Maria da Glória of the Centro Português de Sindonologia writes:
If you agree I’d like to discuss an important issue I’ve been asked:
Despite 1988 radiocarbon tests, Shroudies claim that the image on the Shroud is from the naked body of Jesus of Nazareth, but even acknowledging that radiocarbon tests were skewed and the cloth is indeed 2000 years old why should the image be of Jesus and not from anyone else?
There were lots of bearded males with a long hair in ancient Palestine whose image would be similar to the one on the Shroud.
May be it would be important to know what interested people has to say on this matter, and later I’ll write my own comment
Click on picture to see who is who.
Ahem… we think it’s Jesus because the legend about THAT particular cloth SAYS it’s Jesus.
It’s not like somebody made this story up last week or last year.
Also, it’s quite likely that the disciples DID keep the cloth. We know that three women and two men (at least) visited the tomb that first Easter morning. They might have taken the cloth with them. Fabric was very valuable. If Jesus was still dead and his body showed up again, they would NEED it. But they never did need it. But since they did have that stained cloth in their possession, and knowing what a fuss Jesus had made about his own blood in the weeks preceding his death, they might have kept it for all kinds of reasons. As they began to understand the value of what Jesus did on the cross, it most likely became very precious to them. So… who hung onto it? One of the women? Peter? John?
In the hours after the resurrection, I’m sure they must have looked at the shroud and noticed how peculiar it was. Not exactly what you’d expect from a body that had just been crucified. Perhaps the shadowy image was quite sharp to begin with. Knowing how everything about Jesus was not “normal” or “usual” … he was constantly doing miracles, constantly saying strange things about God his Father… I would imagine that they viewed the shroud as just another strange thing in a long long list of strange things that were always happening when Jesus was around.
His own mother was so accustomed to this, in fact, that when the hosts ran out of wine at a wedding she just ASSUMED Jesus could fix the problem. So he did, because she asked him to. Can you imagine what it must have been like to raise a son like THAT? Sometimes I am so jealous of Mary and what she must have seen and heard during the years of Jesus’ childhood and youth. I do hope there are lots of home movies because I’m anxious to see them when we get to heaven.
I think I got off on a tangent… where were we?? Oh… We think it’s the Shroud of Jesus Christ because everybody said so. And because it’s a very strange object, which would have been typical of just about anything Jesus was involved with.
The question you are characterizing as important is not important. The Holy Shroud is a relic and should be honored. But it is not the cloth itself that is being venerated but, like all relics, the man the relic represents.
To raise questions about the authenticity of the Holy Shroud is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It is a good question, but it should not be discussed in front of people who don’t think angels exists. “Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine….” (Mathew 7:6)
From an historical point of view, the only real evidence that the man on the Shroud is Jesus is the bloody wounds that are scattered all around the forehead and the head region. Those wounds cannot have been made by many things other than a crown of thorns. And through history, there’s only one person that we know for a fact (coming from the gospels accounts) that have been crowned with thorns and that’s Jesus of Nazareth. Other than that, effectively, the man of the Shroud could well be anybody for all we know. After all, Jesus is not the only one to have been beaten, scourged and crucified by the Romans. But the crowning of thorns fit only for him (for all we know historically). Some might also say that the wound in the side is not typical of a normal Roman crucifixion and that this could be taken as another clue to say that the man of the Shroud is really Jesus, but, personally, I would be real prudent here because, in the context of the Jewish laws and traditions, this procedure could have been applied to other crucified victims to accelerate their death. We know that the Jews didn’t want the victims to be left on the cross for days, especially if there was a feast or the Sabbath coming. So, the wound in the side, for me, cannot be taken as a solid argument in favor of the authenticity of the Shroud being the Shroud of Jesus. It’s a clue that fits well with the gospel accounts but not a proof of any kind.
