We bring our series of Lenten/Easter posts to a conclusion by offering a solution to the dilemma most every family faces at Easter time. What do you do with all those boiled eggs in your kids' Easter baskets...especially if they don't like egg salad sandwiches?
Here’s your answer. Make a traditional Easter breakfast consisting of creamed eggs on toast, biscuit, or English muffin. It's quick and easy to make, yummy, and also uses up a lot of those hard-boiled eggs.
Here's all you’ll need: A white sauce, hard boiled eggs, and something to put it over.
Make the white sauce using equal parts of chicken broth and milk. (The addition of a little sour cream lends a nice touch.) Add a generous pat of butter or margarine, flour or corn starch sufficient to thicken, a tsp. of salt, a little pepper and a pinch or two of turmeric for color. Four cups of liquid yields enough sauce for about eight hard boiled eggs…or four servings. Increase the recipe proportionally for larger amounts.
Dissolve the flour in the broth, combine in a skillet with the milk and slowly heat to a boil, stirring constantly. When it thickens, add the salt, pepper and turmeric. Shell your eggs, chop them into small pieces and blend into the sauce. Heat through and it’s ready to serve. Add a few strips of bacon or some sausage links and presto! you've got an Easter breakfast.
Try it...you'll like it.
We'll be back next week to resume our posts on Ancient Games, Foods of the First Century, Ancient Metals and other interesting topics. Until then, we wish you a Blessed Easter.
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As we learned in our recent post on the date of Easter, Holy Week and Easter are intimately connected to the week-long Jewish Feast of Pesach, or Passover. With this in mind, today we step aside from our Lenten-Easter posts to take a look at the Feast of Passover…more specifically we’ll be examining the Seder Meal.
PESACH IN ANCIENT JUDAISM
In ancient times, Passover was the first of three great pilgrim feasts during which all Jews who were able would journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast in the Temple. We are told in the Gospels that Jesus made the annual trek to Jerusalem to participate in the festivities both as a child with Mary and Joseph, and as an adult with his disciples. It was during one such journey that he remained behind causing Mary and Joseph to leave the homebound caravan and return to Jerusalem to find him.
The first Passover occurred in Egypt when the first born of each family died. The Israelites were protected from this curse by slaughtering an unblemished lamb and painting their doorposts and lintel in its blood with a branch of the hyssop plant. (Exodus 12:1-13, 21-28, 43-49) Seeing this mark, the Angel of Death passed over their homes. They are then commanded to celebrate this feast as an annual memorial to the Lord’s salvation. The Bible gives specific instructions on how it is to be eaten…standing with staff in hand, etc.
THE SEDER MEAL
By the First Century, the Pesach meal had evolved into a structured religious service with a defined form of conduct. The word seder, in fact, means order. And there is a particular order of prayers and responses to the Seder meal. Most people distribute prayer books, siddurs, so each family member can follow along and participate. Of all the Jewish holidays, Pesach is the one most Christians are familiar with and also the most commonly observed, even by otherwise non-observant Jews. According to the 1990 survey, more than 80% of Jews have attended a Pesach Seder.
ANNUAL HOUSECLEANING
Pesach was also known as the Feast of Unleaven Bread because it is forbidden to eat chametz, leaven, during Pesach. Chametz includes anything made from the five major grains…wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt, which wasn’t completely cooked within 18 minutes after coming into contact with water. Since all of these grains are commonly used to make bread, their use was prohibited to avoid any confusion. The most significant observance related to Pesach involves the removal of all leavened items from the home. This commemorates the Jews leaving Egypt in a hurry, and not having time to let their bread rise. It is also a symbolic way of removing the puffiness —arrogance and pride— from one’s soul.
The grain product eaten during Pesach is called matzah. Matzah is unleavened bread, made from flour and water and cooked very quickly. This is the bread that the Jews made for their flight from Egypt. There are many inventive ways to use matzah. It is available in a variety of textures for cooking: matzah flour, finely ground for cakes and cookies, matzah meal, coarsely ground for use as a bread crumb substitute, matzah farfel, little chunks which serve as a noodle or bread cube substitute, and full-sized matzahs, the 10 inch square that serves as a bread substitute and is an integral part of the Seder meal.
SETTING THE TABLE…THE SEDER PLATE
The first thing that must be done for the meal is to prepare the Seder plate. There are many decrative plates available with a designated spot for each of the six items: The Charoset. a mixture of chopped walnuts, wine, cinnamon and apples that represents the mortar the Jewish slaves used to assemble for the Pharaoh's bricks. Chazeret, freshly grated horseradish to reflect the bitter affliction of slavery. Karpas, a vegetable, most often parsley, which is dipped in salt water as a reminder of the bitter tears the Jews shed while enslaved in Egypt. Betza, or hard-boiled egg. The egg is metaphoric. Like the egg that hardens the more one boils it, so the Israelites strengthened when faced with increasingly challenging situations. The round shape of the egg also reminds us of the cycle of life. The Zro-a, a shank bone symbolic of the sacrificial lamb. The Maror, or bitter herbs…typically Romaine or endive, a remembrance of the bitter affliction of slavery. Each person also receives a glass of wine or grape juice.
A Seder Plate with the Six Items
The order of the meal is best understood as a series of steps, each of which has both historical and symbolic meaning.
