The Turin Shroud and Easter Stories
By Antonio Lombatti
Deputazione di Storia Patria
Parma, Italia
www.antoniolombatti.it
April 2012
To read this article in its entirety, we have presented it here in PDF format.
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By Antonio Lombatti
Deputazione di Storia Patria
Parma, Italia
www.antoniolombatti.it
April 2012
To read this article in its entirety, we have presented it here in PDF format.
I have been bothered by the Mediterranean features of the "man of the shroud" for nearly four decades. I have watched the faces of first century Jews being reconstructed from their skulls and they do not remotely resemble the man of the shroud.
At five eleven to six one the man of the shroud is far too tall to be a first century Jew. Romans averaged five feet three to five feet four inches and the Jews were shorter still. The man of the shroud would have been a giant among these people and Judas Iscariot would not have had to kiss him to point hiom out in a crowd.
Having once been an excited shroud maven who read all of the "reports" with zeal I was disappointed when the carbon 14 dating revealed it to be a medieval forgery. But rather than rail against reality and seek to squeeze out of its grasp I simply accepted reality and moved on. Committed shroud mavens have my empathy because the Turin shroud is their last best hope for something empirical to buttress their faith in a reanimated corpse view of resurrection.
NJM