Guido Pagliarino - Sindòn The Mysterious Shroud Of Turin

Copyright © 2020 Guido Pagliarino

All rights reserved

Book published by Tektime

Tektime S.r.l.s. - Via Armando Fioretti, 17 – 05030 – Montefranco (TR)

Guido Pagliarino

SINDÒN

THE MYSTERIOUS SHROUD OF TURIN

Essay

Translation by Annibale Marsili

Guido Pagliarino

SINDÒN The mysterious Shroud of Turin

Essay

Translation from Italian to English by Annibale Marsili

Tektime Distribution

© 2020 Guido Pagliarino - All rights belong to the author

Previous editions:

First printed edition: “La misteriosa Sindone di Torino”, © 2007-2012 Boopen Editore

Second revised and enlarged printed edition and first e-book edition [only Pdf]: “Sindòn la misteriosa Sindone di Torino”, © 2013-2014 Editrice GDS. This edition is out of print from 2015, and all the rights are returned to the author

Third edition only on e-book mobi Amazon and epub Kobo, by the author, © 2015 Guido Pagliarino

Fourth edition on printed book and e-book, all formats, Tektime distribution © 2019 Guido Pagliarino

On the cover: One of the two paintings by Giovanni Battista della Rovere “il Fiammenghino” depicting Jesus wrapped into the Shroud

The general and detailed photos of the Shroud inside the book belong to the Catholic Church, therefore they belong to all of us

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapters and paragraphs

- AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

- THE MYSTERIOUS SHROUD

- A) General introduction:

- No doubt..

- Linen cloth or strips?

- History of Shroud until A.D. 1356 and the first definite historical record in the same year

- Some have attempted to create a Shroud-like image recently, but they have failed to reproduce the relic same specificities so far; who produced similar images, however, was unable to replicate all its characteristics

- Why are the thumbs not visible on the Shroud and the right foot covers the left one on the positive photographic image?

- Coins

- Aloe and myrrh

- Crurifragium

- Wounds and abrasions marks

- Wounds, injuries, bloodstains detected on the Shroud exactly match the Gospels descriptions of the Passion of Jesus Christ

- Statistics

- Forensic examination by the pathologist Professor Pierluigi Baima Bollone

- B) In detail:

- I - PHOTOGRAPHS

- II - THE RESEARCH BEGINS

- III - CARBON-14 DATING EXPERIMENTS

- The underlying principle of the radiocarbon dating (C-14)

- The first and little-known dating experiment (unofficial) on a Shroud's sample with the C-14 method

- The 1988 authorized radiocarbon dating experiments: why they did not produce acceptable results

- IV - A POTENTIAL MEDIEVAL FORGER WOULD HAVE BEEN THE ALL-TIME GREATEST GENIUS AND A MURDEROUS CRIMINAL MONSTER

- V - CHRONOLOGY (Brief hystory of the Shroud of Turin)

- PRIMARY SOURCES

- Appendix - “Amici della Reale Chiesa di San Lorenzo [Friends of the Royal Church of St. Lawrence]”: association of volunteers for the Shroud explanation during the 2000 Jubilee

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

If it is true that the Cloth par excellence has led many people to embrace or rediscover Christianity, a phenomenon called “apostolate through the Shroud” 1, this book is not going to persuade that the Shroud truly wrapped Christ's body two thousand years ago or, as commonly said, that it is authentic. On the other hand, the concept of authenticity could have a different meaning in this context, because you can even believe that the relic preserved in Turin is the shroud which enveloped Jesus' body, but you can simply assume that this sheet is just a two thousand years old item. I suppose that we cannot deny that the Shroud is a very ancient relic, but I do not wish to take a position on the circumstance that it really would wrap the body of Christ. At the moment, there are much evidence to support the hypothesis that it is a very ancient relic rather than the only two against this theory, which are: a) radiocarbon dating experiments on Shroud's samples, which determined the age of the Sheet at lower medieval period (although many Christian scholars express scientific doubts regarding those tests); b) the prejudice, both from anticlerical laity and from most of the Reformed Christians. The first simply neglect the argument, and sometimes they mock it; the Protestant believers, on the contrary, condemn the veneration of the Shroud, which they consider to be a simple “icon” created by human hands: they follow the Old Testament verse “you must not to make for yourself an idol of any kind of image...”, which was historically written down for anti-idolatrous reasons 2.. In this regard, the Catholics argued that this banning existed only before the Incarnation of God in Jesus, when God made flesh and showed himself to the world as an “image”. Moreover, there are Catholics who deny the authenticity of the Shroud as the relic which wrapped the body of Jesus 3. And, on the contrary, there are Protestants who believe it is a genuine 1st century artifact, and sometimes even the real burial cloth of Jesus. In any case, it should be stressed that the Christian faith is not based on the Shroud of Turin but, historically, on the oral testimonials of the Apostles on the Christ's resurrection, collected during the 1st century in the New Testament's books 4; the work of the Church to match, over the centuries, the new evidence with the oldest one, has allowed to pass them down to us 5. I admit that in the past I was not particularly interested in the Shroud. But in 1998 I met Dr. Giovanni Latino, who was introduced to me by a common friend, and since then I was intrigued and involved by the relic. The passion of Dr. Latino prompted me to attend conferences of experts; and, besides, the weekly meetings arranged by him and the association “Amici della Reale Chiesa di San Lorenzo [Friends of Saint Lawrence Royal Church]” in a room of Saint Lawrence Church during the two years before the 2000 Holy Year Exhibition, aimed at deepening the study and the debate on the Shroud. Later, I became a member of that organization and a volunteer for the Shroud explanation during the Exhibition 6. But my belief is always based on the New Testament's books, not on the Sheet. With that idea in mind, I'm publishing this new edition of my essay about the Shroud, by adding new details and adjustments with respect to the book released years ago and the report I promoted online on the occasion of the 2000 Holy Year Exhibition. This work examines certain topics several times, from different perspectives; and the reader should not consider those repetitions as redundant and unintended.

The essay presents:

a general introduction (although some insights are already inside, such as the medical conclusions by the pathologist Pierluigi Baima Bollone);

a section in chapters, with detailed discussion about the topics introduced in the first part (for example, the photographs of the Shroud); and finally a chronology.

T HE MYSTERIOUS SHROUD

Positive and negative image of the Turin Shroud

A) General introduction :

The Shroud – Holy Shroud for Catholics – is a linen cloth (sindòn = shroud, cloth) just 0.34 mm thick; the relic's weave pattern is a "herringbone", with a technique used two thousand years ago in Egypt (there are even five-thousand-year-old Egyptian artifacts) , in Palestine and in other Middle Est areas; the yarn is described as a "Z-twist" (clockwise twisting), unlike the "S-twist" process (counter-clockwise twisting) used in later times 7. They are spinning and weaving techniques no longer considered since the early Middle Ages. The Cloth is 4.41 meters long and 1.13 wide, after the 2002 conservative restoration (see Chronology, , 2002 AD) 8. The Archbishop pro tempore of Turin (namely, in office at the time) is its Custodian. The Shroud is housed in Turin since 1578, with some temporary displacements due to wars: such as when the French besieged the city in 1706, or when the Shroud was transferred to the Montevergine Abbey (near Avellino, Italy) to protect it from the bombings when Italy entered the World War II in 1939. It returned to Turin in 1946.