1. Kaddesh: The Sanctification. A blessing is said over wine in honor of the holiday, the wine is drunk, and a second cup is poured.
2. Urechatz: The First Washing. A washing of the hands without a blessing in preparation for eating.
3. Karpas: The vegetable (usually parsley) is dipped in salt water and eaten. Parsley lends itself especially well for this purpose, because when you shake off the salt water, it looks like tears.
4. Yachatz: The Breaking of the matzah. One of the three matzahs on the table is broken. Part is returned to the pile, the other part is set aside for the afikomen for later use.
5. Maggid: The Story. It begins when the youngest person in the room asks the first of the Mah Nishtanah…the four questions. “Why is this night different from all others?” The host or oldest person in the room then tells the story of the Exodus and the first Passover. At the end of the maggid, a blessing is recited over the second cup of wine and it is drunk.
6. Rachtzah: The Second Washing. A second washing of the hands, this time with a blessing, in preparation for the eating the matzah.
7. Motzi: The blessing over Grain Products. The ha-motzi blessing, a generic blessing for bread or grain products used as a meal, is recited over the matzah.
8. Matzah: A blessing specific to matzah is recited, and a bit of matzah is eaten.
9. Maror: The bitter herbs. A blessing is recited over a bitter vegetable, usually raw horseradish, and it is eaten.
The Hillel Sanwich - Charoset Between Matzah
10. Korekh: The Hillel Sandwich. The Rabbi Hillel, who died a few years before Jesus was born, believed the maror should be eaten together with matzah and the paschal offering. Since there are no more animal sacrifices, there is no paschal offering to eat. However, in Hillel’s memory, it’s customary to eat some maror with charoset between two pieces of matzah.
If you search for Charoset recipes, you’ll find them with raisins, dates, cranberries, pears even mangoes. Here is a traditional recipe. For authenticity, you might want to consider sweetening it with honey since the First Century Jews didn’t have refined sugar.
Ingredients:
6 apples, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
2/3 c chopped almonds
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Grated rind of 1 lemon
4 tbsp sweet red wine
Combine all, mixing thoroughly. Add wine as need. Blend to desired texture —some like it coarse and crunchy, others prefer it ground to a paste. Makes about 3 Cups. Keeps in refrigerator
11. Shulchan Orekh: The Dinner. A festive meal is now served. There is no particular requirement regarding what to eat at this meal except, of course, chametz cannot be eaten.
12. Tzafun: The Afikomen. The piece of matzah set aside earlier is eaten as dessert, the last food of the meal. Families have different traditions relating to the afikomen. Some have the children hide it, while the parents have to either find it or ransom it back. Others have the parents hide it and the children must find it. Either way, the goal seems to be to keep the children awake and attentive as they wait for this part.
13. Barekh: Grace after Meals. The third cup of wine is poured, and birkat ha-mazon (grace after meals) is recited. This is similar to the grace that would be said on any Shabbat. At the end, a blessing is said over the third cup and it is drunk. A fourth cup is poured, including a cup reserved for the prophet Elijah, who is supposed to herald the Messiah. The door is opened for a while at this point.
14. Hallel: The Praises. Several psalms are recited. A blessing is recited over the last cup of wine and it is drunk. [By the way, this is where our word Hallelujah comes from.]
15. Nirtzah: The Closing. A simple statement that the Seder has been completed, with a wish that next year, it may be celebrated in Jerusalem (i.e., that the Messiah will come within the next year).
Many Christian churches celebrate a Seder meal as a remembrance of the Last Supper. If you have an opportunity to attend such a service, take it. You will find it both instructive and enlightening.
Be sure to check in tomorrow for a traditional recipe that allows you to utilize a lot of those hard- boiled eggs you dyed with the kids.
We’ll return on Monday to look at the rite of initiation used by the Early Church.
Until then, we wish Peace and Blessings over the upcoming Easter/Passover weekend.
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Jesus and his Disciples Celebrate the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday
Hello My Friend and Welcome.
Our Lenten-Easter Series continues with a discussion of Maundy Thursday. In various ages and places it has been known by a variety of names… Clean Thursday, Great Thursday, Green Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Holy Thursday, Red Thursday, Sharp Thursday, Sheer Thursday, Shrift Thursday, and Thursday of the Mystical Supper.
UNUSUAL NAMES AND WORDS
The reference to colors may seem confusing at first. However, in the Early Church people dyed their Easter eggs on the Thursday before Easter. The only color they used was red, representing the blood of Christ. There are several explanations for calling it Green Thursday. One theory traces it back to the reconciliation of penitents which took place on this day. The penitents carried green branches as a sign of their joy. Indeed, Dies viridium, an old Latin name for the day which means “Day of the Green Ones,” came from this custom. In the symbolic code of the western European church, green represents hope and victory. The green twig in particular symbolized a long struggle crowned by victory. Until the thirteenth century priests wore green vestments on Maundy Thursday.
Another theory suggests that it evolved from an older name, “Mourning Thursday." The two names are not far apart in German since the German word for mourning is grunen and the German word for green is grün. The word Maundy comes from the Latin mandatum, meaning command and refers to the passage in John 13:34 where, at the Last Supper, Jesus says to his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
THE LAST SUPPER — BEGINNING OF THE PASSION
Maundy Thursday also begins what is sometimes called the Triduum, or the final three days of Lent…Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Biblically, it begins the Passion of the Christ, to borrow a term, with the narrative of the Last Supper followed by the Agony in the Garden, his arrest, initial trial and eventual crucifixion the following afternoon.
