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March 26, 2005

A Source of The Passion

With all of the discussion of the specific acts included in Mel Gibson's The Passion, I'm a bit surprised more wasn't made of relevant aspects of the history of the investigation of the Shroud of Turin:

According to Barbet, the Shroud shows that prior to taking up the Cross, Jesus was subjected to two drastic forms of punishment. First, he was severely beaten with a stick about 1.75 inches in diameter. "Excoriations are to be found everywhere on the face, but especially on the right side." Barbet found "haematomas beneath the bleeding surfaces." The nose "is deformed by a fracture of the posterior of the cartilage." The marks show that the stick was "vigorously handled by an assailant standing on the right of Jesus."

After that, he was subjected to scourging by two men employing the well-known Roman "flagrum," a leather whip featuring small balls of metal or bone designed to tear the skin. Barbet finds more than fifty such strokes. "All the wounds have the same shape, like a little halter about three centimeters long. The two circles represent the balls of lead. . . . We may assume that during the scourging he was completely naked, for the halter-like wounds are to be seen all over the pelvic region, which would otherwise have been protected. . . . Finally, there must have been two executioners. It is possible they were not of the same height, for the obliqueness of the blows is not the same on each side."

Posted by Justin Katz at March 26, 2005 10:58 PM
Religion
Comments

No mention in your speculation that the shroud may not have wrapped Jesus, or that it is possibly an elaborate hoax, or that Jesus himself didn't exist or did and was a self-constructed elaborate hoax.

Posted by: steve duncan at March 27, 2005 10:52 AM

What a pleasure to have such as you, Steve, to deal with on my Easter morning! Well, may the risen Christ reach through to your soul in due time.

In the meantime, perhaps it will suffice for me to note that I was explicitly mentioning the quoted account as a source for a particular movie. The salient point, for this post, in other words, was that some of the details from one particular investigation of the Shroud appear to match details that Mel Gibson included in his movie.

Or is finding such parallels in too much conflict with your contra-Christian faith for you to brook their voicing?

Posted by: Justin Katz at March 27, 2005 11:12 AM

Contra-Christian? I wanted to go to my health club today but it was closed for Easter. I wanted to take my fiancee' out to dinner and the top 3 choices of restaurant I called were closed due to Easter. Yet I don't think of any of the proprietors of these businesses as contra-atheist. They believe differently than I do and so it is. However, were atheists to announce agreement on a national day off similar to Christmas or Easter and advocate a national celebration in the non-belief in God the derision would be nearly universal. How many non-believing employees lose pay and tips because of many Christian's inability to both work and worship in the same 24 hour timeframe? Why is it just fine to be contra-atheist but not contra-christian? And why is questioning the tenets of a religion interpreted as anti-religious?

Posted by: steve duncan at March 27, 2005 1:07 PM

Steve Duncan: I wanted to go to my health club today but it was closed for Easter. I wanted to take my fiancee' out to dinner and the top 3 choices of restaurant I called were closed due to Easter.

Hey Steve, I'm not a Christian either, but you're kind of over the top here. Go jogging instead of to the gym, eat at a Chinese restaurant with your fiancee, and have a happy Easter!

Posted by: Matt Taylor at March 27, 2005 2:53 PM

You have the cleverest commenters, Justin. Steve's original remarks involved a distortion of what you actually meant; indeed, a distortion of what you actually wrote, right there in front of his face and in front of everybody else, too. Then, you get turned into the bad guy. Very clever, these commenters you have.

Posted by: ELC at March 27, 2005 3:18 PM
No mention in your speculation that the shroud may not have wrapped Jesus, or that it is possibly an elaborate hoax, or that Jesus himself didn't exist or did and was a self-constructed elaborate hoax.

Yes, clearly, Justin, in every post that mentions Jesus, or Christianity, you should put in the disclaimer that the whole thing might be a big hoax. That's clearly the only intellectually respectable behavior.

Posted by: Mike S. at March 28, 2005 8:53 AM