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Science and the Shroud
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11487 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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10 / 1986 |
4,447 Words |
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W. Wesley McDonald
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THE MYSTERIOUS SHROUD
Ian Wilson, photographs by Vernon Miller
Doubleday & Company, 1986
158 pp., $19.95
Located in the Renaissance Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in the Piedmontese city of Turin is the Shroud of Turin, possibly the most venerated religious object in Christendom. Mysteriously imprinted on this 14 foot 3 inch by 3 foot 7 inch swath of patched and stained linen are the frontal and dorsal images of a full figure of a man whose body markings correspond with the Gospel accounts of the Scourging and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
What is this cloth hailed by some as the authentic burial cloth of Jesus and denounced by others as a clever medieval fake? Whence did it come and how was the enigmatic image of the man of the Shroud formed? These are questions that everyone who has puzzled over the mystery of the Shroud for the past 600 years has struggled to solve. In recent decades, because of advanced scientific research techniques, we may be closer to answering these questions than ever before.
Another Ian Wilson, art historian, journalist, and member of the British Society for the Turin Shroud, is widely recognized as one of the leading scholars on the Shroud. His first book on the Shroud, The Shroud of Turin (1978), was considered by many as a definitive account of the "lost years" of the Shroud's history before its sudden appearance in fourteenth-century France. His intention in this second book is not to provide any new arguments or information, but to summarize the available scientific evidence on this relic in terms that can be understood by the nonscientist. Although convinced of the Shroud's authenticity, Wilson balances his case with a fair consideration of the opposing arguments made by critics who dismiss the relic as a medieval forgery.
Photographic co-author Vernon Miller, a member of the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California, and a head of the photographic team for the Shroud of Turin Research project (STURP) during 1978 scientific testing of the Shroud, took many of the volume's high quality photographs. The numerous full-color and black-and-white photographs alone make this book invaluable to anyone possessing a serious interest in the Shroud.
As a result of recent scientific investigation, a new, vast body of intriguing and baffling data on this ancient relic has been generated. Close examination of the cloth reveals that the man of the Shroud appears to be about five feet ten inches, weighing about 170 to 175 pounds. He is in his early thirties; his beard is well trimmed; his wavy shoulder-length hair is gathered in the back as was appropriate for Jewish males of New Testament times. The body is naked, the hands crossed over the pelvic area. Moreover, some believe, such as the late Father Francis Filas, a Chicago theology professor, that high magnification photography reveals Roman coins from the period of Pontius Pilate placed over the eyes. This argument, if scientifically proven, would obviously add immensely to the case for the Shroud's antiquity.
The brutal slashes on the man's back are consistent with marks left by a flagrum, a Roman whip made of leather strips tipped with bits of bone or metal. Dark spots on the
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