COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF THE

SHROUD’S UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS

 

Let’s examine closely and in great detail the unusual characteristics that would have been accounted for by a medieval forger in any credible explanation of how the body images, blood marks, and other features were created on the Shroud of Turin. Any forger responsible for the image would have to have been able to:

 

Encode the image on only the most superficial fibrils of the cloth’s threads;

 

Transfer an image so low in contrast that it fades into the background when an observer stands within six feet of it;

 

Create an image that is pressure-independent so that both frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same intensity, even though the dorsal side of the cloth would have had the full weight of a body lying on top of it;

 

Use an image-forming mechanism that operates uniformly regardless of what lies beneath it, i.e., over diverse substances such as skin, hair and,

possibly coins, flowers, teeth, and bones;

 

Encode the thousands of body image fibrils with the same intensity; 

 

Create an image that is not composed of any particles or foreign materials of and kinds, with the individual joints of its individual fibrils remaining distinct and visible;

 

Create an image that is not soluble in water, remains stable when subjected to high temperatures, and does not demonstrate signs of matting, capillarity, sensation, or diffusion into the image-forming fibrils;

 

Encode an image that lacks any evidence of two-dimensional directionality;

 

Compose a yellowed body image out of chemically degraded cellulose with conjugated carbonyls that has resulted from processes associated with dehydration and oxidation;

 

Encode the front and back full-length images on cloth of a real human being in rigor mortis;

 

Incorporate specific effects of a draped cloth that fell through a body region such as blood marks displaced into the hair, motion blurs at the side of the face and in the neck/throat region and below the hair, along with elongated fingers;

 

Encode a superficial, resolved, and three-dimensional image of the closed eye over the different and invisible features of a coin;

 

Transfer the blood marks before encoding the body image, yet still place them in the appropriate locations and ensure that the blood marks are not altered when the body image is later transferred into the cloth;

 

Create actual blood marks with actual serum around the edges of the various wounds;

 

Remove the cloth from the body within two to three days without breaking or smearing the numerous blood marks;

 

Employ a mechanism that transfers distance information through space in vertical, straight-line paths;

 

Produce an image that is a vague negative when observed by the naked eye, but with highly focused and finely resolved details that become visible only when photographed, at which point the negative turns into a positive image with light/ dark and left/ right reversed.

 

Encode accurately proportioned, three-dimensional information on a two-dimensional surface that directly corresponds to the distances between a body and sloth;

 

Include realistic details of scourge marks so small that they are invisible to the naked eye and can be seen only with cameras, photographic enlarges, microscopes, and ultraviolet lighting;

 

Encode a line representing the narrow lesion of the side wound that corresponds to the shape of the lancea used by Roman executioners in such a manner that the line would not be visible with the eye and could not be seen until the development of computer imaging technology 600 years later;

 

Distribute an array of pollens onto the Shroud beneath the linen’s threads and fibers that reflected its manufacture and history in Jerusalem and Turkey. To do this successfully, the forger would have to not only be a pollen expert, but also anticipate development of the theory that emerged 600 years later which asserts the Shroud, Mandylion, and Image of Edessa are the same cloth;

 

Encode the subtle appearance of Judan plants in the off-image area of the Shroud that would not be seen for more than six centuries;

 

Place microscopic samples of dirt and limestone at the foot of the man in the Shroud that match the limestone found in Jerusalem, but which would not be visible for centuries;

 

Encode actual whole blood and watery fluids at the side wound and the small of the back in a uniquely realistic manner and also encode this and all other clotted bloodstains on the Shroud so that they remain red and do not darken over time like all other actual blood;

 

Encode the appearance of a Pontius Pilate lepton over the right eye of the man so that only when photography, photographic enlargers and three-dimensional relief's are invented 600 years later, the motif, letters and outline of the coin can be ascertained. The forger would not only have to anticipate this technology, but also the development of the field of archaeology and the discovery in the late twentieth century that coins were used in burials in Jerusalem and the surrounding area between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D.

 

Encode the wound on the cloth at the man’s left side so that when the image was photographed 500 years later, the wound would be located in the precisely correct location on the man’s right side so that blood and water would escape from the victim if he received a postmortem wound at this location.

 

To encode these features, our forger would not only have to have understood advanced scientific principles, but also have possessed a knowledge of anatomy and medicine that was centuries ahead of his time. Obviously, it would have been impossible for him to have possessed such knowledge and understanding, but even if he had, somehow, he still couldn’t have seen any of these numerous features to know if he was getting them right. The technology needed to visualize them would not be developed for another five to six hundred years.

 

How could a medieval artist have displayed knowledge of physiology that would not be known until centuries later?

 

How could an artist paint without showing any evidence of directionality?

 

How could an artist encode three-dimensional information (on a two-dimensional surface) that directly corresponds to the distance between a body and a cloth?

 

How could a medieval artist include details that are undetectable with the human eye and become visible only under ultraviolet light, or only through a microscope, or only on three-dimensional reconstruction, or only with the most advanced, twentieth-century computer scanning devices?

 

The scientific evidence presented here is absolutely overwhelming. Yet many people are reluctant to see or to accept the obvious. This is most baffling.

 

But for those who do desire to seek and learn the truth and do accept the obvious, they are continually blessed with an increased knowledge and appreciation of their Christ and the work He did for them on the cross. Ultimately and finally the reality of the Shroud should greatly increase devotion to Christ our Savior and our Lord, and belief in the Christian mysteries. That’s why he left it for us.

 

The study of the “cloth” is ultimately about not the “cloth” but about the man the cloth covered. It’s all about him and what he did for us.