Pictures of Jesus and the Shroud of Turin

Pictures of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin?

Picture of Jesus, Christ Pantocrator, St Catherine's Sinai, 6th Century There are no descriptions of Jesus' appearance in the New Testament. Nor are there any reputable descriptions in any known early Church sources. St. Augustine of Hippo made a point of this when he wrote his monumental works in the fifth century. Yet, starting in the sixth century a new picture, a new common appearance for Jesus emerged in eastern art. We see it today in all manner of pictures of Jesus: icons, paintings, mosaics and Byzantine coins. This common picture quality seems to have started in the Middle East about the same time that the Image of Edessa was discovered. Prior to this time, pictures of Jesus were mostly of a young, beardless man, often with short hair, often in story-like settings in which he was depicted as a shepherd.

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin

Abruptly, throughout the Middle East, and eventually throughout eastern Mediterranean Europe, pictures of Jesus became full frontal portraits with distinctive facial characteristics. Jesus now had shoulder length hair, an elongated thin nose, and a forked beard. Numerous other characteristics appeared in these pictures, and some of them were seemingly strange and of no particular artistic merit. Many portraits had two wisps of hair that dropped at an angle from a central parting of the hair. Many pictures showed Jesus with large "owlish" eyes. Paul Vignon, a French scholar, who first categorized these facial attributes in 1930, also described a square cornered U shape between the eyebrows, a downward pointing triangle on the bridge of the nose, a raised right eyebrow, accents on both cheeks with the accent on the right cheek being somewhat lower, an enlarged left nostril, an accent line below the nose, a gap in the beard below the lower lip, and hair on one side of the head that was shorter than on the other side.

Jennifer Speake who wrote a chapter, "Jesus in Art," in J. R. Porter's Jesus Christ: the Jesus of History, the Christ of Faith, observed:

Famous relics that claim to bear the true imprint of Christ's features include the controversial Shroud of Turin and the Holy Mandylion of Edessa; the iconography of both of these promoted the now conventional image of Jesus as a bearded man.

Keep in mind that many historians consider that the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Mandylion of Edessa to be one in the same. And keep in mind, too, that this iconography started some six centuries before the carbon-14-determined date for the Shroud.

Now with modern image analysis we can clearly see that the pictures of Jesus in numerous works of art are most probably sourced from a single image; the Shroud of Turin. Some most notable and telling portraits include:

	Christ Pantocrator, an icon at St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai (550 C.E.)
	Byzantine Justinian II solidus, a coin (695)
	Icon of Christ at St. Ambrose, (now in Milan) (700s)
	Christ Enthroned, a mosaic in the narthex of Hagia Sophia Cathedral (850 - 900)
	Christ Pantocrator, a dome mosaic in a church in Daphni (1050 - 1100)
	Christ the Merciful, a mosaic icon now in a Berlin museum (1000s)
	Christ Pantocrator, an apse mosaic in Cefalu Cathedral, Sicily (1148)

The Chrysanthemum image found on the Shroud is particularly significant. What makes this so is not just the prominence and clarity of the image on the Shroud, but the fact that this flower is depicted accurately, as to its likeness and relationship to the face, on some early icons and coins. This includes the Pantocrator icon at St. Catherine's Monastery and the seventh century Justinian solidus coin.

Picture of Jesus In the 1930's, French Shroud scholar Paul Vignon described a series of common characteristics visible in many early artistic pictures of Jesus. The Vignon marking, as they are known, all appear on the Shroud suggesting that it is the source of later pictures of Jesus:

	A square U-shape between the eyebrows.
	A downward pointing triangle or V-shape just below the U-shape, on the bridge of the nose.
	Two wisps of hair going downward and then to the right.
	A raised right eyebrow.
	Large, seemingly "owlish" eyes. This may be the result of coins placed over the eyes.
	An accent on the left cheek and an accent on the right cheek that is somewhat lower.
	A forked beard. This may the result of a chin band tied around the head to keep the mouth closed.
	An enlarged left nostril.
	An accent line below the nose and a dark line just below the lower lip.
	A gap in the beard below the lower lip.
	Hair on one side of the head that is shorter than on the other side.

Picture of Jesus

Home Page & Introduction: The Shroud of Turin Story - A Guide to the Facts 2005

Key questions

The Shroud of Turin for Journalists: Where have all the skeptics gone? How new peer-reviewed science redefines the controversy: scientists vs. the Papal custodians in Turin.

New Tests Prove 1988 Carbon 14 Dating Invalid: Shroud of Turin Shown to be Much Older.

Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425 pp. 189-194, by Raymond N. Rogers, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of California) - The article is available on Elsevier BV's ScienceDirect® and the American Chemical Society's ChemPort

The Ray Rogers FAQ Statements of fact that can be proved from the scientific observations.

Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin: why nothing makes sense

The Shroud of Caiaphas An amazing forensic science mystery.

Second Face Image What does an announcement by the Institute of Physics in London mean?

Mozarabic Rite What does a 6th century rite from the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain have to do with the Shroud of Turin?

FACTS GALLERY

Chemistry What do we know about the chemical nature of the images?

Carbon 14 Tests They conclude for a medieval provenance. Are they wrong? It seems so. According to National Geographic News (April 9, 2004) there is now definitive chemical evidence that the test samples were cut from a medieval repair patch.