Jesus Washes the Feet of His Disciple
A number of things occurred at the Last Supper and many traditions of our day still reflect this. For instance, Maundy Thursday is the day many churches have a foot washing ceremony. In an imitation of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, a priest or deacon washes the feet of parishioners. Each year the Greek town of Patmos stages a folk play dramatizing the washing of the disciples' feet. Participants stage the play, titled Niptir, or “Washing,” in the town square.
The second, and most important, aspect of the Last Supper was the Lord’s institution of the sacrament of Eucharist. In doing so he established the New Covenant. The Last Supper was a Passover meal. The doctrine that Jesus became the Paschal Lamb slain for our sins derives from his words and actions on Maundy Thursday.
Many Protestant churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday. Others use the occasion to have a modified Seder meal known as an Upper Room service. Members gather to eat foods Jesus and his disciples may have included in their Passover meal. They eat in silence, while listening to Bible readings. The name derives from the place where Jesus and his disciples ate the Last Supper, which the Bible called simply as the upper room.
Vials of Chrism (Holy Oil) Waiting to be Blessed
BLESSING THE CHRISM AND ANOINTING THE SICK
In Catholic and Anglican cathedrals the holy oil, or chrism, that will be used in the coming year is blessed at a special service on Maundy Thursday. Clergy members use this oil for baptisms, confirmations, ordinations, and for anointing the dying and those in ill health. This practice of blessing of holy oil on Maundy Thursday can be traced back to at least the Fifth Century.
In the Eastern, or Orthodox Church, Maundy Thursday services commemorate the Last Supper and Jesus' command to his disciples to love one another. Since Orthodoxy follows the ancient Jewish custom of reckoning the start of each new day at sunset, their Maundy Thursday services begin on Wednesday evening. In some places Wednesday evening services are accompanied by the anointing of the sick.
STRIPPING THE ALTAR
In some churches the altar is ceremonially stripped of all its cloth coverings at the end of Maundy Thursday services. This stripping leaves the church with a stark appearance. Just as Jesus was taken away by the soldiers, the altar in a sense is taken away. This prepares the Church for the mournful services that take place the following day on Good Friday. It also gives those in charge of cleaning and decorating the church an opportunity to wash everything thoroughly in preparation for Easter. In the Middle Ages the floors and walls of the church were scrubbed on Maundy Thursday, sometimes called Clean Thursday. However this most likely derived not from washing the church, but from the practice of encouraging people to bathe and clean their clothes on Maundy Thursday in preparation for Easter.
SYMBOLIC COLORS
In Catholic churches, as well as those Protestant churches that observe liturgical colors, these instructions govern the color of clerical robes and other church decorations throughout the year. Priests wear red robes at the start of Maundy Thursday services since in the liturgical color scheme red represents love and suffering. At the celebration of the Eucharist the priest changes to white robes, symbolizing joy. This switch reflects the honor given to Maundy Thursday as the birthday of the Eucharist and the joy with which Christians receive this gift from Christ.
FLYING BELLS
In another old church custom that dates back to the Eighth Century, bells were rung for the last time before Easter on Maundy Thursday. In the absence of the bells the beginning and ending of religious services and devotions were announced by the sounding of a wooden clapperboard, an ancient device used in churches before the introduction of bells in the Fifth Century. This sudden silence of the church bells puzzled children. Adults often told them the bells had flown off to Rome to visit the pope and spend the night at St. Peter’s before returning on Easter morning. French parents even hinted it was the returning bells that brought children their Easter eggs. Take that, Mr. Easter Bunny!
Out of respect for Passion Week, there will be no post on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. Be sure to check at Sowing the Seeds on Saturday. We’ll have a short post on what to do with all the Easter eggs which includes a recipe.
Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings.
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Today we examine the third, and final, Relic of Christ’s Passion & Death — the Shroud of Turin. The length of this post exceeds our norm, but given the topic only a thorough discussion will do it justice. Before we begin, there’s an issue we must be address. If you missed our two earlier posts on Veronica's Veil, you can see it HERE. And if you missed the post on the Sudarium, you can find it HERE.
DENIAL OF THE POSSIBILITY OF IT BEING A RELIC
You frequently hear that the Shroud is a forgery. Something created by a skillful 13th Century artisan. It’s even been speculated that some unknown religious fanatic intent on creating a relic actually beat, tortured, and crucified some poor soul just to create an authentic looking shroud. People express pity and lament for this nameless individual who died producing the image. As with so many falsehoods, this nonsense is easily refuted by fact.
Many, many scientists have studied the Shroud. Some came to the work as atheists, others as skeptics, and some as agnostics. Interestingly enough, of the two thousand scientists who have studied the Shroud, 95% of them eventually converted to Christianity. Such is its power.
Consider this, suppose someone placed a piece of cloth in your arms and said, “This has been absolutely, positively verified to be the cloth that wrapped the body of Yeshua of Nazareth, the man we know as Jesus Christ.” What would you feel?
Facial Image from the Shroud
Tourists visit the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem primarily because it is all that remains of Herod’s Temple and the wall was there when Jesus lived. People walk the Via Dolorosa because Jesus trod those same paving stones on his way to Golgotha. The whole purpose of visiting the Holy Land is to see, hear, feel and experience the places where Jesus lived. And yet all of these experiences pale when compared to holding the cloth that wrapped his body in your arms.
