Adrian Asis has an interesting multipart posting in The Richest: 10 Reasons Why the Shroud of Turin Is So Difficult to Dismiss.
10. Several Man of Sorrows Images Seem to Portray the Shroud
This item, along with the next two, is said to serve as evidence that the result from the radiocarbon dating test conducted in 1988 seem to be improbable. The Man of Sorrows is an iconic devotional image that shows Christ usually naked above the waist and with the wounds suffered from his crucifixion. Many of these images became popular in Constantinople at the time that some believe the Shroud disappeared for 160 years after it was lost during the Crusades. Strikingly, many of the images contain distinctive features of the image on the Shroud of Turin such as the crossed arms and the hidden thumbs. Furthermore, several of the images portray Christ as rising out from a box, which some historians believe are commemorations of how the Shroud of Turin used to be displayed to the public — raised from some sort of box — before it was lost. In fact, folds that appear on the Shroud are consistent with folds that would appear on a piece of cloth displayed from a box-like device. If all this is true, then the Shroud must be from before 1260 – 1390 AD, raising doubts on the 1988 radiocarbon dating test result.
The next one is 9. The de Clari Memoir Seems to Describe the Shroud and the one after that is 8. The Pray Codex Seems to Portray the Shroud
Overall, the article is entertaining and informative.
Interesting site. This one story seems to have had about 9,500 page views since April 29. Not bad, but not as good as Ten Shocking Coca-Cola Facts You Probably Don’t Know which has about 65,000 views or Ten Songs With Lyrics You Didn’t Realize Were Naughty with 80,000 views.
Fascinating. I had never read of the Man of Sorrows parallels.
Just on the Pray Manuscript. I find it interesting that Jesus is portrayed with only minimal facial hair. Contrast with the heavily bearded male figures anointing him.
Indeed historically Jesus has been quite lightly bearded in art.
Often heavy beards in art denoted wisdom. Logically it would follow that Jesus should be depicted heavily bearded. He often isn’t. Perhaps this is the influence of the relatively lightly bearded face on the Shroud?
This story is something like the James ossuary, where “brother of Jesus” was added to “James son of Joseph”, apparently as an attempt to pass it off as the genuine article. Whoever did it must have read the NT, known about the interpretation in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, but not about OT usage, where “Jesus” would be the brother of “Joseph”, not “James”. Since they were all Jews inscriptions would denote the same thing in both periods. It has therefore been said that modern forgers are not bright.
We need more concrete evidence, go beyond working hypothesis, to link the Image of Edessa with the TS and hopefully something new should turn up soon. The problem is the always the same: you may be in a hurry but others you depend on are not or are unwilling to cooperate.
I checked all 10 Reasons presented on the site. A succinct summary. Some of the assertions made remain inconclusive. For example, John Jackson’s claims on fold marks are asserted as one of the proofs, but not all accept these claims and they are border-line, not conclusive.
David Rolfe’s BBC documentary illustrates this best (start around the 24:00 min mark)
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iVXXZcN8RVI
The Man of Sorrows similarities with the Shroud is indeed very interesting. I’ve been extremely interested in the Shroud of Turin lately, just finished The Turin Shroud by Ian Wilson, and I ordered 5 other books on the Shroud :D
It is curious that nearly all “Man of Sorrows” and “Lamentation” depictions show the right arm over the left, as appears on the cloth, and yet the chest wound is usually correctly shown on the right side, as on the negative. We know from the negative reversal that actually the left arm is over the right. John’s gospel does not mention what side the chest wound was inflicted, and the cloth itself would convey the impression that it was on the left. I wonder why the artists showed the correct location of the chest wound on the right, despite the reversal of the arm positions. Perhaps they were following the Easter hymn “I saw water flowing from the right side of the temple” which seems to be based on Ezekiel 47:1 describing the prophet’s vision of the heavenly temple, and applied it to Christ. It seems odd that no artist seems to have picked up the logic that any burial shroud showing an image arising from some kind of bodily contact, would naturally mirror reverse the sides. They wouldn’t need a photographic negative to realise this, only some mental reflection (the pun is unintentional).
