Vatican Insider: Study says Man in Shroud had Dislocated Arms, Cause of Death is Broken Heart

Another study has been done on the Shroud of Turin. This time it was conducted by four experts in injury medicine from Italy. The findings were published in Injury , the International Journal of the Care of the Injured.

In addition to what we found out in past studies ... the coins on the eyes date to the period of Jesus; the pollen is from the region; the indents of the flowers around the edge are flowers from that area that would have been in bloom that time of year; the markings on the man in the shroud are consistent with the gospel descriptions of the passion of Jesus ... we now have this latest information about dislocated arms; violent trauma to the chest and shoulder from behind; paralysis of the neck and shoulders due to a large blunt force trauma (consistent with when Jesus fell carrying the cross); and that there were DOUBLE NAILINGS in the wrists and one of the feet.

Cause of death .... literally a broken heart.

New study shows Man of the Shroud had “dislocated” arms

The Man of the Shroud “underwent an under glenoidal dislocation of the humerus on the right side and lowering of the shoulder, and has a flattened hand and enophthalmos; conditions that have not been described before, despite several studies on the subject. These injuries indicate that the Man suffered a violent blunt trauma to the neck, chest and shoulder from behind, causing neuromuscular damage and lesions of the entire brachial plexus.”

This is the conclusion four university professors arrived at in an in-depth study they carried out on the image of the crucified Man on the Turin Shroud. They observed that “the posture of the left claw-hand is indicative of an injury of the lower brachial plexus, as is the crossing of the hands on the pubis, not above the pubis as it would normally be, and are related to traction of the limbs as a result of the nailing to the patibulum.” Only part of the study has been published so far in Injury , the prestigious International Journal of the Care of the Injured. The rest of the study is to follow shortly. The four experts involved in the research are: Matteo Bevilacqua of the Hospital-University of Padua, Italy; Giulio Fanti of the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padua, Italy; Michele D’Arienzo of the Orthopaedic Clinic at the University of Palermo, Italy and Raffaele De Caro of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Padua, Italy.

More information from the study at the link.

And before anyone brings it up ... the Carbon14 dating of the shroud was botched. They dated the strands from the patch instead of from the original shroud material itself.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Always interested in the shroud.
Thanks for the post, going to go read right now

a reply to: FlyersFan

What about the rumors regarding the 40 or so copies of the shroud that were passed around as very expensive memorabilia?

a reply to: AfterInfinity

A link would help, never heard of that

a reply to: FlyersFan

So much can be disputed about "what we know" . . . but, we don't "know" about any coins . . . there are not any to examine:

'Coins dated to the early 1st century are seen over the eyes of the shroud image'. This claim was originally made by Father Francis Filas after examining a 1931 photograph, yet the coins can't be seen in better quality 1978 photos. We are expected to believe that poor quality photos showed not just coins, but enough detail to determine when they were minted. Another problem with the coins is explaining why they were placed on the eyes. There was no such Jewish custom in 1st century Palestine. The claim of some believers to see coins must be weighed against the claim of others to also see nails, a spear, a sponge on a reed, a crown of thorns, a hammer, scourges, tongs, dice, flowers etc on the shroud. Even most shroud researchers reject these claims as simply an example of an overactive imagination, as do I.

Or pollen samples:

'Pollen from Palestine is found on the shroud'. This claim has been discredited as "fraud" and "junk science". The person who originally claimed to have found the pollen on the Shroud was Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist. However the pollens were very suspicious, as pollen experts quickly pointed out. First of all, they were missing the most obvious pollen you would expect, which would be from olive trees. 32 of the 57 pollens allegedly found by Frei are from insect-pollinated plants and could not have been wind-blown onto the exposed shroud in Palestine. Similar samples taken by STURP in 1978 had comparatively few pollens. Also cloth was often brought to medieval Europe from Palestine, so there is no strong support even if pollen was found.

From you source:

In their conclusion, Bevilacqua, Fanti, D'Arienzo and De Caro write that “from correspondences here and elsewhere detected between TS Man and the description of Jesus’s Passion in the Gospels and Christian Tradition, the authors provide further evidence in favour of the hypothesis that TS Man is Jesus of Nazareth.”

