From an extract of Thomas de Wesselow’s ‘The Sign’ published in The Beast:
Most people have at least heard of the Shroud and are vaguely aware that it bears what appears to be an imprint of a man’s face, an image reproduced around the world as the true face of Christ. Fewer realize the full extent of the image. The cloth is nearly 4.5 meters long and is marked not just with a face but with two complete impressions, front and back, of a man’s flogged and crucified body. Of the two figures, it is the frontal one, inevitably, that grabs the attention. Here we see the well-known face, a bearded mask housing a pair of glowing, owlish eyes, the hair and forehead flecked with blood. The body appears physically robust. A major wound is visible below the chest on the right-hand side, which seems to match the report that, as Jesus hung on the cross, a soldier pierced his side with a spear (John 19.34). Lower down, rivulets of blood traverse the forearms, stemming apparently from nail-wounds in the wrists, only one of which can be seen. The arms are crossed. The rather spindly hands are placed decorously over the groin. The whole figure is clearly legible, except for the feet, which disappear into blood-stained nothingness.
Relatively misshapen and formless, the dorsal figure is perhaps even more expressive of physical torment. The marks of the flail are seen more clearly here, covering every part of the body from the shoulders to the calves. The scalp is ringed by minor blood-flows, recalling the crown of thorns. The feet, which appear to overlap, bear the bloody traces of nail-wounds. The most peculiar features are two messy pools of watery blood, which run into each other across the small of the back. These bring to mind John’s strange report that, when the soldier thrust his spear into Jesus’s side, ‘there came out blood and water’ (John 19.34).
Read the full extract: The Shroud of Turin and Thomas de Wesselow’s ‘The Sign’ – The Daily Beast
Como Historiador del Arte, que es su especialidad, el interés del libro de Wesselow es esto:
” Accepting the carbon-dating, art historians should have leapt on the Shroud as one of the most fascinating visual creations of the medieval period, a true masterpiece of devotional imagery.
Strangely, though, they have remained almost entirely silent. The reason is simple: the negative photo of the cloth is an unmistakable sign that the Shroud’s famous image could not have been created by a medieval artist.
Technically, conceptually, and stylistically the Shroud makes no sense as a medieval artwork. The discipline of art history has had over a century to study the Shroud since it was first photographed, and in all that time no art historian has ever ventured to attribute it to a medieval artist.”.
AMEN
Many believed in Christ when He walked the earth because they had seen.And not mainly on account of seeing Him but on account of seeing His main credentials…which were the miracles He performed.Jesus Himself Himself knew this and drew attention to that very fact.
I believe that The Holy Shroud of Turin (although extrordinary to us) was simply another act of God.And I am absolutely cetain that it was left behind and preserved by Divine Providence for future generations…and most notably,this present generation,which could use the “good news”.Many lives are already being affected by the Shroud of Turin and many more will continue to be.Providing that those of us who have studied it and believe in it’s authenticity continue to share with others what we have already discovered and are learning still about these “amazing findings”.
Did anyone catch the news reports of the folks reenacting the crucifixion in the Philippines?
Check out the bloody feet picture, remarkable similar to what is depicted in the shroud.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126024/Christians-NAILED-crosses-gruesome-Good-Friday-enactment-Jesuss-death-Philippines.html
They found the Ark of the Covenant; Christ tomb, Crucifixion site and the Ark of the Covenant found buried under a trash pile at the foot of Skull Mountain.
http://vur.me/s/cxZ/