A new study on the Shroud of Turin, the fabric that some Christians believe was wrapped around Jesus Christ after his death, could support a long-held belief about the biblical account of his burial.
Dr. Kelly Kearse, an immunologist who studied at Johns Hopkins University and now works as a chemistry teacher at Knoxville Catholic High School, found in a study of the shroud that the "washing hypothesis" that forensic pathologist Dr. Frederick Zugibe proposed in 1998 is contradicted by evidence collected from the shroud itself.
In her research, Kearse examined human blood samples to see how blood transfers to cloth and found that serum halos, or clear rings that form around blood clots, are visible on parts of the shroud.
Kearse noted that such halos form only if the blood has begun to clot before it touches fabric, suggesting that the body wrapped in the cloth was not washed. This could support the biblical account that Jesus Christ was wrapped in the shroud along with spices without being washed, according to the Daily Mail.
"The presence of such markings led to the interpretation that clotted blood was transferred to the cloth, and thus, could not have been fabricated by the direct addition of whole blood," Kearse wrote. "Relatedly, the improbability that a forger would have added the detail of 'halos/rings' in anticipation of their eventual discovery by the then unknown method of ultraviolet detection has also been commented on relative to the direct addition of blood to the cloth."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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