So, their conclusion is the same as every other church approved explanation . . . "well, the injuries match those described as Jesus and people in the past claimed it, so this supports the NT hypothesis." Which seems like nothing more than a long winded puff piece to go after long standing criticisms, like:

The image on the shroud has his hands neatly folded across his genitals. A real body lying limp could not have this posture. Your arms are not long enough to cross your hands over your pelvis while keeping your shoulders on the floor. To achieve this the body can not lie flat, yet Jewish burial tradition did not dictate that a body must be hunched up so as to cover the genitals before wrapping in the shroud. The most obvious answer is that the artist knew the image would be displayed and didn't want to offend his audience or have to guess what the genitals of Jesus would look like. A dead body wrapped from head to toe in an opaque cloth wouldn't be concerned with modesty since he wasn't actually naked. He was well covered.

Also . . . they seem pretty descriptive in their explanation of injuries when they don't even have a body to examine and the "image" is not an x-ray of the actual skeletal structure. There is no way they would be able to tell things like below, without having at least the bones to go off of.:

The first discovery the four experts made, is that the Man of the Shroud underwent a dislocation of the shoulder and paralysis of the right arm.

Bang up scholarship . . . they took the mythology of the "passion", the past writings of church leaders, and a barely visible image (unless studying a negative) to determine if a "relic" the Vatican will not claim to be real (despite knowing the origins of the universe and reality of the afterlife) matches the superstition?

We'll just see if this becomes "world wide news" or is forgotten and simply used in the echo chamber of christian apologetics, like every other piece of "evidence" that only the most devout see.

Thanks for the article though . . .

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: FlyersFan

What about the rumors regarding the 40 or so copies of the shroud that were passed around as very expensive memorabilia?

This would not make any difference if the carbon 14 dating places it within a certain time frame, before such copies were allegedly created. And I've never heard of there being that many copies. So even if fakes were created, the dating is what is important. If it really does go back 2000 years, then it is unlikely to have been fake.

a reply to: FlyersFan

I admire your research and devotion to your faith.
Thank you for the article.
I might have my own beliefs, but always respect those of others as long as they harm no one. I wonder how many people who donated their bodies to science were broken and bent to try to extrapolate how a depiction on a sheet died.
Never heard of the coins on the eyes thing either back then. Not for Hebrews anyway. Greeks and Romans placed coins for Charon to pay for the trip across the Styx.

The Shroud is one thing I wont debate either way. But it's cool whatever anyone believes.

Eta: I can actually lay my shoulders flat and cover my junk. Long arms big hands. It's not impossible. Maybe for Matthew McConaughey and his little T-Rex arms.

here's conclusions made on the Jesus death years ago...

Heart failure is also brought on by the crucifixion process. Some years ago Dr. Hermann Modder of Cologne, Germany carried out some scientific tests to determine the cause of Christ's death. He discovered an interesting fact:

In the case of a person suspended by his two hands the blood sinks VERY QUICKLY into the lower half of the body. AFTER SIX TO TWELVE MINUTES blood pressure has dropped by 50% and the pulse rate has DOUBLED. Too little blood reaches the heart, and FAINTING ENSUES. This leads to a SPEEDY orthostatic collapse through insufficient blood circulating to the brain and the heart. Death by crucifixion is therefore [also] due to heart failure. ...

this is from this source: www.frugalsites.net...



so it seems that the Shroud image person had his hands more straight up than at a 45 degree angle...
the crossbar (patibulum) was used, but the cruicified person probably was nailed in a unique fashion due both to his flogging and cross-bearing fall injuries and being 'King-of-the-Jews'

if the shroud is indeed a holy relic of the Christ... I would say that would not be how the Father & Holy Ghost would leave a proof to the generations of the world... physical proof flies in the face of Faith

The biggest issue with studying the shroud today is that it was treated just after the infamous carbon dating samples were taken to protect it from deterioration. It is now impossible to date it from new samples.

A very interesting theory about the shroud is that it is a 'photographic' image. I mention this as interesting because it would then link it to the equally mysterious Tilma from Guadalupe this strange artifact is so odd it defies explanation in many ways.

I don't think we will ever be able to conclusively prove for or against the authenticity of the shroud, but when viewed alongside other curioisities such as said Tilma, things start to lean toward the supernatural being involved.

a reply to: St Udio

physical proof flies in the face of Faith

Oh, that old argument again. The more reason you have to believe in God, the less reason he has to want anything to do with you.

Literary sources giving insight into the history of crucifixion indicate that Roman crucifixion methods had the condemned person carry to the execution site only the crossbar. Wood was scarce and the vertical pole was kept stationary and used repeatedly. Below, in “New Analysis of the Crucified Man,” Hershel Shanks concludes that crucifixion in antiquity involved death by asphyxiation, not death by nail piercing.

