Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Pathological Detail

The images pick up where the bloodstains leave off in revealing even more chilling, horrific pathological detail. Within those unexplained body images, the details of piercing wounds, lacerations, bruises, contusions, and abrasions are medically accurate. The man’s once-outstretched arms are modestly folded at the wrists. It is on the images of the arms that we see the rivulets of blood. It is on the man’s chest, between the fifth and sixth ribs that we see an elliptical gash from which the blood flowed under the man’s lower back. We see the horrific wounds where the man was nailed to the cross. So accurate are the details, medical experts realize they demonstrate knowledge of pathology that was not understood in the Middle Ages; not by artists, not by crafters of fake relics, and not by the best medical minds of that age. How did this relic forger translate such medically accurate detail, both front and back images, onto the long piece of linen cloth?

What emerges from the cloth is an epic story, a reenactment of the passion sequence from the scourging, the walk to Calvary, the crucifixion, and the burial. The man of the shroud was savagely flogged. Whatever was used, it is consistent with a Roman flagrum, a whip of short leather thongs tipped with bits of lead, bronze or bone which tore into flesh and muscle. There are dozens upon dozens of dumbbell shaped welts and contusions, the type of wound that the flagellum would have caused. There is blood from the flagellation and even a bit of tissue thought by medical experts to be a torn-out bit of muscle. From the angles of attack – the way the marks fall on the man’s back, buttocks, and legs – it seems that man was whipped by two men, one taller than the other, who stood on either side of him.