First, nice to see you on here again Maria :-) “Why should the image be of Jesus and not someone else?”… I’ve heard this question asked many times. Alot of Shroud opponents will try this logic to sway people often…Too me personally, the first time I saw the image I had an overwhelming feeling or dare I say an “Instant recognition” that this was our Lord Jesus. The image was so imazing, so real and even with my very limited knowledge at the time of the Shroud, I knew in my heart it could not be man made. Why not someone else? Logically, I think it comes down to probabilities. Probabilities such as; Why would anyone save a burial shroud?, as it was against Jewish law to do so. Why does it still exist and been faithfully preserved and venerated for two millenia? How many people in history suffered the exact same afflictions as the man on the Shroud?, and as depicted in scriptures occurred to Jesus during his crucifixion!
There is a great video on the website; Shroudtv.com and under the heading ‘Identity’, where you have Prof Bruno Barberis explaining ‘Calculus of probability’ and how it scientifically provides strong evidence that the man on the Shroud can logically and thru the use of mathematics only be one man and that man is the historical Jesus.
R.
Why would anyone save a burial shroud? Very good point Ron. I wanted to add this myself ! I think we can understand why the Shroud is still here with us today ONLY in the light of the resurrection event. If Jesus disciples were not convinced that he resurrected, why in the world would they kept his burial cloth stained with blood ? Even in the “disciples has stolen the corpse” scenario, keeping this bloody shroud doesn’t make any sense at all.
It’s only in the light of the resurrection that we can understand why someone would have kept the cloth. And, to me, even before the non disturbed blood stains on the cloth (and way before the body images on the cloth), the fact that someone have kept this burial cloth is the biggest SIGN of the resurrection of Jesus-Christ that we can see !!! The SIGN is the Shroud ! The SIGN of the resurrection of Christ is the fact that it was preserved and protect for 2000 years until this day.
One addition : Of course, the fact that the Shroud is still with us today doesn’t proved the resurrection. Again, faith is needed here. But, for me, it prove that the disciples were CONVINCED that Jesus was resurrected. Otherwise, they wouldn’t had NO REASON AT ALL to keep this blood stained burial cloth. As I said, faith is needed and I think we can put our faith of the honesty of the disciples… The Shroud to me is one major sign of their honesty.
The process, as I understand it, was to bury someone in a “family” tomb, probably with a burial shroud, for several months or a year. Afte that time the tomb was opened and the bones were gathered and placed in an ossuary or “bone box.” It might be a jar. That would be returned to the tomb. Under almost any circumstance the shroud would have decomposed quickly. Decomposition products from a body, that would have damaged the cloth, begin to appear within days. That is unless the funeral preparations were not completed or the tomb was opened for some other reason. In either case the body and the cloth would have needed to have been separated, right?
Dan Porter
Dan there is another probability in your statement, the fact that this ‘crucifixion’ victim was buried period! and not just thrown into a common grave, as it is well known was more common. It was a year they would wait before retrieving the bones and obviously most remnants of any shroud or material would be gone by then. The fact that we have a burial shroud also goes as evidence to the empty tomb, whereas if someone had ‘stolen’ the body and disposed of it or buried it, wouldn’t they have kept it wrapped in the Shroud? Why seperate the Shroud from the body in this case? Especially considering it would be covered in blood. This was a big no-no occording to Jewish law in that no unclean thing must be touched. Whomever retrieved and kept the Shroud was taking a huge chance of getting caught and being punished by death, this goes for the Sudarium also.
And that’s why I said that we can only understand this move (keeping an unclean burial shroud) in the light of the resurrection… That’s the only way a disciple of Jesus would want to keep his Shroud.
But the most important question remain this one : No matter why the body was separated from the Shroud, why someone would have keep this blood stained cloth and preserve it so that it is still with us today ??? I just can answer this question by saying that it is only in because this person was convinced that Jesus was resurrected. Otherwise, why in the world someone would want to keep this object ?
