The Shroud of Turin: Confirmation of a Hoax

Why, over the years, has the Christian world remained silent and produced no champion who could have challenged the claims made for the Shroud of Turin? The weight of Scriptural evidence and an analysis of the burial practices of the time can lead to only one logical conclusion -- namely, that Yeshua the Messiah was not wrapped in the shroud at the time of burial. No such method was in vogue in the practice of the time.

“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and WOUND it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:39-40).

Wound or wrapped in linen clothes! NOT a shroud. Turning to the eleventh chapter of John we read about Lazarus who had died and was buried. When Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth,” the account states that: “He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, Loose him and let him go.”

In his Commentary Dr. Adam Clarke states that the phrase, “bound hand and foot with grave clothes,” means “swathed about with rollers...These were long slips of linen a few inches in breadth, with which the body and limbs of the dead were swathed, and especially those who were embalmed.” Dr. Clarke continued: “It is evident that Lazarus had not been embalmed” (Martha’s comment in the 39th verse would indicate this to be true); “it is probable that his limbs were not swathed together, as is the case with those who are embalmed, but separately, so that he could come out of the tomb at the command of Christ, though he could not walk freely till the rollers were taken away.” However, the body of the Messiah was embalmed and completely wrapped in the linen rollers. Both Matthew 27 and Mark 15 confirm that the body of the Messiah was wound with linen rollers, or grave clothes, when placed in the new sepulcher in the garden (John 19).

The first day of the week, following the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene came to the sepulcher early in the morning and saw that the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb had been taken away. The account states: “Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple (who was John), whom Jesus loved, and said unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulcher. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw, and believed” (John 20).

What did John see that convinced him that Jesus had, indeed, risen from the dead? The linen wrappings remained in place as though they were still around the body: they merely collapsed as the body had come up out of the wrappings without disturbing them. Thus when John and Peter saw this, they knew that the resurrection of the Messiah had taken place. The linen wrappings could not retain his resurrected body any more than the locked room could prevent him from appearing to his disciples (John 20).

Thus, the claims made in regard to the so-called Holy Shroud are a spurious invention to deceive the credulous. It was evidently a product of the apostate church of the Middle Ages and used as an object of veneration so that the Church might profit by it. It is but one among many other fragmental articles of one kind or another which have been brought into being for a similar supposedly sacred purpose. All such relics become a source of idolatry and are condemned by YEHOVAH’s Word, the Bible. Even the brazen serpent Moses made had to be destroyed because it had become an object of idolatrous worship. The Shroud of Turin should be consigned to a similar fate.

Since attention was first called to the Scriptural evidence demonstrating that this Shroud was a fake, we have been waiting for one of the many scientists examining the Shroud of Turin to finally confirm what we know to be true. We now have that confirmatory evidence in a statement by one of the best microscopists in the world. His statement was published in the Boston Herald American under the title “Shroud Called Hoax” as follows:

A later report in the Pasadena Star News stated the following –

YEHOVAH God would not have allowed the grave cloths to remain in existence to be venerated like a Catholic relic. If you recall, the body of Moses was buried in an unknown grave to prevent such adoration and worship from occurring -- which is pure adolatry in YEHOVAH’s eyes.