STUDYING THE SHROUD ITSELF
The cloth of the shroud is not your typical burial linen. It is very fine cloth with a three-by-one herringbone twill weave. By comparison, Cleopatra’s burial shroud was not made of cloth anywhere near as nice. There is a legend which says it was the tablecloth used at the Last Supper. This could possibly be true since no one pre-planned his burial and time was of the essence due to the approaching sundown. They very well may have used it for expediency. Support for this theory comes from drip patterns on one side of the Shroud. It appears as if perhaps a piece of bread was dipped in sauce and then passed to others. Recall that at the time of Jesus, they ate on only one side of the table. They reclined with the table in front of them and servants brought food and utensils from the opposite side. Jewish law prohibited passing food behind someone.
Presenting the Shroud for Scientific Analysis
ANALYZING THE IMAGE
The popular belief is that the image on the Shroud is a contact image. This is false. There are places where the shroud clearly touched the body, but others where it just as clearly did not. Yet the image is complete and coherent. If you want an example of a contact image, visit our earlier post on the Sudarium HERE.
There is also no paint or pigment on the cloth and no brush strokes of any kind. The image resulted from the oxidation of the top six microns, less than the thickness of a human hair, of the linen fibrils. In other words, it is essentially a scorch.
Current thinking suggests the image was burned onto the cloth by the intense burst of radiant energy, light and heat, occurring at the instant of the Lord’s Resurrection. The image is essentially a photographic negative. Therefore, the negative of a photo of the Shroud displays the positive. The Shroud was first photographed in 1898. Only when they developed the plate did its fine details became apparent; most can’t be seen with the naked eye.
The reason for this photographic effect again, relates to the light, energy, and radiation of the Resurrection. Perhaps you’ve seen or heard of similar occurrences in Hiroshima. If a person happened to be passing a building at the time of detonation, they would have been instantly vaporized. However, in the process, a photographic negative image of them was burned into the wall beside them…their shadow was flashed onto the wall.
Like Veronica’s Veil and the Sudarium, the Shroud has been subjected to NASA three-dimensional imaging software. Place a photo of the Shroud under their equipment and you get a perfect 3-D image. A typical photograph or painting becomes distorted when subjected to the same process. The shroud is the only object in the world that, when its photograph is placed under this analyzer, produces a perfect 3-D image of a human being.
The image on the Shroud is also anatomically correct in all details. The wounds, blood patterns, etc., all correspond to what we know of the wounds Christ suffered. The man in the Shroud was 5’11” tall and weighed about 175 pounds. He was Jewish, in good health between the age of 30 and 35.
POLLEN ANALYSIS
A Swiss criminologist gathered samples of 58 species of pollen off of the Shroud. Forty-five of them are from Jerusalem and the surrounding area. We have an exact history of the shroud from the year 1350 forward. If it originated in Europe at that time, how did it acquire all this pollen from the Holy Land? Of those 45, 18 of them are found nowhere else but in the Holy Land. A Jewish scientist and expert in pollen stated unequivocally that he has no doubt the Shroud originated in the area between Jerusalem and Jericho.Interestingly, most of this pollen comes from plants that bloom in the spring, which is, of course, when the crucifixion took place.
OTHER SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS
Ultraviolet analysis of the shroud shows blood serum halos around the blood stains. Such a detailed understanding of blood chemistry and ultraviolet technology was unknown in the 14th century.
In addition to soft tissue information, the shroud also shows bone. In some respects, the intense burst of radiation produced an X-ray effect. Under magnification, teeth can be detected through a closed mouth. Ribs, vertebrae and other bone structure can also be seen. When looking at photos of the Shroud, you may have wondered why the fingers appear so long. This is because you are seeing the metacarpal bones that form the hand itself. Images of the thumb can even be seen through the hand.
Bloodstain from Wound Through the Wrist
Notice also, where the nail marks are in the hands. They’re not in the hands, but in the wrists. Studies have shown that a nail in the hand, as most artists depict it, would not support the weight of a human body. In the wrist bone, however, there is a small opening that allows the nail to slip through and hold fast.
OFF BODY IMAGES
There are other images on the Shroud in addition to a man’s body. For instance, before he was buried, they attached a phylactery to his forehead. This and his hairstyle is how we know he was Jewish. Phylacteries were small leather pouches that Jews of that day tied around their head and left arm in fulfillment of the command in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Man Wearing a Phylactery
Verse nine relates not to phylacteries, but to the mezuzahs, or scroll cases, Jews attach to their door posts even to this day. Inside both would be a small scroll containing the words of the Shema. In Hebrew, the prayer that proceeds the command in Deuteronomy begins, Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai eleheinu Adonai ehad… “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD…and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Three-D imaging done in the 1970’s also showed coins on the man’s eyelids. With detailed analysis, the coin itself was identified. It was found to be a lepton. Leptons circulated in Judea at the time of Tiberius Caesar. They were minted in AD 29 during the reign of Judean Prefect Pontius Pilate.
WHAT ABOUT THE CARBON-14 DATING?
In 1988, to the naysayers delight, the Vatican authorized a Carbon-14 test. The results dated the cloth to the 14th Century — somewhere between 1290 and 1360 to be exact. End of story, right? The Shroud’s clearly a fake, a forgery, a fraud. Not quite.