Roman crucifixion

Further evidence against the assertions made in the paper . . .

A simple beam of wood (6 ft long 6x6) is approx 60 lbs . . . of course the actual type of wood effects the weight, but it will be similar across the board.

There is also archaeological evidence suggesting that the Romans often bypassed the wood cross beam all together and simply used the upright beam that remained permanently in place, at the execution site.


As mentioned earlier, the problem with this paper is that they clearly started with the ending (i.e. find evidence to support the narrative), instead of letting the evidence describe the narrative. There findings are also pretty hard to take seriously, as they have no remains to perform a proper forensic analysis.

a reply to: solomons path

Sorry but that article does nothing to disprove the shroud. Sometimes the Romans impaled their victims too. Does that mean crucifixion didn't happen? Or that in some cases the wrists weren't nailed to the crossbeam? There are various execution methods in practice today. To assume the romans only used one technique makes you guilty of the very thing you have accused supporters of the shroud of doing: Finding evidence to support the narrative, instead of letting the evidence describe the narrative.

I do agree with you however, that there is no body and hence no way to really make a determination about specific injuries. Seems like a lot of conjecture.

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: FlyersFan

What about the rumors regarding the 40 or so copies of the shroud that were passed around as very expensive memorabilia?

i guess they were just rumors. ya think?

INRI,

i am nailed right in.

lol!

whatever, horrible way to die.

He died for you idiots. hey, me too.

fluids build up in the lungs, you suffocate slowly, the wrists nails will make one hang, rather than the palm.

after what Jesus went through, He was dead by the end of the day.

broken heart? wasn't that the whole point?

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: solomons path

Sorry but that article does nothing to disprove the shroud. Sometimes the Romans impaled their victims too. Does that mean crucifixion didn't happen? Or that in some cases the wrists weren't nailed to the crossbeam? There are various execution methods in practice today. To assume the romans only used one technique makes you guilty of the very thing you have accused supporters of the shroud of doing: Finding evidence to support the narrative, instead of letting the evidence describe the narrative.

I do agree with you however, that there is no body and hence no way to really make a determination about specific injuries. Seems like a lot of conjecture.

There are plenty of other facts that do a better job to disprove the shroud, and I didn't claim the article above was one of them. 1) I presented the article in response to the comment by another poster (St Udio) that the act of carrying the cross could account for the injuries this paper asserts the figure had. If the "cross" was just a "cross beam" then no, it could not. It was more historical information that goes against what the authors of the paper state. 2) I never claimed that the Romans didn't use other means or techniques, so I'm not sure what you are arguing against or accusing me of.

Regardless, there is no way for them to tell what type of internal or structural injuries were present or what casused them without remains. Even the negative image of the shroud gives no indication of these type of injuries. Heck, you can't even see, due to burning and repair, the one area they base the majority of their thesis on (right shoulder) and there is absolutely no detail in the area of the figure where the C4 and C5 vertebra are located.

originally posted by: solomons path

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: solomons path

Sorry but that article does nothing to disprove the shroud. Sometimes the Romans impaled their victims too. Does that mean crucifixion didn't happen? Or that in some cases the wrists weren't nailed to the crossbeam? There are various execution methods in practice today. To assume the romans only used one technique makes you guilty of the very thing you have accused supporters of the shroud of doing: Finding evidence to support the narrative, instead of letting the evidence describe the narrative.

I do agree with you however, that there is no body and hence no way to really make a determination about specific injuries. Seems like a lot of conjecture.

There are plenty of other facts that do a better job to disprove the shroud, and I didn't claim the article above was one of them. 1) I presented the article in response to the comment by another poster (St Udio) that the act of carrying the cross could account for the injuries this paper asserts the figure had. If the "cross" was just a "cross beam" then no, it could not. It was more historical information that goes against what the authors of the paper state. 2) I never claimed that the Romans didn't use other means or techniques, so I'm not sure what you are arguing against or accusing me of.