Coming to the question: “why should the image be of Jesus and not from anyone else” I would say that it is very good question which takes us again to the issue of the authenticity. Regarding this point, I am only convinced around 75% because many things still remain unknown. One of the major reasons for that, is the way that research has been carried out all along these years. Someone has got access to some material (fibers, HD photos or any other) but results cannot be replicated because those materials are not freely available. Also, the researchers/scientists involved tend to appear too often in the media, thus taking the analysis of the Shroud out of the scientific forums and bringing the Shroud to tall shows on TV or newspapers’ “UFO&Mystery” section (apart from a very few number of serious works).
The point is that what is described in those few serious works, cannot be replicated by anyone and authors must be trusted 100%, being very difficult the exploration of alternative explanations for their findings if original material is not available for independent research. I can believe authors in about 75% for some very astonishing findings on the Shroud, but not 100% if other researchers do not independently reach the same conclusions.
This is a major difference when we come to a scientific approach if compared with any other “serious” research field.
However, I also have a sociological positive indicator that makes me keep the probabilities in that 75% (and not reduce them). It is the position of the Catholic Church as a religious body, NOT as a scientific one. If we have a look at how the position of the Church has evolved in the question of relics during the last 100-150 years, we can conclude that slowly but intentionally, the cult to relics has been abandonned in the vast majority of cases. 200 years ago, in almost every Catholic Church and town in the old Europe there was a relic with some magical properties and a cult was performed around this relic. Now, only in a very few cases the cult and veneration associated to a relic still endures and in the rest (thousands of cases) it has simply been abandonned. The few relics that remain are like in the case of the Shroud of Turin, those which can exhibit strong -though maybe not definitive- historical credits. This is only my intuition and perhaps I am wrong, but I think that if the Church still goes on with exhibitions like the one we saw last year in Turin is because, after an inner research process, they have concluded that this cloth is likely to be the burial shroud of Jesus. But this is no more than a personal opinion that helps me reach what for me is a coherent figure (75%) for the estimation of probabilities
Very interesting comment Gabriel. And it’s a good thing that you approach this subject (the authenticity of the Shroud) with a critical view. But, I just want to remind you of one particular aspect of the question that have really been confirmed independently over the years and that’s one of the most critical aspect of the question : the blood issue. I don’t think any serious person today still deny that there is real blood stains on this cloth and that those stains were formed by the direct contact of a corpse with the Shroud. Those points have been proved by many independent medical experts over the years. Taking that for granted (because it is 100% sure), just come back to my first comment on this page regarding the crown of thorns. In all the history, there’s only one person that have been tortured that way and it’s Jesus of Nazareth. From my perspective, if the Shroud is a genuine burial Shroud, I just can’t see it belonging to someone else. I really think the most compelling evidence that exist to say that this Shroud is the one of Jesus reside in the blood stains and particularly the blood stains in the forehead and head region (coming from something like a crown of thorns; a cap of thorns would be more accurate). And notice one thing : This blood aspect is ALWAYS the big problem for the ones who proposed an hypothesis involving a forger ! Nobody has ever been able to reproduce those blood stains. No one has ever come close ! In fact, many of them have not even tried ! The best example of this is Garlaschelli ! Why is it that way ? Simply because those blood stains are real and have not been made by a forger or an artist. And that’s precisely why all those “Shroud debunkers” don’t want the Shroud to be a real burial Shroud !!! Why ? Because if it is so, they know that the only person who can pretend to have been wrapped in it is Jesus-Christ !
It’s true ! If the blood are real, then who else could have been put into a Shroud with all the stigmata of Christ (including the cap of thorns) and that his Shroud would have been preserved until this day ? Except Jesus, I don’t see no one who could fit the description.
Meditate on that…
To finish my point : I have a friend (a catholic priest by the way) who don’t believe that the Shroud is the authentic Shroud of Christ. The other day, he wrote me about the Shroud saying that the only thing that science can declare is that this burial cloth really wrapped a dead body of someone who has been crucified. I automatically reply this to him : If the Shroud, as you said (and as science say), is an authentic burial Shroud of someone who have been crucified, if it’s not the Shroud of Jesus-Christ, then to whom it belong ???
