Is there blood on the Shroud of Turin?
The blood images on the Turin Shroud do not fit how human blood behaves. That may be waved aside by believers but it is a warning that something deceptive has taken place. It does not matter exactly what it is so much as long as that it has happened. If something has been added to that blood to make it appear as it does and to be so red after centuries then that is enough to put it down to fraud. The blood of the real Jesus would not have been treated.
MC CRONE
The blood contains paint ingredients. The claim that
these ingredients do not come from the blood but from paintings being touched to
the cloth is far-fetched.
The research of Walter McCrone has shown that the cloth is a painting and that the blood is really just paint but it seems that McCrone MAY have been too keen to refute the authenticity of the Shroud. His tests showed the presence of a lot of paint on the cloth. He found the blood to have the pigment red ochre and could not find it outside the image proving that the claim of believers that this pigment came of pictures and paintings placed on the Shroud to make them relics is nonsense (page 27, Looking for a Miracle). The poker holes on the cloth proved that it was not immune to damage. There was no way then that people would have been allowed to put damp pictures on the cloth and the practice of the Church usually was to create relics just by touching a cloth or item to a holy object. Relics of St Padre Pio are just touched to his tomb.
BLOOD OR NOT?
Is the red stuff on the Shroud really blood? It is far
from easy to think that it is for it has remained red. The blood on Jesus would have
dried fast in the warm climate and little of it would have transferred to the
cloth but the shroud man has plenty of fresh blood!
The pro-authenticity shroud site
http://www.skepticalspectacle.com explains that the linen was starched on the
loom and then washed in suds of a plant called Soapwort. This soap contains
haemolytic chemicals which keep blood red. The blood on the shroud it says
contains loads of bilirubin which is a bile pigment produced by a body that had
undergone a severe physical trauma. This pigment is red and would not lose its
redness. So the believers have two explanations for the blood being red.
But there is no evidence that the linen Jesus would have been buried in was starched. Jews used linen yes but it had to be clean as the purpose was for the body and cloth to rot and leave the bones to be put in a container. It didn't need any special treatment.
The site, thank goodness, says that the Shroud is natural and denies that radiation from the resurrection put the image on for radiation cannot do that. At least it disposes a lot of the nonsense spouted by scientists who are more concerned with promoting fake incentives to Christian belief than the truth. It mentions the claim that the shroud is a photograph but rejects it on the basis that nobody could have made one like that image long ago. There is no proof however that the image people saw 400 years ago is the one we see today. Nobody knows how long ago we are talking about.
We must remember that whoever made the Shroud did a
lot of experimenting and probably tried to make a shroud image from a pierced
body. He would have known about the bilirubin thing and may have used real blood
with some additives in it. If the Shroud was starched then how did it fit into
the contours of the body so well to pick up images and blood?
It is said that the blood of a person who dies in
great trauma can stay red. But that only happens extremely rarely among people
who suffer bloodshed. And even then most of the blood goes brown or red in time.
It is too hard to believe that Jesus would be "lucky" enough to produce blood
that stays red for two millenia! There is no example old enough to verify that
it is possible.
Also, considering how hot it was in Palestine the time
Jesus supposedly died the blood would have rotted fast. Jesus' blood died
long before he died. It would not have stayed red.
The shroud examiner, Alan Adler, the Jewish blood
chemistry expert, was only giving his opinion that if a person suffers great
illness or dies in huge trauma that the blood could be gorged with biliruben and
keep red looking forever.
Alan Adler alleged that the shroud man's blood was
tested and it did show incredibly high amounts.
A test was administered by Adler who tested the
alleged blood� on a fibril of the linen in a protease to see if the protein would
dissolve to see if it really was blood. It did but other organic substances can
do the same so it proves nothing (page 193, Turin Shroud).
Also, no image was found underneath when the blood was
scraped off. This test also fails to prove that there really is no image
underneath the blood. The scraping was too small and the image is hardly
distinguishable from the cloth around it in most places anyway.
Since many fibres of the cloth do not have the image
though surrounded by ones that have, nobody knows for sure if the image exists
under the blood marks. The iron and the DNA on the Shroud can be accounted for
without it necessarily being blood. It is safe to assert that the presence of
blood has not been proven and is very unlikely. It is possible and feasible that
the pious rich people who had the Shroud in the past might have put some of
their own blood on it thinking that part of them would be close to and mingle
with the blood of Jesus.
If the Shroud image is a scorch or photograph the
blood could have been painted or printed or both on first and the light
reflected on it to make an image to fit the wounds. Those who say it is not a
scorch or a painting or a rubbing compare it to images made by these methods.
Then they find some differences and deny that any of these explains it. But it
will not be the same - the image is hundreds of years old! If you went in a time
machine and compared the shroud as it is now to what it used to be you will find
differences too!
As the Shroud is most probably
down to scorch marks, it could be that a forger was using a heated bas relief
statue to make the image.
Some think it is a photo of a statue.
But whatever. Maybe the blood could have helped
position where the image was going to be projected on to so that both picture
and blood would be positioned correctly. The image was then projected over the blood
to match their position. This would leave no image underneath the blood.
The believers say that is exactly what they find on the Shroud. They want
a projected image, make no mistake, as long as it was a paranormal projection.
A real miracle would be able to project
the image behind the blood marks. They say that if this happened we would be
saying the image was painted first so that the painter would know exactly where
to put the blood. So they make it personal and blame us. God could always find something in the complicated
world of chemistry to puzzle us so there is no need for that accusation.
They say that nobody can tempt the Lord God and accuse sceptics of doing that
and doing it successfully.
Cesare Nosiglia, Archbishop of Turin has dismissed new
findings supposedly authenticating" the Shroud of Turin on the basis that shroud
researchers such as Professor Fanti were possibly using "blood" samples from the
shroud that may have been inauthentic. The shroudie story is that they
were left over from other tests done in the past. The Archbishop would
wonder why it is only shroud believers that seem to find them! Stephen
Jones and other shroud believers, with a stubbornness reminiscent of the
Medjugorje supporters of a blatantly fake apparition, simply accuse the
Archbishop of lying! To cite shroud devotee Stephen Jones:
It is bad enough that this current Turin Archbishop is continuing in the telling of a lie about the matter, but it is even worse that he is in effect accusing Prof. Fanti of scientific fraud.
The fact remains that believers are assuming that the red crusts they find on the shroud are blood. They still fail all of the microscopical, chemical, biological, and instrumental tests for blood.
It is good though that shroud believers if they are tampering do not have the nerve to use actual blood samples from elsewhere but use something they can pass off as blood to the believers. They know that the matter is best left without hard "proof" of blood. The world would want to know why suddenly after years of testing the finding of blood is now definite!! That it was that hard until now says it all.