Regardless, there is no way for them to tell what type of internal or structural injuries were present or what casused them without remains. Even the negative image of the shroud gives no indication of these type of injuries. Heck, you can't even see, due to burning and repair, the one area they base the majority of their thesis on (right shoulder) and there is absolutely no detail in the area of the figure where the C4 and C5 vertebra are located.

well one can figure it the f out, ya think?

you do the autopsy, oh wait!!!
no body!

we have a shroud., 3D too.

explain it.

originally posted by: solomons path

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: solomons path

Sorry but that article does nothing to disprove the shroud. Sometimes the Romans impaled their victims too. Does that mean crucifixion didn't happen? Or that in some cases the wrists weren't nailed to the crossbeam? There are various execution methods in practice today. To assume the romans only used one technique makes you guilty of the very thing you have accused supporters of the shroud of doing: Finding evidence to support the narrative, instead of letting the evidence describe the narrative.

I do agree with you however, that there is no body and hence no way to really make a determination about specific injuries. Seems like a lot of conjecture.

There are plenty of other facts that do a better job to disprove the shroud, and I didn't claim the article above was one of them. 1) I presented the article in response to the comment by another poster (St Udio) that the act of carrying the cross could account for the injuries this paper asserts the figure had. If the "cross" was just a "cross beam" then no, it could not. It was more historical information that goes against what the authors of the paper state. 2) I never claimed that the Romans didn't use other means or techniques, so I'm not sure what you are arguing against or accusing me of.

Regardless, there is no way for them to tell what type of internal or structural injuries were present or what casused them without remains. Even the negative image of the shroud gives no indication of these type of injuries. Heck, you can't even see, due to burning and repair, the one area they base the majority of their thesis on (right shoulder) and there is absolutely no detail in the area of the figure where the C4 and C5 vertebra are located.

I am on the fence about the shroud's authenticity, personally. I've seen interesting arguments both for and against it, and nothing conclusive thus far. As for your arguments about the crossbeam, I think it could contribute to the injuries if you consider the fact the Gospels report Jesus was beaten and then scourged first. In that sense, while the crossbeam could not be solely responsible for such injuries, it could further exacerbate them.

As for your second paragraph, I agree completely. There is simply no way anyone could infer that much information about internal injuries based solely on the image imprinted on the shroud itself. It's conjecture based on the assumption that not only are the gospel accounts of Jesus passion real (which I personally believe they are), but also that the shroud is not only authentic, but is the same shroud Jesus of Nazareth was buried in. Without a body there is no way to confirm any internal trauma.

a reply to: tsingtao

well one can figure it the f out, ya think?

Sure, that's what forensics is all about. Unfortunately for these guys, a barely visible image on a piece of cloth does not provide enough information to come to the conclusions they do. So, it begs the question, did they start with a bias and simply confirm it based on their flimsy observations? The fact that they were, supposedly, given access to the actual shroud and how selective the Church is in who they let examine it gives the bias angle stronger evidence than they provided in the paper.

you do the autopsy, oh wait!!!
no body!

No need for an autopsy . . . or even a "body" technically. Skeletal remains would be sufficient, but they don't have those either. Even with skeletal remains, it would point to type of injury or cause. It would still be speculation to attribute it to an actual weapon or event, unless they are presupposing the authenticity of the biblical account.

we have a shroud., 3D too.

We have a shroud. So what, the Vatican won't even go on record as claiming it is real. That should tell you something, right? And no, it is not 3D. What you are refering to is the negative image, where the lightest parts appear black and the darkest parts appear white. We can take that and generate a 3D model, on a computer, but the shroud is not "3D". The computer is simply adding depth based on shade. That said, that still means nothing to the paper used in the OP. It is not as if you can put the shroud in an MRI machine and see the internal structure of the figure.

explain it

Explained.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

Yeah . . . Personally, I don't think the shroud is authentic and I don't believe the church is really interested in finding out the truth either. Even as an atheist, I've never written off the possiblity that the shroud is real, whether I buy into the ecclesiastic version or not. Heck, just recently there was an idea that was proposed and published that claimed the image wasn't a result of the resurrection, but from a large earthquake that released radiation from the rock. This would back the claim in Matthew about the sun and earthquake, despite the fact the timeline of events wouldn't match up. If that is possible, although I didn't really buy that idea either for several reasons, than the shroud could still be a man from the period that died as the Jesus story described.

However, all signs point to it being a creation of the early 2nd millennium . . . although I (nor anyone else) knows how exactly it was pulled off. Hate to think some poor serf died, in such a gruesome manner, to make such an intricate relic.

a reply to: FlyersFan

It is real but there will alway's be they whom want to disprove it, they will concoct all manner of argument's and deny it.
By they way My arms are easily long enough, it is called being lanky here in the uk.
S+F.