Shroud of Turin Blog

Chuck Smith doesn’t think the Shroud of Turin is real:

So that they could see that there was no body within the linen wrappings. This, of course, brings up the question of the shroud of Turin, as to whether or not it was actually the shroud that was wrapped around Jesus Christ. And there are many who do believe that it was indeed the shroud wrapped around Christ. I have difficulty with that, inasmuch as John’s gospel tell us distinctly that the linen cloth that was about His head was folded and over in a corner by itself. And in the shroud of Turin, it has the entire form including the head. And so, that it was indeed the shroud that was around Jesus, I seriously question myself.

The sudarium, the face cloth, was “in a corner by itself;” how does that invalidate the Shroud of Turin? Does John’s Gospel, say that the face cloth was not removed before the Shroud was used to wrap Jesus’ body? This discussion keeps being repeated.

If we take the Sudarium of Oviedo into account, and perhaps we should, we note that Mark Guscin, one of several scholars who has studied the Sudarium of Oviedo, in a forensic and historical report, “Recent Historical Investigations on the Sudarium of Oviedo,” wrote:

There are many points of coincidence between all these points and the Shroud of Turin – the blood group, the way the corpse was tortured and died, and the macroscopic overlay of the stains on each cloth. This is especially notable in that the blood on the Sudarium, shed in life as opposed to postmortem, corresponds exactly in blood group, blood type and surface area to those stains on the shroud on the nape of the neck. If it is clear that the two cloths must have covered the same corpse, and this conclusion is inevitable from all the studies carried out up to date, and if the history of the Sudarium can be trustworthily extended back beyond the fourteenth century, which is often referred to as the shroud’s first documented historical appearance, then this would take the shroud back to at least the earliest dates of the Sudarium’s known history. The ark of relics and the Sudarium have without any doubt at all been in Spain since the beginning of the seventh century, and the history recorded in various manuscripts from various times and geographical areas take it all the way back to Jerusalem in the first century. The importance of this for shroud history cannot be overstressed.

Check out the graphics and the music. Now that is good web design: WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?: ChuckSmith: John 20-21