I think the normal reaction of an individual viewing the Shroud would be to mentally record the
I think the normal reaction of an individual viewing the Shroud would be to mentally record the image as being on the outside of the Shroud. That in fact must be the case, if as Thomas de Wesellow maintains that the sightings of the angels in the tomb recorded by the Gospels would be actually a sighting of the image on the Shroud as the women looked in.
One problem with this theory is that the image of the Shroud, superficial as it is, was on the inside of the Shroud as it covered the body of Christ, not the outside. If Christ’s body were still in the Shroud when the woman peered into the tomb there is no manner in which they could have seen the image unless they removed it from the corpse.
De Wesellow, like many skeptics, likes to quote scripture when it supports his theory and then explain away anything that contradicts that predisposition. He tosses-away as inauthentic Mary Magdalene’s report: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him” after citing it for the position that Mary was accompanied by other women that Easter morning (thus the italic “we” which is de Wesellow’s)
This is where de Wesellow and I begin to part ways. In my imagination I see no corpse but a shroud partly turned over like a bed sheet in the morning. . . and, lo, the image of the man, whom they knew was before them. Or something like that.