He never gave me an answer ! ;-)
Yannick, here it may go an answer. Nowadays in some Catholic countries like Philippines in Easter, in the frame of the Holy Friday religious celebrations they represent the crucifixion and some volunteers are hit like was Jesus, they wear a thorn crown and they even are “crucified” with ropes. These persons suffer a lot and need weeks to recover. It certainly was brought to Philippines by the Spanish. Nowadays, similar celebrations already take place in Spain, though not reaching so far as crucifiying someone like in thePhilippines. This means that in the Middle Ages similar or you can bet that even more realistic celebrations used to take place at least in Spain, and in perhaps many others places of Europe. Why not consider the possibility ( I am using my 25% of skepticism at this moment
:-)) that in the frame of such celebrations -which in harder or softer versions are quite a lot of centuries old- they reproduced the crucifixition with all the details as gathered in the gospels and truly someone was killed? Who knows why… he volunteered for his sins, or because he needed to be punished for herecsy or….It is only one step beyond what we see nowadays in Philippines. In that context, the blood stains, the thorn crown…would appear in its correct place.
I mean, the hypothesis of medieval forgery is compatible with the presence of blood and the rest of details, as you mention. If we come to the point of the crucifixion as a punishment and the argument that so many details had been forgotten since Roman times, I would answer that crucifixion was occasionally used in war times in the battlefield against enemies that had been captured.
For these reasons, in my opinion, addressing the issue of authenticity, later or sooner takes us to the image formation mechanism. Currently, the formation mechanism(s) are not fully understood, and therefore the Shroud cannot be replicated. After so many years, we can conclude that whatever that mechanism is, it is highly complex/sophisticated. This is also a strong argument against a medieval forgery because if with current technology we cannot do something like that, it seems even more difficult for some in the Middle Ages (this belongs to my 75% of plausibility :-)).
You’re right by saying that there is a slim possibility there. Ok. But this possibility is so slim that I guess it must be below 0.1%. Seriously, do you really think a forger would go that far to produce a simple relic when only some blood stains would did the job ? This possibility is there but it’s not really serious. There’s even evidences on the Shroud that the man carried his cross just like a real criminal in Jesus time. Do you really think a forger would do all the way of the cross and took care of every small details like that ??? Seriously ? And where this medieval forger would get a Roman flagrum ??? I don’t think there was many medieval guy who would known what kind of injury those flagrum could make ! It’s not logical at all. Of course, to stay scientifically fair, we have to leave that door open but this possibility is VERY LOW ! It’s much more easy to postulate that the man of the Shroud is really Jesus.
Yannick: have a look at these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR_Lk9nYtxs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsViwPFcp3A&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_oFe3BMokc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2ZuX1rmqF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A89YgJn_kAQ&feature=related
and tell me if it is not possible to account for all the details we see in the Shroud in the frame of these celebrations. If the situation goes a little bit further and someone is killed and wrapped with linen (just to follow the gospels in every detail), the Milliard reaction -you are in favour of it- or any other would work in the 14th century as well as in the 1st century. This accounts for my 25% of skepticism!!
They don’t use a roman flagrum ! No way their wounds will be like the man of the Shroud… And they don’t carry their patibulum to scorch their shoulders. It’s not the same.
If you look at it not as the attempt of a forger but as the unwanted result of the massive celebrations in Easter during the 14th century, the probabilities are not so low……..For this reason, I say that we always come to the image formation mechanisms, since the more we move forward in this field the clearer the authenticity or not will appear
We must consider one very important point if proposing ‘someone’ may have used a tortured victim to conjure up a ‘hoax’ and create this image we see. How could they have removed the material from the body without disturbing the blood traces whatsoever? It has also been shown there is no image under the blood! This fact alone basically in a single swoop eliminates a forgery…imho. There are other numerous points against this type of forgery taking place; The travetine dirt found on the soul of the feet for one. Just too many little things are found on the Shroud that would never be considered by a forgerer. Including the very unconventional double image. I agree though with much of what Gabriel stated in his post no 10.
