Nothing but the blood
The nature of Jesus’ crucifixion as declared in the Bible is one filled immense with torture, humiliation, and pain. The blood found on the Shroud of Turin is believed to be the blood of Jesus on the day of his death. Multiple tests have been completed to uncover the truth about the bloodstains in the Shroud. Dr. Ballone of Turin has helped advance our knowledge of the Bloodstains, he is responsible for discovering“the blood on the Shroud is real, human male blood of the type AB” (Iannone). “Dr Baima Ballone analysed samples taken from the cloth with adhesive tape. He reported that the blood on the shroud is type AB. It is significant that type AB is rare in Europe and most of the world, with an estimated 3.2% of the world's population having this type, but around 18% of Jews from the North have it. Apart from the Y sex chromosome, all of Jesus' genetic information would have come from his mother Mary. The gene for blood type is not on the Y chromosome. On that basis, it would come from his mother Mary, and not from Joseph, sitting comfortably with the doctrine of the Virgin birth (Steel). This theory was later fortified in 1994 when another researcher tested the blood samples from the Shroud; “the laboratory director, Dr Victor Tryon, and his wife, Nancy Mitchell Tryon, established that the sample was human blood of the AB group, just as Baima-Bollone had before them” (Jones).
Proof the Blood is Real:
- “When you consider that there are no substances on the cloth that were conceivably used by an artist, and the fact that the blood on the cloth is human blood, it would suggest that the cloth is probably authentic,” Breault said" (ABC).
- "John Heller and Alan Adler have identified on the same clots not only haemoglobin but also other specific compounds of blood and, among other things, the presence of bilirubin in significant quantities. Bilirubin, a component of blood, comes from the catabolism of haemoglobin and, arriving into the liver, is poured from the liver into the bile. The high concentration of bilirubin in the blood stains of the Shroud could find an explanation from the many traumas suffered, before his death, bythe man wrapped in the Shroud" (Goldoni).
- "Radiation and various blood stains found on the Shroud of Turin may be possible clues that the cloth is not a forgery and is indeed evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, offered Gary Habermas, distinguished research professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University" (Zaimov).
"Previous studies have established that the blood areas on the Shroud of Turin consist of real blood and are not composed of artistic pigments" (Kearse).
"The most striking thing about all the stains is that they coincide exactly with the face of the image on the Turin Shroud" (Jones). - "S. F. Pellicori analyzed the spectral properties of the Shroud's image, the bloodstains, and non-image areas using ultraviolet-visible reflectance and fluorescence spectra. These are highly reliable quantitative measurements based on reflectance and not visual interpretation. This is documented in Applied Optics (1980). pages 1913-1920.
- Alan Adler, an expert on porphyrins, the types of colored compounds seen in blood, chlorophyll, and many other natural products concluded that the blood is real. In collaboration with John Heller, the conclusions that the blood is real was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Optics (also 1980). The heme was converted into its parent porphyrin, and this was confirmed with spectral analysis.
- Baima Bollone also found both the heme porphyrin ring of blood and the globulin in flakes of blood from Shroud samples, independently confirming the work of Adler.
- X-ray-fluorescence spectra showed excess iron in blood areas, as expected for blood.
- Qualitative microchemical tests for proteins were positive in blood areas but not in any other parts of the Shroud. Definition of Qualitative microchemical tests" (Porter).
dISPROVING THE Paint theory
"The image is not a painting and it was left by the corpse of a man who was beaten and crucified. Computer processing has shown that the image has three-dimensional properties, something which neither paintings nor standard photographs possess; pollens have been found on the cloth, strongly supporting the view that the Shroud spent time not only in Europe, but also in the Near East; tests on traces of blood from the Shroud have revealed the presence of human blood from blood group AB; there is no body image under the bloodstains, so the image must have formed subsequently" (Pilote). Also,"numerous blood markings are present on the Shroud, which correspond to the wounds of a man that has been tortured and crucified. Bloodstains are evident about the head area, the wrists and the feet, the side, and the back" (Kearse). Many scholars theorized about the origin of the Shroud. Some concluded that the Shroud was the fabrication of a Medieval artist, and the bloodstains and the image of Jesus were merely paintings.
SUPPORT:
"The Shroud is linen. Raw, unprepared linen repels water, difficult to cover with paint. There is no such paint known to art which - applied to raw linen -- would give the optical effect we see on the Turin Shroud and no visible drag. Because of the watermarks on it, any water-soluble binders are totally excluded for technical reasons" (Piczek). |
GROUND:
"The aqueous mediums used before the thermoplastic mediums were introduced in the high renaissance, did not have the flexibility to apply them directly to unstretched canvas without a gesso ground. Medieval paintings were carefully prepared with a gesso ground and even then could not be folded or rolled without serious damage. We neither see a gesso ground underneath the Shroud image nor the typical damages which folding and rolling caused to aqueous paints" (Piczek). |
PAINTS:
"If we argue that the Shroud is a painting then, professionally, the paint mediums have to be discussed first, not the pigments. The painting, as a visible optical illusion, depends on the intricate interplay between mediums and paint particles. The mediums have to create a tight, continuous film. The visibility and therefore the integrity of a painting solely depends on how well this film remained intact. It does not depend on the individual paint particles. Any discontinuity in the medium film indicates a painting is severely damaged, with parts of it erratically missing" (Piczek). |