The Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus?: 1. Introduction

Here are the headings of Chapter 1, Introduction, to my book outline, "The Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus?":

THE SHROUD OF TURIN: BURIAL SHEET OF JESUS?© Stephen E. Jones

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. What is the Shroud of Turin?
1.2. The available alternatives
1.3. One's philosophical assumptions
1.4. Christianity and the Shroud
1.5. My personal position on the Shroud

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[Above (enlarge): "Anatomy of the Shroud,' National Geographic, June 1980, pp.737-738. Showing that the wounds and bloodstains on the Shroud match those in the Gospels' accounts of Jesus' suffering and death.]

As already mentioned, I will next post each heading with brief notes under it on a separate page, and hyperlinking those headings back to this Introduction, which in turn will be hyperlinked to the Contents page.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc. (Biology).
My other blog: CreationEvolutionDesign

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"During the last six centuries, millions of words have been written about the remarkable cloth preserved at Turin, Italy. More recently, most of this writing has dealt with the one basic question: is it the true Shroud of Jesus or a man-made object? Is it-could it be-the actual winding sheet of the crucified Christ, bearing an imprint of His body, or is the whole thing a gigantic hoax, a fantastic forgery, of the credulous Middle Ages? Men of learning and renown have lined up on both sides of that compelling query. Unlike so many other relics of the Passion-the Cross, the Robe, the Crown of Thorns-the Turin relic does not call on tradition for corroboration. It bears its testimony on its surface-testimony that can be examined and investigated. Since the sensational photographic revelation of 1898, this examination has been conducted along a number of different lines: history, anatomy, chemistry, exegesis, legal medicine, photography, art history and textile manufacture, to name the foremost. ... Few things can compare with Shroud study in the use it makes of the totality of human knowledge. ... Beyond all this, of course, the relic soars into the realm of religion, where, if it is authentic, its value becomes immeasurable. ... Only this much is certain: The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and instructive relic of Jesus Christ in existence-showing us in its dark simplicity how He appeared to men-or it is one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever, products of the human mind and hand on record. It is one or the other; there is no middle ground." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.ix-xii. Emphasis original).

Posted 9 August 2007. Updated 9 May 2024.