Getting back on topic with why this man depicted on the shroud cannot be someone else, again I have to mention probabilities, such as been mentioned before; the head wounds reminiscent of an ‘eastern’ crown of thorns (Not a western medieval style crown), the side wound as opposed to the legs being broken!, the excessive scourging proceeding the cruxcifion!, which was not a common practice, as much as people think. The use of nails instead of rope. The plucked beard etc; …so many things, all meaning very little on their own but considered as a whole and considering first and formost the amazingly realistic image we see, proves to me there is no question of who left his markings on this sheet of linen.
R.
.
No creo que puedan existir DUDAS razonables sobre quien es el Hombre de la Sábana.
Como ya se ha dicho aquí las manchas de sangre NO son reproducibles (precisan de la desmaterialización del cuerpo en un DETERMINADO momento), NO son observables (NADIE podría haber visto NUNCA unas manchas de sangre similares) y por tanto NO son falsificables.
Y del único SER del que nos ha llegado noticia de que desaparició de su mortaja funeraria es Jesús de Nazaret……y ello gracias a un evento sobrenatural, la Resurrección.
Hay otras muchas razones, algunas ya mencionadas aquí que van en la misma dirección ( corona o casco de espinas al REY de los judíos, tumefacción de la mejilla y rotura de nariz, herida del costado con gran salida de suero, barba arrancada, flagelación, etc concordantes con el relato evangélico) .
Ya el SIMPLE hecho de que un condenado a muerte fuera envuelto en una sábana de gran valor y sepultado en una tumba familiar es un hecho EXCEPCIONAL.
Personalmente CREO que la Sábana NO ESTABA en la sepultura cuando Pedro y Juan entran el ella.
¿Se apareció Jesús DESNUDO a María Magdalena?
¿Qué vió Juan al entrar en la tumba que le hizo CREER que Jesús había resucitado?.
El “Evangelio de los Hebreos” (apócrifo no significa falso) relata que Jesús se apareció a su hermano, Santiago el Justo que había hecho voto de no comer hasta no ver a Jesús resucitado de entre los muertos : ” Más el Señor, después de haber dado la sábana al criado del sacerdote, se fue hacia Santiago y se le apareció”.
¿Era sacerdote José de Arimatea?. Parece justo que la sábana volviera a su dueño.
Recogí en mi blog una bella ilustración bastante excepcional ( iconográficamente hablando) de un manuscrito armenio obra de Avetik que representa a Jesús resucitado con una túnica, la Sábana, manchada de sangre:
http://lasabanaylosescepticos.blogspot.com/2009/07/armenia-2.html
Carlito escribe: “Personalmente CREO que la Sábana NO ESTABA en la sepultura cuando Pedro y Juan entran el ella.
¿Se apareció Jesús DESNUDO a María Magdalena?”
Estoy muy de acuerdo con Carlito.
Christians just should ask themselves: “What does a Second Temple period garderner look like?” and they would get the answer if they REALLY look for it!
Christians just should also ask themselves: “Why Maria of Magdala can tell an angel (a messenger from heaven) from a gardener (an everyday man)” but cannot recognize “her master” and they also would get the answer if they also REALLy look for it!
I know both answers but Christians just would not believe me…
Dear friends
I’m really amazed with the wealth of excellent comments on this issue and there is very few lett to add, nevertheless I’d like to make my own statement on this amazing forum of discussion.
The bloodstains are overwhelming evidence that the image on the Shroud is from a crucified man who was crucified the way romans did it in ancient times, and besides he had been flogged with a roman torture device called flagrum as has been pointed out.
The blood stains are indeed human blood and,even honest agnostics or atheists cannot deny it.
Blood marks convey more information as the pattern of puncture head wounds and the spear wound on the right side of the chest ,which match the way Jesus of Nazareth endured His Passion and death on the cross.
