A reader writes:
I have just read your comments on the side bar of the Shroud of Turin Blog. Are you a practicing Christian or are you needing scientific proof because the Bible contradicts what the scientists are saying.
John 20:5-7 says
"He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen."
This indicates that there was at least three pieces of fabric that Jesus was wrapped in. So my question is "how can the shroud be His"? My faith lies in what the Bible says, not what scientists say.
Have a think about it.
As on a previous occasion in this blog, may I recommend an excellent paper by Diana Fulbright: “A Clean Cloth: What Greek Word Usage Tells Us about the Burial Wrappings of Jesus.” I hope you will find that there is no contradiction.
It is widely believed among biblical scholars that the cloth “which had been around Jesus’ head” was the sudarium used to cover Jesus’ face while he was carried to the tomb, perhaps even while he was being taken down from the cross, and possibly while he was being prepared for burial. Most likely, it would have been removed prior to the use of the shroud for burial and it would have been carefully rolled up and put aside in the tomb. There is another possibility. The cloth around his head may have been a chin band used to keep the jaw closed. Other strips, mentioned in John’s Gospel would have been a few strips of linen used as ties, to respectfully bind hands and feet or to tie a shroud around a body. All of this, including the use of a shroud would have been completely consistent with what we know of how a few people, mostly rich people like Caiaphas, Joseph of Arimathea, or Nichodemus, were buried in tombs in the environs of Jerusalem. None of this is contrary to what it says in the Bible. It conforms, but just not the way we sometimes imagined it or were told it or saw it in pictures. Joe Marino, a very knowledgeable shroud scholar also recommends the following works:
- Safrai/Stern “Jewish People in the First Century,”
- Rachel Hachlili (“Jewish funerary customs, practices and rites in the Second Temple period’
- Jürgen K. Zangenberg, “Dry Bones-Heavenly Bliss: Tombs, Post Mortem Existence and Life-After-Death in Ancient Judaism,”
(I am, in part, repeating material from an older posting).
Dear reader, I take great comfort that my faith lies in what the Bible says and that it is not contradicted by what scientists say. That is true, as I see it, for the shroud, evolution and the creation of the universe. I suspect we disagree on many ways of understanding, which Christians have done since Peter and Paul. So, now, to answer your specific questions, I am a practicing Christian and I am not needing scientific proof.
Oh, there are soooo many possibilities that I don’t think we can draw firm conclusions from the little bits of info that are in the Bible.
For one thing, we know that Mary Magdalene was there at the tomb BEFORE Peter and John looked into it. She might have taken the large shroud with her!! When the man in the garden asked why she was weeping, she asked the man if he knew where Jesus body was. Perhaps she had the shroud in her hands, looking for the body to wrap it with. That fabric was valuable (all fabric was valuable in those times) and so she was hanging onto it because she needed it – and could not afford to go buy another.
And perhaps it is Mary Magdalene who ended up keeping that Shroud as a memento and memorial – which somehow was saved and preserved through the centuries.
Because she is so prominently mentioned in the gospel accounts of the resurrection morning, I would not be surprised if she did indeed have something to do with the Shroud. I can see how it would have happened very naturally.
A fragment of the Gospel of the Hebrew (a first century lost gospel) does read: “Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth to the servant (= auxiliary of justice = Joseph) of the (high) priest […]”. Therefore (according to the early Judeo-Christians) Rabbi Yeshua either had worn or taken with him the Shroud after coming back to life.
Most likely, Rabbi Yeshua had worn the Shroud. So it would explain the reason why he was mistaken for the gardener of Joseph’s garden-tomb by Mary Magdalene.
Typo error: “the Gospel of the Hebrews”
>John 20:5-7 says “He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.”
John 20:5-7 does not say that. An ENGLISH TRANSLATION (NIV) of the Greek of John 20:5-7 says that.
The old joke: “if the King James Version” was good enough for St Paul, it is good enough for me” applies. The point is that the New Testament is in Greek and if one wants to make an argument that is based on key words, as this one is (“strips of linen”), then one must find out what the original Greek means.
My Interlinear Greek New Testament, renders it more literally:
“5 and stooping sees lying the sheets [Gk. othonia], not however he entered. 6 Comes therefore also Simon Peter following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beholds the sheets [othonia] lying, 7 and the kerchief [sudarion], which was on the head of him, not with the sheets [othonia] lying but apart having been wrapped up in.one place
In this case the key word is othonia which is translated “strips of linen” in one English translations, e.g. NIV.
But the word othonia is just the plural of othone] “linen cloth.” So the KJV is more accurate than the NIV, as it renders the word othonia as “linen clothes”:
5And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 6Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
The English Standard Version (ESV), which is regarded as one of the more accurate modern translations, renders othonia as “linen clothes”:
5And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 6Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
Also Lk 23:53 (NIV) refers to Jesus’ body being “wrapped … in linen cloth” (Gk. sindon (singular) a linen sheet:
53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.
and
Lk 24:12 (NIV) refers to the linen cloths [othonia] (plural), again wrongly translated “strips”:
12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
So Luke sees no inconsistency between Jesus body being wrapped or enfolded in a large linen sheet [sindon] (singular) and Peter and John finding in Jesus’ empty tomb, “linen cloths” [othonia] (plural).
Therefore, in Jn 20:5-7, John, like Luke, by othonia is referrring to the linen cloths (plural), which included the large linen sheet sindon, and the smaller bandages keiria (Jn 11:44) which in Jewish burials bound the hands, feet and jaw, fr example, in the case of the raising of Lazarus, which the NIV inconsistently translates this different Greek work also as “strips of linen”:
Jn 11:44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen [keiria], and a cloth around his face [soudarion]. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes [keiria] and let him go.
Putting it all together, what Peter and John saw in Jesus’ empty tomb, as described by John 20:5-7, was:
1. The linen cloths collectively: the Shroud [sindon] and bandages [keiria]; and
2. The “cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head” [soudarion] in a separate place.
This is fully consistent with the Shroud of Turin being included in the [othonia] “linen clothes” (KJV & ESV), “linen cloths” (RSV & NKJV), or “linen wrappings” (NASB & NLT), and the Sudarium of Oviedo being the “cloth [soudarion] around his face” (NIV) or “napkin, that was about his head” (ESV).
Stephen, in spite of the deep respect I have for you & the good job your doing with your blog, I cannot help thinking it is just too bad you are not aware you may be just replacing one misinterpretation of John 20: 5-7 by another.
In the hypothesis the Shroud is Rabbi Yeshua’s & the shroud image formed during the burial (a possibility that SHALL NOT be completely ruled out), Ricci’s reconstruction of the Shroud Man’s (see ill.) does look quite naive. .
…and misleading.
Typo error: “the Shroud Man’s wrapping up” (instead of “the Shroud Man’s”)