SHROUD MAN DECAPITATED?

The Turin Shroud is the most famous relic in the world. Millions believe that it is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ bearing his crucified and bloodied image. The cloth is kept at Turin in Italy. The cloth is an enigma. Many say it is a miracle.

 

The man depicted was not Jesus Christ for Jesus was not decapitated. Jesus supposedly died on a cross.

 

The head of the Shroud man is not in a natural position. See X Factor Issue 31, Marshall Cavendish, 1997 pages 858 and 859 which provides evidence that the head was cut off. It states that computer digitalisation has shown that the image stops at the line on the neck which looks like a slit throat and then starts again in the upper chest so there is no neck or body between them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree for several reasons that the cloth depicts a decapitated man.

 

As Rodney Hoare found, see his A Piece of Cloth, the front of the head is narrower than the back. He thinks a pillow is responsible but that is sheer nonsense. The fall of the hair proves there was no pillow. There is no evidence.

 

There is a line across the neck like a cut. If it is a cut, then the blood must have been wiped away for the image was meant to create the impression that it was of Jesus.

 

The back image is 2.7 meters in height while the front is 2.2 meters. The back image then is a complete image. A body was put on the front without a head. And a head was put on after. A separate head was used. The head image was perhaps made more elongated in an attempt to make the body the same height as the back image. The wrong head would change the height of the man in the front image. The front image of the Shroud is a composite image.

 

The body is too big and muscular for such a gaunt and skinny head.

 

The hair frames the face contradicting the evidence from the rest of the shroud that it is the image of a man lying down. The head is separate from the body but only for the front image.

 

The hair and beard have a colour not reflected anywhere else on the cloth. The man shows no sign of chest hair or public hair or leg hair. The reason is thought to be that the body hair was dark and did not show up if some kind of photographic method was used. So to get them to appear, the beard and hair were powdered white. Another suggestion could be that the head does not belong with the body. It may appear that it is highly odd that Jesus did not have enough body hair to affect the image. The real Jesus should have had plenty.

 

The body has a lot of blood flowing even from small cuts. The head has most of the small cuts. The head has the most wounds for it looks as if the man wore a cap of thorns. Yet the head doesn’t show enough blood to match the body. The hair isn't even matted with blood. Jesus has more blood coming from the marks on his back which he got before crucifixion than he does from the crown of thorns which he wore on the cross.

 

The man was alive not dead as shown by this bleeding and yet there is nothing to indicate that his breath distorted the image where the mouth is, the mouth is plain and undistorted and among the sharpest images on the cloth. The head doesn’t belong to the body. The blood put on it was planted deliberately.

 

No matter who the body belongs to, the face is not the face of Christ.

 

Christians will come up with guesses to dismiss these seven facts but it is easier to believe the head is separate and that is what we should believe. Remember, too many rationalisations and speculations to defend something show that the belief is dodgy and that the people doing this are people to be watched for they want to deceive others and themselves.

 

Isabel Piczek, a leading expert on the Shroud man and an artist, tried to use models to lie in the same position as the shroud man but this proved impossible for the head just did not seem to fit in the right place. Again the unusual clarity of the face compared to the rest of the image and the clarity of its wounds as well point to some kind of unnatural intervention and by man not God and would fit the idea of the head being made by some different process from the body. The sharpness could indicate decapitation.

 

The head seems to have been cut off and experts like Piczek despite their abhorrence of this fact admit it is a fact (page 265, The Divine Deception). We know it cannot indicate that Jesus was beheaded because there is no blood unless the blood was wiped away in an attempt to keep the head on by tying a bandage round the neck in an attempt to keep the head with the body. When the man was laid in the tomb there was no need to attach the head but just to line up with the body for he wouldn’t have been moved until he had become a skeleton. The head is too small for the body as the naked eye (Turin Shroud, page 135) and computer analysis (Turin Shroud, page 145) reveal. Some say the head would have been laid in the Shroud first which is why the body lies on top of the hair at the back. There was no need for the bandage then and it probably was only of a little help anyway.

 

The blackness, in the negative image, at the neck which means the head is not part of the body at all appears sharply unlike the rest of the Shroud image where any blackness or blankness appears gradually (page 260, The Divine Deception). This indicates that the head is indeed separate. Draping is not the reason for the blankness or blackness. The gap makes no sense because the beard looks like it hangs down over it as if the man were standing erect and the start of the neck is seen and then nothing at all so the cloth was indeed touching the neck but no image transferred. The real reason for the gap is because there was a gap and the head of the Shroud man simply was not and never was part of the body. If it had belonged to the body it would be possible to put the head back on and it would look normal. But the neck is too short as well. The head is too small for the body (page 262, The Divine Deception).

 

Some believe that the head of Jesus was embalmed and this was used to create the face of the Shroud man and that a decapitated body was used for the rest. These people believe that however, though the Shroud does have the face of Jesus on it, it is still a medieval forgery. Others suggest that the head belonged to John the Baptist who actually was beheaded.

 

The book Turin Shroud by Prince and Picknett tells us that STURP's photographs and infrared images show the head shows no sign of belonging the body. The same shocking effect can be seen in the 3-D images of John Jackson and Eric Jumper. The book suggests the image is a composite. The head size is wrong for the body.

 

Conclusion

 

The Shroud man is not Jesus Christ.

  

BOOKS CONSULTED

 

Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Roberts and Donaldson, T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870

Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1985

Free Inquiry, Spring 1998, Vol 18, No 2, Article by Joe Nickell, Council for Secular Humanism, Amherst New York

From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls, Walter Vandereycken and Ron van Deth, Athlone Press, London, 1996

Holy Faces, Secret Places, Ian Wilson, Corgi, London, 1992

Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1987

Jesus Lived in India, Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994

Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993

Miracles, Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937

Sceptical Inquirer 9/10 2001 Vol 25, No 5, Article by Joe Nickell, CSIOCP, Amherst New York

Relics, The Society for Irish Church Missions, Bachelor’s Walk, Dublin

The Blood and The Shroud, Ian Wilson, Orion, London, 1999

The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996

The Divine Deception, Keith Laidler, Headline, London, 2000

The DNA of God?, Leoncio A Garza-Valdes, Doubleday, 1999

The Holy Shroud and Four Visions, Rev Patrick O Connell and Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974

The Holy Shroud and the Visions of Maria Valtorta, Msgr Vincenzo Celli, Kolbe Publications Inc., Sheerbrooke, California, 1994

The Image on the Shroud, Nello Ballosino, St Paul’s, London, 1998

The Jesus Conspiracy, Holger Kersten amd Elmar R Gruber, Element, Dorset, 1995

The Jesus Relics, From the Holy Grail to the Turin Shroud, Joe Nickell, The History Press, Gloucestershire, 2008

The Pagan Christ, Tom Harpur, Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto, 2004

The Second Messiah, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, Arrow, London, 1998

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal, Lynne Kelly, Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2004

The Shroud, The 2000 Year Old Mystery Solved, Ian Wilson, Bantam Press, London, 2010

The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press, London, 1998

The Turin Shroud, Ian Wilson, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1979

The Unauthorized Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992

Turin Shroud, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, BCA, London, 1994

Verdict on the Shroud, Kenneth E Stevenson and Gary R Habermas, Servant Publications, Ann Arbour, Michigan, 1981