Seeker2000

Hi everybody,

during the last few days I again researched various aspects of the Shroud of Turin on the internet. I also looked at the possible pre-1350 history of the Shroud and that's what I want to talk about on this thread.

I will post a longer posting with some thoughts I had, involving quotes from a couple of sources and I would like to know what you think about it.

So please tell me what you think about these issues. I hope there are some people on this forum with good historical knowledge and maybe even better sources than I have. I'll post some more specific questions at the end of my posting.

Thanks in advance for reading it

I hope it doesn't sound too confusing.

Seeker2000

The Shroud of Turin is often compared to the Image of Edessa or the Mandylion. Maybe the Image of Edessa started only as a legend in the first place or maybe not, but at least in 944 a cloth from Edessa was handed over to the Emperor in Constantinople in an exchange. I also read that around 960 the Kéramion - a tile whith the image of Christ on it; also part of the Edessa legend - was brought to Constantinople. At the moment I'm not really sure if this cloth depicted a face only or an image of the whole body and/or blood. At that time Gregory Referendarius, archdeacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, also held a sermon about the cloth, in which he said that the image was formed through sweat and blood (so maybe there was blood on the cloth) and he also mentioned a liquid flowing from the side, which could be understood as refering to the sidewound on the Turin Shroud. He also mentioned a "likeness of a man" which could maybe be understood as refering to a full body image. You can read a translation by Mark Guscin of the sermon at http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/guscin3.pdf. The parts I mentioned are on paragraph #22 on page 12 of the PDF.

However, this is not my main point of interest. When reading about the Crusades and the pillages, I discovered the following textual records:

In 1201 Nicholas Mesarites, keeper of the relic collection at the Chapel of the Pharos, wrote the following:

Taken from a German newsgroup posting, translated by me below:
*or maybe archetype? Or preimage? It's "Urbild" in German...

Here's a different translation of part of it, from an English newsgroup posting:
The author of this posting writes that this could maybe have been the Turin Shroud, because Mesarites knows the body is naked and describes it as outlineless which fits the image on the Turin Shroud which is uniquely virtually lacking in outlines.

The sindon being the proof that Christ rises again in that place could also be understood as refering to an image of Christ on the sindon.

Well, so far I think we have a list of the relics at the Chapel of the Pharos at 1201, including a burial shroud or maybe even several linens or shroud parts as well as a handkerchief with an image of Christ that is not made by hands. The former might or might not have an image, the latter definitely has one, although one cannot be sure if it contains a face only or more. I think that this latter cloth probably is the Mandylion, because a) Mandylion means something like "handkerchief" and b) the Mandylion/Image of Edessa was also called an "acheiropoitos", which means "not made by human hands".

Lastly, I want to mention textual records from Robert de Clari, a French crusader who was in Constantinople in 1203. He also talks about the relics he saw there.

A Posting from here says this about him:

*Other sources usually translate this as "figure" which could be more correct and would rather sound like a full body image - e.g. take a look at the citation Wikipedia uses

So Robert de Clari also lists the relics from the Chapel of the Pharos, but the burial shroud containing an image he sees at another church - the monastery known as Lady Saint Mary of the Blachernae. In addition to this he tells us that the shroud vanished after the crusade and no one really knows where it went. In 1205 a nephew of one of three Byzantine Emperors will protest and say that they know that the sacred linen is in Athens. He could very well be talking about the Blachernae Shroud here.

But is this Blachernae Shroud the Mandylion/Image of Edessa which Mesarites mentioned in his record about the Chapel of the Pharos? Or maybe one of the sindons mentioned there?

Well, Robert de Clari also talked about relics from the Chapel of the Pharos and he at least mentioned, according to above source, a linen cloth with the face of Jesus, which could very well be the Mandylion.

Another French source gives a more detailed description. I'll post some excerpts and will try to translate it as good as I understand it:
*This should be the Chapel of the Pharos

So, what we have here is a mention of what probably is the Mandylion and the Kéramion. Another German text says that this is only a copy of the Mandylion with the original being at the Blachernae Church - but I'd guess that this is only the opinion of the author and no certain fact.