Like many modern analytic tools, the reputation that Carbon-14 Dating has for accuracy is seriously overstated. It is definitely a useful scientific tool, but it depends upon skillful interpretation, multiple samples, and knowing the surrounding strata in which an object was found. But there is no surrounding strata; the Shroud was not recovered in an archeological dig. And, as you will see, the outcome of the much reported 1988 tests resulted from flawed science. Could someone have deliberately attempted to skew the results? You decide.
The 1988 tests used three postage stamp sized samples. The stated plan was to take them from three different areas. However, the researchers in charge violated this protocol and took them all from the same region. Under magnification, the site where they took the sample was also shown to have a slightly different weave pattern than the rest of the material. When this occurred, no one knows. What is known is that at some point in time it had been re-woven, perhaps during the Middle Ages, to repair earlier damage.
Because of these and similar mistakes, their work did not pass peer review by other scientists, making it essentially a worthless exercise. Results could not be published in any of the respected scientific journals such as Radio Carbon, American Journal of Chemistry, American Journal of Archaeology, etc. Instead, the results were published in the popular magazine, Nature, with no peer review.
Over the years, the Shroud has been in three recorded fires. The worst one occurred in 1532. This fire was so hot that it melted the silver overlay on the Shroud’s case sending molten silver dripping onto the Shroud. Silver, by the way, melts at 920 degrees centigrade. Since the Shroud was folded at the time, this resulted in 24 holes. The patches over those spots are easily seen in photos. The place where they took their sample was quite near a burned segment, meaning the cloth they took had been subjected to extreme heat.
When a piece of linen undergoes such an intense fire, it causes a caboxylation of its glucose structure making it appear younger than it is. Russian scientists tested the effect fire had on the Carbon 14 dating of linen. They took a piece of linen that tested 2,000 years old and subjected it to heat similar to the 1532 fire. When the linen was retested, they found the heat caused a 700 to 1,300 year shift in the results, causing the linen to appear much younger than it actually was.
Carbon-14 testing on mummies reveals that the mummy itself reads 300-600 years older than the linen they’re wrapped in.
BACTERIA AND MICROORGANISMS
As you know, microorganisms are in the air we breathe, on our skin, our clothing, our furniture…everywhere. The University of Texas studied the microorganisms found on the Shroud. Because it has been exhibited publicly so many times, a number of various bacteria had settled on the cloth. The presence of bacteria and other microorganisms is known to distort Carbon-14 Dating.
THE ISSUE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
I’m sure we’ve all seen TV crime shows or movies in which the defense attorney tells the dogged investigator, “That’s all circumstantial evidence. You have no corpse, no fingerprints. You can’t prove my client did it. No jury will ever convict him based on merely circumstantial evidence.”
Meanwhile, we the viewer know his client is guilty as sin. The point being, when an overwhelming preponderance of circumstances all lead to a single conclusion, and at the same time eliminate all other possibilities, the only reasonable course of action is to accept those findings. Remember the little name tags your mother had to sew into your clothes before you left for summer camp? Unfortunately, no one bothered to sew a tag on the Shroud that read, “This shroud belongs to Jesus of Nazareth, if lost, please return.”
Full Shroud - Back and Front
Or perhaps they did.
In a report entitled The Shroud of Turin, The Holographic Experience given by Dr. Petrus Soons states, “My presentation summarizes work connected with digitizing Shroud photographs taken by Giuseppe Enrie in 1931, enhancing the digitized images to improve details, translating the enhanced images “gray scale data into depth data”, generating a sequence of up to 625 images of each of these, and combining these images with a Holoprinter to produce holograms (3D images) of the Shroud. It also summarizes my study of these holograms and discovery of heretofore unseen details, which confirm many previous findings and reveal some surprises.” One of those surprises was what he calls The Letters. While enlarging the photos he discovered the image of an unknown object with three letters on it lying under the man’s beard. The Aramaic word Ayin-Aleph-Nun means: “The Lamb”, a clear reference to Jesus Christ, The Lamb of God. If you wish to read the full report of The Ohio State University Conference, here’s a LINK. If you prefer, you can watch the video below which also deals with the written clues on the Shroud.
SUMMING IT UP
Let’s play Perry Mason for a few moments. We’ll put Mr. Skeptic on the witness stand and see how he interprets all of this circumstantial evidence. Then Perry can bring out the Shroud, which cannot be accurately dated. Opening it across a table he’ll ask him to tell us whether, it is, or is not, the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth?
But, before he does that, Perry will sum of the facts for the jury:
1.The Shroud displays the image of coins minted in Judea in 29 AD.
2. The Shroud also displays off body images of flowers that grow and bloom in the spring time…the time of the crucifixion. Co-incidentally, there are many early paintings of Christ’s burial that depict his body surrounded by flowers.
3. The person wrapped in the Shroud was of the proper age and religion.
4. The wounds to his body correspond exactly with those described in the Gospel accounts.
5. There is no paint or pigment anywhere on the Shroud's image.
6. The blood flows match the expected gravitational pattern.
7. The wounds greatly exceed what is typically portrayed in paintings by the Great Masters, and we all know how much flack Mel Gibson got for doing that in The Passion of the Christ.
8. The image on the Shroud is anatomically correct in every detail.
9. The image on the Shroud also aligns with one of the earliest and most famous ikons of Jesus, Christ Pantokarator, which is often taken as proof the Early Church knew of its existence.
