Alternative narrative? This blogger suggested many moons ago that the TS image was imprinted as a scorch onto linen by a medieval-era artisan from a heated life-sized bronze of the crucified Christ. But there was a problem. The arms of the latter were still in crucifixion mode. They needed to to be sawn off and re-positioned, hands over groin, to make the image look respectably post-mortem, modesty-protecting, those hands acting fig-leaf fashion ‘down there’ so as not to offend the ladies.
Crucified Christ? Maybe. Or there again, maybe a latter-day Templar knight, like, hint, hint, a falsely-condemned martyr (Jacques de Molay? Geoffroi de Charney?), liquidated in Philip IV of France’s purge of the order, involving initially the lengthy imprisonment (7 years), spasmodic torture and – finally – execution on a Seine island in the centre of gay Paree by slow-roasting over coals in 1314.
If one’s to be considered a scientist (as distinct from an agenda-driven apologist for the Christian faith – or at any rate one variant thereof) one cannot ignore alternative scenarios, least of all those that fit the radiocarbon dating (1260-1390).
My title ("Now there’s a surprise"). What made our sindonologist friends suddenly discover a "dislocated arm at the shoulder"? Not by any chance the suggestion that one or both arms of an existing bronze template had been detached and re-positioned so as to make a more convincing template?
It is a relatively good posting up to the point where Colin dislocates his own shoulder trying to pat himself on the back.