By Noah Morris, Guest Writer
The Shroud of Turin – Photo by Catholicanswers.com
The holy face of Jesus Christ is a well-known devotion and patronage in the Catholic Church as well as a point of reverence in other Christian faiths. It is not only the burial cloth of Jesus while He remained in the tomb, but it also bears His image by some unknown miraculous means.
Universally, Catholics hold that Christ is the head of the Church, which is why, in modern times, Catholics see a need to protect this prototype image of Christ because it was left by God Himself.
Historically, in the east, there are records of other images of Christ. These are called icons, otherwise known as ἀχειροποίητος, spelled acheiropoietos in English. This is a Greek compound word of three words: ἀ, meaning not, χείρ, pronounced heir, meaning hand and ποιέω, pronounced poieō, meaning to make or do. This means that iconography, or ἀχειροποίητος, means not made by human hands. This is not to say that these icons were miraculously created but rather that they are referencing a prototype. At the time, it was recognized that this prototype was the Shroud. This would explain the near identical nature of many of the early depictions of Christ in iconography, not because there was some code for how one must depict Him in art, but rather because of perceived disrespect by deviating from the image left in the Shroud by God Himself.
Christ the Pantocrator from the Mid 6th Century – Photo by Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai
Historical events can prove that religious images such as these have a basis in history. For example, there are also references to historical figures who sought to bring all the relics of Christ under one roof. “Saint Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother,” freshman Anna O’Neill said, “went on pilgrimage in the fourth century to the Holy Land and she brought back with her relics of the true cross, the crown of thorns, the nails, the spear and wagon loads of dirt to build the basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome.” It has also been thought to be the case that, of these relics, the Shroud, at the time likely being called the Mandylion, would be among these.
The Shroud itself and its creation has been controversial. Primarily, it has some problems artistically, including the method by which the image was made. Initial inspection would indicate that it was painted just like any other image. This is not the case because the image itself is not confined to the resolution of the threads. Paintings leave fully soaked or discolored threads. However, the image of the Shroud permeates only 200 to 300 nanometers into the depth of the fabric. This is the same as the thickness of one sixteenth of a human hair. This is much thinner than any painter of that time could have achieved. Other scholars have suggested the use of dyes or chemicals seeping into the topmost layer of the fabric. Despite this being a practical impossibility, no such dyes or chemicals were found under stringent testing by researchers. This fact is further vindicated by the fact that the image did not experience any discoloration during a fire, which heated the reliquary, in which the Shroud was held, to over 200 degrees Celsius.
One possible method remains: burning. However, the precise image could not have been produced by a candle, and even modern lasers have been found not to be precise enough to discolor the image without charring it. This leads most scholars to the conclusion of the possibility of radiation.
Experiments conducted by the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, known as ENEA, concluded that they could replicate the shroud slowly in very small pieces using a technique called Vacuum Ultraviolet radiation exposure, or V.U.V. This vacuum environment not only mechanically protected the Shroud but also allowed the image itself to form without damaging the shroud in the process.
Given the amount of energy it took to recreate a minuscule portion of the size of the shroud, the scientists concluded that the amount of energy to create the whole Shroud, all at once or not, would be half of the energy the atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima would have produced if it had emitted all of its radiation in one second. Given that the image took that much energy to make, one could say that it is theocheiropoiētos, meaning made by the hand of God.
Christ depicted on the walls of the Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter from the 4th Century – Photo by the Heidelberg Historic Literature Digitized
During the proposed time that skeptics think the image was made, anatomy had only just begun to gain traction in art. Anatomy paintings from this era were done using references and sketches, neither of which could have been used in making the Shroud. Even today, nearly all anatomically correct art is never done without reference. Therefore, under X-ray imaging and testing, an observer would expect to find a sketch underneath the image on the Shroud. Not only is there no sketch under the image, but there is also no sketch underneath the bloodstains. This means that regardless of the order in which they were applied first, image or bloodstains, the utmost precision would have to have been taken, given that the two have no overlap.
There are still anomalies with the anatomy of the man of the Shroud. One such oddity is the unusually long length of the arms. However, since the holes on a cross were normally prepared in advance, if a man’s arms were too short, the Roman soldier would dislocate them to reach the holes. Another anatomic oddity is that the arms on the Shroud have two separate paths of blood stains on the arms, which would have happened because of the inhale and exhale positions of a man dying on a cross. Though known today, artists in this period would not have understood that the arms would need to be dislocated or the blood stain paths. They would have had to recreate it with a model to get the accuracy of this detail, and it is unlikely that any artist in this age would have crucified someone just to make a forgery. This means that any supposed forger of the Shroud would need to be a superior artist of their time, far beyond anything that would have historically been possible.
Some students believe that the Shroud could not have been made by human means. “Only God himself could create something so beautiful,” freshman John Petty said. “Personally, I believe the Shroud is authentic. To me, the visual imagery seems way too exact for the work of mere human hands.”
The Saint 