The Shroud Overlaid on Christ Pantocrator
10.And last, but not least, it corresponds in every detail with both the image on Veronica’s Veil and the Sudarium, both of which are correctly dated to the First Century.
At this point, Perry points out that there are only two possibilities.
A. The Shroud is what it is purported to be, or…
B. Some immensely skilled individual living in the 14th Century possessed scientific and medical knowledge not discovered until four or five centuries later. Relying upon this secret knowledge and their skill, they somehow created an image on a piece of cloth without using paint or pigment. Then, knowing their work might someday be called into question they acquired a byssus scarf and imprinted an identical facial image on it. To further substantiate their work they made a three dimensional cast of their image, obtained blood, faked wounds and created a Sudarium.
Once the three forgeries were complete, they cleverly dispersed them to different locations making sure they were properly recognized and venerated. To do this required the use of a time machine since each of the Relics has a different pedigree. Nevertheless, they then traveled back in time between 700 and 1,000 years to various places and civilizations. At each stop they forged letters, dispatches, and other documents, both Christian and Muslim, referencing the images they’d just created.
With all that done, they returned to their own time and took a well-deserved rest. Spent, no doubt, congratulating themselves on their cleverness. Unfortunately, they could never take credit for this scheme of theirs. Because if they did, all the work they did would collapse in an instant.
Perry now turns and approaches the witness stand. He rests an elbow on the railing. Leaning forward, he looks you in the eye and asks, “Well, what say you?”
The next time we’ll look at the traditions of Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday.
Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings.
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In our last post we looked at Veronica’s Veil, which was used to wipe the face of Jesus on his way to crucifixion. If you missed it, you can see it HERE. Today we examine the second relic of Our Lord’s crucifixion, death and burial…the Sudarium. Latin for sweat cloth, it is sometimes referred to as the other shroud. It is the cloth placed over Jesus’ face and head after he died.
JEWISH PRACTICE OF USING A SUDARIUM
Scientists believe such a cloth was placed put over the head of a corpse as part of Jewish custom…the functional equivalent of a closed casket. When a person’s death was so awful that the family did not wish to see the face going into rigor mortis, they covered the head and face with a cloth prior to burial.
The Sudarium is mentioned in John 20:4-7. “They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.”
Demonstrating the Use of a Sudarium
HOW A SUDARIUM WAS USED
The cloth would have been placed over Jesus’ face after he died to spare his mother additional anguish. They undoubtedly left his face covered as they carried him to the tomb. When they were ready to place the body in the shroud for burial, the Sudarium would have been removed. This explains John’s comment that it was rolled up and off to one side.
As we know from the Bible, the custom at that time required a strict observance of the Shabbat. The Pharisees criticized Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and also complained about his disciples “winnowing” grain when the plucked a few heads of wheat and rubbed off the husks with their fingers. No work of any kind was allowed on the Sabbath. This required a lot of pre-planning since anything forgotten had to be left undone.
This necessitated a day of preparation —Friday, since Shabbat was Saturday— at the end of each week. However, earlier in John’s Gospel he tells us it was the day of preparation for the most solemn Shabbat of the year. This would have been the Shabbat CholHaMoed Pesach ―the Sabbath that occurred during the feast of Passover― the most sacred Shabbat of the year.
Some people assume the many blood stains on the shroud indicate the individuals preparing him for burial were in too much of a rush to stop and wash the body. By Jewish reckoning the day ended at sundown, so they were clearly working against the clock, if you will. However, that is not why they didn’t wash Jesus’ body.
The Jews believed that life was in the blood. When a person died a violent death, and his lifeblood saturated his clothing, there was no taharah — washing. The corpse remained unwashed because blood is part of the body and cannot be separated from it in death. This also explains why the Sudarium was set aside in the tomb rather than disposed of. It was being buried with him just as a person’s bloody clothing would have been buried with them.
Archaeologist Exploring a Burial Niche in Ancient Tomb
JEWISH BURIAL PRACTICES
Tombs of the Second Temple Period were caves cut into hillsides designed for multiple burials. Inside, they had niches along one or both side walls, somewhat like the catacombs in Rome. In Jesus’ day the practice of secondary burial was common. The body would remain in the niche for a year and then, after decomposition had occurred, the bones would be gathered and placed in an ossuary or bone box. The box would be labeled with the name or names of the deceased inside.
The box would be stored on a shelf in the back of the cave freeing the niche for another burial. Thus a tomb could be used for entire families over several generations. Tombs were sealed with a large stone – typically round and flat like a millstone. The stone was fitted into a sloping groove cut in front of the tomb’s entrance allowing it to be rolled back and secured with a chock. Once the work inside the tomb was completed, the chock was released and the stone rolled back over the entrance.
Typical Ossuary or Bone Box
For additional information on ossuaries and the co-mingling of bones, refer to our previous post The Men Who Tried Jesus — Joseph Caiaphas HERE.
THREE SETS OF STAINS
Unlike the Veil and the Shroud, the Sudarium has no image on it. Instead, it contains multiple stains consisting of blood and lymph fluid. The linen of the Shroud is a fine herringbone weave, while the Sudarium is a rough weave and looks like muslin. There are three sets of stains on the Sudarium.
