he Shroud of Turin is one of the most
curious of all relics of Christendom. If it is genuine, it is the absolute
proof of Jesus' existence that all Christians crave. Should it be a forgery,
it is done with such extraordinary skill that it almost becomes genuine in
its own right. This fantastic piece of cloth has traditionally been linked
with Templars, and therefore we need to examine some of the claims associated
with it.
he first recorded appearance of the
Shroud happened in a small French village called Lirey in 1350. The local
bishop sent a letter to the Archbishop of Toulouse stating that such an artefact
had been found, but he lacked belief in it and consequently presented it
as a fraud. The man who brought the cloth into the bishop's attention was
a knight called Geoffrey de Charny. It was said that the cloth was capable
of performing miraculous cures. (On the other hand, you could build a house
from all the wood attributed to the True Cross and also said to perform
miracles.)
he Shroud is a piece of linen, some
4 meters long and 1.5 wide, on which is recorded the image of a man lying
down with his arms on his lap. The man has several distinct features that
link him with Jesus, such as wounds on wrists and blood seeping onto the
forehead from scratch marks of a thorn brace around the head. Usually it
was folded four times, so that only the head of the figure remained visible.
he pros of the Shroud being genuine
are mainly these: it cannot be reproduced by painting, because painting always
leaves an outline of the brush and no such thing is visible in the Shroud.
Its graphical features fit with the descriptions that are available of Jesus'
body after the crucifixion, and it fits the burial customs that were in use
in Palestine in those days. It also has some pollen residue that is typical
of Palestinian plants, along with Western European and Turkish pollen residues.
The image on the Shroud can also be seen in Roman coins in circulation in
Palestine in the first century, and in a prayer book found in Budapest that
dates to the 11th century. Therefore it has had to be in existence before
the 13th century.
he biggest con against the authenticity
of the Shroud is that it has been carbon dated to be from the time between
1290 - 1350. The dating was made in 1989, but even that has been contested
with reasonable doubt: in another similar dating experiment, eight laboratories
produced estimates that varied 800 years. Another con is that there is no
record of the Shroud before the 14th century, and it can be reasonably expected
that such a powerful relic would have been known to the Christian world.
ow is the Shroud linked to the Order,
then? The biggest link is that between the names of the owner of the Shroud
in 1350, Geoffrey de Charny, and the last Visitor
of the Order, Geoffrey de Charney. It has been put forward that the Shroud
passed to Charny family from the Order in 1307 when the Order was attacked.
Another link is a curious face painted in the former Templar church in
Templecombe, England. It bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Shroud.
It was also in some testimonies given by Templars that Baphomet was a face
with four legs; if you open the Shroud, it has four legs (and two heads,
mind you).
s to the verifiability of any of these
links, I would first like to see the Shroud verified one way or another.
It is much too often that any kind of semi-mythic event or piece becomes
associated with other such stuff even when no actual connection should even
be searched for. Should it be proven that the Shroud is genuine, I will have
renewed interest in tracing the links between the Order and the Shroud, but
as for the moment, I consider the case to be Pub-based material.