So, for me it seems as if the Mandylion/Image of Edessa stayed at the Chapel of the Pharos, while a Shroud with an image on it turned up at the Blachernae Church at least in 1203 or 1204, probably earlier. My French source even says, that a shroud at least was venerated in Constantinople not only since 1202, but since at least 1092 - but I can't comment on this, because I don't know how they came up with these dates. What happened in 1092 in Constantinople? Unfortunately I couldn't find anything about this on the internet...

Another source even states this:
Well, I don't know when this was written and I don't know if it is true, but it just seems a bit strange to me, so at the moment I really doubt that this Shroud had been there for such a long time before 1204. But anyway, even a 436 appearance would be 400 years after the death of Christ, which is quite a long time. 1092 or 1202 would be around 1000 years after it.

Well, my conclusion from all of this is, that I think, if I have not misunderstood some of these sources or there are errors in them, this would mean that the Blachernae Shroud is not the same thing as the Mandylion/Image of Edessa and so the Turin Shroud could probably not be identified with the Mandylion/Image of Edessa, at least not on the basis of the Robert de Clari record "Where there was the Shroud in which our Lord had been wrapped, which every Friday raised itself upright so one could see the figure of our Lord on it." - which is often cited as evidence that the Turin Shroud is the same as the Image of Edessa.

So I think that maybe the Blachernae Shroud could be the Turin Shroud... but this is not certain of course. The first certain historical record of the Turin Shroud is still around 1350, so it might be a completely different shroud.

Finally, if you want to, you can take a look at this paper, which discusses other shroud parts from Europe and comes to the conclusion that they probably don't originate from the Shroud of Turin, but could come from the other sindons that were mentioned by Mesarites: http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n56part5.pdf


So, what do you think about my ideas? What do you believe which cloths have existed and which are identical? Is one of those the Turin Shroud? Or is the Turin Shroud the Image of Edessa after all? Do you see any errors in my reasoning?

Also: Do you have better sources than I have? I'd especially like to have a better and more complete source of Robert de Clari's talk about all those relics. I'd also like to know what happened in 1092 and what one should think about the Nicephorus Callistus account of the 432 building of the Blachernae basilica, involving the "burial linen" of Christ.

spin

The Turin shroud is a red herring. The story of the raising of Lazarus and that of Jesus's burial in John make it clear that the nt tradition is one of the head being covered with a cloth (soudarion) and the body wound in cloth strips (oQonion). The other gospels merely talk of a type or quality of cloth (sindwn), which can be found in classical sources even implying cloth strips. The gospel tradition is against the shroud.


spin

Sparrow

My best guess for the shroud of Turin is that it is a forgery less tahn 100 years old. With all the shrouds that seem to have existed, it reminds me a little of the industry around owning a flag flown over the US Capitol. There are people who spend their work day raising and lowering flags at the Capitol so that the flag can then be sold as one that has flown over the building (nobody seems to care that ir was for only seconds). So I got this mental image of these shroud purveyors, wrapping and unwrapping the body of Jesus, so that many relics could be distributed.

My question really is, if the closest (in time) shroud you have is 400 years after the death of Jesus, how do you know the image is his? Same for an image in a window, piece of toast, etc., how do you know the image is of Jesus? You can't exactly compare it with his drivers license.

Seeker2000

Well, I'd say that this is definitely not true. The existence of the shroud has been documented since at least approx. 1350 (I don't know the exact year right now) and it has also been carbondated to that time range. Although it has been suggested that the dating of the shroud gave an age which could be too young, the idea that the resulting age could be too old is a new one.

Toto

I think that was a typo for 1000 years. ??

But the shroud is an obvious fake. What more is there to say?

S.C.Carlson

I'm glad someone said it...

Diogenes the Cynic

Why hasn't the carbon dating ended this kind of silly speculation?

The shroud is a medievel forgery. That's it. Even the earliest 14th century record of the shroud calls it a fake. The human figure depicted is not even anotomically accurate.

Incidentally, the Gospel of John says that Jesus was wrapped in a bunch of linen strips, not draped in one piece of cloth.

spin

Yup, that's what I said in post #3, linen strips and a cloth to cover the head. But still this shite continues.


spin

Sparrow

As bad a typist as I am, I'm apparently even worse as a proofreader. Yes, I meant 1000 years.

But I am interested in any comment on how we would know that an ancient image is that of a famous person. I'm not aware of any historical depiction, contemporaneous with the life of Jesus.