FIRST
The first set of stains is coagulated blood from the crowning of thorns. The Sudarium would have been over the head of Jesus for about 45 minutes. During that time Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate for permission to remove the body from the cross. We don’t know if the patibulum, the crossbar of the cross, was taken down or only the body removed.
SECOND
Taking the body down resulted in a second set of stains. The cause of death in crucifixion is asphyxiation, fluid building up in the lungs. This fluid is six parts lymph and one part blood. When the body is placed in a horizontal position following asphyxiation, this fluid exits through the mouth and nose. Scientists can calculate how long the body was in the horizontal position from the stains on the Sudarium.
THIRD
Lifting the body to transport it to the tomb caused yet a third set of stains. There is a thumb print on the Sudarium where someone, perhaps Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus, held it against the face of Jesus. Scientists can estimate the size of that person from the size of their thumbprint.
SCIENTIFIC VERIFICATION
As we said in our post on Veronica’s Veil, nothing will convince the skeptics. In the final analysis relics are more about faith than science. Recall also that Veronica’s Veil has been measured and compared to the Shroud of Turin and experts concluded they were images of the same man.
Even thought it displays no image, the markings on the Sudarium do show distinct facial geometry, i.e. cheekbones, brow ridge, eyebrows, etc.. Because Jesus had been so badly beaten, there are precise blood marks of the face on the Sudarium. Using special 3-D technology, NASA scientists placed the image of the Sudarium and the shroud over each other and they aligned perfectly. For most of us the pattern doesn’t make sense, but forensic scientists can use the stains to judge the size of the skull, the length of the nose, etc. In one corner of the Sudarium there are three dots from three puncture marks of the crown of thorns.
TRACKING THE SUDARIUM’S TRAVELS
Though it originated in Jerusalem, the Sudarium has been in Oviedo, Spain since the 800’s. The trail it took to get there and the protection it received along the way is an interesting tale of close calls and narrow escapes reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie.
When the Persians invaded Palestine in 614, Philip the presbyter led the Christian community south to North Africa. The bishop of Alexandria mentions he welcomed them and they were carrying relics, including a precious relic of Jesus. When Persia invaded Africa a group of Christians sailed to Spain. There is an account in Toledo that says the fleeing Christians they received brought a holy ark with them. At that time the Sudarium was kept in a large oak box.
In 711, the Moors —Muslims— invaded Spain. Islamic writings state, “The Christians fled north taking their precious relics with them.” The Muslims had their own relics of Mohammad so it is significant that they mentioned Christian relics. A regional council of bishops in Bravo, Portugal, refers to the relic of Christ being kept in the north of Spain in a sacred ark and hidden in the mountains. In 813, Alphonso II, the King of Asturias, began the recovery of Spain from the Moors. When he established Oviedo as his court, he brought the reliquary from the mountain hideaway to his palace. He built the Camara Santa, a special chapel within his palace to hold the Sudarium. Interestingly, he is also the king who had the basilica built over the tomb of St James in Santiago de Compostela. The Sudarium has remained in Oviedo ever since.
Over the centuries, knowledge of the Sudarium’s existence was gradually lost. Then Msgr. Ricci, who was studying the Shroud, went through church archives and discovered references to another cloth which had been in Oviedo for over a thousand years. He went there in 1969, saw it, and decided to have it tested. As we noted earlier, this testing corroborates its authenticity and congruence with the Veil and the Shroud. In 1987 they formed the Spanish Society for the Study of the Sudarium which has greatly increased awareness of the Sudarium’s existence.
The next and final post in this group on the Relics of Christ’s Passion & Death will deal with the more famous Shroud of Turin.
Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings.
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An Ancient Painting of Veronica Wiping the Face of Jesus
Hello My Friend and Welcome.
As our Lenten-Easter Study draws to a close, we turn to three relics of Jesus’ passion and death. Some folks have problems with the concept of relics. Even if you happen to be one of those people, I encourage you to read along anyway. You may find your view of relics changing.
A LINK TO THE PAST
Have you ever known someone who possessed a picture of…say their great-great grandfather? Bringing out a box, they carefully remove an old tintype. Then, with care and extreme pride, they offer it to you, saying, “This is a photo of my great, great grandfather.” You stare down at the aged photo of a young man with a mustache. Standing erect, in pinstripe suit and starched collar, he looks rather solemn. Standing beside him is an equally somber woman in a long dress holding an infant. “It was taken the day he enlisted to fight in the Civil War,” you’re told. So what, it’s only a photograph, right? But to them it’s much more. It’s a memory, a link to their history…a way to know someone who died many years before they were born.
Like all civilizations, we revere our past and its heroes. These people represent our highest ideals and greatest achievements. We write books about them, build monuments to them, turn their homes into museums, and treasure even the small everyday items they used. It’s not unusual to hear some speak of them with deep admiration, even reverence. Why should we expect the Early Christians to have been any different? They held the saints and martyrs in high esteem, but they do not worship them. The same applies to relics. They are not worshipped, but they are certainly venerated by many people.
VERONICA AND HER VEIL
At one time or another, most of us have heard the story of Veronica and her veil. According to the legend, Veronica was a pious woman from Jerusalem who encountered Christ on his way to Calvary. Deeply moved by his suffering and seeing His face covered with sweat and blood, she wiped it with her veil. She later found his portrait imprinted on the cloth.