My husband who is also a Shroud researcher has just finished writting a book (which will be released in Portugal next year) about the Shroud, focussing on the scientific aspects and there roman crucifixion is studied from a medical and archaeological point of view.
When romans put someone to death by crucifixion the condemned could not be taken down from the cross alive so on rare circunstances soldiers pierced the chest to confirm death a fact that Yannick Clement very well pointed out, cannot be distinctive from other crucified victims.
But when it comes to the blood marks on the head that’s another story because there are no historical records of someone other than Christ to have suffered such a mocking torture.
Anyway as Gabriel hypothesized Middle Age fanatics could have crucified someone the way Christ had been crucified namely in Spain, but this interesting theory has to deal with two facts, artistic renditions of Christ depicted Him with a crown of thorns and not with a helmet or cap and there is nothing in the Shroud history linking it to Spain, let alone many other peculiarities of blood marks, and the fact dead bodies don’t impress images on the cloths covering them, at least till now none was found.
Ron pointed out the unique characteristics of the Image on the Shroud and I guess that’s a very important fact, and even Professor Garlaschelli with his knowledge of the chemical characteristics of the image on the Shroud could not achieve a similar image on linen.
Physical and Mathematics Turin University Professor Bruno Barberis is the author of an interesting book entitled «Shroud, carbon dating and calculus of probabilities» Edition St. Pauls U.K. 1998 that my husband bought at Museo della Sindone inTurin.
In chapter The Man of the Shroud and the Calculus of Probabilities he considers seven aspects shared by the Man of the Shroud and Jesus of Nazareth, namely the wrapping of the corpse in a sheet,the head wounds, carrying the cross,crucifixion with nails, the side wound,the hasty burial, and time the corpse stayed in the sheet after burial, and concluded that only one in two hundred billion crucified people could satisfy ALL these conditions put together, in other words, the Man of the Shroud is indeed Jesus of Nazareth.
Even not agreeing with criteria Professor Barberis used we must remember that when romans crucified people corpses were usually left on the cross as a deterrent for by passers and the body either rot on the cross or was food for wild animals or birds of prey.
Even when the body was removed it was usually thrown into a ditch and only on rare instances if roman authority granted permission for burial, family members could bury the corpse, as Gospels account on Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus burial wrapping with a linen sheet. Most Jewish shrouds did not survive because of the effects of decomposition products from decaying bodies, the Shroud of Turin is one of the very few exceptions.
I’ll share with you a fact my husband mentioned and I feel the same.
It’s worthless to argue with some atheists on the Shroud because they have no sound knowledge of it and when they are faced with facts as the blood and the oddities of the image they cannot deny, they just «neglect» those facts and simply ask something like this «but why can’t the image on the Shroud be of some guy other than Jesus? there should be lots of bearded males with long hair in ancient Palestine»…it seems that the fact the Shroud could be a «proof» of the existence of the historical Jesus messes with their minds, and their dogmatic atheistic beliefs.
Even skeptics consider the image on the Shroud an artistic rendition by painting, photograph, and so on of Jesus Christ.
For me it is not unreasonable to think that if image production on the Shroud is still an unexplained phenomena, the image and blood marks entirely matches Jesus Christ as Passion is described in the Gospels, no doubt that is a weird fact. but if JESUS CHRIST WAS ALLEGEDLY THE SON OF GOD HE AND NO ONE ELSE was the only candidate to produce such a weird phenomena.
It is not by chance that the last chapter of my husband’s book is entitled «Who is the man of the Shroud-final remarks».
best regards
Maria da Glória
Centro Português de Sindonologia
Hello Maria ! Nice comment !
