I know this isn't news specific to Byzantine Christians, but I thought it was interesting.
God Bless,
Jenny
==
Turin Shroud may be genuine after all
By Uwe Siemon-Netto
UPI Religion Correspondent
From the Life & Mind Desk
Published 9/24/2002 2:42 PM
GURAT, France, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The Turin Shroud bearing the features of a
crucified man may well be the cloth that enveloped the body of Christ, a
renowned textile historian told United Press International Tuesday.
Disputing inconclusive carbon-dating tests suggesting the shroud hailed from
medieval times, Swiss specialist Mechthild Flury-Lemberg said it could be
almost 2,000 years old.
Perhaps even more important is what Flury-Lemberg saw when she examined the
back of the shroud -- the first researcher ever to do so. While it bore
bloodstains, there were no mysterious marks comparable to those on the front
of the cloth.
These marks show an amazingly detailed picture of a bearded man who had been
beaten about the body, crowned with thorns and pierced with nails through
the wrists and the feet.
On the side of the body's outline there appeared to be an image of a wound,
which was perhaps the one caused by a Roman soldier's spear when he tried to
find out if the crucified Jesus was alive or dead (John 19:34).
It was to this fist-sized wound the resurrected Jesus guided the apostle
Thomas' fingers, whereupon this doubting disciple explained, "My Lord, my
God!" (John 20:28).
Flury-Lemberg, a Hamburg-born scholar now living in Berne, Switzerland, did
preservation work on the shroud this summer. She said the outline of the
body looked somewhat like burn marks, but only in the top 2 millimeters of
the cloth.
Some theologians believe this may have occurred as Christ's body exited the
shroud during his resurrection. Flury-Lemberg was quick to point out,
though, this could never be scientifically proven. The same applied to the
question if the tortured and crucified man buried in the shroud was Jesus.
Flury-Lemberg investigated the cloth this summer as she separated it in from
the Dutch linen cloistered nuns in Chamb�ry in Savoy had sewn it to after a
fire in 1534.
She explained the linen's progressing oxidization had been endangering the
shroud. As she separated the two textiles, she removed "spoonfuls of soot."
She cleaned the shroud before it was sewn to a new cloth.
Pollen analysis and the shroud's measurements suggested it originated in the
Middle East and not in medieval Europe. Flury-Lemberg described its quality
as "stunningly noble, with an almost invisible seam."
She related she discovered identical forms of weaving and high-quality
sewing on textiles found at Masada, the ancient fortress in southeastern
Israel. They hailed from the year 73 AD.
According to the Berne scholar, other first-century cloths found in the Red
Sea region showed weaving patterns similar to those of the Turin Shroud.
"All these things are mosaics that don't prove anything scientifically," she
insisted.
"However, this cloth left a radiant expression on me," Flury-Lemberg told
UPI. She made it clear she was not a Roman Catholic but a Lutheran, "but
this shroud is not just a Catholic relic but a treasure of all Christendom."
She said regardless of this impression, she has had to work on the Shroud
dispassionately "like a surgeon operating on his own wife."
Flury-Lemberg questioned the relevance of findings by other researchers who
discovered pollen and dust traceable to the Middle Ages on the cloth.
"Of course it had such particles on it," she said, "after all, the Shroud
was exhibited a great deal in those days."
Historian Karlheinz Dietz of Wuerzburg University in Germany shares
Flury-Lemberg's doubts of the 1988 carbon-dating results claiming that the
cloth was made between 1260 and 1290.
In an interview with the Germany daily, Die Welt, he stated, "If you believe
that the cloth hails from the Middle Ages then you must also believe that a
man looking exactly like Jesus ... was whipped, crowned with thorns,
crucified and then placed on linen imported from the Middle East and
sprinkled with aloe and myrrh, and that on top of all he had invented
monumental photography."
Dietz was referring to the discovery of the Christ-like image by Italian
photographer Secundo Pia in 1889.
"On the Shroud we see a genuine 'photography' that originated long before
photography was invented," Dietz said.
Scientists can't say what might have caused this ancient "photography" of a
Christ-like figure. Many Catholic and Protestant theologians do not doubt,
though, it was the Resurrection. If it was that, test results show it must
have occurred no later than 36 hours after the dead man's bloody body had
been wrapped in this expensive shroud.
This too, corresponds to the Biblical narrative.
Copyright � 2002 United Press International
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020924-122802-9689r