The Image on the Veil
Her veil still exists today. It is a relic of our Lord’s passion. The nearly transparent cloth measures about 6.5 by 9.5 inches and bears the dark red features of a bearded man with long hair and open eyes. It is the face of a young man who has suffered greatly. He looks tired and the marks of blows are clear…bruises on his forehead, clotted blood on his nose, one pupil slightly dilated. Yet, in spite of the evident signs of suffering and pain, the look is of a serene man enduring his suffering with patience.
It’s a story that’s been told and retold. Zefferelli included it in his movie, Jesus of Nazareth, and I included it in my book, Witness. Yet the scene appears nowhere in the Bible. In fact, it comes from an apocryphal book called The Acts of Pilate. Critics say this is proof the story of Veronica’s Veil is nothing but pious fiction, legends developed over the ages. They also claim her name, Veronica, is a combination of the words true vera (Latin) and image eikon (Greek).
DEALING WITH THE QUESTION OF THE NAME
Let’s put the name thing to rest first. The idea of a manufactured name can be traced back to the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury in Essex, England (d. 1211) Gervase’s work was translated and distributed throughout Europe. The idea took hold and has been passed down ever since. Like the mistaken belief that Christmas was placed on December 25th to coincide with the pagan celebration of the solstice (HERE) or that Easter began as the feast of the goddess Eostre, (HERE) these myths are easily refuted with a few facts.
We all know that names move from one culture to another, changing and adapting as they go. Sometimes they’re easily recognized, as in the case of Edward and Eduardo. Other times, the connection is not so obvious. For instance, in Russian John becomes Ivan, in Scottish Ian, and in German Yohan. The same sort of thing existed in Biblical times. People frequently had two names, one Greek and one Aramaic. The apostle Simon was called Cephas in Aramaic and Petros in Greek…both mean building stone or rock. The Greek form of Berenice is Berenike which, interestingly enough, in Latin becomes…Veronica.
WHAT ABOUT THE VEIL ITSELF?
Veronica’s Veil has a tradition and documented history far exceeding the Shroud of Turin. For hundreds of years it was enshrined in St. Peter’s Basilica. Then when the part of the Basilica containing the relic was scheduled for remodeling, it disappeared. It eventually resurfaced in a Capuchin church in the town of Manoppello, in Italy's Abruzzi region. Farmers and fishermen there have revered this veil for centuries as The Holy Face (Il Volto Santo). Before the veil came to the Vatican, it was in Constantinople, and before that it was in the Middle East. A Syrian text from Kamulia in Cappadocia from the Sixth Century tells us that the image was on a material “drawn out of the water” and “not painted by human hand.”
Pope Benedict XVI Examing Veronica's Veil
When this image first arrived in Rome, curious pilgrims were drawn to it like metal to a magnet. In the Middle Ages, pilgrims who went to Jerusalem often decorated themselves with branches of palm trees on their return. Even today, a sign of the pilgrims on the route to Santiago de Compostela is a shell. Likewise, pilgrims to Rome stitched miniature images of Christ onto their capes on their way home: little pictures of the “Sancta Veronica Ierosolymitana” — the holy Veronica of Jerusalem.
The veil itself is transparent, much like a silk stocking. The image is less a painting and more like a large photographic slide. The delicate cloth is a golden, honey color, which is how Gertrud of Helfta described the face of Christ in the 13th century. Held up to the light, the veil becomes transparent and shows the countenance in three-dimensional, almost holographic clarity on both sides.
Given its consistency, the veil would seem to be made of nylon — a fabric invented by DuPont in 1935. What is it then…cotton, wool, linen? All are much too thick to allow this immaterial transparency, even silk does not permit it.
ENTER BYSSUS, THE CLOTH DRAWN FROM WATER
So what is the veil made of?Byssus. And what, you ask, is that? The word byssus originated with Biblical Hebrew būts or butz בוץ meaning “a fiber or fabric distinguished by its fineness.” The word is used to describe the fine white linen used for the priestly vestments and carpets in the Holy of Holies.
Translated into Latin, it became byssus and referred to fine sea silk. A deep golden bronze color, the cloth is spun from tufts of the long, tough filaments that certain bi-valve mollusks, principally the pinna noblilis or pen shell, use to attach themselves to rocks. It was the most expensive fabric of the ancient world and has been found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. The Greek historian, Herodotus, who visited Egypt in 500 BC, described it as “a gauzelike cloth of a golden hue…made from the fine threads of many mollusks. It is finer than a hair…”
Fine Threads of Byssus
Chiara Vigo, who lives on a small island off the coast of Sardinia, is one of the world’s last weavers of byssus. She examined the cloth of Veronica’s veil and confirmed that it is indeed spun from byssus. All proportions of the image conform to life-size measurements of the human face and there is no trace of color or paint anywhere on the cloth. Sister Blandina Paschalis Schlomer, a German Trappist nun, pharmacist and icon painter, made painstaking comparisons of the image on the Manoppello cloth and the face of the man depicted on the Shroud of Turin. Every detail of both faces is congruent. They are the same size, the same shape, with the same wounds…in other words, the same man.
So there we have the facts regarding Veronica’s Veil. None of this convinces some skeptics. Nothing ever will. In the final analysis it’s more about faith than science anyway, isn’t it?
The next time we’ll examine the Sudarium, or cloth that covered the Lord’s face and head.
Until then, we wish you Peace and Blessings
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