I think the best quote I’ve ever read about this particular topic of the identity of the man of the Shroud came from the great article “The Authentication of the Turin Shroud : An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology”, written in 1983 by Willam Meacham. Here’s the quote I’m talking about : “The wounds seen in the Shroud image correspond perfectly with those of Christ recorded in the Gospel accounts: beating with fists and blow to the face with a club, flogging, “crown of thorns,” nailing in hands (Aramaic yad, including wrists and base of forearm) and feet, lance thrust to the side (the right side, according to tradition) after death, issue of “blood and water” from the side wound, legs unbroken, McNair (1978:23) contends that such an exact concordance could hardly be coincidental: “it seems to me otiose, if not ridiculous, to spend time arguing . . . about the identity of the man represented in the Turin Shroud. Whether genuine or fake, the representation is obviously Jesus Christ.”
People, meditate on that ! ;-) I think McNair said it all !!!
Nice write-up Gloria…Yannick some of us probably have already meditated the presentation quite fully, I know I have ;-). That is why I must point out something I do not agree with that both you and Gloria proposed concerning the SIDE WOUND! Let’s contemplate this; From my view although I agree the head wounds remeniscent of a crown of thorns is probably the most striking point towards this person being Jesus, the side wound is also. My thoughts; It is well known that MOST crucifixion victims were left on their crosses to rot, SOME were taken down because the Jewish law not permitting a Jew to hang over night on the Sabbath. Most scholars agree that in most all circumstances victims legs would be broken, no mention EVER of a victim being lanced to hasten death. Before you controedict my statement lets contemplate John 19:31. John makes it a point to mention the two thieves having thier legs broken and Jesus’s not, and ONLY because of the circumstance that Jesus was already dead! John wasn’t very specific about much of the crucifixion but specifically mentioned this very important point. Why? I think it was because he realized afterwards when writing his testiments this was a ‘specific’ point and also because it adhered to scriptures. But maybe as John no doubt had witnessed many crucifixions, realized this particular act was specific to Jesus alone, hense why he was determined to make a ‘specific’ point to it.
R
Personally, I think John wrote this to state clearly that he saw with his own eyes Jesus dying on the cross ! At the time John wrote, there was probably already people who said that he didn’t die on the cross and that’s why the disciples saw him alive after ! I think that’s why John emphisize the spear episode : to say that it is certain that Jesus was dead when he was taking down from the cross and that he saw him alive after. And in the context of a Roman crucifixion that couldn’t last long because of the passover and the Sabbath, it is a procedure that must have been done from time to time to make sure that a victim was really dead before taking his body down from the cross. That’s why I say the spear wound is not an absolute proof that it is Jesus depicted on the Shroud. We cannot be certain that other criminal who died faster than normal on the cross didn’t received also this treatment before being taking down from the cross… But I agree with you that it must have been a pretty rare procedure because criminals didn’t died fast in a normal Roman crucifixion.
“After the Lord gave his shroud to the servant of the priest”. The priest” shall be identify with “the high priest” and “the servant” with Joseph of Arimathea as Hakham that is as one of the high priest’s auxiliaries of Justice.
Your reasoning for John’s mentioning of the lancing makes no sense! Your forgetting John ‘specifically’ mentions the others were clubed (crurifragium), breaking the legs. Why would John bother mentioning the clubing of the two thiefs at all then, if his only goal was to state clearly he witnessed Jesus’s death? Furthermore, John would not by any means have to prove to his contemporaries that Jesus was actually dead before taken from the cross. People then would know ‘quite well’ that the Roman soldiers and particularly the Centurian in charge, would make no mistake of it. As it would be a serious dereliction of duty, an offense punishable by death. These Roman crucifixion ‘teams’ were professionals and very experienced in their trade. So for the soldiers to allow Jesus to be taken down from the cross, everyone would be absolutely sure he had passed-on, no question. Therefore I think it makes more sense these details were written because John realized, afterward, that that specific lancing did in fact allow Jesus’s death to accomplish prophesy (no bones would be broken), and that in fact it was a rarity among crucifixions….And possibly because this ‘rare’ wound was one highly noticeable blood stain seen on the Shroud. (assuming ofcourse John would have full knowledge of the Shroud and it’s imprints), which is highly likely since he found it in the tomb.
R