A new study says the bloodstains on the supposed burial cloth of Jesus depicted a blood pattern from a person who is in a standing position.
The Shroud of Turin has long been revered as the fabric that clothed Jesus's corpse. The bloodstains that supposedly formed the figure of Jesus while lying down were believed to have formed during the three days that Jesus was buried.
Now, two scientists said some bloodstains may have trickled down to the cloth from a man who was standing, not crucified, and not face down. Some bloodstains, meanwhile, were extremely inconsistent to the point that the man's supposed position was entirely unrealistic and cannot be simulated.
The scientists used the technique called Bloodstain Pattern Analysis or BPA, a method used in forensic or crime scene analysis. This was the first time that such an analysis was conducted on the Shroud of Turin.
In the end, the scientists concluded that the Shroud of Turin was simply an artistic or an informative representation done by someone in the 14th century.
Forensic Analysis Of The Shroud Of Turin
For their study published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences on July 10, the scientists initially wanted to determine whether the bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin was from a T-shaped, Y-shaped, or a completely different manner of crucifixion during the ancient Roman times. Instead, the bloodstains suggested that a person standing had created various positions to be able to create the bloodstains on the fabric.
Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, and Luigi Garlaschelli of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudoscience simulated how the rivulets of blood or the smallest bloodstream could have trickled down from Jesus's hand, forearm, chest, and lower back. They also used a belt of blood at the waist to replicate how the rivulets may have trickled from Jesus's wound.
"The two short rivulets on the back of the left hand of the Shroud are only consistent with a standing subject with arms at a 45 [degrees] angle. This angle is different from that necessary for the forearm stains, which require nearly vertical arms for a standing subject," they wrote in their study.
"The BPA of blood visible on the frontal side of the chest (the lance wound) shows that the Shroud represents the bleeding in a realistic manner for a standing position while the stains at the back - of a supposed postmortem bleeding from the same wound for a supine (lying face upward) corpse - are totally unrealistic."
The Shroud Of Controversies
The highly regarded fabric was housed since 1578 in a cathedral in Turin, Italy. As much as the cloth was exceedingly respected, experts also have long been decrying it as a hoax.
For one, the carbon-dating studies conducted by three laboratories in the late 1980s found the fabric was made between 1260 and 1390, long way after the time of Jesus.
In 2005, another similar study said the shroud is actually 1,300 to 3,000 years old.
In 2009, Garlaschelli recreated a shroud that looked like the Shroud of Turin by wrapping a student with a woven cloth, painting it with pigment, and then baking the fabric in an oven for several hours.
After washing the fabric, the result showed a burnt, blood-stained shroud similar to that of the Shroud of Turin. Garlaschelli has since concluded that the Shroud of Turin was made by an artist with the help of an assistant.
Also in 2009, a separate study suggested it was not the body of Jesus wrapped inside the cloth. Instead, the man wrapped was someone who had leprosy, as evidenced by his DNA.
