 
contrast to the customary conversation during presentations at the academy, the audience gave Delage 
their rapt attention. Upon his conclusion, however, a murmur of excited discussion broke out among the 
spectators on the public benches. After examining the glass photographic plates, members of the academy 
admitted that the images on the Shroud could not have been the work of an artist. [Wuenschel, E. A., 
"SelfPortrait of Christ," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1957, p.18]" (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the 
Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, pp.4-5)

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"When the meeting adjourned, the president of the academy announced that a secret committee would go 
into session immediately. At that time, the academy was composed, to a great extent, of religious skeptics 
whose work and interests were in completely different areas from the subject of the presentation. In fifteen 
minutes, the committee returned to decline Delage's invitation to request a more extensive examination of the 
Shroud on the grounds that the actual owner of the Shroud, the royal house of Italy, had not made the 
request. They further stated that Delage's proposal was beyond the scope of the academy. [Wuenschel, E. 
A., "Self-Portrait of Christ," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1957, pp.18, 25] The permanent secretary of the 
academy, Pierre Berthelot, was a leader of the `free thought' school in France. Knowing beforehand the 
results of Delage and Vignon's investigation, he attempted to prevent Delage from even presenting his 
report to the academy; however, he was overruled. Thereafter, he abused his authority as secretary by 
eliminating from the journal of the academy any part of Delage's lecture that even mentioned the Shroud or 
Delage's reasons for holding that the images were of the historical Jesus Christ. [Wuenschel, p.25] From 
Berthelot and others who behaved like him, Vignon and Delage received a great deal of criticism and abuse, 
particularly Delage, because he was a prominent scientist and professor. He was derided as a traitor to his 
agnosticism and to science." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and 
Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.5)

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"In a response to his critics, Delage published an open letter to the editors of the Revue Scientifique. It 
contained a statement of the facts from the investigation and included the portions of his lecture that 
Berthelot had excluded from the journal of the academy. Thereafter, he addressed the accusations against 
his integrity as a scientist: `I recognize Christ as a historical personage, and I see no reason why anyone 
should be scandalized by the fact that there still exists material traces of his earthly life.' [Wuenschel, E. A., 
"Self-Portrait of Christ," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, 1957, pp.25-26] He then pointed out that the real 
reasons for the criticisms actually had nothing at all to do with science. `If our proofs have not been 
received by certain persons as they deserve to be, it is only because a religious question has been 
needlessly injected into a problem which in itself is purely scientific, with the result that feelings run high 
and reason has been led astray. If, instead of Christ, there were questions of some person like a Sargon or 
Achilles, or one of the Pharaohs, no one would have thought of making any objection.' [Wuenschel, p.26] 
The numerous awards, achievements, and honors that Delage achieved during his lifetime have now been 
forgotten, but his part in the scientific investigation and his dedication as a scientist remain as an example 
for the world. `I have been faithful to the true spirit of Science in treating this question, intent only on the 
truth, not concerned in the least whether the truth would affect the interests of any religious party There are 
those, however, who have let themselves be swayed by this consideration and have betrayed the scientific 
method.' [Wuenschel, p.26] Those would be the last words that Delage ever published on the subject, about 
which he never recanted. Immediately following Delage's lecture at the Academy, newspaper and magazine 
accounts of his presentation and articles on the Shroud appeared all over Paris. Numerous books were soon 
published throughout France, the most notable of which was by Vignon, containing a fuller explanation of 
the investigation into the Shroud. About half the publications favored the Shroud's authenticity as declared 
by the investigation. Similar reactions came from the rest of the world, though the response was less 
vociferous." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological 
Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, pp.5-6)

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"At three o'clock on the afternoon of April 21, 1902, the regular weekly meeting of the Academy of Sciences 
was called to attention by its president. ... When the name of Yves Delage was called, at about four o'clock 
and after several members had spoken, an utter and unaccustomed silence descended on the gathering. 
Amid the hush, the bearded and black-suited Delage moved toward the president's desk. Under his arm he 
carried enlargements of the face on the Shroud. Attendants hurriedly supplied a blackboard and table. In 
crisp tones that carried to the extremities of the hall, Delage told his listeners of the existence of a strip of 
linen supposed to be the Shroud of Christ. He briefly detailed its history, and outlined the facts of the 
exposition of 1898 and the pictures taken by Secondo Pia. Showing the photographs, he explained the 
problem of negativity that had given rise to the whole question and had led him and his colleagues into the 
fields of chemistry, physics and physiology in their pursuit of the truth. `The question poses itself,' he said, 
`as to how this image was made.' He sketched Vignon's painstaking studies and their conclusion that the 
stain-image could not possibly be a painting, either directly or by inversion of colors. He launched into a 
description of the naturalism of the bloodstains, the marvelous complexity of the wounds left by the 
flogging, the surprising nudity of the image, the unusual position of the wound in the wrist, and the delicate 
modeling of the whole figure. The picture of the face, he said, was extremely realistic-impeccable, without a 
weakness. It even showed `characteristics which are not found in any iconographic reproductions' of the 
fourteenth century, or in fact in those of any other period. `For these and other reasons,' he continued, `the 
conviction results that the image of the shroud is not a painting made by the human hand, but that it has 
been obtained by a physicochemical phenomenon. And the scientific question which presents itself is this: 
how can a corpse yield an image on the shroud which covers it, causing it to reproduce its shape with the 
details of the facial features?' ... Pausing, he looked round. `Must I speak of the identification of the person 
whose image appears on the shroud?' he asked. No answer was expected. Acutely aware of what he was 
about to say, the question was a way of sliding into difficult terrain, of softening the impact of the name of 
Jesus. The truth could be reached, he continued, along two separate lines of inquiry. On the one hand, there 
was the Shroud telling plainly of a victim who had been crucified, flogged, pierced in the side and crowned 
with thorns. On the other hand, there was the story of Christ's Passion, telling just as plainly of a man who 
had suffered those very punishments. `Is it not natural to bring these two parallel series together and tie 
them to the same object?' Glancing at his notes, he went on. `Let us add to this, that, in order for the image 
to have formed itself without being ultimately destroyed, it was necessary that the corpse remain in the 
shroud at least twenty-four hours, the amount of time needed for the formation of the image, and at the most 
several days, after which a putrefaction sets in which destroys the image and finally the shroud.' He paused 
again. He had gone as far as he could without a wrench to his own conscience. His next words were 
carefully phrased. `Tradition-more or less apocryphal, I would say-tells us that this is precisely what 
happened to Christ; dead on Friday and-disappeared-on Sunday.' Then, gravely, Delage made his 
affirmation: `The man of the shroud was the Christ.'" (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York 
NY, 1963, pp.96, 98-101)

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