imageWhile I also disagree with Yannick Clément, favoring instead Ian Wilson and particularly Dan Scavone when it comes to interpretation and inference on the Image of Edessa, I know how carefully Yannick has researched this. His views deserve our full attention. Here is a comment he made just this morning:

Hello Dave !  Thanks for you good words versus my comment.  You wrote that you still disagree with my conclusion.  In fact, it is not my own little conclusion but the one written in 1969 by the historian Maurus Green !!!  Here it is again :  "Until Wilson can PROVE his case, it seems PRUDENT to think of the Edessan Image and the Shroud as TWO DISTINCT THINGS, while noting the close connection between them.”

Personally, after a very long and extensive research of every ancient sources that talks about the Mandylion, the Abgar legend and/or the Shroud of Christ, I firmly believe that this conclusion is still 100% correct !  After all those years, I think it’s fair to say that Wilson has never been able to PROVE his hypothesis in a correct scientific way.  Sorry but you cannot consider some speculative arguments as being real scientific PROOFS.

So, since Wilson have failed to prove his case, I say (with Maurus Green and many other historians) :  Please, in regard of all the ancient sources, if we want to stay scientificaly correct, we must consider the Mandylion and the Shroud like 2 different objects with a probable connection that exist between them.  But it’s one thing to think there’s a relation between the 2 objects (the Vignon’s markings are a good evidence of that connection) and it’s another thing to believe they are one and the same !!!  The reality is this :  There’s not a single authentic and solid fact that can prove this assertion from Wilson…  Until he can find one solid FACT to really prove his case (and not just some extrapolations or speculations), I think it’s scientificaly right to consider the Mandylion as a different relic than the Shroud.  And here’s my good question again :  If this was really the case, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL WITH THIS ???  That doesn’t mean the Shroud isn’t authentic at all !!!  I really think that nobody here should fear that Wilson hypothesis have some good chances to be wrong…  I don’t see any problem with that possibility versus the authenticity of the Shroud.  In fact, other hypothesis (like the one by Vignon) can be more viable in regard of the historical and religious context of the time…

For some context see Even more on Archaeology from Tabor and Jacobovic