Harrington A. Lackey writes in Ezine about The Sudarium of Oviedo: The Other Linen in Christ’s Tomb:
According to John’s Gospel, when the tomb was found empty on the third day, not only was the linen that covered His body found, but there was a "napkin, that was upon Jesus’ head, separate from the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself." (20:7). The original Vulgate Bible calls it a "sudarium" which translates to "sweat cloth" in Latin. This piece of linen measures about 2.5 feet length * 1.8 feet height.
[ . . . ]
Jesus could not breathe because His arms were stretched out and up on the cross. Also, His feet were nailed, so He could not pull himself up in order to breathe. As a result, His lungs filled with edema which caused asphyxiation. There are also stains of blood surrounding these two large ones. All of this blood covered the entire face due to the blood from the crown of thorns still on His head. There was so much blood on His face that when His body was taken down from the cross and set down inside the tomb, the cloth was mostly blood-soaked. The blood on Jesus face covered about half of the cloth’s surface. It was tossed aside like a dirty rag before preparing Him for burial.
There still is some confusion about the Sudarium, with some skeptics arguing that a sudarium would have prevented the image on the Turin Shroud and others arguing that the burial shroud would not have been used to cover Jesus’ head at all because of the use of a sudarium.
Tossed aside like a dirty rag? The author did not study the topic nor read the NT as he should have. It was a Jewish burial. if the Sudarium of Oviedo is authentic, it may have been the “cloth which was folded” and kept aside, not tossed aside, in the tomb. It had served its purpose, it was not necessary for wrapping the body, but it was folded and kept aside because it contained blood and there were Jewish laws and customs.
Confusion about the Sudarium….How and Why? …
The skeptics obviously have not taken the time to study deeply into the subject. Why would they assume the Sudarium would still be over the face during burial and /or covered by the Shroud? ..There’s no evidence for this anywhere, not in scriptures, not in the Talmud, no where!….so why is it even assumed? Scriptures state it was in a place by itself, away from the burial cloths, not with the burial cloths.
On the other hand, if one was to study fully the Sudarium of Oviedo, which claims with good reason to be the ‘face cloth’ folded in a place by itself, and there is much evidence that suggests it to be just that. With study, one would find the very intense studies done to date on the Sudarium of Oviedo would suggest it was placed on the head whilst Jesus was still on the cross and removed before the final burial/ wrapping occurred.
To Ron: I’m not a skeptic. Of course the sudarium was taken off and set aside before covering Christ’s body with the shroud.
Sorry I wasn’t talking to the article, but to the comment below. I believe was written by Dan.
Ron.