Image Formation Were they created by 1) a faker of false relics, 2) a miraculous event, or 3) some perfectly natural phenomenon?

FAQ Facts and dubious claims.

updated 2005

Point 1: Because scientists and historians have yet to prove or disprove its authenticity, the Shroud of Turin is controversial and interesting. From secular, peer-reviewed, scientific journals alone, we can make a strong case that the Shroud of Turin is a burial shroud of a crucifixion victim. With the addition of historical records we can infer that the Shroud of Turin might be the burial shroud of the Jesus of history. HOME

Point 2: The Shroud of Turin is not about "gotcha" religiosity by people who point to the Shroud of Turin as proof of Jesus' divinity and resurrection. Instead, if real, the Turin Shroud, like scripture, like apocryphal literature, like ancient secular documents, like many recent archeological findings is a part of the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus. We may infer much; but how much depends on how reasonably the shroud’s authenticity can be determined. HOME

Point 3: By focusing on 2004 and 2005 peer-reviewed journals, we see that the carbon 14 dating is invalid and that the images, thought by some to be miraculous, may have formed by a natural amino/carbonyl reaction; a chemical process perhaps unique to and commonplace in Jewish tomb burials of the late-Second Temple era. HOME

And: Philip Ball, one of today's most brilliant science writers, wrote in Nature, that most prestigious of scientific journals: "It is simply not known how the ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made." (Jan 2005) HOME

Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant and Evangelical Christians (conservative and liberal alike) are beginning to realize that there is something not easily understood about the Shroud.

The arguments on both sides of the authenticity debate are being updated with puzzling information coming out of new discoveries in 2004.

The Shroud of Turin is poignantly contrary to the expectations of believers and skeptics alike. But at the same time it is auspiciously not too fantastic for modern sensibilities.

SEE HOME PAGE

strong case

Together, a conspectus of its history and valid scientific evidence make a strong case that the Shroud is a genuine burial cloth of a Roman-style crucifixion victim.

JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN
PARADOX

Valid is emphasized because much that is reported in polemic books and websites—by zealous believers and skeptics alike—is junk science.

If it is a burial cloth, then historical records are sufficient to infer that the Shroud's enigmatic images of a naked, much wounded man are of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is certainly much older than the now discredited radiocarbon date of ca 1260-ca 1390. This is supported by chemical evidence.

It is quite possible that the unusual images were formed by some perfectly natural chemical process. The superficial conjugated carbon bonds—the microscopic chromophores of the images—possibly result from a Maillard reaction between reactive body amines and residual starch fractions and saccharides in natural soap. We need only turn to Pliny the Elder to see how ancient linen was made and to find supporting evidence.

Science cannot rule out a miracle but it can and does rule out fakery.

If genuine, then the Shroud is unquestionably the oldest historical document pertaining to the life and death of Jesus. If genuine, it is pictorial and forensic evidence that gives credence to the the passion story.

And if genuine, this piece of ancient linen offers new insights in the quest for the historical Jesus and new ways to scrutinize contemporary biblical exegesis.

Is the Shroud evidence of the resurrection? Possibly, but perhaps only indirectly. Clearly, if it is a burial cloth, the body it wrapped was separated from it soon after burial—before decomposition products could have ravaged the cloth. Forensic science, applied to the Shroud, argues against the polemics of swoon theory or a stolen body.

Ray Rogers, a Fellow of the University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, a chemist who has scientifically examined the Shroud—in Turin—and studied the object for more than 27 years, wrote:

with some legitimacy, we might put up a strong case for a First Century shroud with an image best explained as being that of a crucified man. Isn't that enough? Remember that there weren't any Christians or Christian fanatics (e.g., Templars) in the First Century. There wasn't anyone around so warped that they would crucify a person to create a relic, and the technology did not exist to produce an adequate fake.

Perspective: My name is Dan Porter. I am the author of this website.

Biblical scholar and Anglican bishop, John A. T. Robinson wrote in Honest to God: "All I can do is try to be honest, honest to God and about God and to follow the argument wherever it leads." I have tried to make this my guiding principle in exploring the Shroud.

JOHN A. T. ROBINSON
SURPRISE »

I am a lifelong Episcopalian with one foot firmly planted in liberal theological views and the principles of Progressive Christianity and one foot planted in conservative thought and traditional orthodoxy. I am a member of Trinity Church Wall Street (Episcopal) in New York City.

While I personally believe in the Resurrection of Christ, I claim no opinion about its physical or spiritual nature. I don't interpret the Gospels as literal or linear accounts of the life of Jesus. I believe the Gospels were written to elicit faith and as such are truer than they could be as mere historical narratives. But the accounts, starting with Jesus' arrest and ending with the discovery of the empty tomb, seems very historical.

If the Shroud is real, as I have come to believe it is, it confirms the Passion story and lavishes new verisimilitude upon the Resurrection. It could be that we have a picture of Jesus.

Pictures of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin?

Famous relics that claim to bear the true imprint of Christ's features include the controversial Shroud of Turin and the Holy Mandylion of Edessa; the iconography of both of these promoted the now conventional image of Jesus as a bearded man.

Key questions

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updated 2005

strong case