Dave, you are probably right. In my last presentation, one of the audience questioned the position of the side wound. He said that “according to tradition the wound was on the right side, but the shroud shows the wound on the left.” That’s when I explained the mirror image property of the shroud. However, I was surprised he was so sure it was on the right. It is possible that the artists were also following tradition that the wound was on the right but painted the crossed hands as they saw on the shroud.
Yes.There is an obvious corollory, I suppose, which is that Man of Sorrows iconography emerged from epitaphios art in the 13th century, and having achieved a style, was relatively slavishly copied, certainly as to the position of the side wound and the inclination of the head, and the shroud was simply a part of this tradition, modified to represent a reposing rather than an arising Christ, as it was intended to be laid flat rather than elevated. Are we beginning to find the artistic context I have been hunting so assiduously?
Incidentally, all the examples of the Man of Sorrows illustrated above post-date the shroud, and if not derived from an independent tradition (which I think they were) could as easily have been derived from a 13th century painting as a 1st century relic.
“Are we beginning to find the artistic context I have been hunting so assiduously?”
I wish you all the best in your hunt. Please let me know when you find an artwork that is, pseudonegative, monochrome, with real blood, serum stains, forensically accurate blood flow in two different plains, with rigormortis, 3D information, superficial at fibre level, half tone, absent pigments, absent scorches, absent brush strokes, absent artist, absent test runs and absent other similar artworks. Did I mention everything?
Yes, well, it’s a bit of a work in progress!
Squirming?
I didn’t, with pollen and dirt from Jerusalem. There you have it!
Adrian Asis took over 10 separate web-pages to present his 10 reasons. You’ve done it in one and a bit paragraphs. Congrats!
It is curious that nearly all “Man of Sorrows” and “Lamentation” depictions show the right arm over the left, as appears on the cloth, and yet the chest wound is usually correctly shown on the right side, as on the negative. We know from the negative reversal that actually the left arm is over the right. John’s gospel does not mention what side the chest wound was inflicted, and the cloth itself would convey the impression that it was on the left. I wonder why the artists showed the correct location of the chest wound on the right, despite the reversal of the arm positions. Perhaps they were following the Easter hymn “I saw water flowing from the right side of the temple” which seems to be based on Ezekiel 47:1 describing the prophet’s vision of the heavenly temple, and applied it to Christ.
Yes, you are right here.
It seems odd that no artist seems to have picked up the logic that any burial shroud showing an image arising from some kind of bodily contact, would naturally mirror reverse the sides. They wouldn’t need a photographic negative to realise this, only some mental reflection (the pun is unintentional).
Even Giovanni Battista della Rovere made such mistake http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C5%82un_Tury%C5%84ski#mediaviewer/Plik:OntstaanLijkwade_GiovanniBattista.png -as many others. The majority of descriptions shows right arm over the left, contrary to the chest wound. However, there are some exceptions, suggesting that the smarter artist correctly guessed that the positive image is the correct one. Thus, the relative position of the arms hardly can be taken as an indicator of whether a particular work of art has been derived from the Shroud or not.
If one clicks on the first image in this posting to enlarge on screen, one sees that all three paintings show nail wounds in the palms, not the wrists. So what price the idea that it was the Shroud that inspired the art? What seems far more probable, indeed important circumstantial evidence, is that the “Man of Sorrows” fashion in art, arriving in the 13th century or earlier, well before the Lirey display, became adopted for the Shroud, with that blood stain on the wrist a personal touch.
There’s also the small point that if the TS image had been influential in the depiction of crossed hands etc prior to 1350, then ipso facto there would/should have been something in the written record well before 1350.
Hi! I’m the writer of that article. I’m so thrilled that someone took note of it as I’m very proud of that piece! I know it hasn’t been viewed as many times as my other articles, but seeing someone acknowledge the content is very flattering. Thank you very much!
Written by Adrian Asis :D